Taylor Swift, Brittany Mahomes underscore dividing lines: Can Democrats and Republicans be friends?

When Brittany Mahomes, the co-owner of a professional soccer team and the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, liked an Instagram post from former President Trump last month, a debate quickly picked up on social media about her game-day pal, Taylor Swift. 

How could Swift — who had endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 — be friends with someone who backs Trump?

Mahomes eventually unliked the Instagram post amid the backlash. But she took to the social media site in the immediate aftermath to post a message seemingly addressing the controversy.

“To be a hater as an adult, you have to have some deep-rooted issues you refuse to heal from childhood. There’s no reason your brain is fully developed and you hate to see others doing well,” she wrote.  

The commentary on Swift and Brittany Mahomes was further scrutinized when the “Shake It Off” singer was seen hugging Mahomes at the U.S. Open tennis tournament last week, and when the pop star attended Patrick Mahomes’s birthday party over the weekend, days after endorsing Vice President Harris’s White House bid. 

“i don’t expect a billionaire to lead the revolution or anything i’m just confused as to why one would make a movie about standing up for what’s right at any cost only to literally never stand for anything again,” reads a viral social media post critical of the hug. 

The criticism of Swift’s friendship with Mahomes underscores what many Americans are experiencing during the final stretch of the presidential campaign, when tensions seem to be at an all-time high.

Family dinners turning hostile, if they happen at all. Angry exchanges pick up on social media over posts extolling one candidate or criticizing another. Fans fight over artists and celebrities over social media if they make a move that crosses some political line.

The negative and at times nasty rhetoric, from politicians and their supporters, is just coming under more scrutiny following a second apparent assassination attempt Sunday on Trump. The former president and other Republicans have blamed Democratic rhetoric for the attacks on Trump. Plenty of Democrats say Trump’s own rhetoric has led to a more heated environment, and note the recent threats to schools and government buildings in Springfield, Ohio.

Republicans and Democrats blame each other for creating an increasingly toxic environment where friendships between Democrats and Republicans, whether in Congress or just in normal life, seems difficult.

“It’s not just, ‘Oh, you and I are from a different party or we hold different beliefs.’ But it’s like, ‘You are an immoral person if you believe what that party believes and not what I believe,’” said Amie Gordon, a University of Michigan assistant professor of psychology.

Gordon’s research article “I Love You but I Hate Your Politics” was published earlier this year in the American Psychological Association’s peer-reviewed journal.

“Our political identity is becoming much more central to who people are and surpassing some other aspects of who they are — race, and gender and other things,” Gordon said.

How it can work in Congress

In Congress, some people say they have managed to keep friends on both sides of the aisle.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) easily ticked off more than half a dozen Democrats he considers to be friends.

“Maxine Waters gives me maximum high fives,” Burchett, who describes himself as a lifelong conservative, said of California’s Democratic congresswoman. He also name-checked Democratic colleagues including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Dan Goldman (N.Y.), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.) and Dean Phillips (Minn.). 

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), whose office is in the same hallway as Burchett’s in the Longworth House Office Building, said his colleague “always drops by to see how I’m doing when we’re in session to chat and play with our office dogs.” 

Noting how Moskowitz dressed up as Santa Claus for Burchett’s Christmas party at the Capitol last year, Burchett said part of the key to having bipartisan buddies is by avoiding harboring resentments.

“I just don’t hold grudges. I’m not into that. I think you lose your life when you do that,” he said. 

In response to Burchett’s declaration of friendship, Jackson described his relationship with his colleague as “authentic” — the pair sometimes exchange texts about everything from kids to their pets. 

“We both have some different experiences, but we have a common interest,” Jackson said. “We want to do what’s best for the country, even if we see doing it from different perspectives.”

Despite their differences, Jackson added, “our politics don’t get in the way” of their friendship. 

After Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) revealed in 2022 that he was battling cancer, Burchett said he told the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that he was praying for him.

“We’ve become friends, even though we don’t agree on anything. We talk every day when I see him,” Burchett said.

Raskin praised Burchett, whom he described as his good friend, for his “zany and off-the-wall” sense of humor: “I think Tim is the funniest Republican, and he thinks he’s the funniest Republican too, so we definitely have something in common. But what I really love about him is that he’s a genuinely kind person.”

Burchett isn’t Raskin’s only unlikely buddy on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

“Lauren Boebert is my friend, and she texts me a lot. She’s a big texter,” Raskin said of the Colorado Republican.

When Boebert became a grandmother, Raskin said he and his wife gifted the GOP firebrand with a baby bodysuit poking fun at their stark political differences. The outfit had the message: “I may take a lot of naps, but I’m still woke.”

“She thought that was very funny,” Raskin said. 

In a message to The Hill after this story was first published, Boebert said, “Jamie and I have had many conversations about life and family. We keep politics out of most of our chats.”

“The media loves to dehumanize us, but we are all here fighting for something we believe in with families back home cheering us on,” she added. “America benefits from these friendships. Without forming connections, how can we ever access a level of trust with our colleagues to provoke persuasion and understanding?”

But it’s not all bunches of bipartisan besties on Capitol Hill. Burchett said some Democrats, and even a few fellow Republicans, won’t speak to him for some of his political stances. 

“I just refuse to fall into that trap,” he said. “Letting bitterness and hatred in your life is a way you will become hated and bitter — and I choose not to do that.”

Finding the line

Michael Eric Dyson, the renowned historian and author, said it should be possible to strike up friendships even among people with stark political differences.

“There is a way in which you can vigorously disagree and still maintain your capacity to invest in your beliefs,” he said.

Dyson recalled a moment after he testified at a Senate hearing about hip-hop, when then-Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) rushed to shake his hand and called him one of the most eloquent speakers who testified before the committee.

“I disagreed with him on many issues, but I appreciated his maverick status,” Dyson said, saying the encounter led to a friendship.

Yanna Krupnikov, a professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan, said when it comes to politics and friendship, or family and friendship, it sometimes just comes down to what you think is important prioritizing your values.

“I think the question is: What is more important to you? Your political position or this particular relationship? And there’s no right answer,” Krupnikov said. “It’s heavily contextual. You can have a friend and know they have terrible judgment but you can find value in your relationship for other reasons. It’s a balance that is very relationship specific.” 

Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland know firsthand both the challenges and rewards of maintaining a friendship with a politically different pal. 

The pair — who met as sorority sisters in college in 1999 — don’t usually see eye-to-eye on politics. Silvers said she’s “always been a very moderate Republican” and now considers herself an independent, while Stewart Holland described herself as a “pretty partisan” Democrat.

The two host the popular “Pantsuit Politics” podcast and penned the 2022 book, “Now What? How to Move Forward When We’re Divided (About Basically Everything).”

“We cannot ask the way someone votes to hold the entirety of who they are,” Stewart Holland said. 

“If there’s a threat to you and your family, we’re not saying go sit down and have coffee with the person. But I do think that ultimately democracy and certainly elections are about persuasion, and you cannot persuade someone you don’t talk to,” Stewart Holland said. 

“You cannot influence someone you don’t speak to and you’ve cut out from your life,” she added.

“It’s always interesting to have a discussion with her,” Silvers said of her chats with her longtime friend and podcasting partner.

“I always learn something about her, about myself, about the world — and so we just continue to talk,” Silvers said. 

Republicans and Democrats, Raskin said, can “definitely” be friends.

“Abraham Lincoln talked about the chords of affection that we can’t let go of as Americans,” said Raskin, a former constitutional law professor.

“Not everybody is going to be friends with everybody else. But everybody can be friends with at least a few people across the aisle.”

Swift-Mahomes

It’s not possible to know exactly what is going on in the rarified celebrity air of Swift’s orbit.

But Mahomes and Swift appear to be putting friendship ahead of politics. Even if that may be difficult at times.

This week, for example, the Daily Mail reported that Mahomes was deeply troubled by the former president’s Truth Social post Sunday in which he pointedly declared, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”

Last week, Patrick Mahomes dodged a question about his wife’s possible support of Trump. 

“I’ve always said I don’t want my place and my platform to be used to endorse a candidate or do whatever, either way,” the quarterback said. “I think my place is to inform people to get registered to vote, to inform people to do their own research and then make their best decision for them and their family.”

People may have fewer chances of interacting with those who think differently on politics, given how like-minded people are moving to the same states and neighborhoods. And that may compound the problem, experts say.

“I think that there is a danger in not exposing ourselves to people with different views,” said Gordon, the University of Michigan assistant professor.

The reports about whether politics came between Swift and Mahomes’s friendship strike a chord because they’re reflective of what many ordinary Americans are trying to work through in their own lives, podcast host Stewart Holland said.

“We’re trying to figure out, can I be friends with somebody who likes a Trump post?” the author said.

“It’s really not about Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes — we’re playing out what we always do with celebrities, which is our own questions,” Stewart Holland said. 

Updated at 12:29 p.m.EDT