Without Saying a Word, Taylor Swift Taught a Lesson in Emotional Intelligence

Why is Taylor Swift staying silent about the use of her song “The Fate of Ophelia” in a recent TikTok video posted by the White House earlier this month? That’s the question music fans, political junkies, and media outlets are asking. The cheeky video shows a slideshow of Trump, vice president JD Vance, and their wives over Swift’s lyrics “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibe.” And the video pairs the lyric “The fate of Ophelia” with the caption “The fate of America” and an image of Trump.

Swift has made no public statement about it. And there’s a lot any smart entrepreneur or business leader can learn from her. Even if she’s unhappy about that video, she’s made the choice not to interfere. In many situations, including this one, that’s the wise, emotionally intelligent thing to do.

Swift is likely not a Trump fan. She endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024, writing “I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.” Trump, for his part, has posted “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” on social media. He also predicted sales of her music would fall after she opposed him. That obviously hasn’t happened, and more recently Trump praised both Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce when the two announced their engagement.

Swift takes music rights seriously.

While Trump may have changed his mind about Swift, it seems unlikely that she’s changed her mind about him. Plus, she’s known to take the rights to her music very seriously, and has sued theme parks and YouTube creators for using her songs without permission.

Why hasn’t she said anything the Trump White House using her song in its video? Most observers assume she’s intimidated by a president known to attack those who displease him. Without reading her thoughts, it’s impossible to know whether that’s true. But there are many reasons why saying nothing is the smart choice.

First of all, although she may not like the White House using her work, it might have the legal right to do so. The use of music to accompany TikTok videos is a complicated topic, but in short, the platform cuts licensing deals with major labels so creators can use their music as the audio for their videos. TikTok even groups together videos using the same song to create playlists. The rules are a bit different for an institutional account such as the White House, but it’s still highly possible that the use of her music was legal.

Also, Swift is newly engaged to Kelce. Football fans–and Kelce’s teammates–come in all political persuasions. The team represents a red state. Kelce himself avoids saying anything about politics, even though he’s very open about most aspects of his life. So Swift may be considering her partner’s preferences. That’s a wise and emotionally intelligent move for anyone in a committed relationship.

What would speaking out accomplish?

That’s the most important question here. Swift is very much a pragmatist. She’s highly attuned to her own fame and thinks constantly about how everything she does and says will be received by her millions of fans. In 2024, she stayed silent about the election, even as an AI-created fake made it appear she’d endorsed Trump. She finally broke her silence and endorsed Harris on the night of the Trump-Harris debate. That was a moment when the nation’s attention was hyper-focused on the election, and so her endorsement seemed likely to have the greatest possible effect. You can be sure it was a very deliberate choice.

With the midterm elections nearly a year away and Trump constitutionally barred from running for a third term, this is very different time. Today, Swift criticizing Trump would have no practical effect on any election. It might be emotionally satisfying. It might seem like the right thing to do. But it wouldn’t change anyone’s opinion, and the video would still be out there.

Next time someone does something that makes you angry, and you want to speak out publicly about it, take a lesson from Swift. Consider what the practical effect of that would be. Maybe it would be the opposite of what you want. That’s probably the case here.

“Congrats, you got played.”

“If it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping,” she said, after some people criticized her newest album, The Life of a Showgirl, on social media. She knows the same would be true for Trump. Publicly commenting on the video would just bring it exponentially more attention than it already has.

The White House knows this too. When at least two media outlets, Variety and TheWrap ran a story about the video and asked the White House for comment, they received this statement in return: “We made this video because we knew fake news media brands like [yours] would breathlessly amplify them. Congrats, you got played.”

That may be true for every media outlet that has reported on the video. But it’s not true for Swift. By staying silent, she’s shown that she knows better.

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