“F you, Taylor Swift!” shouted Megyn Kelly, “and f all of the people who want to see these children have body parts chopped off.”
For those not fluent in Republican crazy-speak, Kelly’s meltdown was triggered by Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris the night before, barely one hour after Trump all but face-planted on the debate stage. Kelly was especially triggered by Swift highlighting her appreciation for vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s support of LGBTQ+ rights.
…
Other right-wing commentators, like Ben Shapiro, took another approach: making fun of Swifties. “Note: if you vote for a particular candidate because your favorite singer is doing so, please don’t vote. You are too stupid to vote,” wrote Shapiro on X. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, threatened to impregnate her.
It’s worth mentioning that this strategy is straight out of the trolling playbook. The overall idea is to get everyone to waste their time arguing nonsense, making it impossible to discuss anything of merit. While the following article applies to internet forums, it’s not hard to see how any social media, TV, or radio, can spill over into our day-to-day discourse and have the same effect: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7573649/
In this case, the topic at hand meets multiple criteria for deliberate trolling. IMO, there’s little room for doubt that we’re being led by the nose and baited to waste valuable pre-election time:
I would love to see more of the Democrats platform displayed, argued, justified and rationalized, but there’s literally no reason to talk about any of that when the other side has less discussion than a headless chicken.
I hope the right can someday see how bad they are for policy in general.