There are few people as insignificant in the world of politics as George Santos, but will that prevent the 35-year-old toddler from adding his inane opinions at any available opportunity? Of course it won’t.
The disgraced former New York congressman put his lack of brain power on full display in mid-March, when he decided to take a pot shot at one of the most successful musicians on the planet: Taylor Swift. Because that’s never gone poorly for anyone before. Santos, upon discovering that Swift endorsed President Joe Biden for a second time, decided it was time to resuscitate a joke that, at this point, feels older than the president himself.
Countless people have taken aim at Swift in the past, and one overarching criticism almost always finds its way into their arguments. Swift, who is easily among the world’s most popular musicians, writes about what she knows. And, as an attractive, hugely eligible young woman seeking a partner, that means she writes quite a bit about love, heartbreak, and relationships. You don’t have to like it, but criticizing her for writing about the same thing most people write songs about is nothing but silly. Just say you’re jealous and get on with it.
Santos, clearly among the jealous masses — who would, without a single doubt, rush to defend her if she were endorsing Trump instead of Biden — decided to add his two cents into the mix with a recent eye-roll of a tweet. Regurgitating the same tired old criticism, Santos promptly found himself in the crosshairs of the global Swift fandom. A scary place to be, when that fanbase stretches through countless countries and, in the U.S. alone, makes up of at least 53% of the adult population.
Santos tweeted out, upon seeing that Swift endorsed Biden, that it “makes sense since 95% of her songs are about choosing the wrong guy.” Proving that an original thought has never found a home in his head, Santos went on to say that “we can all expect a Taylor Swift revenge song on Biden in 2025.”
The exhaustingly unoriginal “joke” did not land the way Santos expected it to, and the 35-year-old failure of a congressperson was promptly provided an education in Swiftdom. Even as people were piling on him for his utterly abysmal track record — which saw him lie about almost every one of his qualifications, face 23 criminal indictments, and ultimately be booted from his position after less than a year — they were pointing out the massive gap between Santos and his target. On one side we have an international pop star with a fanbase millions deep and a net worth to match, and on the other we have a lair, fraudster, and cringe-worthy smear on American politics. Which is a pretty solid analogy for the Democratic/Republican divide in the U.S., if you think about it.
Past pointing out the repetitive nature of his try-hard joke, commenters piled onto the Santos tweet with unmatched zeal. Mocking him for being a stellar example of “choosing the wrong guy,” people even leaned on some classic Swift lyrics to drag Santos to Nashville and back.
The comments make one thing blatantly clear — Santos is punching way out of his weight class here. He’s a disgrace of a former politician, with nothing but a criminal record, embarrassingly short tenure in office, and bad taste in jokes to fall back on. Taylor Swift is an international superstar worth nearly a billion dollars, happily enjoying a relationship with an NFL star, and riding high on the most successful music tour of all time. Maybe Santos could learn to pick his battles better.