Once Again, the GOP Tries Swiftboating

My periodically-mentioned friend Myles Berkowitz deeply loves the NFL.  The other day, I read him a quote by former coach and current TV analyst Tony Dungy about what he believed was wrong with pro football today.  I asked what he thought Dungy said was the sport’s big problem. “Oh, God,” Myles said mournfully, knowing the Hall of Famer’s past comments, “it wasn’t religious was it???”
 
I assured him happily, no, it wasn’t, and then made the question easier for him.  You won’t guess it, I said, so instead just tell me what you think might be the biggest problem in the NFL this year.  He thought a moment and then said, “Probably the officiating.”
 
Well, I told him, NBC expert sports analyst Tony Dungy said it’s Taylor Swift.
 
“Ohhhhh, God,” Myles repeated.
 
This came from an appearance Dungy had just had made on Fox “News” and was asked about the “Taylor Swift Effect” on the NFL.  “That’s the thing that's disenchanting people with sports now," he said. "There's so much on the outside coming in -- entertainment value and different things taking away from what really happens on the field."
 
Because, yes, Taylor Swift sitting in a skybox excitedly cheering for her boyfriend who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs, and the TV cameras showing her happy, is exactly what is disenchanting people about sports.  After all, professional sports has never, ever been about “entertainment values” (most especially, such exciting high entertainment things as watching Taylor Swift clapping in a skybox) or about gambling or cheerleaders or mascots or marching band halftime shows or massive TV coverage or an entire NFL Network channel devoted entirely to football for 24 hours a day, 12 months a year or…or…or…  No, no, the problem is Taylor Swift. In her Kansas City Chiefs jersey, cheering at a game for her boyfriend, tight end Travis Kelcey.  Now, that’s entertainment!  And disenchanting entertainment at that.
 
Happily, what is continuing to enchant people about professional football, in the eyes of Tony Dungy, is its bewitching charm of severe head concussion trauma.  Just not Taylor Swift.  Cheering.  Unlike the 74,999 other people in the stands politely, quietly watching the games in refined decorum, like fans are supposed to do.
 
I mention this because on Sunday, former NFL great, Hall of Famer Brett Favre was on that aforementioned NFL Network and also joined in to slam Taylor Swift.  "She's obviously using Travis Kelce for publicity. It's a money grab that's not going to end well. Eventually the Chiefs are going to lose and it will be her fault. She's bad for football."
 
Because with Taylor Swift -- Time Magazine's Person of the Year, whose world tour was the first ever to gross over a $1 billion, and whose concert film of the tour has become the highest-grossing concert film of all-time, making $261.6 million worldwide -- the one thing she obviously needs most of all is figuring out a way to get publicity.
​

Man, oh man, did ace pop culture analyst Brett Favre call it out and get this one spot-on right. Taylor Swift is just freeloading off the fame of cheering for her boyfriend Travis Kelce.
 
By the way, just to be very clear about how professional sports works: if a team loses specifically because one fan likes them, then they are a Really, Really, Very Bad Team.
 
Of course, when it comes to “money grabs that don't end well” --  yes, this Brett Favre is the same Brett Favre who is currently under investigation for receiving $77 million in federal welfare money in Mississippi that was earmarked to help one of the poorest states in the nation, accused of misspending it on personal projects like a volleyball gym at a college where his daughter plays the sport.
 
Man, talk about projecting your own problems on others!

And as for projecting, there's something...well, enchanting about a person trying to slam someone for a supposed "publicity grab" by going on TV to get publicity slamming them.
 
Between Aaron Rodgers (who is ruining his legacy one soundbite at a time) and Brett Favre, this has been a horribly bad couple of weeks for former Green Bay Packers quarterbacks trying to analyze popular culture.
 
(As a Chicago Bears fan, whose historic rivals are the Green Bay Packers, I must say it couldn’t happen to a more-deserving team…)
 
To be clear, this ludicrous bashing of Taylor Swift isn't limited to a couple of NFL icons, but also includes many GOP officials and Republican supporters on social media.  And the thing is, I absolutely understand the far-right hating someone as wildly popular worldwide as Taylor Swift for endorsing Democratic candidates and registering voters.  It’s infantile of them, but I understand it.  However -- to put this all in perspective -- all that Taylor Swift is doing is rooting for one team, and her cheering is only covered when TV directors of their own decision choose to put the camera on her sitting at the game, cheering.  She is not popping up at football games throughout the league like "Where's Waldo?"  Just one game.  Which is usually only broadcast locally to the two cities competing.  And furthermore, in doing this, she is bringing the National Football League attention to an audience that the NFL pretty much didn’t have.
 
This, to Brett Favre and Tony Dungy and Republican officials and far-right supporters is what Taylor Swift is doing to disenchant and ruin pro football.  Cheering for her boyfriend.  And bringing new fans to the league.  How dare she?!!!

Man, talk about Republicans actually Swiftboating someone.  Yet again.

Now, if only Taylor Swift supported a pathologically lying, white supremacist, malignant narcissist, four-time indicted, convicted fraud found liable for rape con man who tried to overthrow the government and wants to be a dictator on Day One, and she instead registered voters for the party that enables him, then she might be forgiven for her sins of cheering at a football game.
 
But gee, if only she didn’t have Travis Kelce to rely on for publicity so that people would finally get to know who she is and appreciate her for herself.