Read: The shocking falling-out between Taylor Swift and a longtime ally

Now, Swift says, the nightmare scenario she hinted at in June has arrived: Braun and Borchetta are using their leverage—her masters—to stymie her. In a desperate-sounding note posted online Thursday, she said that Borchetta and Braun threatened to block her from using her old songs at the upcoming American Music Awards and in a Netflix documentary—unless she agreed not to rerecord her music and stopped discussing Braun and Borchetta in the press. “The message being sent to me is very clear,” she wrote. “Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you’ll be punished.”

Big Machine Label Group’s reply said the company didn’t—and couldn’t—block Swift from “performing live anywhere,” though it elided the question of whether it would block TV producers from using her recorded songs. The label also said Swift owes “millions of dollars and multiple assets to our company” and asked her to come to the negotiating table (“To date, not one of the invitations to speak with us and work through this has been accepted”). Swift’s publicist replied by asserting that Borchetta had “flatly denied the request[s]” about the AMAs and Netflix, and by saying that an auditor had determined that Big Machine owes Swift $7.9 million in royalties.

The fact that debt totals are in dispute is a reminder that, on some level, this scandal is a technical, behind-the-scenes matter whose facts the public has very little ability to assess. Swift, however, has cast the standoff as a moral affair. “This is WRONG,” she wrote in her original note. “Neither of these men had a hand in the writing of those songs. They did nothing to create the relationship I have with my fans.” The assertion of larger principles—the virtue of artists owning their work—is hard to argue with. It’s also savvy: An impenetrable negotiation becomes something about which you can paint a protest sign.

After pivoting toward higher ideals in her note, Swift then presented her action items: “So this is where I’m asking for your help.” She requested that fans contact Braun and Borchetta with their feelings, which sent #IStandWithTaylor immediately trending and led a host of marquee names to voice support. There were so many threatening calls to Big Machine’s headquarters that the office reportedly shut down early on Friday. Swift’s note also named the Carlyle Group, the firm that helped bankroll Braun’s acquisition of Big Machine. That’s why Warren and Ocasio-Cortez are involved: They latched onto the viral moment to broadcast their critique of private-equity groups. “Their leveraged buyouts have destroyed the lives of retail workers across the country, scrapping 1+ million jobs,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “Now they’re holding @taylorswift13’s own music hostage.”