There used to be an old television commercial that said, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Currently, it's not well-thought-out to mess with Taylor Swift fans, either. The difference is that Swift is a force of nature, and Swifties are not fools. They know their favorite musical artist better than most other people know anything about anything.
This article is also not about whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump should be the next president of the United States. The facts are that both are older - Trump is about to be 78 years old and Biden is 81 - and older men commenting on the looks of a person 40 years younger than them is creepy. That last word is also not only mine. CNN recently used the word in describing Trump's words about Swift too.
There is a new book, Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass, about the former president that will be released this week. The book is written by Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh who interviewed Trump as part of the writing process.
Donald Trump goes overboard in commenting on Taylor Swift's looks
In the book, Trump describes Swift - again, creepily - saying, "I think she’s beautiful — very beautiful! I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually — unusually beautiful!"
Trump goes on to say, "She’s legitimately liberal? It’s not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal."
A few things to unpack here. If Joe Biden were to use the word "beautiful" five times in six sentences to describe Taylor Swift, that would also be strange. Biden hasn't, at least not on the record, but Trump did. It's weird.
The second part of the above appears to show how much of a disconnect Trump (and possibly both close-to-80-year-old presidential candidates) has with who is driving culture. Swift is not a country singer anymore and has not been for many years. Trump might have been trying to be sly - he might theorize many of his supporters listen to country music - and he is trying to mock Swift for being a pop singer instead of a country artist. That would also be weird, though.
Another issue is that Swift's value is not in her looks but in her talent and ability to entertain. Commenting so much on her appearance diminishes her real importance. It's also, well...creepy.
The truth is that Trump and Biden probably should not express their views on Swift because that risks them losing the votes of many Swifties. Swifties could change the presidential election in 2024. They might have when Taylor Swift publicly endorsed Joe Biden in 2020.