Is Taylor Swift secretly a government tool being used to sway public opinion via millions of teen girls? Fox News seems to think so. The right-wing news organization recently declared the 34-year-old singer a psyop for the Pentagon.
This latest conspiracy theory was floated by Fox’s anchor, Jesse Watters. Now that Tucker Carlson is gone, Watters is Fox’s token hot-take conservative grifter whose laughable Taylor Swift theory is just another attempt to pander to his audience.
“Around four years ago, the Pentagon psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting.”
Jesse WattersThe clip above features a woman who allegedly works for the Department of Defense talking about using Taylor Swift as an “asset” to combat online misinformation. The pundit then asked why Swift was even famous before suggesting that the U.S. government recruited her for propaganda purposes. To benefit the left, of course.
“I like her music,” Watters said insincerely. “She’s all right, but I mean, have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?” Did he mean “blew up” as in gradually got to where she is over the course of a nearly 20-year career full of consistently well-received albums and singles?
No, we never wondered how a talented, hard-working—and let’s face it—conventionally attractive blonde pop star got popular. No one has.
Except for Jesse Watters, that is. Watters apparently found/created an answer to his asinine query, and that is that Taylor Swift is a government asset. “Around four years ago, the Pentagon psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting,” claims Watters.
“What kind of asset? A psyop for combatting online misinformation.”
Jesse WattersWatters then proceeded to show an edited clip of the alleged Department of Defense worker laying out the whole “plan.”
The woman in the video explained that social influence could help counter misinformation and even help to encourage a change in the way society behaves as a whole. The speaker used Taylor Swift as an example: “She’s, you know, a fairly influential online person.”
Following the clip, Jesse Watters claimed that other musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Elvis Presley, and, of course, Michael Jackson, were all previously government assets. In case you couldn’t guess already, the reason Watters is so concerned with Taylor Swift’s status as a modern-day Manchurian Candidate is that she endorses Joe Biden for president and has publicly encouraged her fans to vote in the upcoming election.
Regardless of whether Taylor Swift being a psyop is problematic or not, it turned out that Watter was—shocker!—being dishonest with his viewers. The clip he showed was footage from a 2019 cybersecurity conference organized by NATO and coincidentally not involving the “Pentagon’s psychological operations unit,” as Watters had previously alleged.
Following the clip, Jesse Watters claimed that other musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Elvis Presley, and, of course, Michael Jackson, were all previously government assets.
As for the “Department of Defense” worker who spoke in the video, she was actually Alicia Marie Bargar, a data and research engineer speaking at the 11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict on behalf of John Hopkins University.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon responded to Watter’s claims with all of the seriousness the Fox News host deserves—a pun based on a Taylor Swift song. Official Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in a statement that when it comes to Watters’ Tay Tay psyop “conspiracy theory,” the government organization would “shake it off.”
Personally, we would have gone with calling the area between Jesse Watters’ ears a “Blank Space,” but theirs was good, too.
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