Taylor Swift, more than any other popular celebrity, was extremely quiet during the 2016 presidential election.
Aside from one social media post on Election Day expressing the importance of voting, she didn’t say a word — and a lot of people have been upset with her for it.
Taylor is obviously one of the most influential celebrities today, and if she’d have been a little more outspoken about her political beliefs, some argue, it would have meant a lot to her fans.
Of course, that’s assuming she supported Hillary Clinton. If she supported Trump, speaking out about it would have essentially been career suicide.
But no matter who was Taylor’s pick for president, she obviously had no obligation to announce it.
And remember, it was years and years into Taylor’s career before she felt comfortable enough to call herself a feminist, and even then, she only did it when feminism became something of a trend.
All that is to say that Taylor’s never been one to loudly broadcast her political beliefs, especially if they’re even the slightest bit controversial.
And boy, is she paying for it now.
Yesterday, while hundreds of thousands of people all around the world were participating in the Women’s March — many of them celebrities — Taylor tweeted this:
“So much love, pride, and respect for those who marched. I’m proud to be a woman today, and every day.”
And immediately after she sent the tweet, people took issue with it.
“This is gross opportunism,” one person told her. “Be better.”
“As a fan of yours,” another person wrote, “this is some bullsh-t. You do not get to pick and choose when feminism benefits you.”
The same person added “If you were really for feminism you would have spoken up against Donald Trump instead of just saying to vote on Election Day.”
“You got a bad leg or something?” a follower hilariously pondered. “Why didn’t you March?”
One person pulled out all the stops and told Taylor to “Stop using feminism as a prop to fuel your fake girl power narrative/meticulously crafted PR persona.”
And that’s the issue: if Taylor truly was a feminist, these people believe that she should have been more vocal during the election, when it mattered the most.
It’s so easy to take ten seconds and send a tweet, but why wasn’t she spotted at any marches yesterday?
Rihanna and Katy Perry, two pop stars on Taylor’s level, managed to go out and support the cause they believe in, and there were no issues, no one caused a scene over seeing someone famous and stopped marching.
Did she tweet about the Women’s March because she sincerely had feelings about it, or for the likes?
It’s hard to say. But the point is that if Taylor really does feel so strongly about all this, there are a million things she could have done in the past several months to prove it.
