Europe’s desperate, and unfulfilled, longing for Taylor Swift’s approval

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Pity the poor lawmakers of Europe, casting envious glances across the Atlantic at the political pulling power of Taylor Swift.

Even Donald Trump, a man not normally lacking in self-confidence, is terrified of Swift endorsing Joe Biden.

Hours before the Super Bowl kicked off — a game in which the pop star featured prominently on TV as her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce, was playing — Trump took to social media to claim that a possible endorsement of Biden would be disloyal to her moneymaker.

“There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country,” Trump wrote as a cat walked across his keyboard, pausing occasionally to sit on the caps lock key, “and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money. Besides that, I like her boyfriend, Travis, even though he may be a Liberal, and probably can’t stand me!”

Trump’s claim was based in his 2018 signing of the Music Modernization Act; although Taylor Swift didn’t benefit much from it.

So we can now add Swift disloyalty to the list of things Trump is afraid of — alongside sharks, having fruit thrown at him (no, really) and, presumably, looking in the mirror.

In Europe, the battle to get Swift (and her legions of fans) on board has long been raging. When Liz Truss was inexplicably in the running to be British prime minister, she had the inside track on getting Swift’s coveted backing, ahead of her rival Rishi Sunak.

Truss had posed for a picture with Swift — and posted it on Instagram — at an awards ceremony in 2019 when she was chief secretary to the Treasury (Truss that is, not Swift — who has never, as far as I can tell, held any senior roles in the British Treasury). Truss also quoted the lyrics to Swift’s song “The Man” in the House of Commons during an International Women’s Day debate in 2020.

And then there’s the European Union, where Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas has tried to get the pop star help boost turnout for the European election.

“I very much hope that someone from her media team follows this press conference and relays our request to her,” Schinas said last month.

Swift launches the European leg of her record-breaking Eras Tour in the spring and will be performing in Paris on May 9, which is Europe Day. Maybe she’ll make an onstage plea for Europe’s leaders to respect the Spitzenkandidat process!

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Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s deputy EU editor.