After Taylor Swift said she wouldn’t vote for Sen. Marsha Blackburn back in 2018, the Tennessee Republican is firing shots back in a new interview.
While speaking with Breitbart News this week (video below), Blackburn directly addressed the ongoing tiff between her and the global pop superstar. During the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, Swift made a rare political statement on Instagram to denounce Blackburn, saying her voting record “appalls and terrifies me” and endorsing Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper while encouraging the Swifties to make their voices heard and vote. The effect on voter registration was remarkable: Vote.org reported a huge spike of 65,000 newly registered voters in the first 24 hours after the singer’s Oct. 7 post.
In her 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana, a tearful Swift is seen criticizing Blackburn’s policies and how she treats marginalized people, even calling her “Trump in a wig.”
Bredesen eventually lost his race to Republican Marsha Blackburn by a nearly 11-point margin, while Cooper kept his seat after beating Republican Jody Ball by more than 35 points. With Blackburn securing the win, she says in her new interview that if Swift had it her way, then she would be the “first victim” of the resulting “socialistic government.”
“When you talk about country music, and I know the left is all out now and trying to change country music and make it woke,” Blackburn said. “When I’m talking to my friends who are musicians and entertainers, I say, ‘If we have a socialistic government — if we have Marxism — you are going to be the first ones who will be cut off because the state would have to approve your music.'”
She proceeded to directly go after the “You Need to Calm Down” artist: “Taylor Swift came after me in my 2018 campaign. But Taylor Swift would be the first victim of that because when you look at Marxist, socialistic societies, they do not allow women to dress or sing or be onstage or to entertain or the type of music she would have. They don’t allow protection of private intellectual property rights.”
Blackburn also shaded Swift earlier this week when she shared a Breitbart article about country singer/songwriter Aaron Lewis’ anti-left patriotic anthem “Am I the Only One” soaring past Big Red Machine and Swift’s new song “Renegade” on the iTunes chart. “Aaron Lewis’ song has resonated with the American people All Too Well,” she tweeted Tuesday, referring to Swift’s 2012 Red track “All Too Well.” “They are replying you are not the only one!”
Billboard has reached out to Swift’s reps for comment.
Watch the snippet of Blackburn’s interview when she mentions Swift, as well as fans’ reactions to her comment, below.
