From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Why Taylor Swift Is The Sign Of A Declining Society

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Sean and Rachel sit down to share their reaction to the second Republican Primary Debate with co-host of FOX & Friends Weekend and host of The Will Cain Podcast Will Cain. Later, they are joined by Book Editor at the Federalist Mark Hemingway, to talk about his latest article criticizing Taylor Swift's music, and Mark lays out the reasons why he believes the values and themes shared in her albums are reflective of the societal decline seen across the United States. Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RachelCamposDuffy   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey, everyone. Welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy.

Boy, we have a great show today. So we're going to be talking to Mark Hemingway, who wrote an explosive piece in The Federalist. It's been picked up by the Daily Mail. He's become a villain on Twitter. What a brave guy, because he took on Taylor Swift. He wrote an article about why he thinks the rise and the popularity and the ubiquity of Taylor Swift is actually a sign of the demise of our society and our civilization. He's taking all kinds of arrows. He's going to break it down and explain why he thinks Taylor is the symbol of civilizational decline in America. Absolutely. The Swifties are after him. But there was a Fox Business debate last night, and we sat down and had a conversation with Will Kane on the Will Kane podcast.

It's going to air tomorrow night or Friday morning. And we want to take a snippet of that conversation and share it with you. Kind of a prelude, a foreshadowing of what's to come. Full 50-minute hour conversation with Will. We're going to give you a little bit of that right now. So see that on our podcast. Watch the full thing on the Will Kane podcast tomorrow morning. So check this out.

All right. All right. Here we go here. I want to I was going to start with saying what you how did you how did you rank the debate participants in the Republican primary debate? But Sean came in unfiltered and tried to very naively and like a rookie move, wanted to do it before the recording started. And I said, Duffy, what are you doing? Give it to me raw, all right? Now, tell me your thoughts. Are we actually doing this podcast right now, Will? This is it, man. This is the way it's done. All right, so...

You thought that we were still in, like, the break. Yeah, I thought we were just in, like, hangout mode, but okay, that's fine. I'm gonna give it to you raw, because I saw one of your tweets, and I have a lot of respect for you. I think you're a well-thought-out man. You analyze things. Over-analyze things.

And over-analyze things. But I saw your tweet. You said Ron DeSantis won, and second place was Doug Burgum. And I'm like, what debate was Will Kane watching? And you and I both, I like Doug Burgum. I think he's a nice guy. I think he's a great businessman. He's great from North Dakota.

I'm a northern guy myself, think he's, I mean, he's a great businessman. He's great from North Dakota. I'm a Northern guy myself. So he kind of speaks my language. I love kind of the cadence and the niceness of him, but you got to have confidence. You got to lay your vision out for America with some gusto and slow your conversation down a little bit. Not Mike Pence slow, but slow it down and lay the vision out. And I thought he still seemed rattled. And so because I didn't have any confidence in what he was saying, even though

it was smart, but I didn't have confidence in it, he fell for me. And he was my dark horse in the last Will Kane podcast we did after the first debate. And he didn't elevate. So I think you're 100% wrong as your number two it was not uh doug brookham so i'm just gonna give it to you straight let's talk about nikki haley i i had nikki haley as one of my big losers of the night um and rachel you said it last night and um you said it again here today that you thought she was feisty and a winner um surprisingly she came out of debate number one for me as one of the winners i think her poll numbers went up slightly and people said she had done well i didn't see that after the

first debate i don't see it after the second debate for nikki haley but this one was worse for me i just think that interrupting is a diminishing factor on the speaker and tim scott it's not gender i don't think this is about her being a woman because I think Tim Scott was worse at it than her last night. And Tim Scott diminished himself. For example, Tim Scott had a great challenge to Vivek Ramaswamy about his business dealings in China. And then he never let Vivek squirm on the hook or he never let Vivek answer the question. He kept interrupting going, I just want to know. I want to know. It's just a question. He kept doing that. And you couldn't hear Vivek. You couldn't hear Tim Scott. And it made Tim Scott smaller the more he did that. And I thought Nikki was guilty of the same thing. It comes off as bickering and small, not not strong and big. That's my takeaway from what happened to Nikki Haley last night. Rachel? I think you're right on, like, I didn't like the comment when she said, you know, listening to you makes me

dumber. She made some comment like that. I thought that was silly. But I do think, look, I mean, she was the only woman on the stage, and I think she made her presence known. I thought she seemed really smart and informed on a lot of things. I don't agree with her on anything. I wouldn't. It would be me if she becomes the nominee, because I do think she's super establishment.

They really had so much high hopes for him. And he's and because he I don't know, you know, he just can't connect with all the support he's gotten from from very powerful people on the right. And and I think the people who want someone other than Trump are very powerful people in this country. And they, you know, hope hope is always, you know, eternal for them. You know, spring's eternal for them in the hopes of getting rid of Donald Trump. And I think they've put their new hope in Nikki Haley, you know, because she seemed, you know, she's a woman. She shares their establishment

views probably more authentically even than Ron DeSantis, who seems like he's caught between what he really thinks and the donor money on Ukraine. I do think he probably leans closer to Donald Trump on that, but hasn't been able to articulate it because he needs that donor money, which also, to me, speaks to his character. Because I just think you should just say what you think, and you can never feel bad about how it all ends when you do what you really think. But it is right. But I think that she is winning the hearts of the donors. Do I think she's winning the hearts of the base? No. But I do think she's winning the hearts of donors and independents and liberal women.

And the donors are looking at that very favorably. So, well, can I answer that question, too? I 100% agree with you. We share a brain. Well, you get it from me, not from me. You should get married. OK, here's here's here's Here's a couple points on this. So the first is there are two categories in politics. There is the Bush lane and there's the Donald Trump America first lane. And Nikki Haley falls

under the George Bush neocon lane that might be 18 to 22% of the Republican primary voter. You're never going to get across that threshold, though, above 20%. Where Ron DeSantis, he is an America first candidate. You're right, he's had some issues on Ukraine. But I think the donor, if we're talking about the donor class, they understand that. They understand if you're smart, they understand the party's moved. And they might like her. They might think that she's got a better pathway against Trump They might like her. They might think that she's got a better pathway against Trump than DeSantis.

But if they really think about it, she's not going to get a ton more money because she can never win. It'll be Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis that come through the primary. But I want to go back to what you said about it was really frustrating for me as well, Will, when she kept interrupting. And at some point in the debate, there's all this crosstalk and they're all trying to fight on who's going to be recognized. And I expect that to happen. But at one point, you got to shut up and whoever's getting the floor, you got to let them speak. And you're right, she never let Vivek actually complete thoughts. And for me, it brings

me back to liberals, because liberals are trying to shut down conservative speech. It's not because they're confident in their own liberal ideology. It's because they're not confident. They can't have an argument. They can't have a debate with a conservative. So instead of debating, they silence you on social media. They try to demonize you into not speaking what you really believe. And she did the same thing last night. Be confident, be strong, let them speak and then come back and respond if you can, but just talking over them. So no one hears anything for me, that was a sign. And you said this as well. It was a sign of weakness, but also it's even more grating because that's what the left is doing to conservatives right now. And really for me, like, I think she's going nowhere.

So this is so let's depart from the debate for just one moment. Sean, you said you said you think 18 to 22 percent of the Republican electorate primary electorate is still in that Bush neocon vein. Yeah, I think that all three of us, being honest with the audience and with ourselves, are probably more in that populist America first lane. And we would all three acknowledge that we have had some movement in our own political ideologies over time. And I know that many of the things that I believe today would not be the things I would have believed 10 years ago. And I think we're all, yeah, and we all are honest about that. But I don't have an answer to my own question. So I'm asking you guys this, you know, with genuine curiosity here. We also all think that Donald Trump stands apart from the field, that he is singular in many ways as a politician. populist direction and America first direction of the Republican Party. What I'm curious about is, does that movement have energy outside of Donald Trump?

What I mean by that is those that bet on that 18 to 22 percent or that bet on Nikki Haley or or Tim Scott, are they are they right that without Donald Trump, that's where the Republican electorate and the Republican Party returns? Do you see what I mean? If Donald Trump weren't running for president, if Donald Trump weren't running for president and maybe maybe maybe even I don't want to use DeSantis because I think Rachel's right about DeSantis, his own personality limitations that may be impact to this debate. But there was another candidate representing America first. And I think Vivek has his own personality quirkiness as well that impacts this analysis. Yeah. But if there were a cardboard cutout of an America first candidate, right, voicing populist points of view. Do you think they'd be polling at 60, 70 percent? It's actually something like if you count Trump and DeSantis together, it's like 80 percent. Right. But if it were that cardboard cutout and not the Vake or DeSantis or Trump,

do you still think they'd be polling at 80 percent or the Nikki Haley's and the Tim Scott's would return to defining republicanism? So to answer your question, well, I think it's a really good one. I think that Donald Trump has changed the Republican Party, just like Ronald Reagan changed the Republican Party. And Reagan had an impact. He still has an impact today. We saw it last night. The idea, the philosophy, the viewpoint that Republicans have, go many of them back to Reagan. And I think the party's changed. I mean, and again, we'll use Ron DeSantis winning with, you know, what, by 10 points in Florida in the last election. And almost every candidate

that's running for Congress, for governor, for Senate, for dog catcher, they've in some way been using the America first ideology and viewpoint to put their constituents, their people first, not this globalism, you know, not the elites ability to sell more goods, you know, into foreign markets. It's what's best for America and her people. And that's why I think this is going to be long lasting well beyond Donald Trump. And that's why you see it in campaigns all across the country that Donald Trump doesn't touch, that doesn't know about. But the ideas are there. And before you answer, Rachel, I mean, before you answer, Rachel, do we agree that the Tea Party, do you think the Tea Party had a lasting effect? So the I think in many ways, the Tea Party actually did have some

some lasting effects, but it's marginal. It's on the edges. I see you shaking your head. Sean was elected by the Tea Party. Sean was elected in that Tea Party sweep that brought in 90-something Republicans. So Rachel, what makes this different than the Tea Party? I'll let Sean answer that because I think he's closer to it. The Tea Party was really about debt, right?

We're spending too much money. We were what? We were at- Healthcare also. $15 trillion of debt at the time. Healthcare, right? We're $33 trillion in debt. We're spending massive amounts of money.

The Republican Party is gearing up for a shutdown. They can't pass a bill that they agree on. And by the way, it's a very small majority. It's really hard to do. But they can agree on what spending cuts they can all get around to go into a shutdown because Democrats won't agree with the Republican bill. But can they go to a shutdown and argue to the American people that they're right-cutting spending? The Tea Party's dead. And if the Tea Party was alive, that probably wouldn't happen. They probably wouldn't be coalescing around a set of numbers.

Healthcare, Obamacare is still alive and is really talked about. It came up last night in a debate, but really they haven't gone after that. But these ideas, the ideas, again, I would have never said, let's build a wall before Donald Trump. We have to secure the border. I felt that, but I didn't feel like I could say that. Donald Trump let us all talk about an insecure border. That I'm a free trader, Will. I don't believe that we should have tariffs in trade. But when Donald Trump says, yeah, but we don't have any tariffs and people sell goods into our market tariff-free,

but when we try to sell into their market, they put tariffs on our goods. Is that really free trade? Let's treat them the same way they treat us. And I'm like, huh, that's actually probably pretty smart. We actually probably should do that. And so I think this is an earthquake shake in the party that stays. Rachel?

I'm sorry. No, no, no. Oh, I'm so glad you laid it out that way. And of course, you're closer to it from having been a candidate during the Tea Party revolution. you know, been a candidate during the Tea Party, you know, revolution. So first of all, I think Donald Trump's influence, and it's hard for us to appreciate because as Americans, we're so, we just think about America, right? And that's sort of like the American mindset. But I, you know, I grew up all over the world. I'm a military brat. I have a lot of connections all over the world in that regard. And this is global. I mean, you see, you know, Millet is probably going to win in Argentina.

Bolsonaro's impact, you know, he was ousted, you know, probably, you know, through big tech and with the help of our CIA. But, you know, he's he's a Brazil first person. You have Santiago Amascal gaining ground in Spain. You have Hungary, you have other movements. And they are all if you talk to that, those people, if you look at their social media, they're looking at Donald Trump. They call themselves the Donald Trump of Argentina or the Donald Trump of Spain or or Brazil or wherever. And so this is a globalist reaction to what this this globalist movement and Donald Trump is the head of it, not just in America, but he's considered the face and the head of it globally. And so I think it's really fascinating when you get outside and look at his influence. He is the most famous man in the world, in the world right now. And Democrats are trying to decide who our candidate is. I mean, I get frustrated

because I mean, I work for this network. I love my network that they've been they've been good to us. I'm glad we have this debate. It's important to air out these ideas. But in many ways, the primary is over. And he you know, everyone talks about the elephant that wasn't in the room. And that, of course, was Donald Trump. And we have a huge we have a huge number of Republicans who are voting for him for these ideas. Some of it is revenge vote. Some people are really still very angry about what happened in the 2020 election. They don't feel like it was on the up and up. And it's obvious from the Hunter Biden laptop that that story alone would have changed the election in 2020. And then you have people who are just upset at what's happening, you know, right now, that the persecution of

Donald Trump reminds them of the persecution of people who questioned that election on January 6th. It reminds them of all the different tiers of justice that we have, where we have, you know, if you're the president's son, you can, you, you can have an illegal gun and and you can have shell companies and you can do all this kind of stuff. If you're if you're the right color and you're looting, you're going to get away with it. You know, there's there's something very fundamental happening. And I think this is supporting Donald Trump is a a quiet way that you can protest without necessarily having to put a Donald Trump hat on. You can tell. Well, I really like the point about what's going on across. I really like the point about what's going on across the globe.

It does suggest this isn't a flash in the pan moment, that this is a much larger and longer lasting movement than just one figure, one guy in Donald Trump. We'll have more of this conversation after this. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor, editor at large of The Spectator and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. I'm inviting you to join in-depth conversations every week on the Ben Domenech podcast. Listen and follow now at FoxNewsPodcast.com. For the rest of this conversation, go to the Will Cain podcast. And now for our conversation with the very brave Mark Hemingway from The Federalist.

So, Mark, you wrote an article that is getting a lot of attention. The title of it is Taylor Swift's popularity is a sign of societal decline. So before we go into, you know, your thesis on this, I think it's fascinating. Let's first establish, because you've written for MTV.com. You know a lot about music. You're not just some, you know, dad writing about Taylor Swift and your thoughts. You actually have a background in music. And I think it's important that we kind of, you at least lay that out a little bit before.

Yeah, I was a hack indie rock musician back in the day. I had some success at it. I played all the big clubs in D.C. You know, my high school band opened for the offspring. I mean, I did a whole bunch of stuff in music for a long time. A lot of friends that work in the industry and a lot of friends that to this day are still, you know, music producers and other things of note. You know, I know a lot about music, yes. And in addition to my writing about politics, I kind of have an adaptation as a new creed.

So, yeah, I don't take this stuff lightly. It wasn't like something I tossed off to the side. I've been thinking about it a long time. Right. You're not just sounding off here. You have some background. So let's talk about societal decline as it relates to Taylor Swift. Unpack that for us. Give us your thoughts and thesis to Taylor Swift. Unpack that for us.

Give us your thoughts and thesis on Taylor Swift and what it means for America. Well, first off, I just want to be clear about something. What is that? My article is primarily focused on music. You know, obviously, when you're dealing with a pop star of the caliber and popularity of Taylor Swift, you know, there's got to be some baggage involved, right? So she's in this larger cultural context and there are some asides in there about feminism things like that but the bulk of my

argument was you know strictly about music um you know which boils down to kind of two things one is that her music is actually incredibly if you're like attuned to the actual like mechanics of the music it's incredibly repetitive she uses the same exact chord changes over and over and over again um you know it's got different window dressing because the production's different or whatever it is but you know once you're sort of attuned to that you just keep hearing the same song from taylor swift over and over again you know i guess to some extent if it's not broke don't fix it but you know if you go back and listen to when i talk about this you know the beatles catalog or even just pop music in the 80s but it's like you know

more of a dominant cultural force in some ways there's a lot more variety in terms of like what you know listeners are conditioned to hear um you know and i think that that's kind of dumbing us down you know if you only hear you know a one five six four chord change every time you turn on radio you're just learning to like not appreciate music and kind of like grow culturally so that's the music component then there's kind of the lyrical component which is that overwhelmingly taylor swift songs are kind of self-obsessed there's like so many bad breakup songs about things that people have done to her rather than any sort of introspection. Bob Dylan doesn't write a whole lot of songs about how everyone else has done him wrong.

The great artists, I think, are ones that really force us to examine our own mistakes and our own condition. like examine our own mistakes and our own condition. And so much about Taylor Swift, you know, is, is this like out of this sort of shallow female empowerment saying where, you know, the world is out to get her just by virtue of the fact that she's a young woman.

And I don't think that's necessarily the case. And, you know, that just feeds into the larger drama of her own personal life and all her celebrity relationships and stuff like that. I didn't realize until after I read the article that one of the songs I wrote about extensively was about our great football Jake Gyllenhaal

for crying out loud. It's just a lot to handle. Yeah, her love life has not been very successful. Maybe she'll have more luck now with this new football player that she's, that she's Travis Kelsey, that she's apparently dating. But let's talk about that, because you say that her lyrics come from this sort of me generation, that this started out in the 70s where people started, you know, to talk about me and separate themselves, say, from their community.

And it became more about them. And she's sort of the fruition of this. So is is she moving girl culture if you will i'm going to use that term girl culture female culture feminism into this narcissism or is she just reflecting the narcissism that is part of pop culture yeah i mean i think the culture was kind of already there they just need kind of an avatar and as it were to rise up and seize that mantle um you know which is fine i mean i think the pop music is going to reflect popular case you know it's kind of you can get nearer back to us the listeners to some extent you know i mean i think the great but i think the really great pop artists you know

bob dylan of course is like the pinnacle you know he's won a nobel prize for literature problem with deserving winners of that pride in recent years um or even just you know lesser artists you know i don't know prince or sting or something like that are people that have this artistic vision that takes i think people to a different place rather than just kind of reflecting back to them the values that are being imposed on them by other cultural forces and so i don't think that she's necessarily uh breaking any ground there. And for an artist of her caliber to be that popular and to also just kind of be that shallow. Again, like I said, it's the thing about society. You used to like venerate these artists that forced us into sort of new artistic visions and ways of thinking about things, you know, for good or for ill.

Sometimes those new artistic visions were always great. But, you know, it was at least pushing us in a different direction and making us re-evaluate things and other things. So, Mark, I can't sing, I can't dance, and I can't play an instrument, but I do like music.

I do like listening to music. And so I wonder, you know, music touches the human heart and the soul and it moves us, whatever, you know, whatever genre we like listening to. And you're talking about the lyrics and the music itself is being dumbed down. I wonder if there's a correlation between that and this, you know, what's happened on social media. I mean, you watch a 10 second video on TikTok or on Instagram and it's really short.

And so people can't sit down and read a book or a long article. And so I wonder if there's this now thing that happens that like, just, I gotta have the same, I don't have the same range and reach and interest in different music that kind of inspires me. I just want this same repetitive thing over and over again. Is there a crossover, is my, I guess my question, into what's happening on the social media? Give it to me quick. And if not, I'm going to scroll to something else.

I think it's very observant. I think that's kind of exactly right. That plays a huge factor in what's happening. When we were growing up, from when I get into the get off my lawn phase of this, you kind of listen to albums. You were buying albums. Very often you buy an album that had anywhere from like 9 to 14 tracks or something

like that and you wouldn't like all you know but you know what because you paid you know 18 dollars or whatever for that cd you know um you you know you would listen to the whole album you know multiple times and you know after you listen to something multiple times you learn that that you know that third song on the you know that you you listen to something multiple times, you learn that that, you know, that third song on the, you know, that you really didn't like, after you listened to a few times, it grew on you and you realized there was more going on there than you heard at first pass. And you learn to sort of appreciate these things. You know, my kids are primarily hooked up to Spotify and this like drives me insane. And I actually try and take active measures to get them out of their comfort zone musically.

3,000 vinyl LPs in my house have forced them to listen to this. But yeah, if you're not forced to listen to albums, then you have everything at your disposal in terms of what you listen to. Of course, people are going to go straight for the ear candy. They're going to go straight for the shallow stuff that makes you immediately feel good. It has a chorus that kicks in five seconds into the song. And yeah, that's a reflection of the broader sort of societal, you know, social media thing where it's all dopamine hits all the time and it's affecting music as well. So let's talk a little bit about your daughters because what you have done in taking on Taylor Swift in this way, I don't know if you know what you swatted before you actually published this on The Federalist.

I encourage everyone to go to The Federalist and and and read the whole article is very good. Taylor Swift's popularity is a sign of societal decline. So I once was on Fox and Friends and said something about Jay-Z. And I said, you know, Jay-Z had said something about Donald Trump. And I said, well, what the hell has Jay-Z ever done for black people? Well, it wasn't the Jay-Z fans. It was the Beyonce, the Bayhive that came after me. And by the time I left the New York studio and got home to Wisconsin, where I was living at the time, my kids, it had just exploded

on the internet and social media. And I walked in the door and my kids said, Mom, the whole world hates you. How do you feel now after having written this article about Taylor Swift? And it sort of got a second leg, if you will, because then, you know, Taylor Swift at the football game with the Chiefs football game and Travis Kelsey, you got like two hits of this. What's your life been since this article has exploded? And what's your whole life with your girls? What is their reaction to it? You know, that's funny. I'm pretty fortunate in that my older daughter has inherited pretty darn sophisticated musical tastes like good parenting my younger daughter's

kind of a little into tennis but not like you know super into whatever so you know she and she does and on top of that because i'm a sane person i don't't have my kids online all the time, you know, barely at all. So they aren't subject to this sort of broader mind control experiment that would make them hate me or turn them against me in that sort of way. As for all the other stuff, I mean, part of the reason why I wrote this article is like I felt like I was going insane. Like, you know, we're all confirmed Gen Xers, right? And so like when we were growing up, like our musical heroes were all very countercultural in sort of a meaningfulers, right? And so, like, when we were growing up, like, our musical heroes were all very countercultural in sort of a meaningful way, right? You know, the broader establishment, the medium, all these other things, and they did not care

about, you know, Who's For You or Black Flag or Pump Bands or anything like that, things that I like from. And the idea now that the number one artist among, you know, young people and other things like that in the New York Times is just writing piece after piece after piece about how what a cultural phenomenon and wonderful person she is and whatever and the idea that when I was growing up

I would have taken that as a sign of something I should have been inherently suspicious of. I feel like younger people need to be much more suspicious of the things that the culture are forcing on them in a way that we all had growing up as Gen Xers, especially. There's no counterculture, culturalism anymore among the youth. They're just not.

Yeah, right. The counter counterculture has now become the counterculture. I mean, it's really strange, as it were. You know, it's kind of hard to unpack all that. But yeah, it's really strange that the New York Times cultural critics and New Yorker

cultural critics will be going out of their way to like heap praises on Taylor Swift about what an important artist she is. She's just not.

You know, I get why she's popular and I'm not like, you know, there's a lot of things that can be said about her. She's got an amazing work ethic. She treats her fans

extremely well. You know, there's a lot of things that can be said about her. She's got an amazing work ethic. She treats her fans extremely well. You know, there's a lot of things that can be said about her that are positive. And I can say those things, you know, I'll try and say those things. But don't try and tell me the amazing things. Perfect. Just don't. It's not. We all know it's not.

I mean, like I said in the piece, you know, somebody has to stand at the work history yelling, what is this nonsense? And it might as well be someone like me. You're willing to take the arrows. But it comes from a Gen X man who was used to fighting the man. You know, we're not going to take it. And so I appreciate that. But I wonder if, you know, you talk about the New York Times and you talk about just

how compliant these kids are and they kind of fall in line with, you know, where the New York Times is at as a music critic, which, again, in and of itself is odd. And Taylor Swift started as a country music, right? And she's made this transition to pop. And she's also made a transition. It seems she was apolitical or didn't express her political views. But now she's come out and been very progressive in her viewpoints. And I wonder if there's a connection with not just her music, but the politics are very useful for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the left wing media, where they can use Taylor Swift and her cultural relevance to push their political agreement on these young, young fans of Taylor Swift.

these young young fans of taylor swift yeah no i mean obviously you know you you just can't exist at that level in terms of cultural influence anymore without people swarming you know making work for the cause as it were you know yeah there was definitely this monolithic you know approach to politics among our cultural elites that pushes toward you know ever left-leaning you know nonsense i mean yes taylor swift is doing big book registration drives at her massive world tour or whatever. Like they, you know, they can't leave alone. In fact, I don't know if you remember this, but I remember this was like five, six years ago or whatever.

There was this massive campaign online to force Taylor Swift to say something about Donald Trump because she just hadn't said anything. Yes. And it was like truly bizarre. Wasn't that she'd said anything positive about him. They like were trying to force her off the fence because you couldn't just be a neutral cultural figure. And, you know, it's funny.

I've gotten like I've known a lot of musicians over the years. I know a number of big name musicians that are in the closet politically, basically. It's not that they're even like hardcore right wingers. It's just that they can't say anything. We've seen a couple of things recently where Alice Cooper, you know, who's a Christian and interesting guy, come out and said something about trans kids. And a man, you know, the guitarist for Kiss came out and said something about trans kids and people just like lost their minds.

Like you can't be a figure of any cultural significance and have any heterodox opinion. And it didn't used to be the case. In fact, music used to be interesting precisely because you go back to the 60s and 70s. And like I said, you know, these guys weren't always advocating, you know, good or wholesome things, but they were definitely not afraid to speak their mind. They were definitely willing to be heterodox. And we just don't have that in music, or frankly, any major cultural form anymore. I mean, I think it's gotten so monolithic,

you're starting to see things break through, certainly in the film industry. You know, things like Jesus Revolution phenomenon or the Senator Freedom movie. People are so tired of this sort of monolithic that uh you know there's bound to be some stuff breaking out in the margins so i'm hopeful i'm hopeful we have some sort of like nirvana moment to music here again soon because it's just so stayed both in terms of the music in terms of the cultural attitudes everything like i said i don't

expect you know whatever breaks through to be something that has to be something I agree with or, you know, necessarily even like. I just want it to be different. I just want it to be something exciting. I just want it to be something that forces me to think about things, you know, differently in our, you know, a new artistic vision that brings us along with them

rather than just feeding back these, you know, miserable, you know, shallow values back to us. We'll have more of this conversation after this. So what so tell me, give me some names. What is the perfect pop star? Let's not like Bob Dylan. I mean, he's not really a pop star, right? I mean, he that's a different thing. Right. Let's go. Let's move a little more forward. Let's go 80s, 90s, even today. Name me some people who are pop stars or were pop stars, maybe some of them are dead, but who pop stars who sort of embody that thing you're

talking about, that it's both commercial, but it takes us to this other level, forces us to think about things, isn't as commercial you know sort of maybe too accessible and too trite um and and superficial as you described taylor so i think the 80s in a lot of ways were kind of the pinnacle of this thing where you had just like absolute master craft but at the same time it was so well done that you know these were like in a big rave hit so i mean i saw peter gabriel last week obviously peter gabriel wasn't you know in the were like, you know, big radio hits. I mean, I saw Peter Gabriel last week. Obviously, Peter Gabriel was, you know, the cultural phenomenon he once was, but then at the top of his game in the 80s,

I mean, like, those records are incredible. I mean, some of the best musicians on the planet, right, in radio hits that are incredibly musically sophisticated. There's a lot of, you know, cultural commentary there. You know, Peter Gabriel, you know, the amazing stuff in terms of apartheid and stuff like that, but things like that. And I think causes that were things that everyone could agree on that were pretty darn

worthy. In fact, when I saw him on Wednesday night, he did a whole thing where part of his concert, the art for it was done by a, we, why is this Chinese dissident or whatever, you know, how many pop stars, you know, we've seen this stuff with LeBron. They want the China market, Mark. They're not going to say anything about chinese dissidents exactly peter gabriel's in his 70s he's still standing up for political dissidents fighting you know governments you know and you know where they call them that takes you know actual courage and a guy that actually cares more about his art than you know how many records he sells so you know that's one example but you know again all those

guys you know prince i mean you know just absolutely amazing musician will do you know music you know a billion different genres for crying out loud you know again i didn't always necessarily agree with you know prince's vision in terms of how sexualized or whatever it could be although you know he certainly the same you know did the jehovah's witness later and came down a lot of that stuff um but um you know sting you know again a lot of his stuff was like super pretentious but it was really intelligent um and you know it was very literate and very interesting you know there were there was a time when all those things were you know really important and same thing with like you know i i graduated from the high school in 1994 i'm sitting up looks you can imagine what

that was like i mean that whole grunge thing or whatever it was really like refreshing know, in terms of how these were a bunch of guys that came out there very much this do it yourself, you know, ethics, you know, they, and they were, you were rejecting a lot of the things that were foisted upon them in terms of consumerism, other things like that in ways that I think were helping, of course, you know, Harold and some of the other things. Not so healthy. But there were plenty of values there where if you were a smart, intelligent kid looking to like, well, what can I glean out of this? You know, that, you know, I can actually like affect my life in a positive way. There were things that you could find. I just would tell you this way, you know, again, like I said,

there are some things, you know, if you really want to focus in on her work ethic and some other things, but there's just not a lot of there there in terms of the emotional resonance, in terms of, you know, the cultural values. Well, let's talk, let's talk about those cultural values because you talked about the music and, and that part of it, but there, you can't avoid the fact that you, you did comment on the fact that she has, you know, she's single, she's not married. She doesn't have kids and she has really created sort of this picture of how great it is. Exactly. And you also think that's not so great. Yeah, I mean, sure, I do. But I would also add that, like, again, I didn't mention this.

And I yeah, I believe all those things. You know, I don't think it's good for uh you know women and men to be drifting into their 30s or there it's especially bad for women and you know certainly that's a big facet of taylor swift and a lot of people look to her i mean quite frankly as a role model um i don't think that that is you know very healthy but it's also true that part of the reason why you know i have to comment on this when i'm writing about taylor swift is because she just keeps forcing it on us right but every song is about this like insane relationship drama with like some celebrity, you know, and she also just doesn't let go of stuff. I mean, apparently there's a song in her

latest, you know, album about her relationship with John Mayer, who she dated 14 years ago. It's like for crying out loud, move on. Yeah. Yeah. It must be hard though mark to be taylor swift and and have to date i'm in her dating life it must be i mean listen her life is is totally privileged she's on jets i would not want to date her yeah i thought that was really interesting like you know i think it would be really hard it's like this fame and you can't go to dinner and everybody wants some of her i'm like god she is it she must be a head case to date and good luck with the guy that catches her and who knows how long that relationship will last for marriage good luck to them but um i would not want that for

myself or i wouldn't want taylor swift for myself or any of the swifties as well she's totally going to yoke out the chiefs isn't she oh she's totally what i missed that i said she's totally going to Yoko the Chiefs, isn't she? She's totally what? I missed that. I said she's totally going to Yoko the Chiefs. Anyway, yeah, no, there's something to what you're saying, obviously. I mean, it's not that I have like no empathy for the woman. The problem is, is that where the space she occupies culturally creates this sort of gigantic feedback, right? So, like, she gets in these bad relationships, and then she writes songs about those bad relationships that become massive hits. And it's just this cyclical thing.

Like, what is her incentive to, like, settle down, right? What skill set does she have to write about introspection, about like quieter, less dramatic things in other moments like that. If I could just, you know, move her on to be sort of a fully formed artist that isn't, you know, dealing in these black and white, you know, petty adolescent emotional dramas. But Mark, you did say it is a sign of societal decline. So let's talk this for, we can't let you go without you actually addressing that part. we can't let you go without you actually addressing that part. Well, again, the article is primarily focused on music, right?

So, you know, like I said, you know, Taylor Swift keeps using the same chord changes over and over again. Actually, it's not just Taylor Swift. Like, this is, you can go online and check this out. I'm like, in Google, there's, you know, I don't know how musically literate you are. There's this thing called, you know, a 1 four chord change right and it's just a insane how many pop songs in the last 20 years ago have been written it's like saying you know sort of beer pleasing chord change um and you know i think the beatles is that chord change once and they're like the entire catalog or something like that you go back to the 80s and stuff just the actual sort of like melodic variety in terms of like what you're encountering so i don't know i mean to this thinking if you think about say you know music and and chord changes and other you know

even the granular stuff they're designed because they're important because they have they both specific emotions right and if you have a very sort of like narrow range in terms of like the emotional response you get from music that's going to spill out in pretty big ways, I think, a double things. And aside from the fact that it just conditions you to accept the same thing over and over again, which is, you know, metaphor in itself for the horrible political and cultural moment, I think we're in right now. So homogenized. Yeah. We're all like the same. It's Starbucks on every corner. I mean, there is something that I fully agree with you on that. She is a phenomenon. Sean, she's going to make, I think, half a billion dollars just on the tour. She has a film coming out of the tour that's going to probably generate another God knows how many millions. See what you talk about in the article as well, Mark. Again, she's a money-making machine. I mean, the business side of this, really impressive.

But I do think it's important to note. By the way, just quickly, I do have Shake It Off on my playlist. I do love some of her songs. I can't help it. I love it. She's not writing for us. Let's be clear. She is writing for our daughters.

And she's writing for, I guess guess you know yeah it's sure the new york times has embraced her but they have their own reasons for doing that before before let you go just what i find fascinating is how much money parents and young people are willing to pay to go to a swiss concert have we ever seen anything like this is just because technology now allows this bidding process to happen? And so you can get... But where are they getting the money? Or is it Taylor Swift herself? But the financial layout that parents and young people are making to see this woman in person is remarkable that this cash is going to her.

Well, that's another thing there. We talked about sort of the me generation too. When we were growing up, our parents never in a million years would have thought to show up a thousand dollars for a concert ticket, which is what, you know, even nosebleeds were going for. Right. Slip to her.

I, you know, and part of that though was, is that, you know, a lot of most of the concerts I went to were pretty cheap. I think part because they weren't, you know, bands that were on the radio, or if they were, they were barely on the radio, you know, but because of that, I sort of specifically identified with it, you know, it was my music, I had to earn the money to listen to it, I had to, you know, make an effort on my own to, like, go to the concerts or whatever,

like, it wasn't my parents necessarily singing along with everything, I mean, and music used to have this sort of generational impact, right, Your parents had their music, you had your music or whatever. And like now, the internet has just kind of broken all of our sense of that in terms of any sort of like cultural evolution. Like everything's just sort of like jumbled up into one thing and everybody's listening to the same thing all the time and they don't bring this like personal significance or their own sort of generational sense of it to music. I think that's just a huge thing.

And the idea that parents would be enabling their kids this way. Never. It's not just the ticket, Mark. It's not just the ticket. They're traveling to other cities. So then they're getting their flights and their hotels. Then there's that. Then there were the people who said they figured out the ticket was actually cheaper in Sweden. So they're flying out to

Sweden to see the concert. I mean, it's it's absolutely insane. I remember my first like really, really big concert that I went to. I was in high school and I was allowed to go see Rattle and Hum at Arizona State University Theater. And it was a big deal because there was going to be helicopters over because they were recording it for, I guess, their movie or video that they were doing. I can't remember at the time, but I went with my brothers. We were up in the nosebleeds. I think it was the first time I ever smelled pot. And of course, and I think that ticket was probably like thirty five bucks. And I just I can't. And I remember kind of being a big deal, too. Like, you know, I just I can't imagine the phenomena.

But it does speak to just how homogenized and sort of commercialized everything has gotten. And, you know, she she's as big as elvis but the talent i think you're 100 right it's not the same yeah no that's absolutely right i mean elvis again remember it's a sea change in terms of how people saw things right black and white detective for a lot of people yeah in terms of the influences he was bringing in from you know rmb and other things like that white boy from memphis getting up there and gyrating and doing balloons. So that was a big thing. Taylor Swift, again, isn't changing.

She's just feeding back to us the most base things that we want here. And in that sense, I don't have anything necessarily against her. There have always been sort of shallow pop artists and that has its place. I mean, it's fun. You know, there were a few Taylor Swift songs, you know, I actually liked myself. It's just that what I object to is that she has become just like the person, like the monster that ate pop music. I mean, it's like she's just so unavoidable in like every sphere anymore.

And like, that's what I'm protesting against. If Taylor Swift were out there making millions of dollars or whatever, and you know, another artist or whatever, that's fine. Just do not tell me she's the end all be all of American culture, because if that's the case, we are in a very, very bad place. We need real artists showing us the way and, you know, making us feel things and taking us to different places that we never thought we'd go. And Taylor Swift is incapable.

and taking us to different places that we never thought we'd go. And Taylor Swift is incapable. Now, the freedom to say things that are different and to speak their mind in a free society, that would always be nice. Again, we did have that as Gen Xers in the 80s. Music we listened to from the 70s had it as well. Mark, I'm going to wait. I think this is a fascinating conversation.

I appreciate it. He's a brave man. You took on the Swifties. And he lived to tell. He lived to tell the tale. Because again, as Gen Xers man. You took on the Swifties. And he lived to tell. He lived to tell the tale. Because again, as Gen Xers, we're like the little Swifties. It's like, get away, whatever. They're not in our space.

But the article is at the Federalist. It's Taylor Swift's popularity is a sign of societal decline. Mark Hemingway, thank you for joining us. Being a music critic, cultural critic, political critic on The Kitchen Table. We appreciate that. Thank you, Mark. Great talking to you. Glad to be here.

All right. Bye-bye. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.