Fox News accuses Taylor Swift of being a Pentagon psyops asset

Conservatives are apparently very worried that young women and LGBTQ+ fans of singer Taylor Swift will vote in droves this year, and they’re finding very strange ways of expressing it.

Swift posted a message encouraging her fans to register to vote last September, which led to over 35,000 new registered voters, according to Vote.org. She also revealed that she’s dating NFL player Travis Kelce, who has encouraged his fans to get vaccinated for COVID-19, and she has attacked Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) in the past and spoken out for LGBTQ+ rights.

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The video has been hailed as “a big moment for representation.”

The rightwing outcry that followed led The New Republic to declare, “Taylor Swift has broken conservatives’ brains” this past September.

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And conservatives can’t stop attacking her. Fox News’s Jesse Watters – who took Tucker Carlson’s top primetime slot after he was forced from the network – has declared her a Pentagon psyop. A “psyop” refers to military actions used to control people’s beliefs and perceptions and are often a feature of right-wing conspiracy theories.

“The New York Times just speculated she’s a lesbian,” Watters said, referring to a column that Swift’s supporters panned as “invasive, untrue, and inappropriate.” “And last year’s tour broke Ticketmaster. A tour that’s revenue tops the GDP of 50 countries.”

“I like her music, she’s alright, but have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?” Watters said, as if Swift hasn’t been one of the most famous pop stars in the U.S. for nearly two decades. “Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon Psychological Operations Unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A psyop for combatting online misinformation.”

He then played a clip of a speech from someone talking about online misinformation. The woman in the clip, Alicia Marie Bargar, isn’t a Pentagon employee – she’s a researcher at Johns Hopkins University – and she gave her speech at the International Conference on Cyber Conflict, not “a NATO meeting.”

Watters then brought on lawyer Stuart Kaplan, who has appeared more than a few times on Fox News. He said that Swift’s “immeasurable amount of followers” means that she can “singlehandedly swing voters.”

Watters brought up the fact that Swift posted a link to get people to register to vote and asked, “I wonder who got to her, from the White House or from wherever? Who makes that initial handshake? Is it… the Binder?” as if it is unthinkable that a celebrity would use their platform to promote a good cause without taking instructions from the government.