Taylor Swift admitted she became “obsessed” with politics after President Trump won the 2016 election, but she’s hesitant about any involvement in the upcoming election because she doesn’t want her celebrity status to backfire against the eventual Democratic nominee.
“I keep trying to learn as much as I can about politics, and it’s become something I’m now obsessed with, whereas before, I was living in this sort of political ambivalence, because the person I voted for had always won,” she told Rolling Stone magazine.
The pop sensation recalled the two terms President Barack Obama was in the White House and said, without mentioning Trump by name, that she was shocked when the nation elected him as Obama’s successor because she “just didn’t really know that this could happen.”
“But I’m just focused on the 2020 election. I’m really focused on it. I’m really focused on how I can help and not hinder. Because I also don’t want it to backfire again, because I do feel that the celebrity involvement with Hillary’s campaign was used against her in a lot of ways,” she said.
The 29-year-old, who has said little about politics since her rise to stardom, regrets not getting involved in the 2016 election. In 2012, Swift said she didn’t discuss politics “because it might influence other people” and she didn’t feel educated enough on the issues or candidates “to be telling people who to vote for.”
Swift’s silence on politics around the 2016 election prompted white supremacists to claim that the pop star supported Trump. Swift said she was unaware of the controversy until after it happened.
“I didn’t even see that, but, like, if that happened, that’s just disgusting,” she said about a white supremacist website suggesting she was on their side. “There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy. It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it.”
Swift began making more public comments about politics during the 2018 midterm elections when she endorsed former Democratic Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen in the state’s Senate race and Democrat Jim Cooper for U.S. House.
