Taylor Swift has largely stayed away from politics so far this election cycle, but politics doesn’t seem to be staying away from her. You may recall that her romantic relationship with football player Travis Kelce briefly but memorably ignited a conservative firestorm regarding the Super Bowl earlier this year. More recently, Swift may not have endorsed anyone for the 2024 presidential election, but that didn’t stop her fans from forming an organization called “Swifties for Kamala” over the summer. Now, the past few days have shown that Swift can’t even attend a sporting event without it becoming a referendum on her politics.

This latest controversy involves Brittany Mahomes, who I would consider a friend of Swift’s if that weren’t itself hotly debated. We’re choosing “associated.” Mahomes is married to Swift’s boyfriend’s teammate on the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes, and so the two are Employees since last year, when Swift went public with her relationship with Kelce and began showing up at his games, which she frequently watched with Mahomes. Cut to August, in the lead-up to Tayvis’ second season, when Mahomes made headlines for liking a pro-Donald Trump Instagram post. It was right before the football season opener, which led to quite a bit of speculation: Would Swift distance herself from this woman now that she had come out as a Trump supporter?

At first, the answer seemed to be yes. Swift and Mahomes sat in separate boxes at the Chiefs’ game against the Ravens on Thursday, prompting sighs of relief from some fans and a TMZ headline speculating that the two had fallen out. Known for her savvy PR and employing a publicist, Tree Paine, who has developed a following of her own, Swift and Paine appeared to have once again managed to defuse a potentially sticky situation. But a few days later, the two went ahead and defused it again. On Sunday, Taylor showed up with Kelce at the U.S. Open in New York, and the two sat in a box with Brittany and Patrick Mahomes. Several images show Swift and Mahomes embracing and looking friendly.

On social media, some fans expressed their disappointment that Swift was hanging out with a Trump supporter. What I found funnier were the fans who didn’t seem to believe what they were seeing with their own eyes: “Taylor pays no attention to this woman. A few heartfelt pictures mean nothing,” one wrote on Twitter. “I was there, I was across from her suite, and Taylor wasn’t nearly as involved with Brittany as everyone seems to think,” another wrote. These fans are the same ones who take comfort in the idea that Swift and Mahomes aren’t friends, but colleagues brought together by WAGdom. I mean, it’s possible, but it seems far-fetched: There’s plenty of photo evidence of the two partying at games and spending time together outside of stadiums, too. Still, that feeling comes from a similar source to that of the people who see the images and read the worst into them: For many fans today, it’s important that the artists they support are “good” people, whatever that means to them, and that their values ​​align with theirs.

This anger over Swift potentially associating with a Trump supporter makes more sense when viewed in the context of her not-yet-endorsement of Kamala Harris: I guess it’s fair to wonder whether her views have changed since the last presidential election, or to accuse Swift of making liberal statements in the past just for show. There have certainly been times in the past when Swift has been very sensitive to anyone mentioning her name: It’s a little puzzling that she spoke out against a silly Netflix show she thought had disparaged her, or that her press agent went to the trouble of attacking the Instagram gossip account DeuxMoi, but that neither of them said anything when Donald Trump tried to co-opt her image, as he did in a much-discussed social media post over the summer. One caveat is that Swift and her team may also be considering factors they can’t talk about: Just about a month ago, Swift canceled some concerts in Vienna due to terror threats. She then wrote on Instagram: “I will not speak publicly about something if I believe it might provoke those who want to harm the fans who come to my shows.”

While I find it unlikely that her politics (or the way her brand incorporates politics) have taken a complete turnaround, I do believe that Swift, who never does anything by accident, may want to send a message to her fans that she will not bow to every criticism. The lyrics of “But Daddy I Love Him,” a song from her latest album, April’s The “Tortured Poets” sectioncome to mind: “God bless the most prejudiced creeps/ Saying they want the best for me/ And hypocritically delivering monologues I’ll never see.” These lines were widely interpreted as a jab at the fan reaction Swift received last year when she dated Matty Healy, a member of the band The 1975 who rubbed many the wrong way with his edgelord-like behavior. But they could also be read as a larger statement about Swift’s relationship with her fans.

Social media gives us a sense of that, but it’s hard to gauge how Swift’s performance with Mahomes is being received by her audience at large. (At least externally—I like to imagine Paine has access to sophisticated polling data that most political activists can only dream of.) Everything Swift does is met with some level of backlash, but as far as I can tell, this hasn’t reached the levels of the Matty Healy affair, let alone the heights of Swift’s feud with Kanye West and the Kardashians. Swift has a larger and more loyal fan base than ever before, but perhaps more importantly, her stance here is reasonable. What Is What was she supposed to do, cut someone out of her life and be rude to them in public because they disagree with her on political issues? Having people in her life, especially people she didn’t necessarily vote for, who vote differently than she does probably only makes Taylor Swift more relatable to a portion of her audience. If fans want to fool themselves, maybe they can tell themselves that Swift shares good liberal arguments with Mahomes at every opportunity. (Also, let’s not exaggerate what we know about Mahomes’ Trump support: Although Trump tried to label her as one of his acolytes, she only liked and unliked one post and then defended herself with some vague talk about “haters.” If she starts sounding like Amber Rose, I can see Swift changing her mind.)

After all this, will Swift end up supporting Harris? As a recent Variety article showed, all her hand-wringing about her decision to be politically active in the past, as seen in her 2020 documentary, Miss Americawill look pretty cynical if she doesn’t. But will it matter in a broader sense? In a New York Times opinion piece this week, BD McClay wrote that the idea that the endorsement of a celebrity like Swift can make that much difference is a bit of a fantasy: “We continue to hope that celebrities, by their sheer power of persuasion, will spare us the hard work of politics itself.” She’s right; it feels like everyone who gets upset about Taylor Swift hanging out with someone who liked a pro-Trump Instagram post is just looking for a place to channel all their anxieties about the election and the world itself. True, the world is a scary place. If only giving Brittany Mahomes a sideways glance was a little better better.