EGN NEWS DESK
Donald Trump would really like his followers to imagine that pop music megastar Taylor Swift advocates voting crimson. But which will simply be in his wildest goals.
“I settle for!” the previous President posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday, together with a collage of pictures from the web—together with some apparently generated by synthetic intelligence—exhibiting the TIME Person of the Year dressed as Uncle Sam and saying “Taylor needs you to vote for Donald Trump” in addition to quite a few Swift followers expressing their help for the Republican presidential nominee.
Taylor Swift has not formally endorsed any candidate within the 2024 election, although she beforehand backed the Biden-Harris marketing campaign in 2020 and has criticized Trump for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism” and for defunding the U.S. Postal Service in 2020, which she described as selecting to “blatantly cheat and put thousands and thousands of Americans’ lives in danger in an effort to carry on to energy.”
TIME has reached out to the Harris marketing campaign for touch upon a possible Swift endorsement, because the Democratic Party kicks off its conference this week in Chicago, the place a lot of celebrities are anticipated to talk and carry out in help of the Harris-Walz marketing campaign.
Read More: Your Questions About the Democratic National Convention, Answered
At least one so-called “Swiftie for Trump”—pictured twice in Trump’s put up—is actual. According to Wisconsin Right Now, 19-year-old Jenna Piwowarczyk was seen sporting the slogan on a home made white T-shirt at a Trump rally in Wisconsin in June.
But there’s no proof {that a} important variety of followers of Swift are supporting the Republican candidate—an unofficial Swifties for Trump account on X (created in July) has lower than 4,000 followers, whereas an unofficial Swifties 4 Kamala account, additionally created in July, has over 60,000 followers on X and over 100,000 on TikTok.
Read More: The Kamala Harris Campaign Is Embracing the Memes
Trump’s Truth Social put up additionally included a screenshot of a put up by conservative account Amuse, that includes clearly AI-generated pictures of younger ladies sporting “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts, accompanied by a headline, labeled as “satire,” that claims Swiftes are “turning to Trump” after the singer’s Vienna live performance was canceled out of concern over a jihadist terrorist plot. The unique put up on X acknowledges in its picture alt. textual content: “There is not any Swifties For Trump motion – however there ought to be.”
In one other Truth Social put up on Sunday, Trump reshared a TikTok video of a lady claiming that Swifties have been now “rallying for Trump” due to the identical terrorist plot.
Trump has spoken about Swift earlier than, telling Ramin Setoodeh, creator of Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass, “I hear she’s very gifted” and “I believe she’s very, I believe she’s very stunning, truly—unusually stunning.” As for Swift’s politics, Trump is quoted in the identical guide as saying, “I believe she’s liberal. She most likely doesn’t like Trump”—although he expressed some skepticism about that, reportedly questioning: “She’s legitimately liberal? It’s not an act? It surprises me {that a} nation star may be profitable being liberal.”
As specialists warn of the risks of disinformation in politics, which new know-how can exacerbate, Trump’s current sharing of the Swift-related AI-generated pictures comes after he and billionaire Elon Musk shared an AI-altered video on X final week depicting them dancing after the 2 held a high-profile livestream collectively on the social media platform owned by Musk.
