Why Right Wingers are Up in Arms About Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

 I really shouldn't waste my time on this fluff, but since everyone is in a tizzy over the right wing being in a tizzy about Taylor Swift dating Travis Kelce, allow me to explain the obsession.  And just to be clear, I am at the age that I pay no attention at all to who the latest popular singer is, and haven't followed football in many years.  But I do understand what is going on here.

Driving much of rightwing resentment is the sense that the left wing dominates popular culture to an insurmountable degree, and that conservatives are being marginalized culturally.  It follows from this that no amount of political power can ever make a difference since politics is downstream of culture.  And I suppose we should give right wingers part of a point.  Artistic and creative types do tend to lean left.  Of course, it has been that way for a long time.  But then again, conservative resentment on that point is longstanding.

At the same time, right wingers do recognize that some parts of popular culture are predominantly conservative, such as talk radio, action movies, country and western music -- and football. Right wingers tend to see these bits of conservative culture as isolated and besieged outposts surrounded by a hostile liberal army.  

Thus any sign of a liberal presence in one of these conservative outposts is seen as evidence that the enemy has infiltrated their besieged fortress and is about to lay open the gates to the barbarian hoards that surround it.  

Understand this, and a whole lot of ridiculous rightwing freakouts start to make sense.

Beer -- or at least Budweiser -- is such a conservative outpost.  Hence the freakout when Budweiser hired a trans influencer to endorse Bud Light on a You-Tube channel that presumably most right wingers had never even heard of, let alone watched.

Beauty contests are such an outpost., hence the rightwing freakout when a Muslim woman won the Miss USA beauty pageant in 2010.

Country and western music is such an outpost, hence rightwing freakout over any liberal expression by a country and western singer such as the Dixie Chicks or Dolly Parton.

And as for football, well remember Colin Kaepernick.

Recognize this phenomenon for what it is, and you will see a lot of it.