Taylor Swift called out Trump and white supremacy in a rare post

Taylor Swift spoke directly to Donald Trump on Twitter, and she didn’t hold anything back. On Friday afternoon, Swift responded to a highly-criticized tweet from the president which encouraged police officers to shoot looting protesters. Trump’s tweet was flagged for “glorifying violence,” and the platform placed a cover over it, marking the tweet as dangerous to read. Swift’s callout, on the other hand, is her most-liked tweet ever.

Following the May 25th death of George Floyd and protests sparking across the country,  Trump tweeted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Swift used her platform of 86.3 million Twitter followers to speak directly to the president, calling him out on his statement, plus white supremacy and racism in general.

“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’???” Swift wrote.

“We will vote you out in November. @realdonaldtrump,” Swift concluded.

The tweet quickly garnered more than 2 million likes and more than 400,000 retweets.

Although Swift was criticized for being apolitical early in her career, the star has spoken out and made her stance on many political issues known in recent years. Most notably, Swift urged her fellow Tennesseans to vote for Democratic candidates (Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives) in the 2018 midterm elections, as opposed to Republican Marsha Blackburn. Swift wrote a lengthy post about the election on Instagram, marking her first outwardly political public statement ever.

Since then, the singer has become an outspoken activist for the LGBTQ community, sexual assault survivors, and has actively called out sexism in the music industry. Her direct statement to Trump is another way Swift is standing up for what’s right, and calling out the horrific acts occurring today.

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