Donald Trump spreads fake images of electoral support from Taylor Swift

Donald Trump has “accepted” singer Taylor Swift’s request to vote for him... only that request never existed. The former president has shared an AI-generated image of the American superstar on his social media account, accompanied by a recommendation to vote for the Republican. “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump,” the text says, with a fake image of Swift reminiscent of the iconic image of Uncle Sam with the American flag behind him. The singer has not yet expressed her backing for either party in the run-up to the 2024 election, but in the past she has not hidden her support for Kamala Harris or her antipathy towards Trump, to the point that Republicans have aired surreal conspiracy theories against her.

Trump tweeted the AI-generated photo on his network, Truth Social, on Sunday with a message that reads, “I accept!” implying that the singer is asking for votes for him. The fake Swift appears alongside other photographs of young people wearing T-shirts that read “Swifties for Trump.” It is unclear which of these images are authentic and which are also generated by artificial intelligence. The similarity between the subjects of the images seems to indicate that several have been mass-generated. Some are taken from a story in satirical publication that said, as a parody, the singer’s fans were starting to support Trump.

Swift called for a vote for Biden in 2020 when the singer was not as globally famous as she is now. Recently, the artist recommended that young people register to vote and there was a surge in subscribers, showing that her fans, especially young women, are willing to mobilize politically at the call of their idol.

Conspiracy theories reached a fever pitch with the Super Bowl last February, when some Republicans suggested it was rigged to hand Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and the Kansas City Chiefs the championship. “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential candidate and avowed Trump supporter, tweeted at the time. “And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.” Ridiculous as it may seem, Republicans went so far as to suggest that Swift was a secret Pentagon agent bent on getting Biden re-elected.

Biden is no longer running for re-election, but Republican fears about Swift’s influence on the youth vote remain. Shortly after Kamala Harris took over from the president as her party’s candidate, a group of fans of the world’s most famous singer gathered under the slogan “Swifties for Kamala,” although without any express endorsement from the star herself.

In 2020, when Swift endorsed Biden, she also showed her preference for Harris. “I spoke to @vmagazine about why I’ll be voting for Joe Biden for president. So apt that it’s come out on the night of the VP debate. Gonna be watching and supporting @KamalaHarris by yelling at the tv a lot. And I also have custom cookies,” she tweeted on the day the then-VP candidate was set to face Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president.

In that interview with V magazine, Swift explained her motives: “Under his leadership, I think America has an opportunity to begin the healing process that it so desperately needs,” she said of Biden. In 2020, her request for a vote came in October, a month before the election.

There has been speculation in Chicago that the singer might make a surprise appearance at the Democratic convention, a hypothesis that has been echoed by media outlets such as CNN. The other option being considered, always in the realm of hypotheses, is an appearance by Beyoncé, who gave Harris the go-ahead to use her song Freedom in the campaign. As such, it is not implausible that Beyoncé will perform the song in person at the convention, according to the television network.

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