There's been a lot more misses than hits, so Taylor Swift being selected shouldn't really shock anyone. 

To be sure, Swift has accomplished some noteworthy things in 2023. She's reached a status that few celebrities can. Her tours are constantly sold out, her concert movie filled theater seats, and her fame is worldwide and is unabashedly cultlike, putting her among other celebrities like Michael Jackson and The Beatles. According to the TIME's article, some of these cult-like fanatics quit their jobs in order to camp out in front of her venues.

She's broken multiple records, including selling 4.1 million tickets for her 2023 tour. Ticketmaster crashed from the overload of people trying to scramble to get tickets, prompting lawsuits that triggered an investigation by the Justice Department itself and even spawned a Senate hearing. 

I'm not going to sit here and deny that Swift is a cultural force to the point of being an economy unto herself. 

But if being a successful business person who really went above and beyond the scope of what's normal to achieve something that changed our cultural landscape was the criteria for getting TIME's "Person of the Year," then why didn't Elon Musk win? The saga of his seizure of Twitter, the release of the Twitter files, and the transformation of the bird into "X," the free speech platform, is far more consequential than Swift. 

Taylor Swift has millions of listeners. Elon Musk has billions of users...

...and the most successful electric car company...and a company that launches rockets into space and brings them back down safely on a landing pad. 

But let's get real for a second. Swift wasn't selected because of her success, she was selected because of her cultural impact. She has become the woman that the leftist mainstream culture has striven to create over the past few decades. What is that? 

I can't put it better than Eric Conn of New Christendom did in a tweet about this development.

"It’s shameful and sad that a hyper-promiscuous, childless woman (Taylor Swift), aging and alone with a cat, has become the heroine of a feminist age." 

It’s shameful and sad that a hyper-promiscuous, childless woman (Taylor Swift), aging and alone with a cat, has become the heroine of a feminist age. pic.twitter.com/dYXFhwQxov

— Eric Conn (@Eric_Conn) December 6, 2023

You may argue that Swift is not alone as she's in a highly public relationship with Kansas City Chief's tight end Travis Kelce, but Swift's entire career became successful off of broken relationships with very high-profile men. You can put your money on Kelce being the next domino to fall sooner or later. Swift's career and her more rabid fans require it.

But this is the draw of Taylor Swift. 

Swift is the consummate modern American woman. She's unmarried, childless, bougie, successful in business but unlucky in love, the victim of men, an advocate for the current thing, and a feminist through and through. Her emotions take center stage and she's as fun and quirky as she is loveably crazy, just like every modern Western white girl perceives herself. 

She has millions of people singing "It's me. Hi. I'm the problem it's me" into mirrors and ironically not self-reflective. They sing it with pride.

Swift is one of the biggest carrots I've ever seen dangled from a stick in history. She's perfectly marketed and carefully crafted to be the perfect reflection of the modern woman. 

And it's from this perch Swift sits that she can sway the minds of millions of people, and the swaying has already begun. In her documentary Ms. Americana, Swift turned on the waterworks about how much abortion rights meant to her and how much she was against Donald Trump. Her song "You Need to Calm Down" was an anthem for the LGBT activist community. 

While Swift failed to get Democrat Phil Bredesen elected to the Tennesee Senate in 2018, I anticipate her effect in 2024 to be far more substantial. 

And that's ultimately the point. Swift is the Pied Piper, leading an untold amount of people who worship her lifestyle to act, live, and vote just like her. They'll support whatever she supports and love whoever she loves. 

So no, Swift didn't win TIME's "Person of the Year." The concept of Swift did, because the concept of Swift is going to be needed to win in 2024 and support whatever needs supporting for mainstream leftism to succeed.