Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian economist, has remained at the forefront of the presidential campaign for the youth vote. In order to secure victory in the upcoming second round of elections this month, he will need to maintain the support of this key demographic, according to pollsters. However, an important obstacle now stands in his way: the swiftie community. Argentine squads of Taylor Swift’s pop star fans have become politically active. On the internet, they have focused their attention on Milei and his rising libertarian party, portraying them as a danger to Argentina, while Taylor Swift herself prepares to arrive in the country next week for the launch of her Eras tour outside of North America.
“Milei is Trump,” read a post from a group called Swifties against La Libertad Avanza, the name of Milei’s party. After Milei placed second in the Argentine elections last month, leading him to the runoff on November 19th, 10 Argentine Swift fans created the group and issued a press release urging other fans to vote against Milei. They said they were inspired by Swift’s efforts to take on right-wing politicians in the United States. “We cannot fail to fight after having heard and seen Taylor give everything so that the right does not win in her country,” the group stated. “As Taylor said: we have a need to be on the right side of history.” The two-page announcement was viewed 1.5 million times on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, before the account was suspended without explanation, the group said.
In the statement, they labeled Milei’s positions against legal abortion, his support for loosening gun laws, and his proposals to reform public education and healthcare as a “danger.” The statement also addressed Milei’s or his party’s comments against feminism, claims that there is no gender pay gap, and the declaration that the atrocities committed by Argentina’s military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 were mere “excesses.”
Milei, in response, has downplayed the swiftie community. “I am not far-right,” he told a radio station. “Let them express what they think.” His campaign declined to comment. Taylor Swift, who begins a three-show, sold-out series in Buenos Aires on Thursday, has not publicly commented on the Argentine elections.
The swifties’ criticism of Milei has shifted the conversation towards his conservative social views and away from his drastic proposals to reverse Argentina’s economic crisis, which include abandoning the Argentine peso, adopting the US dollar, and closing the country’s central bank.
But it’s not just the swiftie community that is organizing against Milei. He and his running mate, Victoria Villarruel, also face criticism from legions of loyal fans of another musical giant, the K-pop band BTS. They are so active and organized online that they are known as the BTS army. Last week, the fury of that army was unleashed on Villarruel after a series of her tweets denigrating the K-pop group resurfaced. In 2020, she compared the name BTS to a sexually transmitted disease. She also mocked the pink and green dyed hair of some members.
Those tweets prompted such a fierce response from BTS fans, accusing her of xenophobia, that a large BTS fan club in Argentina felt compelled to try to calm their fellow fans. “The message that BTS conveys is always respect for everyone and oneself,” the fanbase statement read, which has been viewed 1.9 million times, according to X.
Villarruel’s only online response to the BTS controversy was a tweet referring to her post about the band’s name as “silly talks” from “a thousand years ago.”
Milei’s political base relies particularly on young voters. A survey of 2,400 people in October showed that nearly 27 percent of his support came from people aged 17 to 25, compared to less than 9 percent of that segment supporting Sergio Massa, the center-left Minister of Economy who is competing against Milei in the runoff. People under 29 years old represent 27 percent of all eligible voters in Argentina.
Many young voters said they see Milei, who wears leather jackets and wields a chainsaw at his campaign events, as the “cool” outsider candidate who has also become somewhat of an online meme. “The majority of our age group, more or less from 16 to 25, vote for him,” said 21-year-old student Mateo Guevara, who attended a Milei rally last month in Salta, a city in the north of the country. “He’s a guy who came out of nowhere.”
Milei and Massa appear to be headed for a close contest. A poll released on Friday by Atlas Intel showed Milei with a four-percentage-point lead, with a two-point margin of error.
Taylor Swift avoided commenting on politics for most of her career. But in 2018, she broke her silence to oppose Marsha Blackburn, the Republican candidate for Senate from Tennessee, Swift’s home state, which helped trigger an increase in young voter turnout in the 2018 midterm elections in the United States. Swift said she felt compelled to speak out against Blackburn, who had the backing of former President Donald Trump, because the politician’s record “horrifies and terrifies” her, including positions on equal pay for women, violence against women, and LGBTQ rights. In the end, Blackburn won.
Swift’s song “Only the Young,” an anthem describing young people as agents of change, was featured in an ad for Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, in an effort to secure votes in 2020.
And Swift’s comments in a 2020 documentary, where she said she had decided to publicly oppose Trump despite the risk to her career, have been widely circulated in Argentina in recent weeks.
BTS fan bases are their own political force and likely helped deflate attendance at a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2020 by reserving seats and not showing up.
Outside of River Plate football stadium in Buenos Aires, where Swift will perform next week, a contingent of swifties has been camping out to catch the concert. Several said they were not willing to mix politics with music.
“The reality in the United States is completely different from the one we experience here,” said 22-year-old baker Barbara Alcibiade. “It’s true that a large percentage of fans may follow certain ideals or values that she represents, but that doesn’t mean it represents everyone.”
The swifties behind the press release against Milei said they never claimed to speak on behalf of Swift or all her fans. “That’s why we were very careful not to say: Taylor wouldn’t vote for Javier Milei,” said member Macarena, 29, who refused to provide her last name because she said the group had received online threats.
But for Macarena and her friends, the parallels between Milei and Trump are clear. “There is no quote from Taylor that you can use to say, ‘I’m going to vote for an far-right candidate,'” she said.
At a K-pop dance school in Buenos Aires, BTS fans said that Milei’s running mate’s 2020 comments disparaging BTS only served to reinforce their aversion to Milei. “It made me very angry,” said 36-year-old teacher Marcela Toyos, after dancing to BTS’s hit “Mic Drop.” “They are always points of attack for them.”