What impact to expect from Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris?

FRANCE 24 English

After pop superstar Taylor Swift announced she would be voting for Kamala Harris in the upcoming US presidential election, FRANCE 24's Delano D'Souza and Solange Mougin take a look at the impact that celebrity endorsements have on voters' choices. On Entre Nous, we find out how Swift has been effective in getting out the vote. We also dive into the cat lover, sexist and artificial intelligence aspects of her Instagram post. This Entre Nous aired on Paris Direct, September 11, 2024. A programme produced by Amanda Alexander, Marina Pajovic and Georgina Robertson.  Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00American pop star Taylor Swift took to Instagram to explain her choice after watching the debate

00:04and doing her research she said. Through her music and social media Swift has an incredible reach.

00:10In the post she posted a picture with her cat and signed off as a childless cat lady. That comment

00:15of course taking direct aim at one made by Donald Trump's vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.

00:21To discuss this further we can bring in France 24's Solange Mougin. Solange if this was an

00:26ordinary singer we would not be talking about it. But this is no ordinary singer. This is somebody

00:32who manages to boost the GDP of certain countries when her concerts take place. So this is a big

00:36deal isn't it? Yeah she is more than just a major celebrity. The fact that her Instagram post went

00:42out to over 280 million people, her followers, is indeed part of the puzzle of why this is so big.

00:48But her history of pleas to quote paint the town blue, to quote one of her lyrics,

00:53they are more significant than just throwing influence around. First if we look at Taylor

00:57Swift's persona. The country music and Americana music turned pop singer. Well she remains a very

01:02beloved person by both Republicans and Democrats. Like Dolly Parton her music is listened to

01:08on both sides of the aisle. Even if she has become more of a polarizing figure by being

01:14politically vocal on issues like abortion rights, like LGBT plus causes. Then there is the demographic

01:21element of this endorsement. She is huge among Generation Z and younger millennials. They are a

01:27powerful group in, they were a powerful group in the last election in favor of Biden. But Harris

01:32now has to mobilize young people as her numbers have not yet reached Biden's 2021s. Then there is

01:40what we know from previous endorsements by Taylor Swift. Last year over 35,000 people registered to

01:47vote on the day following one of her posts to do so. Before that in 2018 some 65,000 people they

01:55signed up to vote in the 24 hours following a Swift's call to vote for Democrats and congressional

02:02races in her home state of Tennessee which is a red and Republican state. Her candidates did not

02:08win but it did get a lot more people to the polls. The extent to which her backing prompts someone to

02:15vote for a candidate it's actually really quite hard to quantify this in general for all celebrity

02:20endorsements. But there are studies on the effect of celebrity endorsements on the whole as we just

02:25heard they are not thought to play a defining role. But a decade ago researchers at Northwestern

02:31they studied something that they call the Oprah effect and their research showed that the backing

02:36of Oprah Winfrey of Barack Obama in 2008 in primaries it was thought to have pushed a million

02:42voters in his favor. Then that is significant because he won against Hillary Clinton by a much

02:47smaller margin or some 270,000 votes in the primaries where that were being studied. As for

02:53Taylor Swift we can't know the figures at least yet we may never know but Kamala Harris's running

02:59mate Tim Walz he praised her courage and thanked her from one cat owner to another. Let's talk about

03:04cats for a second because Taylor Swift ended that Instagram post which is doing pretty well. I

03:10checked the likes recently. She said with love and hope Taylor Swift childless cat lady. What's

03:15this about? Yeah this is also a much. It's a dig. It is a dig it's shade and it is actually a much

03:22multi-layered response on her part. It refers to her love of cats. She has three of them including

03:27Benjamin Button who you see there who's in the photo with her. It's also a bit of throwing shade

03:32as we just said at JD Vance Trump's running mate. Three years ago on Fox News he said that Kamala

03:38Harris and also other top Democrats in Washington they were quote childless cat ladies who are

03:44miserable with their own lives and want to make the country miserable. Since then Vance has

03:49since then Vance has become the Republican VP and the video has resurfaced and gone viral.

03:54He has backtracked from that saying it was a joke but it has made a number of childless women and

04:01cat lovers quite angry. There's been ire over his using a sexist trope of stigmatizing women

04:08who choose or cannot have children not to mention getting Kamala Harris's family status wrong.

04:13She has two stepchildren who calls her they call her mama and here from a democratic demographics

04:19standpoint there could be some important movement too. For in the U.S. there are 22 million women in

04:25the United States between the ages of 20 and 39 that have not given birth. Of them about five

04:30million are thought to not have had a child either by choice or out of impossibility to do so

04:35and then on top of that there are the cat lovers for there are over 46 million pet cats in the U.S.

04:42Solange, besides Taylor Swift being a singer and a celebrity we should remind our viewers she's also

04:47a billionaire, a very self-made woman. Have there been reactions to this endorsement last night?

04:54Well I have mentioned Tim Walz's thanks from one cat lover to the next and we should expect more

04:59viral cat memes and Tay Tay love in the coming hours. Already in the 13 minutes following her

05:05post which came just after the debate there were a million likes. A number of celebrities have

05:10chimed in their support as well. On the conservative side there have been reactions to Elon Musk who's

05:16heavily supporting the Trump campaign. He wrote a quite bizarre in my view tweet, fine Taylor you win

05:22I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life end quote. Now personally I do not know

05:27what that means um who knows but as for Trump he said I quote have no idea when asked what he

05:34thought of Swift's endorsement of Kamala which is quite uh ironic or funny or you choose your

05:39adjective because he himself posted artificial intelligence images of Taylor Swift saying she

05:44was endorsing him and that there are many Swifties for Trump. These fake AI generated images are part

05:51of the reason that Swift said she was publicly coming out in favor of Harris because she wrote

05:57in the post quote the simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth. I just checked

06:03if that post has 7.1 million likes. Amazing. And counting. Thank you very much for that Solange Moujander.

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