How the elite celeb culture doomed Dems
If there’s anything more gratifying than watching conservatives win, it’s watching celebrities lose. The pampered, out-of-touch A-listers who shilled for Kamala Harris have not coped well since Tuesday’s results (if threats of death-by-Drano are any indication).
But in every meltdown, one thing is clear: their despair isn’t just that the vice president failed, but that the country is too stupid to understand that famous people know better. It’s the same campaign of condescension that led to the demise of woke corporations. And with a little luck, celebrity endorsements will meet the same fate.
Of course, as plenty of news outlets are pointing out, using star power in politics isn’t new. More than 100 years ago, “Al Jolson led a march of fellow actors through the streets of Ohio in support of Republican Warren G Harding’s bid,” The Guardian explains. “Endorsements from Babe Ruth, Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand have all been coveted by the candidates of their day.” But that was before the vast majority of Hollywood and pro athletes became an arm of the socialist Left and lost all touch with the average American.
“Even though Harris’ slogan was, ‘We are not going back,’ the campaign was firmly in reverse,” the New York Post’s Kirsten Fleming insists, “taking the DeLorean to 2008 … [b]ack when Hollywood A-listers meant something … Before the Democratic Party completely abandoned the working class. Talked down to them. Told them they were racist or bigoted for not putting their pronouns in their bio.”
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They put down their caviar and step off their private jets fully expecting their celebrity cache to supersede a person’s opinions, values, or lived experience. Ricky Gervais mocked this idea over the summer before Harris introduced her cast of star surrogates. “As a celebrity, I know all about stuff like science and politics, so trust me when I tell you who you should vote for,” Gervais mimicked. “If you don’t vote the right way, it’s like a hate crime and that makes me sad and angry, and I’ll leave the country — and you don’t want that!”
A bandwagon of actors and NBA players may have worked in the glamour days of the Obamas, who seemed like celebrities themselves but always managed to resonate with the normal family. The difference now is that the Democratic Party is so far outside the mainstream ideologically (try Jupiter) that the stars who endorse them seem even more unrelatable. Not only are they rich and beautiful with massive platforms and industry accolades, but they’re embracing an agenda of extremism that never made sense to begin with.
Oprah, Christina Aguilera, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Harrison Ford, Taylor Swift, Cardi B, LeBron James, Jennifer Aniston, Beyoncé, Anne Hathaway, Sally Field, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts, Martha Stewart, Steph Curry, George Clooney, Spike Lee, Ariana Grande, Eminem, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert De Niro, and all of Ben Affleck’s former wives and girlfriends have the luxury of caring about the fringe issues because they’re not living on a budget, scared by crime, or losing jobs and housing to migrants. They’re too divorced from reality to understand what America wants or needs. And despite their capacity for great acting, they never bother to put themselves in the role of the average person.
That’s what makes the grassroots popularity of Donald Trump, a billionaire who owns 16 golf courses and lives in gold-gilded homes, such a paradox. But then, the 45th president never implied that Americans couldn’t think for themselves or prioritize what’s important. He didn’t reduce them to their education status, skin color, or reproductive organs. He made it his business to listen to the country — not preach. And unlike the Left’s elites who reek of moral superiority and disdain for hard-working families, he embraced them.
Of course, the former president had his own famous friends. And like the enigma they threw their support behind, these endorsements were different — and quite possibly, more effective. In our vicious media culture, standing with Trump took guts, and Americans know it. Unlike Harris’s backers, who were treated like heroes for accepting a zero-risk offer to step into the political limelight, Trump’s public allies — people like Mel Gibson, Danica Patrick, Brett Favre, Joe Rogan, Buzz Aldrin, Dr. Phil, Roseanne Barr, Paula Deen, Elon Musk, Harrison Butker, Brittany Mahomes, Kelsey Grammar, and Kid Rock — understood that they would not only face extreme ridicule and backlash, but, quite possibly, career consequences. In a battle between the fearless and the smug, it’s not hard to see who would earn more respect.
At the end of the day, the country objects to Hollywood’s moralizing for the same reason they objected to corporate America’s: it’s snobbish and patronizing, yes, but it’s also not their lane. If you throw a football, throw a football. If you sing, sing. But stop telling us that rooting out “white privilege” or banning plastic straws is more important than global stability, decent schools, or feeding our families.
And practically speaking, at least where politicians are concerned, this glitzy echo chamber does nothing to move the needle. Arizona State University professor Margaretha Bentley, whose classes have studied the “social importance” of Taylor Swift says, “In the academic literature, research has shown that, while celebrity endorsements can increase civic engagement and voter registrations, it has not proven to have a direct impact on how people make their voting decisions.”
Or if it does, it moves them in the wrong direction. When the biggest pop star on the planet endorsed the vice president, a poll from YouGov found that “only 8% of voters would be ‘somewhat’ or ‘much more’ likely to vote for Harris — with a surprising 20% saying [Swift’s support] actually made them less likely to vote for her.” In other words, it backfired. Harris was not only worse off for it, but Swift lost a good chunk of her fans’ goodwill.
So will Cardi B, who, like most of these personalities, aren’t exactly graceful losers. “I hate y’all bad,” the rapper complained after Election Day. She responded to someone asking if she’d appear at Trump’s inauguration by saying: “I’m sick of you! Burn your f****** hats, motherf*****. I’m really sad. I swear to God I’m really sad.” Singer Christiana Aguilera ordered fans to “unfollow me if you voted against female rights … Unfollow me because what you did is unreal. Don’t want followers like this. So yeah. Done. Also after today I will be shutting down this fan account that I have had for so many years because this is sick.”
All of this adds to the country’s growing revulsion for the insulated and detached celeb scene. The reality is, Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm told The Washington Stand, “It’s normal for people to respect and admire another person, but if we don’t know them personally, our respect for them is generally limited to the thing we know them for. I can respect a musician or an athlete for their elite talents, but I need a lot more information about them before I start taking parenting advice from them,” he said. “The Left seems to assume that because we like someone’s music or movies we’re going to defer to their judgment about what’s good for us. Most people may believe Taylor Swift is better at writing songs than they are, but that doesn’t mean they believe she’s better at deciding what’s best for their family.”
Some on the Left are waking up to this reality for the party in general. Democrat Chris Cuomo outright blamed wokeism for Harris’s loss. “You are forcing new social norms on people in this country. ‘No, I’m not,’ [they insist]. ‘We’re just doing what’s fair. Trans people have rights too.’ Yes, but if it’s communicated as if you must be forced to accept and be indoctrinated with ideas that you do not share — is that fair? ‘That’s not what we were doing.’ That’s how they felt you were treating them about it,” Cuomo argued. “That’s the women in sports thing. It’s not that it happens a lot … [But] it’s that the fact that it happens at all, to them, is a gross violation of norms and unacceptable. And you find it okay, and they believe that is wokeism run amok.”
What you’re seeing, Rasmussen head pollster Mark Mitchell told FRC President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch,” is that these people “fleeing the Democrat Party and the Republicans, the Donald Trump movement, are really starting to become the core culture of the counterculture … The mainstream media has jumped the shark, has lost its credibility, is losing its sway. And look at all the actors and actresses and authority figures that [threw] endorsements to Kamala Harris, and none of them moved the needle because people just don’t care anymore. So I think that trend is going to continue.”
And for Americans sick of being lectured by woke politicians, companies, actresses, and athletes, maybe that’s one of the biggest Election Day victories of all.
Originally published at The Washington Stand.
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer for The Washington Stand. In her role, she drafts commentary on topics such as life, consumer activism, media and entertainment, sexuality, education, religious freedom, and other issues that affect the institutions of marriage and family. Over the past 20 years at FRC, her op-eds have been featured in publications ranging from the Washington Times to The Christian Post. Suzanne is a graduate of Taylor University in Upland, Ind., with majors in both English Writing and Political Science.
