SOFT POWER — Taylor Swift is reportedly headed to her second NFL football game in two weeks on Sunday evening. After her first appearance rooting on Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce nearly broke the internet, prepare for another media circus.

And prepare for a renewed discourse about how the pop singer’s social and political life intersect with the 2024 election.

How did we get here? Kelce’s rumored relationship with the “Blank Space” singer sent Swifties (fans of the singer — which includes me) into meltdown. After years of scouring for eligible bachelors across the pond in Britain, Taylor is now dating not just an American, but arguably an American stereotype: the star football player.

Swift’s biggest supporters are calling this a historic change, akin to America once again freeing itself from Britain — a second 1776 and a new Declaration of Swift-ependence.

She can fully command and direct the attention of a massive base of fans — enough to cause TV ratings to rise and jersey sales to spike, lead massive voter registration drives and even roil the culture wars without even trying.

Swift’s globe-spanning cultural influence and soft political power only stands to get bigger after the massive Eras concert film (a filmed performance from her recent tour) which is likely to become the highest grossing concert movie ever in one weekend.

Earlier this week, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom went so far as to say her influence on the unfolding 2024 presidential election would be “profoundly powerful.”

Swift’s ability to move political markets appears to be growing, whether she’s interested in being a political actor or not. No matter how much she wants to avoid it, in an increasingly polarized country where everyone wants to know where you fall along a political divide, Swift is consigned to having every action (and everyone she dates) picked apart by people trying to understand her politics.

As soon as Kelce and Swift drove away from the game Sunday, they were caught in a discomforting political maelstrom, one that Swift had tried to elude for years. Upon seeing photos of the two of them, popular conservative voices seized on the moment, with Charlie Kirk immediately highlighting Kelce’s pro-vaccine advocacy and Tomi Lahren referring to Swift’s “lefty, liberal, brain-dead political opinions.”

Swift, however, has typically moved cautiously and hesitantly when it comes to the political arena. Both right and left have been desperate to claim Swift as one of their own, yet she remained exceptionally quiet on politics for years — including during the divisive 2016 presidential election won by Donald Trump. Swift’s lack of comment back then enraged some liberals — an editorial in The Guardian in 2017 called her “a musical envoy for [Trump’s] values.”

This changed in 2018, when Swift broke her studied silence to speak out against Senate Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn and endorse two Democratic contenders in the Tennessee race. It didn’t make a difference in the conservative state — Blackburn won — but it served notice that Swift wasn’t entirely apolitical.

Since then, Swift has left a trail of liberal breadcrumbs — including endorsing Joe Biden for the 2020 presidential race and supporting LGBTQ+ rights through her music. But while this appeased some of her critics, it generated a whole new set of angry voices against her.

Similarly, Kelce has — albeit with minor actions — established himself as something other than a garden variety professional athlete with no opinions.

After once taking a knee during the Star Spangled Banner in 2017, the NFL star triggered anti-vaxxers earlier this week when he posted an advertisement in partnership with Pfizer, encouraging fans to get their COVID-19 shot. This came only a few months after he starred in a Bud Light commercial, the beer brand that was boycotted by conservatives for partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney — in an era of polarization, that track record is viewed as a signal that Kelce has chosen sides.

Together, they are a formidable pair. And in a celebrity-obsessed culture, targeting Swift and Kelce might not be entirely politically savvy — Swifties are, after all, the same group that has brought Ticketmaster in front of Congress. Last week, within mere hours of Swift encouraging her Instagram followers to register to vote, Vote.org reported more than 35,000 registrations, a 23 percent jump from last year.

Swift and Kelce might be reluctant political actors, but considering their joint stardom, the politics of their pairing is now impossible to avoid. It’s now not a matter of if, but when and how deep they’re willing to dive in.

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— Feinstein, trail-blazing California senator, dies at 90: California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving woman senator and a vocal advocate of gun control legislation, has died at age 90. The trail-blazing Feinstein had faced mounting health problems in recent years. Her replacement will be selected by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.). Feinstein already announced she would not run for reelection in 2024, and the race for her seat is already underway. Feinstein was the first woman elected to the Senate from California in 1992 and became one of the most powerful politicians in the Capitol. As Senate Intelligence Committee chair, she battled with the Obama administration over the classified report on the CIA’s torture program following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 — commanding respect from Republicans and Democrats alike.

— The House GOP’s funding patch fails, teeing up shutdown: House Republicans failed to pass a stopgap government funding bill today, leaving Kevin McCarthy with no clear next step to try to avert a shutdown in less than 36 hours. It’s an enormous blow to the speaker, who by bringing the vote to the floor essentially dared his hardliners to oppose the patch. He argued that voting against it essentially meant opposing border security. But conservatives called his bluff, with 21 Republicans helping Democrats sink the bill. It’s not clear what path House Republicans take from here. Some conservative lawmakers vowed that they will reject any short-term funding patch, further limiting McCarthy’s options.

— Supreme Court to hear challenges to state social media laws: The political fight over speech on social media is officially heading to the Supreme Court. Today, the justices said they will take up two cases that have become flashpoints for the argument over Big Tech’s efforts to police speech online. The cases challenge Florida and Texas laws, where Republican-led legislatures have told social media companies they can’t remove content based on users’ viewpoints and can’t ban politicians, like former President Donald Trump, from the platforms.

— Rain wallops NYC, and the response draws deluge of critiques: City and state leaders sought to reassure soggy constituents this morning after a deluge of rain hamstrung New York City and forced the closure of highways, an airport terminal and half the city’s extensive subway network. Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams appeared at a virtual press briefing alongside numerous government officials following the first wave of a tempest that washed away cars, infiltrated schools and flooded basements and low-lying intersections — with more water predicted later in the afternoon. Adams did not publicly discuss the storm at all ahead of the morning press conference, frustrating some other local leaders.

THE CHINA BOUNCE — When the super PAC supporting Nikki Haley launched its first TV ad in August, its advisers heard privately from fellow operatives who scoffed at the decision to focus the clip on Haley’s record on China, writes POLITICO.

Foreign policy wasn’t the top priority of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, an official with the pro-Haley group acknowledged, but that was hardly the point. The 30-second spot, which featured the former U.N. ambassador vowing at her campaign launch to send China’s government to the “ash heap of history,” was designed to showcase something more relatable: Her fortitude, the super PAC official said.

Two months, two debates and $11 million worth of television ads later, Haley is gaining air. She is close to snatching the No. 2 spot in the GOP presidential primary, eclipsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina, recent polls show. She is drawing a second look from donors following her performance in Wednesday’s debate.

LET’S SKIP IT — The Trump campaign’s gambit, skipping RNC-sanctioned debates and forfeiting the free media attention to his rivals, has paid off. When Republicans walked onstage at the FiServ Forum, Trump held a 26-point lead over the field in Iowa, according to an average of all polling in the first caucus state. When they wrapped up at the Reagan Library this week, Trump’s lead had grown to 36 points, and Fox was cutting its debate ad rates.

Trump’s rivals are trailing a candidate who has spent far less time campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire; who’s been indicted four times, and burned millions of dollars on lawyers, with no impact on fundraising; and who’s been targeted by $6 million of early-state ads warning that he could lose to Biden again.

Yet there’s evidence that the debates have strengthened Trump’s position, Semafor writes.

LOCALLY SOURCED — French and German defense companies are setting up local shops in Ukraine for arms maintenance — a first step toward manufacturing weapons in the country, write Laura Kayali and Caleb Larson.

This week, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office gave the green light to a proposed joint venture between Rheinmetall, a German arms maker, and the Ukrainian Defense Industry, a Ukrainian state-owned defense group.

France’s Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu traveled to Kyiv this week with about 20 French defense contractors — reportedly including Thales, MBDA, Nexter and Arquus — to facilitate partnerships with Ukrainian officials.

And today, the Ukrainian capital hosted the Defense Industries Forum, an arms fair attended by 165 defense companies from 26 countries.

At the event, Ukrainian officials met directly with defense companies to sign contracts without going through Western governments, explore joint production opportunities and provide specific input about their needs on the ground in the fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion.

The goal is to “boost co-production and cooperation to strengthen Ukraine and our partners,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said earlier this week.

The arms fair is taking place as Western armies, especially in Europe, are reaching the limit of what they can give to Ukraine from their own stocks. For the past few months, Ukraine has sought to ramp up its own arms industry, in part because U.S. elections in 2024 could mean a return of Donald Trump as president. The former leader has hinted at not providing much support to Kyiv if he wins a second term.

As Kyiv prepares for a long war, capitals such as Paris are seeking to shift from donations to contracts and cooperation with the private sector.

CHEAT CODE — As long as school has existed, some students have done their best to skirt regulations. In college in particular, many have resorted to paying a premium in order to have their essays written for them. It’s not allowed, and can get you in big trouble if you’re caught, but it’s nevertheless been a booming business for ghost writers charging big money to produce work for students. Some of them started making more than at their day jobs. But now, ChatGPT has imperiled that work. Students feed a prompt into the system and it spits out an essay. Still, saving some money and resorting to ChatGPT doesn’t always work, either. It’s a dangerous game if professors can spot the work of the AI tool, which can be easier to notice than something written by a human ghost writer. Katrya Bolger explores this new normal in The Walrus.