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Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Election 2024: Turnout Is Key, TayTay & Trav Edition

I've seen a few people online poo-pooing the possibility that Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris could be decisive in the presidential election.

I'm not sure they're right, but they might be. The last two presidential elections have been decided by a few tens of thousands of votes in a few states, and Swift just may be the single most popular person on the planet. There's at least a possibility that, say, 100,000 Swifties who weren't really thinking that hard about voting, or about whom to vote, will 1) decide to vote and 2) decide to vote for Swift's endorsed candidate.

But I suspect more votes will be driven by the MAGA response to the endorsement than by the endorsement itself. "I'm pissed off" is a bigger political motivator than "oh, how sweet."

Trump says he likes Brittany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, better than he likes Swift. Which is kind of ... weird ... but actually gets us closer to where I'm going.

Trump supporter Elon Musk's reaction to the endorsement was an offer to, um, "assist" Swift in ceasing to be childless.

That's pretty creepy in general, but wait! There's more!

Swift's beau (for nigh on a year now) is Patrick Mahomes's teammate and big-time bromantic partner, Travis Kelce. All four of them seem to be pretty tight with each other.

I'm just guessing, but I suspect Kelce, who's not known for holding back in the opinion arena any more than he does at Arrowhead Stadium, might have some thoughts on the subject of Musk's oh-so-generous offer.

I also suspect that we may be hearing from Brittany, Real Soon Now, that she's reconsidered her opinion on the presidential race.

And I suspect that Chiefs Kingdom in particular and NFL fandom in general won't take very kindly to Trump putting Brittany Mahomes in that kind of position, or to Elon Musk disrespecting the manhood of the greatest tight end in the history of the NFL.

That angle could also motivate at least a few tens of thousands of previously apathetic football fans to go from "politics, meh" to "yeah, I'm voting, and it won't be for that guy."

I could be wrong ... but at the moment, the election really does look close enough that things like these could really affect the outcome, with everything already going Harris's way.

Here's the current situation:

Harris has moved into the driver's seat. It is within her ability to win this election. All she has to do to win is work her ass off for the next 55 days and not commit any truly massive f*ckups.

Whether she can do that or not is still in question ... but what's not in question is Trump's ability to change the outcome for, from his point of view, the better. He has no such ability. He can make things worse for himself, but he can't make things better. If he wins it will be because Harris derailed herself, not because he derailed her.

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