Taylor Swift, the Grown-Up in the Room

The progressives of Tennessee were unhappy with their options in a closed race in the Senate. A 28-year-old pop star explained the stakes.

Last Sunday night, Taylor Swift did something she had never done in her stratospheric career as a pop star: she endorsed a political candidate in Tennessee, her adopted home state.

She endorsed two candidates, in fact, both Democrats: Rep. Jim Cooper, who is running for re-election to Congress, and former Gov. Phil Bredesen, who is running for the Senate seat that Republican Bob Corker is willingly more or less unoccupied

Swift did more than just back the Democrats. In an Instagram post to his 112 million followers, he also criticized Marsha Blackburn, the Republican House member running against Mr. Bredesen: "Your record of votes in Congress scares and terrifies me," Swift wrote. . "She voted against wage equality for women. She voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which seeks to protect women from domestic violence, harassment and dating violations. She believes that companies have the right to refuse service to homosexual couples. She also believes that they should not have the right to marry. These are not my Tennessee values. "

There is a good reason for any female artist, especially one who started her work on the national radio, to think twice before getting into politics. To understand how much value it cost Taylor Swift to publish a statement of this kind, you must remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks in 2003. At that time, they were one of the most popular acts in the history of country music and the best Sale of female group of all times. Then, in the run-up to the Iraq war, lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience that the group was opposed to the coming invasion: "We do not want this war, this violence," he said, "and we " I am ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas. "

For their audience, the members of the band became public enemies overnight. The radio stations were bombarded with calls from furious listeners. The sponsor of the group tour dropped them. The fans boycotted them. They received death threats. Since then, country music publicists have made it clear to their artists, especially their female artists: Salta politics.

The Dixie Chicks never recovered. Here in 2018, something very different is happening to Taylor Swift: people, it seems, are following their example. At noon on Tuesday, less than 48 hours after he published his exhortation on Instagram, more than 166,000 people across the country had registered to vote. And while there is no solid evidence, there is no way to measure how much the publication of Swift had to do with the coup, some details were revealing: Approximately 42 percent of the newly registered are between 18 and 24 years old, right in the wheelhouse by Taylor Swift. "We have never seen a period of 24 or 36 or 48 hours like this," a spokeswoman from Vote.org told The Times.

Among the new entrants, more than 6,200 live in Tennessee, and Mr. Bredesen will need everyone to show up at the polls on November 6. Last year, when Senator Corker announced he would not seek re-election, he cited his belief in a "model citizen legislator" that avoids career politicians. His real reason: this is a blood red state, and his confrontations with President Trump left Mr. Corker, a moderate Republican, bleeding. Unwilling to face a major challenge from a Tea Party candidate, he opened the door for a Tea Party candidate to enter directly.

Enter Marsha Blackburn: "I am a conservative from Tennessee who has a lot of cards," he said in an announcement announcing his decision to run. "I am politically incorrect and proud of it." The ad was so far to the right of the mainstream that Twitter blocked it for inflammatory content.

Progressives hoped that Mr. Corker's announcement would be his chance to energize a non-profit state Democratic Party. It is true that Hillary Clinton won only three counties in Tennessee, but the two largest cities in the state, Memphis and Nashville, are constantly voting for the Democrats. And since the urban population of Tennessee continues to grow even as its rural population shrinks, it stands to reason that a truly progressive candidate, someone charismatic and unapologetically liberal, could bring out young voters and people of color and so on. change the whole nature of the policy here. .

Instead, state Democrats stood behind Phil Bredesen, a 74-year-old, business-friendly moderate, who previously served two terms as mayor of Nashville and governor of Tennessee. It was an intelligent movement in many ways. Mr. Bredesen won all 95 Tennessee counties when he ran for re-election in 2006, his last campaign, and still enjoys high recognition of names and approval ratings here. In May, Vanderbilt University surveyed a representative sample of Tennesseans, rating Mr. Bredesen's overall favorability at 67 percent.

It is hard to imagine a candidate better prepared to attract disgruntled Republicans. If you're an old school conservator and you're alarmed by an erratic president who does not have functional institutional controls over his most extravagant ideas, the last person you want to send to the Senate on your behalf is a Trump apologist who talks to him. a gun in her bag.

For moderate Republican voters, a calm and affable fiscal conservative is an attractive alternative, especially one that has a history of facing its own party. (Mr. Bredesen responded to a budget crisis inherited from his predecessor by eliminating 300,000 people from state Medicaid lists.) The Liberals responded by organizing a 77-day, 24-hour sit-in at the governor's office, and encouraged them to everyday)

Mr. Bredesen is an option that appeals to both disgruntled Republicans and moderate liberals. He supports the renewal of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program for undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children. He has criticized the Affordable Care Act, but does not support its abolition. He wants to expand the background check for the purchase of weapons and increase the minimum wage. He supports Planned Parenthood, as well as equality in marriage and net neutrality, and is an advocate for teachers.

But for the progressives of Tennessee, Mr. Bredesen represents a tragic missed opportunity. He avoids discussing his positions on burning social issues, emphasizing his long history of cooperation with state Republicans on bipartisan projects. And it seems he has no stomach for partisan battles.

During the controversy over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, Bredesen called Christine Blasey Ford "a heroine" and said she was "disgusted with the treatment she received at the hands of the Senate." But he also believes that the president of the United States has ample freedom to appoint qualified federal judges. When he announced that he supported the nomination of Mr. Kavanaugh, the liberals of Tennessee began to murmur about not participating in the elections. At the national level, at least two progressive organizations, MoveOn.org and Priorities USA Action, the largest super PAC of the Democratic Party, announced that they no longer support Mr. Bredesen.

The majority of the Senate PAC and Majority Forward, two other national committees of political action that finance the liberal candidates for the Senate, have continued their support. But the biggest boost can come from a 28-year-old pop star who pointed out what seems obvious: that our choice is not between a progressive and a conservative. Our choice is between a good-mannered, business-friendly centrist and a Tea Party Republican who has voted with the president 91 percent of the time, who is in favor of repealing Roe v. Wade, who opposes equality in marriage and who is enslaved by the Koch brothers and the National Rifle Association. The list of Marsha Blackburn's assaults on liberal values ​​goes on and on and on.

FiveThirtyEight.com puts Mr. Bredesen's chances of beating Ms. Blackburn by about 20 percent, but with a little luck, Taylor Swift has changed the race considerably. As he noted in his Instagram post, "We may never find a candidate or party with whom we agree 100 percent on each issue, but we have to vote anyway." In Tennessee, the choice is clear.