Thanks to former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, celebrity politics is dead.
Democrats have increasingly relied on mega-famous celebrities to campaign on their behalf. In 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden had the backing of Hollywood and the music industry and all of its glittering stars. And this year, in 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris picked up a slew of celebrity endorsements, notably from Diddy’s World.
In every instance, the out-of-touch famous people, ranging from Taylor Swift to Oprah, Usher to Ben Stiller, have nothing intelligent to say about the candidate they are endorsing — just that the candidate isn’t Donald Trump, the spray-tanned dictator from Mar-a-Lago.
Harris’s campaign reportedly paid $1 million to Oprah’s company for a town hall with the celebrity. They also burnt through $20 million on concerts in battleground states, according to the New York Post. Jon Bon Jovi performed in Detroit, while Christina Aguilera sang in Las Vegas. In Pittsburgh, Katy Perry took the stage for Harris, and, in Philadelphia, Lady Gaga shilled for the vice president. At a rally in Atlanta three days before Election Day, rapper 2 Chainz chipped in with a performance of his own.
In an age of populism, celebrity endorsements will always ring hollow, even more so when the celebrities are backing a deeply unpopular candidate such as Harris. To his credit, Trump nabbed some celebrity endorsements of his own, including from Elon Musk, UFC founder Dana White and rapper Lil Pump.
But the difference between his and Kamala’s? One set looks down upon normal Americans; the other celebrates them. The celebrities in Kamala’s camp were preening. The celebrities in Trump’s were gleeful — they were entertainers on the campaign trail, not fearmongering scolds. One side offered Ben Stiller and Andy Cohen in a hostage video about feminism and why men should vote for Kamala so they can cut off their bloodline. The other side gave us Elon Musk hilariously jumping around a stage and lines like, “The future is gonna be amazing!”
Nobody, especially Americans, wants to be lectured by their supposed moral betters. No one wants to be told what to think, what to eat, who to vote for.
In this election and going forward, the disdain for establishment elites will only grow. Kamala was such a weak candidate and lost so badly that any celebrity who latched on to her doomed campaign will have no credibility whatsoever in future elections. That’s a good thing for the country.
