AP
Be like Taylor Swift. Cultivate friendships with people outside of your ideological circle — and keep them.
Last week she wrote self-professed Swiftie Dave Portnoy a thank-you note for always having her back. And it was hand-delivered by her brother to the Barstool Sports honcho at her Miami concert.
Nice gesture, right?
Nope. As with anything in the Swift universe, it’s caused an earthquake: spawning think pieces, social media reactions and tons of coverage.
Every article about the note mentioned the players’ support of presidential candidates. He endorsed Trump; she endorsed Harris — noteworthy because, in 2024, our brains are so broken that we can’t conceive of admiring or befriending someone with opposing politics.
But a tweet from New York magazine’s The Cut took the cake — asking “which Trump supporter will she embrace next?“
“In a truly baffling decision, Swift has decided to be friendly with … Dave Portnoy,” author Olivia Craighead wrote in the story that went with the tweet— adding that Swift thanked the Barstool honcho for his loyalty.
“As far as I can tell, she’s referring to the fact that Portnoy — a proud Donald Trump supporter — did not immediately disavow his favorite pop star when she announced she was voting for Kamala Harris,” Craighead wrote. “How big of him.”
Yes, Portnoy wasn’t judging someone for their political affiliation, unlike the author of The Cut’s piece. Actually I think Swift was referring to Portnoy’s intense backing of her that’s gone on for years, through public spats with celebrities and music honchos.
But politics, especially the presidential kind, have eaten into every previously non-partisan sphere of our society: sports, pop culture, show biz — lines must be drawn. The act of self-sorting, of casting away those with ideological differences, has become a public display of virtue.
However, that’s seemingly not the casewith Swift, who, mind you, is not above a petty beef. Just ask any of her exes.
She’s keeping her Trump-leaning pals, like fellow Chiefs WAG Brittany Mahomes, despite her fans’ anger.
If you remember, Mahomes murdered a group of children while wearing a MAGA hat. Just kidding. She liked a Trump post — a vicious thought crime brought to light by her index finger tapping a heart.
But Swift’s fans demand purity from their hero.
When photos dropped in September of Mahomes and Swift together at the US Open, it was to a flurry of disgust on X.One wrote, “The fact that she’s made a whole thing about her being so anti-Trump in 2020, released a whole documentary highlighting her political stance and how she ‘wants to be on the right side of history’ and yet.”
Yikes.
Voting practices have, however, become a litmus test. Too many Democrats believethe Harris supporter is virtuous and saving democracy; the Trump voter is evil, racist and, likely, a Nazi — and thus, should be surgically removed from all aspects of your life.
Since 2016, there have been countless articles about Trump’s mere political existence ruining marriages, friendships and families.
In 2017, a Reuters Ipsos poll found that 13% of 6,426 participants had given the ol’ heave-ho to a friend or family member over politics. And to this day, we’re still having to endure the very weak, hackneyed genre of holiday-themed media stories on how to deal with your MAGA relatives at Thanksgiving.
I recently learned the phrase “MAGA orphan” — someone who claims to have “lost” their parents to Donald Trump — while I was reporting on the crazy frenzy of progressives proclaiming Tim Walz can replace the fathers they have disowned over politics.
Earlier this month, creepy nonbinary influencer Jeffrey Marsh told his followers that they should cut off family members who vote for Trump. Woke zombie Howard Stern recently declared that he “hates” all Trump voters.
All that pathetic cutting-people-off thing feels very Trump’s first term.
In her defiant act of being friends with people who might disagree with her, Swift has stood up for sanity — showing that relationships transcend what happens in a small booth every four years in November.
Burrowing yourself into an ideological silo isn’t healthy, it’s cowardly. It will only atrophy your world view. This goes for righties as well as lefties.
Your politics can be red or blue, but your social circle should never deliberately not be purple.
Otherwise, you’re giving a politician you hate much more control over your life — which feels very much like a self-own.