Everything Taylor Swift Has Said About Politics Over The Years

Taylor Swift's political stance remained a complete mystery for the first decade or so of her career. During a 2012 interview with a Norwegian journalist, the Grammy winner shared why she decided against dabbling in politics, admitting, "I just figure I'm a 22-year-old singer and I don't know if people really want to hear my political views. I think they just kind of want to hear me sing songs about breakups and feelings," (via YouTube). Likewise, when Swift spoke to TIME that very same year, the "Shake It Off" hitmaker confirmed that she chose to remain publicly apolitical because she didn't feel confident enough in her knowledge to sway the tides in any candidate's favor. 

Although the singer-songwriter largely maintained her position for the next couple of years, Swift gradually grew slightly more comfortable sharing her opinions. In her 2014 interview with The Guardian, for example, the singer-songwriter confessed that she incorrectly believed that feminism was a belief system centered around a strong hatred for men. Swift only realized that wasn't the case when her close friend Lena Dunham clarified that feminists wanted people of all genders to be treated equally.

Thus, when thousands of people set out to protest Donald Trump's impact on women's rights at the 2017 Women's March, the "Blank Space" hitmaker took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to show her support, writing, "So much love, pride, and respect for those who marched. I'm proud to be a woman today, and every day," per Billboard. Unfortunately, people found the tweet performative since she hadn't said a word throughout the 2016 elections. However, Swift finally broke her silence on her personal politics in 2018.  

In October 2018, Taylor Swift took to Instagram to make her first-ever public political endorsement for the Tennessee midterm elections. The world-conquering pop star explained that she decided to make her feelings clear because of all the changes she had been through in her life and had seen the world go through since 2016. The "22" hitmaker also wrote that she was a huge proponent of equality for people of all sexual orientations, genders, and races, slamming Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn for consistently voting against basic rights for women and the LGBTQIA+ community in the process. 

The Grammy winner then made it abundantly clear that she was voting for Democratic candidate Jim Cooper in the House of Representatives and Phil Bresden for the Senate. Swift hoped that her post would inspire others to vote only after thoroughly understanding their candidate's beliefs, as she did. Although Blackburn ultimately won the Senate seat, the post still stirred a significant positive change. Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for Vote.org, proclaimed to BuzzFeed that they had seen 65,000 new voter registrations in the 24 hours following the singer-songwriter's headline-grabbing post. 

In the following months, she continued to encourage people to register to vote. Then, in her October 2020 V Magazine interview, Swift shared her endorsement for the presidency. "I will proudly vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this year's presidential election," she affirmed. "Under their leadership, I believe America has a chance to start the healing process it so desperately needs." The "cardigan" hitmaker also took to X to proudly post that she had baked blue cookies with "Biden Harris 2020" frosted on them.

Taylor Swift has had nothing but bad things to say about Donald Trump. While speaking to Elle in 2019, the "Cats" star called the divisive politician out without mentioning his name by arguing simply, "Invoking racism and provoking fear through thinly veiled messaging is not what I want from our leaders." Meanwhile, in her 2019 interview with The Guardian, Swift hinted that her apoliticism immediately ended after she witnessed Trump's shocking win in 2016. "It was the fact that all the dirtiest tricks in the book were used and it worked," she pointed out, again, without name-dropping him. 

Additionally, the "I Knew You Were Trouble" songstress asserted that the political climate in America at the time unfairly criticized people as being unpatriotic when they spoke out against the president, which is something that everyone in a democracy should be able to do freely. Swift also vowed to do everything in her power to prevent him from being re-elected. As a result, she only became more vocal with her criticism as Trump's term dragged on. In May 2020, the then-president penned an incredibly insensitive tweet about the protests against George Floyd's murder. 

In response, the Grammy winner slammed him by writing on X, "After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence?" In August, the pop star took to X to call Trump out again for blocking USPS funding to prevent mail-in ballots from being delivered during the presidential elections. Further, Swift also criticized him for worsening the country's state during the COVID-19 pandemic with what she dubbed his utterly "ineffective leadership."

As Pride Month 2019 rolled around, Taylor Swift encouraged her millions of followers on X to voice their support for the Equality Act by writing letters to their local senators and signing her Change.org petition. The Eras Tour headliner even shared the letter she had written to Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander to urge him to support the act, which helped protect the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community. The "Cruel Summer" songstress tried to get even more eyeballs on her mission by including a short message at the end of her "You Need to Calm Down" music video, again motivating viewers to support her petition. Then, when Swift accepted a Video Music Award for her work, she called out The White House for taking way too long to respond to her petition, which had already crossed an impressive 500,000 signatures by then. 

Additionally, in June 2020, Swift tweeted her support for the Black Lives Matter movement, writing, "Racial injustice has been ingrained deeply into local and state governments, and changes MUST be made there. In order for policies to change, we need to elect people who will fight against police brutality and racism of any kind." Since so many of Swift's songs are about her life, it's only natural that the pop star wrote a couple to express her political views too. In 2020, she released "Only The Young" to encourage the younger generation not to give up hope in the difficult political climate at the time. Meanwhile, "You Need To Calm Down" saw Swift calling out, and ridiculing, homophobes and haters alike.

Taylor Swift's 2020 documentary "Miss Americana" features a memorable scene where she argues with her team and, in particular, her father Scott Swift for the chance to finally be able to share her political views. The "Bad Blood" songstress tries to get Scott to see her perspective by expressing her regret about staying silent during the 2016 elections because of the fallout from her infamous feud with Kanye West. Further, Taylor passionately lists everything that she finds deplorable about Marsha Blackburn while visibly tearing up.

However, her father and team stand their ground and point out that the Grammy winner could lose fans, and money, because of her political views and reduce her safety in the process too. Ultimately, though, the headstrong singer-songwriter professes that she's going to go public with her stance and insists that she "need[s] to be on the right side of history." Although the sequence was hailed as one of the movie's highlights at the time of its release, it aged poorly because Taylor grew more silent about her politics in the following years. 

Then, in 2023, she became friends with Brittany Mahomes, who reportedly liked (and then quickly unliked) a post supporting Donald Trump in August 2024. Although fans expected Taylor to ask Mahomes to return her friendship bracelet in the wake of her Trump scandal, the pair seemingly remained close. In fact, they were even spotted embracing at the US Open in September. The little reunion between Taylor and Mahomes spelled big trouble for the pop star's reputation as critics thought back to her emotional "Miss Americana" speech and wondered why the pop star continued to associate with supposed Republicans.

Following Vice President Kamala Harris and her divisive opponent Donald Trump's fiery presidential debate in September 2024, Taylor Swift shared an Instagram post publicly endorsing the Democratic candidate. "I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos," the "Bad Blood" songstress wrote of Harris. She also firmly put her support behind her running mate, Tim Walz, for being a proponent of LGBTQIA+ rights and women's reproductive freedom. 

Swift slammed Donald Trump for using an AI-generated image of her as an endorsement and ended JD Vance by signing her post with three simple words: "Childless cat lady." Shortly after the endorsement, Trump took to Truth Social to whine, "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!" While appearing on "Fox and Friends," the controversial candidate posited that she was likely only waiting for the right moment to endorse a candidate who, in his opinion, wasn't as unfit as President Joe Biden. 

Trump also warned Swift that her choice may have dire consequences for her billion-dollar net worth, declaring, "She's a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat, and she'll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace," (via Fox News). The former "Apprentice" host then gushed that he had tons of love for her pal Brittany Mahomes because she was in his corner. Despite all these wild remarks, though, Trump's appearance at SNF made it clear that he was jealous of Swift.