At any given moment, millions of people are liking a variety of things on Instagram. Photos of sunsets and sunrises, recipes for keto brownies, videos of viral K-pop dances — there’s something for everyone. But right now, there’s one particular semi-famous woman whose social media activity (like, dislike, post) has garnered widespread attention: Brittany Mahomes.

Brittany Mahomes, best known as the wife of Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, has seen her national profile eclipse that of her husband due to her alleged support for former President Donald Trump and his promised policies. The move began when Mahomes liked and then unliked an Instagram post from the former president outlining his 2024 platform.

Under normal circumstances, only Brittany Mahomes’ biggest fans would care deeply about whether she wants mass deportations and an Iron Dome missile defense system over America. But Mahomes has connections to Taylor Swift, the most famous woman in the world. That highly valuable association is why an American football WAG’s social media likes and dislikes (that’s “wives and girlfriends”) have become a pop culture story.

We are here to answer your most pressing questions.

Brittany Mahomes is a household name in this news cycle for her ability to both like and dislike social media posts supporting former President Donald Trump and his policies.

On August 13, Trump’s Instagram account posted a platform promising to “close the border and stop the migrant invasion,” “keep men OUT of women’s sports,” and “conduct the largest deportation operation in American history.” He also plans to “cut federal funding to any school that promotes critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content to our children.”

Eagle-eyed internet sleuths spotted Mahomes “liking” and “disliking” the xenophobic and transphobic dog whistle salad last week. And while Mahomes doesn’t follow Trump on her account, it seems the narrative was already set: Mahomes supports some of Trump’s most pernicious and divisive policies.

News that people were seeing Mahomes’ social media activity eventually reached Mahomes, who wasn’t happy that people were noticing her public actions. She then posted a message via Instagram Story (Instagram Stories are temporary) condemning her haters and telling them they were emotionally damaged adults:

I mean honestly, to be a hater as an adult you have to have some deep rooted issues that you refuse to heal from your childhood. There is no reason why your brain is fully developed and you hate to see others do well.

Mahomes seemed to view the negativity surrounding her social media proclivities as a sign that people were angry that she was successful, rather than people being disappointed in her perceived politics, that is, what appeared to be her beliefs about how the country should be run and how others should be treated. Mahomes also liked a pro-Trump comment on a recent post, removing any ambiguity that her previous sympathy and anti-sympathy outbursts might have been an accident.

On Monday, Mahomes doubled down on her commitment, sharing a post that read, “Contrary to the tone of the world today… You can disagree with someone and still love them. You can have different opinions and still be kind.” She did not comment on or explain how kind the opinions she appeared to support were.

And sorry, who is Brittany Mahomes again? Do people in general ever worry about Brittany Mahomes?

Brittany Mahomes is most famous for being married to Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, her high school sweetheart. She is also the co-owner of the Kansas City Current, a team in the National Women’s Soccer League, the sport she excelled at in college, and was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model this past May. She and Patrick have two children and are currently expecting their third.

The biggest spike in searches for “Brittany Mahomes” this past year occurred during the Super Bowl, when people were ostensibly trying to figure out if Patrick Mahomes had a wife and if she was dating Taylor Swift (more on that later).

The name Brittany Mahomes, for the most part, isn’t one the average American thinks much about, and her political views probably deserve even less attention. She’s no political pundit, nor is she a kingmaker. Before her online pronouncements about “haters,” the American public wasn’t furiously Googling “Brittany Mahomes loves Trump?” or “Brittany Mahomes Republican.” There’s a bit of a Streisand effect at work here, where the more Mahomes puts out, the more attention she draws to the controversy. There’s possibly a timeline where Mahomes lets the whole saga play out and fades away once football season starts.

One thing to note is that her pro-Trump political stance seems to many to conflict with Patrick’s identity. Patrick is biracial, with a black father and a white mother. And it seems like Brittany’s sympathy for those pro-Trump posts, particularly his pieces attacking critical race theory (an attack that supposedly minimizes the historical black American experience), would be insensitive, if not incongruent with her husband’s identity. Trump recently attacked Vice President Kamala Harris’ biracial ethnicity, claiming that she “blacked up” for political gain. Harris’ father is Jamaican.

Patrick hasn’t been open about who he votes for, but he has spoken out against police brutality and supported Black Lives Matter. In 2020, he urged the NFL to condemn and distance itself from racism.

But more important than her husband and the reason everyone is talking about Brittany in the first place is that she is reportedly friends with Taylor Swift, the most famous person on the planet.

Is this all because she’s friends with Taylor Swift?

How long have they been friends?

Swift and Mahomes appear to have bonded after Swift began dating Travis Kelce, a Chiefs tight end who plays with Patrick Mahomes. The two women likely built their relationship during Chiefs games last year, when they were photographed together in the VIP suites on multiple occasions, possibly even wearing matching necklaces. It wasn’t long before they took their friendship on tour, with Taylor taking Brittany out for a girls’ night in NYC with the rest of her squad.

Wait, what does Taylor have to say about Trump?

Swift has spoken out against Trump in the past, which she acknowledged in her 2020 documentary Mrs America that she regretted not speaking out about him and his policies during the 2016 election. Before the 2020 election, Swift tweeted that Trump was associating with white supremacists and promised, “We will vote you out of office in November.”

But ahead of the 2024 election, Swift has been less vocal about Trump and more publicly nonpartisan. In March, she urged her fans to vote for “the people who will most help YOU get into power.” Kelce, her boyfriend, has appeared in ads for the Covid-19 vaccine and Budweiser, two targets of right-wing protests.

During last year’s Super Bowl, Swift and Kelce were entangled in a wacky right-wing conspiracy theory that President Joe Biden had rigged the race in Kelce and Kansas City’s favor, all to get some of that sweet attention from Swift. The gist: Kelce and Swift were liberal, so Biden tilted the race in their favor.

Yet Trump also recently posted an AI image that falsely suggested he had the support of her fans. Swift has yet to officially respond to that “acceptance.” Swift has yet to endorse a presidential candidate. In what is likely to be a close election, some of Swift’s biggest fans are urging her to throw her support behind Harris.

Okay, so… Brittany Mahomes isn’t actually Taylor Swift, she’s just a friend. Why do her alleged politics matter?

Mahomes’ social media meltdown came at an odd time for megastar Swift. Mahomes and her husband spent the weekend with Taylor Swift at the singer’s Rhode Island estate on Aug. 24. Swift was scheduled to host a birthday party for pal Blake Lively that weekend. Lively has had a rough time in the press lately due to a feud with co-star Justin Baldoni during the filming of their movie It ends with us.

Swift’s weekend getaways are famous for their lavishness and over-the-topness, but also for the invitations that only her very best friends receive. Swift is known for choosing her friends from the world of beautiful and remarkable people and then visibly interacting with them. Since Swift’s 1989 tour, where she was joined onstage by her friends — ranging from Fifth Harmony to Gigi Hadid — Swift’s friendships with the hippest, smartest, kindest, most beautiful women in pop culture have become a crucial part of her image. All of these people Swift calls friends are culturally cool, which makes Swift culturally cool.

At the same time, Swift’s friendships are the most human thing about her. They’re her way of letting the public know that no matter how different she is from the rest of the population — a billionaire who makes hits and sells albums — she’s still relatable as a good friend. You could argue that Swift’s friends have defined the singer almost as much as she has defined herself. The Mahomeses’ presence in Rhode Island would indicate that Brittany is, indeed, a best friend.

Now, just as fans are trying to figure out the dynamics of Brittany’s relationship with her husband, Swifties are trying to figure out how Brittany’s politics fit into her friendship with Swift. Since the singer has been relatively quiet, they’re trying to gauge Swift’s current feelings about Trump. Or, possibly, gauge how long Brittany and Swift will remain friends.

Swift’s friendships have always been a crucial and visible part of her image. And Brittany Mahomes may have put a stamp on that image that Taylor Swift didn’t agree with.