Right-wing conspiracy theorists are claiming the NFL Super Bowl has been rigged to facilitate a Taylor Swift endorsement of Joe Biden.

Taylor Swift has shattered virtually every major record in the music industry, and as she lives her best life supporting her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, she’s also breaking the brains of right-wingers.

For months now, the digital fever swamps have been fuming over everything and anything Swift-related. Her popularity, the success of the Eras Tour, her relationship, her appearances at NFL games, and especially her politics. The Chiefs won the AFC championship on Sunday, punching the team’s (and potentially Swift’s) ticket to the Super Bowl in February. In response, long-standing conspiracy theories around the NFL’s “scriptwriting” for football seasons clashed with right-wing conspiracy theorists claiming Swift’s involvement with Kelce is part of a deep state plot to gin up support for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election. The result is as ugly as it is stupid.

Former presidential candidate and MAGA blowhard Vivek Ramaswamy tweeted on Monday that he wondered “who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” adding, “I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”

  • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
    63·
    11 months ago

    I wonder how conspiracy theorists rationalize their belief that the elections are rigged with their belief that the opposition needs to artificially drum up support in order to win elections.

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
      44·
      11 months ago

      They don’t. They don’t even bother to rationalize. When forced to think about the bullshit they spew they just claim they haven’t finished researching it and then repeat themselves despite admitting they know nothing and have no response to any evidence.

      • toothpaste_sandwich@feddit.nl
        26·
        11 months ago

        Ah, the age-old quote:

        Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

        ― Jean-Paul Sartre

      • BOMBS@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        11 months ago

        I mean, there are some opposing philosophical beliefs that can hold true at the same time. For example, we are all different and we are all the same can work. However, these people are holding objective opposing beliefs as true at the same time. Something is up with their ability to differentiate between concrete and abstract concepts.

    • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
      171·
      11 months ago

      Trying to defeat these people with arguments is futile. They have checked out from reality long ago.

  • MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world
    44·
    11 months ago

    I’d probably complain a lot too, if I was getting zero traction with Gen Z voters.

    Besides, Republicans have no qualms about using celebrity to attract voters. They have My Pillow guy, and Ted Nugent.

  • ccunning@lemmy.world
    38·
    11 months ago

    Well I didn’t think I cared about the NFL anymore but I guess I’m rooting for whichever team to win that makes the nutters most uncomfortable…

    • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
      36·
      11 months ago

      One team has Taylor Swift’s boyfriend on it and the other is from San Francisco. It’s a Republican’s worst nightmare, apparently

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
      7·
      11 months ago

      It sounds like the chiefs losing would be considered a huge win for … Trump? I hope he’s got a good passing game because he sure as fuck isn’t running the ball.

      • ccunning@lemmy.world
        9·
        11 months ago

        Why wait for them to lose? Odds on the nutters storming the field with violence to “Stop the Endorsement”?

        • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
          9·
          11 months ago

          Low, but not impossible? NFL security is pretty intense, including building digital threat profiles for ticket holders for the big games, and Swift’s security team are some incredibly kind and competent absolute psychos. While any attempt to organize a big “storm the field” thing would probably just get caught in the planning stages and you’d simply be denied entry to the venue, if you did get it planned undetected it’d be pretty easy to pull off. So long as you’re not an active threat, you’re just out on the field waving flags and not firing guns, they’ll just evacuate the VIPs, call the cops and keep you there till you get bored.

          The biggest concern at these events is that someone will get in with the goal of intentionally causing crowd crush incidents. Because of that, the focus is heavily on preempting and prevention and not so much on response. Its a neat field to get into if you’re okay with never being comfortable in a public space again!

          All that said, going for the players, or god forbid going after Tay herself, would turn into a bloodbath pretty damn quick.

          • clif@lemmy.world
            4·
            11 months ago

            Its a neat field to get into if you’re okay with never being comfortable in a public space again!

            One step ahead of you my friend! Now, to start on my career transition…

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    35·
    11 months ago

    No, silly, the NFL is rigged.

    25 years ago in the documentary “The X-Files” we learned all about how shadowy government agents conspired to make sure the Buffalo Bills never won a Super Bowl. The Truth is out there!

  • cmbabul@lemmy.world
    282·
    11 months ago

    It wouldn’t shock me to find out the NFL is setting the cards up to fall how they want, especially now that gambling is a legal part of it, but there is absolutely zero chance that Jerry Jones and the other NFL owners are doing it to get Biden reelected or anything else besides a shit load of money. Which, Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl will certainly help them do even more than they already were going to. It’s always so weird that they never see the simplest explanation that’s always right in front of them, money and therefore power

    • BakerBagel@midwest.social
      141·
      11 months ago

      I’m absolutely sick of all the gambling ads, and while it isn’t NFL, fucking Manfred has ruined the beauty of classic uniforms like the Cardinals and Yankees by slapping ads in them. I am sick of all these ads and money ruining all my favorite sports.

      I stopped eatching the NFL after Kroneke absolutely fucked St. Louis and I think i am about to be completely done with college football with the way things are going there as well. I hate watching capitalism take down everything i love with it

      • cmbabul@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        Cfb has always been my primary obsession in the sports world, only pay attention to the NFL for fantasy and small talk points. But you’re right all of the things that made me love it are being ruined by capitalism

      • AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social
        1·
        11 months ago

        Ramsfugees are always welcome on the chiefs bandwagon. The overwhelming attitude was always fuck kroenke. I’m not a Missourian anymore but Midwestern rams fans always get a free pass to bandwagon wherever they want imo.

        If you’re looking for unique ownership, the Packers are probably the best example of that. I’ve always been jealous of their ownership model.

        I mean, obviously, unbridled capitalism is destroying everything because a “constant growth mindset” is just “cancer” with bonus words, but don’t let it steal your joy too.

        • BakerBagel@midwest.social
          2·
          11 months ago

          I wasn’t willing to be a Chiefs fan when i lived in KC during the Matt Cassell years, so i wont bandwagon on now. Baseball will always be my true love, but i am enjoying my local ECHL hockey team in the winter. Go Walleye!

    • NightGaunts@kbin.social
      85·
      11 months ago

      I like how you casually drop a ridiculous conspiracy at the top. Just how exactly would the rigging work? Are all the owners in on it? The players too? The refs? Vendors? What about Kapernick? Is he in on it too? Maybe I am in in it too?

      • beardown@lemm.ee
        2·
        11 months ago

        The officiating has been historically terrible this year. Multiple game deciding calls were missed or wrongly made.

        If you want to decide games to ensure that the spread does/doesn’t hit then you just need to throw in a few pass interference penalties or holding calls. Aka, the most inconsistently applied and most subjective calls in sports

        • cmbabul@lemmy.world
          2·
          11 months ago

          Strike zone and the definition of a balk are up there too, but I’ve been watching football at both major levels for 25 years and I still couldn’t tell you what constitutes a hold anymore. There’s always been holding on every play but I’ve seen egregious no calls and phantom calls in key moments at a far higher rate than I remember even as recently as pre pandemic

      • cmbabul@lemmy.world
        1·
        11 months ago

        Ridiculous to setup a sporting event for gambling purposes? You’re right that’s definitely never happened in major US sports, not like the World Series was ever famously thrown and fighters have never gone down in the 4th round, points shaving definitely isn’t a thing either. This isn’t like the moon landing where thousands of people would have to tell the same lie forever, in football especially all it would take is one or two on field officials and a couple in the booths to make a few questionable calls to severely tilt the game in one direction or the other.

        Is the result predetermined before the season or even the playoffs, no that would actually be absurd and nearly impossible to set up, but setting things up so the two most potentially profitable teams win in the championship round and move on isn’t that outlandish an idea.

        And I didn’t even make the contention they were in fact rigging it, I said I wouldn’t be shocked if I found out they were. Because NFL teams owners are cutthroat greedy assholes top to bottom unless Bezos’s ex wife bought a team without me knowing

    • CosmicTurtle@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      11 months ago

      Is it wrong for me to want this to happen?

      Like if the team wins, that they pan to Taylor as she dons on a Biden T-shirt?

      Let them foam at the mouth screaming they were right so that they focus on something stupid instead of trying to plan yet another insurrection.

          • Sparky678348@lemm.ee
            32·
            11 months ago

            You can’t just take the position “all Republicans are stupid and inept” because importantly they’re not.

            They’re very effective at spinning propaganda for their base of support. Theyre incredibly effective at riling people up.

            They can spin a ridiculous narrative like this and plan another insurrection simultaneously.

            • naeap@sopuli.xyz
              11·
              11 months ago

              It’s just short-sighted pseudo solutions to often made-up problems.
              A 3 year old child can also come up with play stories

              I know this isn’t constructive, but I’m already having a shit day and arrogant lazy-think people are just tipping me over…

  • Optional@lemmy.world
    13·
    11 months ago

    Sure and Democrats eat babies at the pizza parlor.

    Fucking insanity. We do not need to put up with this again.

  • bean@lemmy.world
    13·
    11 months ago

    It suddenly makes sense why she ended up in nude ai suddenly and virulently. Trolls love to stir the pot.

  • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    11 months ago

    I had to deal with this crap in real time in my fantasy football friend group, I just pointed out their confirmation biases and shut it down, but man were these dudes quick to jump on the conspiracy, they just could not accept that Lamar just made a dumb play.

    My own conservative father has been bitching about the NFL being rigged all season, can’t wait for him to pick up on the Taylor Swift stuff to add that to his “anti-woke” talking points.🤦‍♂️

  • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
    61·
    11 months ago

    Hilarious

    I really don’t want to have another year of Mahomes commercials, but I might endure it to see the pin heads explode. Please Taylor do a song at halftime. Get em good.