The Taylor Swift Conspiracy to Get Biden Reelected

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This just in: Taylor Swift is part of a secret plot to help President Biden win the 2024 Presidential election.

Or at least that’s what almost a fifth of all respondents and a third of all Republican respondents believe based on a Monmouth University poll from February 14, 2024.¹

Given Swift’s enormous celebrity as a worldwide icon (only 5% of respondents said they’d never heard of her), it seems almost inevitable that she’d eventually become part of a conspiracy theory. But how can we explain this particular one?

A decade of research has revealed a number of psychological quirks associated with conspiracy theory belief, including needs for certainty, closure, control, and uniqueness; cognitive biases that attribute random events to higher causes; a preference for intuitive over analytical thinking; paranoia; and even something called bullshit receptivity. To be clear, these findings represent quantitative differences rather than qualitative differences between those who are more or less likely to believe in conspiracy theories. In other words, we all have needs for closure, utilize intuitive thinking, and even worry about paranoid concerns at times (e.g. whether our friends are trash-talking us behind our backs)—it’s just that on average, such traits are more likely to be heightened among those who believe conspiracy theories.

That said, there’s no obvious connection between any of those psychological traits and believing that Taylor Swift is part of a conspiracy to re-elect Biden. This particular conspiracy theory doesn’t really offer an explanation for random events, offer closure about a particular event, or have anything to do with pseudo-profound bullshit. So, what else might help us understand it?

A Closer Look at the New Poll

A closer look at the poll data offers some clues. When thinking about conspiracy theory beliefs, the first question we should ask is to what extent people really believe it. Unfortunately, when polling about conspiracy theories, it’s common to ask respondents whether or not they believe based on a “yes” or “no” response, rather than attempt to quantify one’s degree of belief conviction. Just so, in the Monmouth poll, respondents were asked “Do you think a covert government effort for Taylor Swift to help Joe Biden win the presidential election actually exists, or not?” with only three response options: “exists” (18%), “does not exist” (73%), or “don’t know” (9%). So, although 18% said they believe it exists, we don’t know how much, or how strongly, they hold that belief.

A crucial finding from this poll is that of the 18% who responded affirmatively, 42% had never heard of the conspiracy theory before being asked about it in the poll. Previous studies have found similar effects when polling about QAnon,² suggesting that those who endorse a conspiracy theory belief in a poll may be expressing something more like general support of the idea rather than firm conviction of any kind.

The other stand-out finding from this poll is that endorsed belief was highly dependent on political affiliation. Although both self-identified conservatives/Republicans and liberals/Democrats responded that they knew who Taylor Swift is (93-96%) and had heard of the Taylor Swift conspiracy theory in similar proportions (44-46% of conservatives/Republicans and 56-57% of liberals/Democrats), there was a wide split on how many within each political party endorsed the belief (32% of conservatives/Republicans vs. only 4-6% of liberals/Democrats).

Taken together with the finding that almost half of the respondents who endorsed the belief hadn’t ever heard of the conspiracy theory until taking the poll, this suggests that endorsement reflects a kind of general endorsement of party affiliation and ideological sympathy more than anything else.

Why Are Conservatives Obsessed With Taylor Swift?

This leads us to the question of just what it is about the conspiratorial narrative about Taylor Swift being part of a secret plot to get Biden re-elected that makes it worth endorsing when conservatives are asked about it in a poll.

This is where the association between conspiracy theory belief and paranoia may be relevant. To be clear, though, when psychologists find evidence that conspiracy theory beliefs are associated with “paranoia,” they’re not necessarily talking about “paranoid delusions.” As I suggested earlier, paranoia is a psychological trait that is characterized by unfounded mistrust and suspiciousness, like worrying that people are talking about us behind our backs, that our partners are going to cheat on us, or that we might be assaulted when we’re out walking alone in the city at night. Those are concerns that all of us have at times.

Belief in conspiracy theories—that there’s a secret plot going on with nefarious intent—is itself an example of such paranoia, suggesting that the association between them is tautological, reflecting different facets of the same phenomenon.

It’s therefore important to recognize that conspiracy theory beliefs aren’t delusions. And so, conservatives aren’t more likely to believe that Swift is part of a conspiracy to re-elect Biden because they’re delusional or otherwise “crazy.” Indeed, research findings have consistently found that a considerable majority of the world population believes in at least one conspiracy theory, with some more likely to be endorsed by conservatives (e.g., Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. or the 2020 election was rigged) and others more likely to be endorsed by liberals (e.g., Trump is a Russian asset).

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Such findings make clear that conspiracy theory belief shouldn't be mistaken for evidence of mental illness. When a conspiracy theory belief relates to politics, it’s often better understood as a reflection of partisan motivated reasoning whereby conspiracy theories have universal appeal when they frame our ideological opposites as the ones who are conspiring. Indeed, research has shown that when the same conspiracy theory is modified to portray the conspirators as part of the opposing party, both liberals and conservatives are equally likely to endorse them.³

Fears and Wishes

With that made clear, the appeal of a Taylor Swift-Joe Biden conspiracy theory to conservatives likely reflects fears about the upcoming election, mirroring other Manichean narratives about powerful forces like the Deep State trying to sabotage Donald Trump, whether by rigging elections or prosecuting him for crimes. And what more powerful force of nature can we imagine than Taylor Swift mobilizing an army of Swifties to rock the vote come November?

It should also be noted that while Swift has been mostly silent about her political inclinations, a video clip from the 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana went viral over the past year that showed her clashing with her father over the possibility of “coming out against Donald Trump” in order to be “on the right side of history.”⁴ Although the edited clip shows Swift voicing opposition to politicians that she believed were infringing women’s or LGBTQ rights, she was actually referring to U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn and Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, not Trump. Still, with conservative commentators like Fox News’ Jesse Waters recently claiming that Swift is part of a "Pentagon psyop,”⁵ it seems to have been enough to stoke the fears of some conservatives about yet another plot to thwart Trump’s re-election bid.

In that sense, conspiracy theories about Swift working to defeat Trump are no different from speculative concerns about Oprah Winfrey or Michelle Obama running against Trump in 2020⁶ and the continued conspiracy theory that Obama may yet still throw her hat into the ring this year.⁷

In summary, the recent finding that a third of conservatives believe that Taylor Swift is conspiring to get Biden re-elected can be explained by partisan motivated reasoning and fears about powerful forces dashing their hopes for Trump’s glorious return for a second term as commander-in-Chief.

Which leaves us with one last question—why is it that liberals don’t believe it? The likely answer is that conspiracy theories, by definition, involve evil plots—they’re things we’d hope would not be happening. Although liberals don’t believe that Taylor Swift is involved in a secret plot to re-elect Biden, there’s little doubt that they’d be more likely than conservatives to wish it was true, whether as part of a secret plot or out in the open. In fact, given widespread concerns about Biden’s age hurting his chances of re-election, it’s probably safe to say that liberals would be far more likely than conservatives to also hope that Taylor Swift would not only try to help Biden, but run for President herself.