“If you’re not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart.  If you’re not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.”

This quote often attributed to Churchill has lasted for generations because many people see truth in it. Younger people tend to lean left, older people tend to lean right.  This occurs because the narcissism, nihilism, and egocentricity that pervade leftwing dogma ultimately prove unfulfilling and tiresome.  Put another way, people simply grow out of it.

Ubiquitous in high school and college, leftism, for many, gradually gives way to conservatism as the individual gathers more life experience, humility, and wisdom.  Maturation certainly plays an important role in the transformation, but for many, it also comes down to a conscious decision to be happy.  Taylor Swift appears to be the latest example of this phenomenon. 

Marching through her twenties and halfway through her thirties single and childless with guitar in hand, Taylor seemed quite the feminist icon. Through lyrics and lifestyle, she was the empirical embodiment of the Gloria Steinem quote, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”  The man-hating girl bosses in her fan base ate it up.

Then something changed. Taylor got a boyfriend.  And not the non-threatening,  turtleneck-clad, Starbucks rewards member beta male one might assume, but an alpha male, Pro-Bowl tight end.  With this news, the Swifties and TMZ reporters paused in confusion for a moment, then rejoiced, savoring the couple’s inevitable break-up and the Grammy-winning anthem of female empowerment that would soon follow.

But that didn’t happen.  Instead, she announced her engagement and almost simultaneously released an album currently being labeled “Trad wife propaganda” by disaffected Swifties on social media.  If you watch the reactions, these young (and some not so young) women feel betrayed.  How could their feminist icon now be singing about marriage and having kids? 

Their outrage is a textbook example of the “bucket of crabs” mentality.  Turns out, her fans cared less about Taylor’s happiness and more about justifying their own corporate ladder, Netflix and chill, sweater full of cat fur existence.  They liked Taylor when she had teardrops on her guitar, not babies and a white picket fence.  In true leftist fashion, they are envious and resentful of her happy ending.

Though some of her fans may feel abandoned, Taylor’s latest album and recent priority realignment were no acts of betrayal.  Seems like despite her billionaire superstar status, she finally admitted to herself what she needed to be happy.  Perhaps at 36 years old, her biological clock was ticking louder than the intro to 60 Minutes, and she finally decided to listen to it.  Whatever her motivation, she appears genuinely happy.

This is not to say Taylor Swift is now by any means a conservative and will be retweeting Stephen Miller anytime soon.  Nor do I believe that having a traditional marriage and children should ever be portrayed exclusively as a conservative ideal, but unfortunately, 21st-century feminists have vehemently categorized it that way.

In this respect, Taylor Swift does seem different from her historic image.  But this does not mean she betrayed her fans or even her leftwing feminist lifestyle.  She simply grew out of them.