The last three words of Taylor Swift’s latest Instagram post were the funniest. After yesterday’s presidential debate, a new photo appeared on her feed, which has 283 million followers. Swift was holding her cat Benjamin Button, and the message concluded with: “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.” From that alone, you can guess what the rest of the caption contains: a message of support for the Democrats in November.

In her post, Swift described Kamala Harris as a “steadfast, gifted leader” and praised her running mate, Tim Walz, who she said “has spent decades advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF and women’s right to control their own bodies.”

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The caption didn’t mention Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, and it didn’t need to. Anyone who follows politics knows that Vance has repeatedly suggested that childless women are “miserable” and that people who aren’t parents have no “personal and direct stake” in America’s future. In a 2021 interview with Fox News, he summed up his views with a memorable line: that the country was being run by a “group of childless cat ladies.”

Swift’s response – ironically self-labeled as a successful pop star with a trillion fans, a billion-dollar fortune, and a hot football-playing boyfriend – suggests she might be the last living exponent of the Obama-era ideal of remaining classy in the face of provocation. Remember “When they go low, we go high”? Terribly 2016. The Democratic convention in August showed that the party has given up on rising above Trump’s scandals and has instead become salty: the high/low point was when Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 75, made a joke about the bank. Even Barack Obama slyly alluded to the small size of Trump’s … crowd. (The Democrats liked it so much, they turned it into a commercial.)

Swift’s statement of support, by contrast, was incredibly subdued. She made a positive case for the Democrats’ policy platform on the issues she cares about, with only a passing reference to Trump’s “chaos,” and ended with a suggestion that fans register to vote, do their own research, and make their own choices. This was not a resounding condemnation of Trump as a pressing threat to democracy. Nor did it use any of the language popular on left-wing online sites in the late 2010s and 2020s, where writers fretted about staying friends with Republican voters or whether to talk to their Trumpy uncle at Thanksgiving. Swift’s statement merely outlined her own decision, acknowledging that other people might make a different one.

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That’s more radical than it sounds, because Swift will face criticism from both sides. Mainstream Democrats are, of course, elated: When Walz heard the news live on MSNBC, he pumped his fist over his heart in appreciation. But some of her most ardent fans will find the endorsement lukewarm, and her criticism of Trump and Vance too muted. Many on the left will be angry that she didn’t mention Gaza. Meanwhile, the online right will likely be left speechless that the endorsement even exists.

Because Swift is such a huge star, and one who has written so personally about her life, some fans have a sense of ownership over her. She recently received backlash when she hugged Brittany Mahomes, the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, while they were both attending the U.S. Open. (Brittany Mahomes has liked pro-Trump posts on Instagram.) The usual Swiftie Kremlinology spread across social media: Did Swift look like she inside the hug, or was it something she did reluctantly? Did she avoid Mahomes for the rest of the game? And why were they in separate suites at the Chiefs game the week before? Maybe Swift hates and rejects her anyway! The simplest explanation is probably the right one, though: Swift gets along great with her boyfriend’s teammate and his wife, despite their differing political leanings. That used to be normal. Maybe Swift wants things to get back to normal.

On the right, the initial reaction to the endorsement proves once again that if Swift has a superpower — aside from writing catchy hooks about heartbreak — it’s that her critics expose themselves as weirdos. Within hours of her Instagram endorsement, Elon Musk had offered his thoughts to X: “Fine Taylor… you win… I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.” Why exactly Swift would want any of Musk’s 12 children is anyone’s guess. Oh, wait — I can hear in my earpiece that Musk offered Swift his sperm. See what I mean? Musk could have simply disagreed with her, but instead he got creepy in a public forum. Another one for the “weird” dossier.

It’s clear that Trump himself will be disappointed with Swift’s support for Harris: After she endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, Trump joked that he now liked her music “about 25 percent less.” According to a recent book about his old show, The studentHe has described Swift as “unusually beautiful” and asked an interviewer, “She’s a liberal, or is that just a pretense?” He seems genuinely confused that someone can start out in country music and not vote Republican.

If the former president is angry, he has only himself to blame. Swift’s statement references “the dangers of spreading misinformation” and her fears about the abuses of artificial intelligence. She cites Trump’s decision to post fake AI images on Truth Social of “Swifties for Trump,” a parade of eerily similar blonde women holding signs in support of him. Trump’s caption read, “I accept!” — which might have been read as a joke if his entire campaign strategy weren’t to blur the lines between fact and fiction. Witness how both Trump and Vance embraced a fake news story about Haitians eating cats, which Vance tried to imply was true in spirit, because immigration is a problem, even if it’s not, you know, actually true in the sense that it happened. “Don’t let the crybabies in the media scare you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing,” Vance declared on X. Swift took a very different approach. “The easiest way to combat disinformation,” she wrote, “is with the truth.”

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The approval inevitably reminded me of the pivotal scene in Netflix’s Mrs Americaan authorized documentary about Swift, in which her father, Scott, warned her in 2018 against supporting the Democratic candidate for Senate in Tennessee. Swift had recounted how she was encouraged to stay out of politics as a country music artist, especially after fans and the music industry punished the Dixie Chicks (now just the Chicks) for their criticism of George W. Bush and the Iraq War. In the scene, Scott expresses concern for Swift’s personal safety, given her history of stalking, and also leans into Michael Jordan’s famous line that “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” But she persists. Today, the stakes are even higher. Swift is now the head of one of the biggest brands in American entertainment, and through her boyfriend, Travis Kelce of the NFL Chiefs, she has deep ties to another brand. This endorsement comes with professional and personal risks.

What’s striking about her statement, however, isn’t that a 34-year-old childless woman would support the Democrats—in demographic terms, that makes perfect sense. What’s most interesting is her tone. Harris has largely abandoned Biden’s strategy of warning about Trump’s threats to democracy in favor of waging an old-fashioned campaign about values ​​and competence. In the same vein, Swift has offered a subdued condemnation of the Republican platform and a measured endorsement of the Democrats. Plus, of course, that one carefully aimed dig on behalf of childless cat ladies everywhere.