Love Wins: The Pop Princess and the Football Star

It's impossible to resist the euphoria of romance.

Taylor Swift broke the internet again today by announcing her engagement to football player Travis Kelce. The reaction to her announcement united us all for one brief second. We forgot about who was Team Blue and Team Red. We were all Team Love.

Romantic films with fairytale happy endings seem to be mostly a thing of the past. Feminists have announced they don’t want to see a woman rescued by a man, and the inclusivity police demand that everything be fair and equitable. But what if it’s just as simple as this? What if this is what women want to see?

I’ve written about Taylor Swift a few times. Once, out of worry over her stance on transgender ideology and her influence on young girls. And again, about her romance with Travis Kelce one year ago today. I also predicted this in my predictions for 2025:

Granted, it was not exactly a bold prediction. It was obvious to anyone paying attention where their relationship was headed. Neither had been married before, and Taylor Swift is not getting any younger. If she wants the fairy tale—the husband, the kids, and the happy ending —the window is closing.

But still, in a world full of division and hate, a love story like this, with such a wonderful ending — at least so far — is a welcome relief. She announced their engagement on Instagram:

I choose to believe they are the real deal because all of the cliches are true: all you need is love. But even if it was somehow an illusion, even if it was only a movie, it would be satisfying for those of us with a deep yearning for love stories.

No one knows that better than Swift. Nearly all of her most famous hits are about this very thing, like Love Story from 16 years ago:

And yet, despite that, this girl with stars in her eyes had her heart broken many times, which she also wrote about. The best one of these is All Too Well, one of the best songs about getting dumped ever written.

And no, we’ll move right past the creepy James Comey video dedicated to Swift and how much he loves this song. Thanks, but no thanks. No one needs to know what songs Comey sings loudly in his car while driving down the highway.

Some believed she was either engaged or headed that way when she announced her upcoming album on the Kelce brothers’ podcast, New Heights, which now has 20 million views.

Watching the reactions to the engagement on TikTok was far more enjoyable than having everything always be about politics, how much we dislike each other, how divided we are, and how we must stand on opposite sides. But guess what? With Taylor Swift, we don’t.

Swift has become political out of necessity. There is no way she would have survived as a pop star for the last ten years if she hadn’t taken a public stance against Trump. But her friendship with Brittany Mahomes, an out-and-proud Trump supporter, showed that Swift and Kelce aren’t as intolerant and awful as so many on the Left can be.

As a “childless cat lady,” though probably not for long, Swift endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024. Because she took a stance against Trump, he took a stance against her and has hit back on several occasions.

But lately, Swift has become a target of the Left, too, of late and has been attacked not just for her friendship with Mahomes, but for her lack of a political position on the war in Gaza:

All of this means posting about Taylor Swift is a risky proposition, on the Left and the Right. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a love story. No one can make me hate her, and no one can shame me out of geeking out over this. I’m happy for her, but I’m happy for all of us who desperately crave love stories and just don’t get them anymore.

One of the bright spots of my truly awful year last year (after the entire film industry turned on me after finding out I voted for Trump) was their romance as the Eras tour went from country to country. I found it to be an escape from the tsunami of hate coming from the Left on a daily basis. I could disappear into the girl world for a time and forget about reality.

Her song Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me seemed to have been written for me last year, or at least I chose to see it that way.

I watched most of the live concerts of the Eras tour via livestream. I’ll never forget when Kelce appeared on stage with Swift. How could this be happening, we all thought. And yet, somehow, Swift understood that we were all watching this story play out like a movie. She gave her fans what she knew they wanted. Hollywood doesn’t do that anymore.

Women are suckers for love stories. We can’t help it. It’s hard-wired into us. We want the fairy tale. If we can’t get it in our lives, we need it on screen, in books, and in songs.

I always thought that what drove Trump’s win was love, even if those in the media and on the Left said it was hate. They were wrong. The hate was on the other side, for ten long agonizing years. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce can’t fix that. But they can welcome all of us in for just a moment to remember what that feels like.

This mash-up toward the end of the Eras tour, was dedicated to Kelce, who was seen tearing up. Millions of hearts swooned at once. Rather than hide how she felt, or ignore falling in love in the public eye, Swift shared it with all of her fans.

There’s just no way not to be happy for these two and grateful to them for sharing it with us. Maybe the moment can’t last. Maybe it is just an illusion. Maybe they’ll be divorced in a year. Who knows. But it doesn’t matter. To quote Edna St. Vincent Millay:

I have a podcast going up soon…