Brittany Mahomes’ MAGA Moment Should Not Be Friendship-Ending for Taylor Swift

By Karin Lips

Brittany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and friend of Taylor Swift, recently liked an Instagram post by former president Donald Trump. For that, she is receiving all kinds of negative feedback and speculation that her friendship with Swift might be in peril.

Good for Swift, who publicly supported Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, for not issuing a statement distancing herself from Mahomes. And good for Mahomes for not issuing a groveling apology. There don’t appear to be cracks in their friendship, and I hope there won’t be because of the liked post.

It is a sign of our fraught political time that liking one post by the Republican presidential candidate to some people means the end of a friendship. It shouldn’t.

Since some progressive women struggle with this concept, here are a few tips for how they can maintain a friendship once learning their friend is a conservative.

Stop assuming everyone is a liberal.

It seems like my liberal friends or people I don’t know well are more likely to bring up politics as a topic, often assuming I’ll agree and as if there is no other opinion (Maybe those of us who are conservative are used to separating our politics more because we know lots of women aren’t conservative!)

Don’t assume other women are liberals and then disparage conservatives. That’s a fast way to end a friendship or slowly burn it out as the conservative woman might not speak up, but just ghost the friendship.

Don’t bring up politics all the time.

You don’t need to talk politics with everyone. Different groups of friends can fulfill different needs. Your friends with whom you love attending sports games and cheering on a team might be different from the friends with whom you cheer on your favorite candidate at a debate.

As a mom, I have my mom friends. We don’t talk politics, just potty training, kid-friendly dinner ideas, and free local activities.

Find different friends for your different interests.

Respect women for being thoughtful.

Listen to your conservative friend, and learn how she got to her conclusion. Don’t start questioning her right away or trying to persuade her.

One of the most frustrating parts of the modern feminist movement is its assumption that women who don’t think the same aren’t thinking. That’s false. The conservative women I know are extremely thoughtful. They research topics, talk about the issues, and then pick the candidate based on their priorities. Just because a conservative comes to a different conclusion, doesn’t mean she isn’t thoughtful about it.

If progressive feminists want to truly empower women, then they have to accept that women aren’t a monolithic voting bloc.

Find new issues or common ground.

Carjackings in DC have increased. It’s awful. This issue has brought some of my conservative and liberal friends together. We all want the carjackings to end for the safety of our families.

If you are going to talk politics, you don’t have to immediately jump to the most controversial issue or the issue that you know someone is set on. There are tons of issues that impact us. Talk about a local issue or problem.

Or talk about issues that others might not be talking about as much. Take occupational licensing. It has dramatically increased in our country and serves as a barrier to entry for some people, including some working moms. It might not be the sexiest issue or the one that the presidential candidates are discussing, but it can make a big difference for some people.

Make a conservative friend for your own benefit.

When I was a resident fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, I remember students saying they hadn’t met a conservative woman like me. I had a lot of friends I thought were similar to me. It took me a minute to realize that these students had this image of what a conservative young woman was like, and it wasn’t a good image.

If your immediate instinct when you saw the story about Mahomes liking a Trump post was that Swift should drop her, I implore you to try to make friends with a conservative woman. You just might like her and learn something.

Karin A. Lips is the president of the Network of Enlightened Women as well as a senior fellow with Independent Women’s Forum. You can find her on X at @klips and Instagram at @karin.lips.