In her Netflix documentary Miss Americana earlier this year, Swift addressed why she had been reticent to speak about politics before 2018, saying she hadn’t thought people cared about her views. Referencing the 2012 presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Swift said at the time, “I just figure I’m a 22-year-old singer. I don’t know if people really wanna hear my political views. I think they just kind of want to hear me sing songs about breakups and feelings.” She also worried about losing fans within the country music scene, given the response to the Dixie Chicks, who faced extreme backlash after criticizing then-President George W. Bush at a London concert in 2003. “Part of the fabric of being a country artist is don’t force your politics on people,” she explained. “Let people live their lives. That is grilled into us.” When she finally decided to go public with her views, she got into a confrontation with her management, who very much didn’t want her getting political for fear of backlash. But Swift had finally decided to take a stand. “If I get bad press for saying, ‘Don’t put a homophobic racist in office,’ then I get bad press for that, I really don’t care," Swift said.