The Dictatorship

Taylor Swift’s about to find out what a lot of married women already know

Published

10 months ago

September 2, 2025

Taylor Swift’s about to find out what a lot of married women already know

I might be the only one who isn’t bursting at the seams with unbridled joy over Taylor Swift’s engagement news.

I mean, sure. If Swift is happy, the only appropriate response is to be happy for her. But I wonder if she’s about to find out firsthand what many middle-aged married women already know: that many of Swift’s love songs really do paint an impossible picture.

To be sure, romantic love is real. Science believes that it lasts for about two years, tops. And building a life with someone you love can be great, if you’ve chosen the right person. But science has also discovered something else: when it comes to hetero unions, men stand to benefit much more than women do from marriage. And it is widely known that single women are thought to be happier than their married counterparts.

When it comes to hetero unions, men stand to benefit much more than women do from marriage.

Perhaps I’m just a curmudgeon who missed her nap today (true on both counts). When I said yes outside of a Roman gelateria in 2018, my husband on one knee with a comically large fake diamond (he didn’t want to travel with a real one), I was happy. I wasn’t overjoyed — who has the energy for that? — but I was happy. We had already been together for six years, and I honestly thought he’d never ask. I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone else.

I also naively thought that getting married might make some of our bigger problems go away. We were in a long-distance relationship at the time. Saying “I do” would close the gap, right? Well, it did. First major problem solved!

But my husband is also an avoidant Midwesterner while I’m an assertive New Yorker. I soon learned that avoidant personalities are all too happy to sweep any and all problems under the rug in the hopes that everyone forgets in the name of peace and harmony. And as we both learned (the hard way), that tactic doesn’t work on someone who’s not afraid of conflict. Our personalities were laid bare, and there was nowhere to hide.

Our first four years of marriage turned out to be the hardest of our relationship. In many ways, marriage creates more problems than it solves. No one knows that more than, well, people who are married. There’s a lot of life to live after the dress fittings and sappy vows. And much of it is rife with some level of conflict and negotiation. Because no matter who you are, that’s what happens when two people blend their lives. It’s inevitable.

I do not intend to rain on Swift’s parade, but I do wish someone would have been brave enough to sit me down for some real talk about what many married women know firsthand: There’s nothing magical about marriage. Nothing. Not one thing. Even for the happiest couples.

And while Swift and Travis Kelce’s individual and combined net worth may shield them both from some of the more unpleasant realities that the rest of us contend with (including something as simple as the suffocation of sharing a home when sometimes a girl just wants to be alone for a week, a month, or a year), nothing will shield them from the reality that life is not a music video. Expecting an eternal, fiery, breathtaking love to sustain much beyond the vows is an exercise in delusion.

I can’t speak to her personal expectations, but Swift is in the business of creating fantasies, evidenced by her extensive repertoire of her pining for a fairy tale kind of love. Her own life is something of a fantasy, if measured by fame and success alone. But expecting marriage to live up to our cultural ideals is a fool’s errand. I say this as someone who married at 39 years old, and long after that rush of falling in love wore off after the first couple of years.

I am, without a doubt, happily married. So far as I can tell, I have chosen wisely. My spouse and I share a lot of happy moments and copious laughter, for which I am grateful. We love each other fiercely and work hard to give each other good lives.

But despite our love and commitment to each other, most of our days together are marked by drudgery, negotiation, mild arguments, odd smells, and tedium — with a healthy dose of mind-numbing irritation that has made me want to throw in the towel more times than I can recall. I have no doubt that he has experienced the same — because we talk about it.

Despite my husband and I truly believing that we’ve chosen wisely and at the right time, we are in couples therapy working out the very real and sometimes deal-breaking kinks. Marriage is rife with such realities, and celebrities don’t get a pass on these basic truisms. No amount of money or fame can shield a couple from the landmines that challenge even the happiest of marriages. Swift and Kelce are no exception, no matter how much we want to believe they are.

And as the rest of us hawk and gawk and speculate and drool over this couple’s decision to do life together, we need to calm down. They’re about to embark on a complicated and maddening journey. Money and fame do not, will not, and cannot make this less true.

I hope it works out for them. But no one who chooses to exchange a teary “I do” is immune from any of the hard stuff that marriage can and does throw at a couple, including those private moments where one is forced to contend with whether or not they’d do it all over again if they had a time machine.

According to celebrity psychotherapist Esther Perelwhen we marry, we are signing up for a lifetime of contradiction. We are placing all of our hopes, expectations, and dreams onto a single person. And for Perel, our “litany of expectations is a grand setup for failure.” I hope the women in Swift’s circle are having honest discussions with her about what marriage is, and what it isn’t. What it can be, and what it can’t be. What it gives to a person, but also what it takes away.

I wish Swift only a life filled with the kinds of fairy tales that have made her impossibly famous. And when the dust settles, and reality sets in, I’ll be curious to hear what music she creates in about 10 or 15 years’ time.

Christina Wyman

Christina Wyman is a USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author and teacher living in Michigan. Her debut novel, “Jawbreaker,” was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2023. Her sophomore middle-grade novel is “Slouch.”

The Dictatorship

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race

Published

17 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.

If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.

Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.

* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.

* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.

* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.

* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.

* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.

* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The Dictatorship

Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls

Published

17 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls

Jun. 22, 2026, 11:39 AM EDT

After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”

Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.

The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.

“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.

Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.

Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.

In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.

But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.

An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.

The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.

“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.

“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.

Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.

“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.

“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.

In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”

In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”

After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.

“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”

Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”

“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.

On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”

Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.

Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Fears of an ‘economic catastrophe’ helped push Trump toward an Iran deal

Published

17 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Fears of an ‘economic catastrophe’ helped push Trump toward an Iran deal

As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.

But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”

In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:

In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.

“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.

As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”

He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.

“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”

The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”

Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.

In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.