Right-wingers online are just now discovering the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” and outrage is brewing over her “fuck the patriarchy” line.
“And your mother’s tellin’ stories ’bout you on the tee-ball team / You taught me ’bout your past, thinkin’ your future was me / And you were tossing me the car keys, ‘Fuck the patriarchy’ / Keychain on the ground, we were always skippin’ town,” Swift sings in the longer version of the song, which was released in 2021.
Despite the lyric being more than two years old, it appears that conservative critics of Swift are just now discovering it.
On Sunday, right-wingers began sharing a week-old video from a Taylor Swift Eras Tour performance in Liverpool, U.K. highlighting that particular lyric to espouse theories that Swift is teaching her fans to hate men—or that the whole thing is an election psyop.
“Taylor Swift…A multibillionaire…gets an entire audience of mainly kids to scream ‘F*ck the Patriarchy,’” remarked Students for Trump co-founder Ryan Fournier. “Grooming an entire generation to hate men.”
That sentiment was echoed by other men online, who argued the video proves Swift is not a good role model.
“She hates America and is NOT a role model for your daughters!” opined one right-wing commentator.
Commented someone else: “Taylor Swift sings ‘F the patriarchy’ and gets a bunch of impressionable young women to sing along with her, demonstrating she’s a complete imbecile, knows nothing about how functioning societies are built, and shouldn’t be influencing your children.”
“She’s a bad influence on young people,” replied another user.
But right-wing commentary around Swift’s lyrics extended beyond discussions about its impact on young people in attendance.
One prominent right-wing account that frequently promotes conspiracy theories and is one of the most community-noted accounts on X floated a different take.
“It appears that this is yet another ‘election season’ promotion,” the account wrote, referencing the incessant conspiracy theory that Swift is covertly collaborating with President Joe Biden’s administration to swing the 2024 presidential election.
“Swift has voter registration booths at all of her concerts which allow for her fans to register to vote,” the post continued. “The props and employees heavily influence these people to choose to register as a Democrat.”
While Swift has indeed encouraged her fans to register to vote (and herself has previously endorsed Democrats, including Biden in 2020), the suggestion that her saying “fuck the patriarchy” was somehow part of an election psyop was met with a brutal X Community Note.
The community note stated that the line was a lyric from 2021 and that the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” had been included in her tour’s setlist since March 2023.
“The above video is from Liverpool, UK,” the note concludes. “She is not registering voters in England.”
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