The Arrogance of Celebrity: How Kamala Harris’s Strategy Backfired
My hot take ... I do not merely believe the celebrity endorsement strategy of Kamala Harris failed to help her (combined social media followers of her key celebrity endorsements was over 2.5 billion people) - I believe it actively, meaningfully HURT her. There are three things to say here, the third being most important:
(1) The people who would be moved by what Jay Z or Oprah Winfrey or Beyonce or Taylor Swift or Jennifer Lopez or John Legend have to say were not exactly people Kamala needed to court to begin with. She. Had. Them. Also, 15-year old girls don't vote.
(2) Kamala's second-biggest deficiency was no one knew what she stood for, WHY she had changed her mind on the issues she cared most about in 2019-20, and WHAT she would do as President relative to the things people were unhappy with under Biden. A platform was needed on issues, and this celebrity thing served to highlight the vacuous nature of her campaign.
(3) The demographic turning away from the left in droves feel that they are ignored and unheard - that the progressive priorities of unspeakably bizarre trans issues and other cultural left obsessions mean absolutely NOTHING to them. The problem for Harris to solve is why this block of voters which covers multiple demographics in race, class, and gender feel ignored. You cannot take a more tone-deaf approach to this deficiency than to use the richest, most famous, most beautiful people on the planet, and allow them to be your voice. It reinforced arrogance, aloofness, and a complete lack of self-awareness. I am serious - it hurt her campaign.
Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and Dana White are different than the aforementioned celebrities. In Musk's case, first of all, ummmmm, he was putting in REAL MONEY. But also, he was there to tell America, for right or for wrong, he is going to be involved and do things (he is the self-made richest man in the world, not the singer of "Say my Name" or star of "Shotgun Wedding"). Rogan's platform was content for Trump - 45 million people hearing Trump talk for 3 hours in a normal setting.
I love Bruce Springsteen more than any Kamala voter ever could. But perhaps what many voters were looking for is someone to say "it's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win" ...
P.S. - I also love Robert DeNiro's movies from when he could still act and wasn't 200 years old more than any Kamala voter could. The Trump campaign should have paid him to campaign for Kamala. If his family loved him they would make him stop. It's not good.