Contrary to the media, the opposite is true. With TTPD, the Nationalization of Taylor Swift is complete

The critic here writes:

In the mid-to-late aughts, as The National was gathering acclaim with darkly experimental albums, another artist was rising to prominence: Taylor Swift. On the surface, these two acts are starkly different. Where The National's songwriting is impressionistic, Swift's is diaristic—built on personal stories that typically forgo abstraction or even difficult metaphor. Where The National's charisma lies in its mysteriousness, Swift earnestly says just what she means. The National is known for somber dude-rock; Swift found fame with anthems of heartbroken but upbeat young-womanhood. (In her 2012 hit “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” she even jabbed at pretentious guys who are obsessed with dude-rock, like the ex who ran off to listen to “some indie record that's much cooler than mine.”) The National became the house band for a certain segment of Millennial yuppies; Swift became one of the biggest stars in the world.

If The National became the house band for a certain segment of Millennial puppies, Swift becoming one of the biggest stars in the world was a sign of the zeitgeist. Of the explosion of teen/late teen girls all over the internet trying to find the artist with whom they can connect their feelings. And with social media and YouTube, all that search for meaning propelled towards one person: Taylor Swift. Swift wasn't some Disney Hannah Montana Miley Cyrus act, she was a self proclaimed country rock singer. It was very unusual for her to become the world's biggest solo female rockstar since Madonna.

After the pandemic interrupted Swift's promotional plans for her 2019 album, Lover, she reached out to the multi-instrumentalist Aaron Dessner to help produce two new albums, Folklore and Evermore, the latter of which featured all five members of The National—whom she called her “favorite band”

Aaron Dessner has produced 17 out of 31 of her latest album.

Again, the critic points out how Taylor Swift made The National lighter in tone and touch:

Now it appears that Swift may have pushed the men of The National in new directions too. On the band's latest album, First Two Pages of Frankenstein, out in April, Swift's influence feels pervasive. It's not just her voice, which she lends to the lilting track “The Alcott”; she seems to have taught them something about the mode of candid self-expression that she has mastered. In so doing, The National and Taylor Swift have become one of the unlikeliest and most productive synergies in contemporary music—the cross-pollination of a gloomy indie-rock fraternity and proudly sentimental, stadium-charming pop.

And

in First Two Pages of Frankenstein, the songwriting is tighter and often brighter, and Berninger's meanings are remarkably direct. On the hopeful-sounding “New Order T-Shirt,” Berninger collages images with his trademark flair, and then, atypically, explains himself in a chorus that Swift herself might have written: “I keep what I can of you / Split-second glimpses and snapshots and sounds.” Over the danceable beat of “Tropic Morning News,” Berninger even tells a tale about learning to share his inner life: “There's nothing stopping me now / From saying all the painful parts out loud.”

However there is nothing new to this long before Taylor Swift collaborated with The National, they had already started pivoting away from the doom&gloomy of their previous records like High Violet in search of their own tonality. The break came in 2013 with Trouble Will Find Me. With tracks like Sea of Love, Hard to Find and I need my Girl ; they proved more than capable that they are capable of changing. It had nothing to do with Swift (sorry swifties, you don't get points for this one).

But the main thesis of this post:

Taylor Swift has long since realized she can't be doing this Lover or Midnight albums until she would want to get relegated to the sidelines like a caricature like Madonna. Yes she has a Number 1 hit every now and then, but people still view her as "that s*x bomb" from the 80s and that public perception has led her to do some truly questionable stuff (can't sell stuff if you're not relevant, can't be relevant if you're not trying to keep alive the public's perception of you).

Hence the abrupt break in Folklore. Which continued in Evermore. Yes Midnight was a return to the peppy Taylor Swift but TTPD is in style, artwork, lyrics (apart from 4-5 crowd pleasers, you have to turn such a titanic brand like Taylor Swift slowly) and production it is much more The National than The National's 2024 album Laugh Track can be called Swiftesque.

Tl;dr - If The National have been the sad dads of rock, the scotch drinking, white collar, upscale millennial's go to band, Taylor Swift is fast on her way to becoming the suave mom of pop, the wine drinking, city dwelling, upscale late millennial and early Gen Z woman's go to artist. Whatever lyrical and musical differences remain at the end is the most earnest man/woman split in culture.