Taylor Swift May Be The Person Who Saves Democracy

Last week, Grammy award-winning artist Taylor Swift encouraged her massive following of fans to register to vote, and they immediately flooded a voter registration website with tens of thousands of requests. This is the kind of celebrity activism that needs to be encouraged - she wasn't preachy, she didn't take a side, she just told people to get active. And this flood of new, mostly younger, voters could wind up saving Democracy, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

Check out our merch by visiting our store

Subscribe to our podcast

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Well, folks, we all know that democracy is in danger here in the United States, right? I mean, we, we've got a former president and his party that tried to overturn the results of an election. We've got other Republicans who ran for election last year trying to overturn the results of those elections. We've got one party that is actively engaging in the oppression of certain groups of people just because they don't like their lifestyles. So, yeah, I would say our country's in danger. We need a hero. And as unlikely as it may seem, a hero may have emerged, and that hero may be none other than Grammy award-winning musical artist, Taylor Swift. And no, I am not being sarcastic. Last week on National Voter Registration Day, Taylor Swift gets on social media and she says this, I've been so lucky to see so many of you guys at my US shows recently.

I've heard you raise your voices and I know how powerful they are. Make sure you're ready to use them and our elections this year. And she encouraged people to go and register to vote. And then what happened is that vote.org, a voter registration website became overwhelmed to the point of nearly crashing as 35,000 swifties went to the website to register to vote. Taylor Swift says, I need to vote. So by God, I'm gonna go out here. I'm gonna register to vote. That is massive. 35,000 people in a matter of, I guess hours, maybe even just minutes, all because Taylor Swift said, Hey, there's a lot of you. You have the power.

Use it wisely. She didn't say, go vote for this political party. She didn't say vote against this political party. She didn't say vote based on this issue or this issue or that issue. She just said, listen up folks. There's a lot of you, I, you have power. Don't let it slip through your fingers. And 35,000 of her followers in that instance said, it, you're right, we do. And I'm not gonna let that power fall to the wayside. That was a powerful message. It was a great message from Taylor Swift and boom, tens of thousands new people that say, I'm gonna do this. So, you know, again, we needed a hero. I didn't know it would be Taylor Swift. I had kind of hoped somebody in Washington DC might step up, but it is what it is. We'll take a hero where we can get one great message from Taylor Swift, great

Activism, and it worked. And I hope she continues to do this because when you look at her, you know her, her, her audience, it, it's not the overwhelmingly aging population here in the United States. Obviously, it's a lot of young people. I can't walk by my daughter's bedroom without hearing Taylor Swift coming through. I like Taylor Swift, I'm not gonna lie. I do. My wife does. And we're all on the younger side, not as young as I'd like to be, but these are people who can make a change. We're talking about the largest voting block of eligible voters. So let's make sure that we follow Taylor Swift's message. As weird as that may sound to here, but let's make that the largest group of active voters. And if we do that, we can see some real change in next year's election results.