Guess Who's Coming to Lunch?

and the Flight of the Swifties

This is certainly turning out to be one of the most entertaining midterm elections in a long time.  Not only did we have Kanye regal the President with images of a hydrogen-powered plane, which he called the iplane, but we have the full-on assault of the Swifties in Tennessee as Taylor Swift came out in support of a Democrat.  This seemed to grab Donald Trump's attention more than Kanye's ten-minute rant in the Oval Office.

Donald Trump would have us believe Blacks love him, especially after that stunning embrace by Kanye in the WH that seemed to catch everyone off guard.  If that wasn't cringeworthy enough, how about that picture of Donald with Ivanka and Jared and his new adopted son, Kanye, all wearing MAGA caps.  That's right, Kanye said Trump is the father figure he had been longing for 41 years.  Good thing his mother is not around anymore to hear that incredible pronouncement.

It all begs to ask the question, why?, but we know better by now.  This is the sad confluence of politics and entertainment writ large.  If the world wasn't laughing at Trump at the UN General Assembly, they are now, because you simply can't make this shit up.

Meanwhile in Tennessee, Taylor Swift rocked her native state by coming out in support of the Democratic challenger Phil Bredesen.  According to Fox polls, Bredesen is so far behind the Republican favorite Marsha Blackburn that this last minute endorsement essentially constitutes a Hail Mary, or in this case Hail Taylor!  As CNN notes, Swift doesn't take politics lightly, issuing a thoughtful statement in support of the former governor.

This endorsement apparently resulted in a swelling of over 50,000 new registered voters in the state before the deadline, which obviously caught some conservative pundits by surprise, as they figured that the average age of Swift's audience was 13.  Apparently, some of those young teens have grown up since Taylor first appeared on the music stage and can now vote!

Celebrity endorsements abound, but as we saw in 2016 they don't matter much.  Trump won Ohio despite LeBron James' effusive endorsement of Hillary Clinton.  She also had Demi Lovato working with her throughout most of the campaign but to no avail.  Not even Bruce could save Hillary!

While Trump is not officially on the ballot, he is acting like it, saying that a vote for Republican candidates is a vote for him.  Of course, this is what Democrats want voters to think as well, as they rally behind their candidates in battleground states, which have grown to include Tennessee and Texas, where the improbably seems distantly possible given how unpopular Republicans are right now.  A generic CNN survey puts them a whopping 13 points behind the Democrats going into the midterms.  Also, there appeared to be no "Kavanaugh bounce" for the Republicans.

Maybe this is why GOP election boards are trying to suppress Black voters rather than embrace them as Donald would want Republicans to do.  Yet, Kanye would have us believe it is the Democrats who are suppressing Blacks in America.

This seems an especially odd statement to make since there are more Black Democratic candidates than ever before, including the first Black Democratic governor nominee in Florida.  If this party is so bad for Blacks, why do so many Blacks continue to not only support the party but run as candidates for the party?

What is even more odd is that Kanye can't let the 13th amendment go.  In his Oval Office rant, he referred to it as a "trap door," before falling into free verse.  No one has any real idea what he meant by this, notably Trump who just sat there speechless, but it does have many people wondering if Kanye needs to check back into rehab.

It might behoove Kanye to know that a Republican Congress wrote the 13th amendment and a Republican President ratified that amendment expressly to abolish slavery so that one day persons like him could be free to express themselves in our society.  This was no "trap door" but rather a badly needed correction to the Constitution, which had enshrined slavery.

His friends like Dave Chappelle tell us Kanye has a big heart but sometimes lets his emotions get the better of him.  He's using his Yeezy brand to promote low-cost housing, and schools, which he calls "centers of ideation."  You have to hand it to the guy for getting an audience with the President ostensibly to promote these efforts, even hydrogen-powered airplanes, which he claimed he is working with Apple to produce.  No such confirmation from Apple and so far all these efforts remain on paper.

Taylor Swift was decidedly more low key in her support.  It's not like she threw a concert for former Gov. Bredesen, or even jointed him on the campaign trail.  She simply issued a statement on social media and the mainstream media went nuts.  It makes you wonder who has more clout here?

Pundits like former Gov. Huckabee seem to forget that Swift is almost 30 years old, and at the peak of her popularity, having garnered an impressive haul at the recent American Music Awards, using the stage to reinforce her political beliefs.  This is not just Swifties in Tennessee, but music fans all around the country.  Most of them young, but many voting age and anxious to demonstrate their power to vote.

This is unusual in a non-presidential election year.  Usually, no one takes any real interest, even if these elections affect state residents far more than does the man in the White House.  It's not just US and state legislators on the ballots, but any number of referendums that have a direct impact on residents.  Unfortunately, voter turn-out is notoriously low in mid-terms. 

Back in 2014, Matt Bevin won Governor of Kentucky, when only 19% of the state residents turned out to vote.  That meant the health insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion former Democratic  Gov. Beshear worked so hard to bring to the state were cut over the next four years because not enough people showed interest to vote.

It seems celebrities are now concentrating more on their home states, seeing the impact of these policies on their friends and loved ones.  Others, like Kanye, seem to be grooming themselves for political office.  Given that he recently announced his move to Chicago, it seems that Yeezus wants to run for Mayor of the City, since a 2020 Presidential run now seems out of the question given his effusive love for the Donald.  Apparently, Kim will stay in LA.

While there is not much chance Taylor Swift will be able to bail Phil Bredesen out in Tennessee, it sets the stage for 2020, when it seems there will be many more registered voters given all this new found interest in politics.  The fact that conservative politicians continue to take aim at the LGBT community and politically assault women in politics is having its blowback among the young musical and Hollywood elite, which previously had been largely apolitical.  They have a pretty "yuge" following in social media.

The demographics are shifting in many so-called red states, and if the Republicans don't do more to reach out to women and minorities in this country, they may soon find themselves "Swifted."