Arguably, no one had a better 2023 than my fellow Pennsylvania ex-pat Taylor Swift.
Everyone wanted a piece of her.
The NFL.
And…NC rep, and my 2nd WNC nemesis after Madison Cawthorn, Rep. Chuck Edwards, who, on October 16, embarrassingly tweeted, “Congressmen can be #Swifties too. My favorite staff made me a friendship bracelet. When is @taylorswift13 coming to WNC?,” along with a picture of he and of his “Swiftie” staff members.
I guess I wanted a piece of TSwift too, because I wrote an op-ed for the Asheville Citizen Times, with the title of Taylor Swift will never ever accept Chuck Edwards invite to WNC, where I got to eviscerate Edwards’s feeble attempt at cultural relevance and his overall cowardly persona using the lyrics of my favorite Taylor Swift song—well, second favorite after Christmas Tree Farm—Mean.
As I wrote, “That refrain reminds me of Adam Sewer’s excellent 2018 piece, The Cruelty is the Point. Sewer’s thesis is that Trump—and thus the current Republican party—wields and values cruelty above policy or progress. They’re mean men who sow division and bond over inflicting pain and suffering on others, largely—in my humble opinion—because of a shared insecurity.”
I felt the song’s bridge, “And I can see you years from now in a bar, talking over a football game, with the same big, loud opinion, but nobody’s listening. Washed up and ranting about the same old bitter things. Drunk and grumblin’ on about how I can’t sing—but all you are is mean,” really encapsulates both Edwards and the current Republican party. It was one of my favorite things I wrote in 2023.
As I also wrote, “Part of Swift’s brilliance as a songwriter is her ability to make listeners feel like she’s speaking directly to them. We all know someone—or a group of people—who exemplify those so skillfully eviscerated in these lyrics,” which made me think of something else. One of my other favorite Taylor Swift songs—her 2021 duet with Chris Stapleton, I Bet You Still Think About Me—also skillfully eviscerates the left, more specifically a very special type of well-to-do Ashevillian who likes to think of themselves as particularly progressive and cultured.
Editor’s Note: Now that I’m finally a legitimate writer, it’s imperative that I thoroughly both sides everything.
“With your organic shoes and your million-dollar coach.”
It’s perfect. I could probably go on about how this one line applies to Asheville for paragraphs and paragraphs…but I won’t. It speaks for itself. It should be typed up—on a vintage typewriter, natch—and slipped—in a sustainably produced envelope, of course—into the West Asheville and Town Mountain mailboxes of every Ashevillian who has made stumping for Palestine their personality but incessantly complains about the “homeless problem” downtown.
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