Biden's secret weapon? Rightwingers accuse Pentagon of 'Operation Swift'

Taylor Swift is a "Pentagon asset", an "election interference psyop" who has conspired with unnamed left-leaning forces to "rig" the Super Bowl and then endorse Joe Biden in the presidential election.

- Adam Gabbatt

That is according to influential rightwing figures who have begun to spread a conspiracy theory that the US pop megastar is part of a nefarious plot before November's presidential election. Swift has found herself at the centre of the rightwing commentariat's attention in recent weeks after media focus on her relationship with Travis Kelce, a star of the Kansas City Chiefs American football team.

She has been in the crowd as the Chiefs have progressed through the NFL playoffs: on Sunday, the team won the AFC Championship game, and they will play in the Super Bowl on 11 February. The attention their romance has received has led to a number conspiracy theories.

"I think - and I've said this, I've taken a lot of crap for this online I think they're using Taylor Swift right now," Jack Posobiec, a conspiracy theorist, said in a video posted on Donald Trump's Truth Social platform on Monday. "They're gearing up for an operation to use Taylor Swift in the election against everything: against Trump, for Biden, they're gonna get her and all you know they call them the Swifties, they're going to turn those into voters, you watch."

Posobiec did not elaborate on who "they" were, but Roseanne Barr, the rightwing former actor who, for unexplained reasons, was also in the video, agreed. "I think that's what they're doing too. She's definitely somebody who's consented to speak the way the establishment wants to be spoken of," Barr said.