Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) seems to be trying to quash her bad blood with Taylor Swift—by saying a hypothetical socialist government would eventually cancel her. In an interview with conservative outlet Breitbart, Blackburn decried the idea of a socialist government, saying it would lead to singers having to have their music and image approved by the government. “Taylor Swift came after me in my 2018 campaign. But Taylor Swift would be the first victim of that,” she said. “When you look at Marxist socialistic societies, they do not allow women to dress or sing or be on stage or to entertain or the type of music she would have. They don’t allow protection of private intellectual property rights.”

Blackburn’s opposition to LGBTQ and abortion rights pulled Swift out of political silence in 2018. In her 2020 documentary Miss Americana, Swift described Blackburn as “Trump in a wig” who represents ”no female interests.” No socialist movement in the U.S. has publicly entertained the idea of creative censorship. China, a country criticized by lawmakers on both sides, ordered actors, directors, and singers to attend a Marxism seminar in 2018.