Taylor Swift’s response (or lack thereof) to US President Donald Trump after he used the global icon’s trending song in a TikTok video has left fans talking.
The 35-year-old pop superstar has been famously in opposition to the Trump administration and what it stands for, to the extent of directly criticising them on her documentary, Miss Americana.
The 14-time-Grammy winner’s political stance made her silence more peculiar, as social media users urged her to take legal action against the official White House social media for using The Fate of Ophelia in a promotional video.
Against the surge of public opinion, the social media video was not taken down, and the President’s account went on to use two more of Swift’s songs.
Whereas, when the same account used Olivia Rodrigo’s song on TikTok, she condemned it in the comments and got it legally removed, which increased the pressure on Swift’s team, who were reached out to by reputable publications but refused to comment.
One X user wrote, “if she wanted to she would bc we know Olivia removed her song from tiktok when trump's team used it, it's been up for a day already.”
An extensive exploration of the issue published by The Guardian posed that while the Opalite hitmaker might have chosen to react with silence to avoid attracting more attention towards it, it argued that “her influence gives her the potential to galvanise thousands in rejecting increasingly regressive and terrifying social and political norms.”
Social media users left polarising comments on the article, with some accusing Swift of implicitly supporting conservative values, while others voiced the opinion that the Eras Tour performer is already under security threats and she has proved her political alliance several times.
“I don’t understand this take. Taylor Swift has publicly battled Donald Trump on multiple occasions. At some point you have to choose peace and disengage,” a Swiftie wrote.
Another agreed, “I believe she has removed herself from the narrative because putting herself out there has endangered her and her fans (bomb threats and a knife attack at a swift themed dance class).”
While the Anti-Hero songstress has not addressed the situation, her response seems to align with her perspective towards criticism, which she discussed in several recent interviews.
During the promotion of her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, Swift told interviewers that she has deliberately taken distance from the public’s opinions about her, keeping her focus strictly on her life and work.