Eagle-eyed Swifties have always got their eyes peeled for any and every fleeting mention of their beloved songbird everywhere. On Tuesday, October 1, the mega pop star’s fan club spotted an unlikely yet not too unpredictable Taylor Swift easter egg during the first and only vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News.
Last month, the Grammy-winning artist endorsed sitting Vice President Kamala Harris for the forthcoming term’s presidential elections. Since then, her fandom has been severely divided, busy picking sides on the political front. While droves of conservative Swifties renounced their claims to the fan community and all kinds of TS merchandise after the “Love Story” crooner openly showed support for the Democratic presidential hopeful following ABC’s September 10 presidential debate, Dems supporters further doubled down on their agenda.
Harris-Walz campaign riding the Taylor Swift wave
Consequently, the Democratic National Committee instantly swooped in to capitalise on the A-list pop star’s influence in the 21st century’s zeitgeist. Days after her lengthy Instagram post endorsing the Harris-Walz campaign, Taylor Swift-inspired campaign ads took over Las Vegas and New York City billboards.
Also read | Walz’s ‘knucklehead’ response goes viral, meme fest galore
The official website of the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign even launched the sale of friendship bracelets, taking after Swifties’ customary tradition of exchanging heartwarming tokens at the singer’s record-breaking Eras Tour stops.
Tim Walz: A fellow Swiftie, saga continues
The Democratic vice presidential candidate appeared to have doubled down on the Swiftie agenda on Tuesday as he stepped out for the high-stakes showdown against his Republican rival, JD Vance, wearing the familiar accessory on his wrist.
@Swifties4Kamala, a self-proclaimed “Coalition of Swifties mobilizing Taylor Swift fans to help get Democratic candidates elected up & down the ballot” on X, formerly Twitter, proudly screen-grabbed the pleasantly eye-widening moment for them. “@Tim_Walz wore friendship bracelets on the debate stage and we’re trying to play it cool with the best of them!” the account tweeted.
Overjoyed fans of the “You Belong With Me” hitmaker quickly claimed the Minnesota Governor as one of them. “One of us! One of us! One of us!,” a Swiftie chanted in the comments.
Another said that they noticed it “immediately,” while a third fan agreed, “Omg I love so so much.”
“I KNEW THATS WHAT I SAW,” yet another Swiftie replied. A few others gushed about how Walz was “so real” for the classic Swiftie move, as someone else joined, “This just make me love him even more.”
Meanwhile, some pro-Trump Swifties entered the chat and said, “Swifties with a brain are all voting TRUMP.” On the other side, as a few netizens said that it was possibly all propaganda, a Harris supporter wrote, “Haters gonna say it’s propaganda but haters gonna hate, fakers gonna fake, but we’re gonna shake shake shake the polls next month!” Meanwhile, some fans geared to readily adopt the “cool” Tim Walz as their grandfather.
Tim Walz mentions Taylor Swift in closing remarks just like she mentioned him on her SNS
Walz didn’t let the opportunity slip, either. In his closing statement, he made quite a few pop culture references.
Also read | When Vance ‘fact-checked’ the CBS fact checkers, ‘Since you’re fact-checking me…’
“Thank you to all of you, if you’re still up, and the folks who missed Dancing with the Stars, I appreciate it. But look, the support of democracy matters. It matters that you’re here.”
He then bridged the distance between politicians and singers and said, “And I’m as surprised as anybody of this coalition that Kamala Harris has built. From Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift, and a whole bunch of folks in between there. And they don’t all agree on everything, but they are truly optimistic people.”
“They believe in a positive future of this country, and one where our politics can be better than it is.”
In addition to extolling Harris in her September IG post, Swift gave a shout-out to Walz, “ I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate@timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
For the unversed, Tim Walz also made headlines earlier this year as he invoked his fellow Swiftie status by passing a so-called “Taylor Swift bill.” Hurting from his own missed chance of snagging the singing star’s tour tickets, the Minnesota Governor signed the House File 1989 legislation—named after Swift’s birth year and the iconic album – into law. It mandated that ticket sellers had to disclose all fees, prohibiting resellers from cashing in by selling multiple copies of the same ticket.
“Protection so you don’t get a bad ticket, a fraudulent ticket, and resellers can’t snatch them all up before you get an opportunity,” he said at the time.