Taylor Swift slams Donald Trump over mail voting, ‘cheating’ in US election

Taylor Swift has fired her most withering broadside yet at Donald Trump, accusing him of “blatantly cheating” in the upcoming election.

Music star Taylor Swift has unleashed on Donald Trump, accusing the US President of deliberately “dismantling” his country’s Postal Service in an effort to “destroy” Americans’ right to vote.

The United States is currently mired in a political stand-off over mail-in voting.

Mr Trump’s opponents, the Democrats, are pushing for expanded access to mail voting, which they argue would allow Americans to cast ballots in November’s presidential election without risking exposure to coronavirus.

The President, on the other hand, believes a rise in the number of people voting by mail will lead to widespread fraud.

Last week, Mr Trump admitted he opposed giving the Postal Service extra funding because he did not want to facilitate more mail voting.

“(The Democrats) want $3.5 billion for something that’ll turn out to be fraudulent, that’s election money, basically. They want $3.5 billion for the mail-in votes. Universal mail-in ballots,” Mr Trump told Fox Business.

“They want $25 billion for the Post Office. Now, they need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.

“Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it.

“If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because you – they’re not equipped to have it.”

That was the context for a pair of scathing tweets Swift posted yesterday.

“He is well aware that we do not want him as our President,” the singer said.

“He’s chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.”

Swift urged her fans to request ballots and “vote early”.

RELATED: Why Trump opposes funding for US Postal Service

RELATED: Trump claims mail voting will lead to massive fraud

Donald Trump’s ineffective leadership gravely worsened the crisis that we are in and he is now taking advantage of it to subvert and destroy our right to vote and vote safely. Request a ballot early. Vote early.

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 15, 2020

Swift was not always so outspoken, politically.

She copped a lot of flack for refraining from any endorsement in the 2016 election, and has publicly admitted she regrets holding her tongue for so long.

“I come from country music. The number one thing they absolutely drill into you as a country artist – and you can ask any other country artist this – is, ‘Don’t be like the Dixie Chicks,’” she told The Guardian last year.

The Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, famously declared they were “ashamed” to be from the same state as then-president George W. Bush in 2003. That didn’t go down well with a lot of fans.

RELATED: Why The Chicks changed their name after decades

RELATED: Why the band left the spotlight for 14 years

“I watched country music snuff that candle out, the most amazing group we had, just because they talked about politics,” Swift said.

“They were made such an example of that basically every country artist that came after that, every label tells you, ‘Do not get involved, no matter what.’

“The worst part of the timing of what happened in 2016 was I felt completely voiceless. I just felt like, ‘Oh god, who would want me?’ Honestly.

“I just felt completely, just useless. And maybe even like a hindrance.”

Taylor Swift. Picture: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for iHeartMedia

In 2018, she broke her longstanding political silence, endorsing Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen in her home state, Tennessee.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” Swift told her followers in an Instagram post.

“I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for all Americans, no matter their skin colour, gender or who they love.”

She said the Republican candidate, Marsha Blackburn, had a voting record in Congress that “appalled and terrified” her.

“She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the reauthorisation of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry.

“These are not my Tennessee values.”

Mr Bredesen ended up losing to Ms Blackburn, which was hardly surprising, as Tennessee was and still is a Republican stronghold.

But Swift’s intervention did appear to have an impact. In the days after her post, more than 100,000 people registered to vote.

Since then, Swift has been far less shy about voicing her opinions.

During the mass protests sparked by the death of George Floyd this year, she called out Mr Trump for an apparent threat of violence against demonstrators.

“After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts?’ We will vote you out in November,” she tweeted at the President.

Swift has also been broadly supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Racial injustice has been ingrained deeply into local and state governments, and changes must be made there,” she wrote in June.

“In order for policies to change, we need to elect people who will fight against police brutality and racism of any kind.”