By S.A. McCarthy

For decades, celebrities have insisted on involving themselves in politics and political commentary, whether they have any moral or intellectual basis for doing so or not. Whether it’s middle-aged, wine-box variety feminists on “The View” or the latest thespian to mistake an increasingly-irrelevant acting award for a doctorate in political science, the rich and famous insist on airing their pernicious political positions in, more often than not, the most noxious, arrogant, self-aggrandizing terms imaginable. Even the legendary Narcissus would blush to hear a politically-charged Academy Award acceptance speech — at least all he did was stare at his reflection and leave the rest of the world alone.

One of today’s most prominent celebrities, however, was largely silent on the subject of politics for much of her career, but now has the potential wherewithal to sway nearly a fifth of voters in 2024. According to a new survey, country star-turned pop icon Taylor Swift’s endorsement would likely influence 18% of voters in America, including about 30% of voters under the age of 35. Of course, Swift is likely to endorse the incompetent, geriatric incumbent Joe Biden.

This should not be a surprise, nor a puzzle to figure out. The pop star previously endorsed the Biden-Harris campaign in 2020, posting a platter of Biden-Harris campaign-sticker-style cookies to Instagram. Even before this, in the documentary “Miss Americana,” Swift lamented not having used her influence to criticize then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. She also blasted Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) in the 2018 midterms, calling the staunchly pro-life politician “Trump in a wig” and endorsing Blackburn’s opponent, pro-abortion Democrat and former Volunteer State governor Phil Bredesen.

In the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Swift took to social media to defend abortion as “women’s rights to their own bodies,” posting a pro-abortion eulogy by Michelle Obama. She has also been a proponent of the LGBT agenda, calling on fans to oppose pro-family, pro-marriage legislation and legislators and announcing Pride Month dedications.

According to a New York Times report, Biden campaign aides and staffers are lobbying for Swift’s endorsement a second time around. “The biggest and most influential endorsement target is Ms. Swift,” the report states. “Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a top Biden surrogate, all but begged Ms. Swift to become more involved in Mr. Biden’s campaign when he spoke to reporters after a Republican primary debate in September.” Apparently, the Biden team has even considered aligning campaign stops with Swift’s record-breaking “Eras” tour.

It seems ludicrous — laughably so — that a woman who’s made a career out of singing about picking the wrong guy is able to practically direct people how to vote. But setting aside the irony entailed by glancing at Swift’s catalog of songs and failed relationships, the fact that a single, politically-illiterate billionaire celebrity can effectively command a fifth of voters is disturbing, to say the very least, and actually reveals some of the chief flaws of democratic systems.

First and foremost, Swift’s political power is indicative of how far the Western world — America in particular — has fallen from God. C.S. Lewis once quipped in an essay, “Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”

Christ the King has been forced out of the public square in secular Western society. In His stead, the masses now do exactly as Lewis predicted and worship celebrities, with Swift towering above them all. Without a God to worship, the public will inevitably worship lesser gods. This lesson is written throughout history: the ancients would worship and sacrifice to Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, Horus, and countless others. Without the revelation of the one true God, Perfection Himself, these false gods were but exaggerations of common human strengths and weaknesses.

Now, in the ages since Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection, a new sort of god has come to be. No more can men conjure gods in their imaginations, unseen beings responsible for thunder and lightning; instead, the public now worships those among them who are deemed to have transcended common human limitations: billionaire businessmen, cutting-edge scientists, and talented performers are all glorified in God’s place. Under the tutelage of the Serpent, man has usurped the throne of God — if only in his own mind. Where God invites man to become one with Him, man’s new idea of god promises that every man can become a god, and on his own terms, not on Someone Else’s. Without Christ at the center of the public square, man now gobbles poison, and Swift is peddling it with her views on abortion and sex.

In fact, Swift’s very few political statements directly contradict the noble notion of self-sacrifice inherent in a Christ-centered public square: endorsing the killing of one’s own children for whatever reason — career, reputation, economic ease, or just consequence-free sex — and supporting the sterile LGBT agenda, incapable of producing children or building families, in direct conflict with God’s design for human sexuality. Like the rest of the cultural elite horde, Swift buys into, repackages, and mass-distributes the Luciferian agenda. But unlike the rest of the cultural elite horde, her influence may be enough to alter the outcome of an election.

Finally, there is the alarming degree of political illiteracy prevalent among her fans. Self-declared “Swifties” willing and ready to base their vote on the pop star’s endorsement are not informing their political worldview but allowing someone else to form it for them. One politician’s endorsement of another is a means of informing the political worldview of citizens, a way of saying, “If my policies align with your priorities, then consider voting for this guy, there’s a lot of overlap.” But if swaths of Americans are prepared to vote for a candidate based only on one individual’s recommendation, these people are not bearing in mind the countless generations of Americans who came before them and fought, killed, bled, and died for their children’s children’s children to be able to choose for themselves their leader, instead of having a despot thrust upon them. They are not bearing in mind the God-given responsibility they have to form their consciences well and vote accordingly. They are not bearing in mind God’s commandments and designs and how those ought to be lived out in a virtuous society.

The “democratic” part of our democratic republic is increasingly falling under the control of a handful of powerful, uber-wealthy cultural elites who dictate where political power goes and how it is exercised. Sounds an awful lot like tyranny.

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.