If you were among those self-loathing types who subjected yourself to MSNBC’s election night coverage — or, if like me, you stumbled upon a darkly hilarious YouTube compilation of that coverage and the on-air unravelling of their hosts — you witnessed something remarkable. As the night dragged on and results crystallized into a brutal rebuke of their overconfidence, the panel’s tone shifted from smug assurance to funereal despair. Amid this delightful symphony of defeat and self-delusion, resident racist Joy Reid lamented Kamala Harris’s failure to ascend, declaring it incomprehensible that she lost despite running a “flawless campaign.” Her evidence of inerrancy? Harris’s endorsements from “every prominent celebrity voice,” including, she cited, Queen Latifah, the Swifties, and “the Beyhive.” (If you don’t know what the latter refers to, and I am proud that I didn’t, I’ve learned that it means Beyoncé’s devoted fanbase.)
That moment of consternation encapsulates something broader and ultimately more laughable: the left’s allergy to personal responsibility, a pathology that leads them to blame the voters for failing them, rather than acknowledging that the failure might lie within their own candidates or their message. Voters are not your servants. They owe you nothing. It is the candidate’s job to earn their trust, and no amount of stardust sprinkled by the “Beyhive” or the “Swifties” will ever change that.
Politics is not alchemy. Endorsements from pop stars and actors cannot be transmuted into electoral gold. The idea that a patchwork of celebrity shout-outs can substitute for a coherent campaign or a compelling candidate is a delusion. Elections, inconveniently for the Democrats, are ultimately won by the person whose name is on the ballot.
And the Democrats chose one of their weakest in Kamala Harris, a candidate who was neither particularly charismatic nor intellectually rigorous, and whose policies offered little of substance to the average voter. But instead of reckoning with these deficiencies, Democrats leaned into their old trick: assembling a glittering parade of celebrities in the hope that their shine would reflect onto their candidate. It didn’t work, and it never will, for a number of reasons, not least of which is that today’s celebrities are less like the inspiring figures of yesteryear and more akin to the entitled “cool kids” from high school who no one truly liked.
Think of the mean girls from “Mean Girls,” ruling through fear and exclusivity, or the Alpha Betas in “Revenge of the Nerds,” the stereotypical jock frat whose dominance was rooted in cruelty and arrogance. These are the archetypes today’s celebrities embody: a coterie of attractive, detached elites whose appeal is as shallow as their values. They inhabit a world utterly removed from the experiences of ordinary people, and that’s quite deliberate, and their endorsements serve as reminders of that gulf, that rejection of the rest of us. The electorate instinctively senses this disconnect.
There is another cost to this fetishization of celebrity: the more a campaign showcases famous faces, the less it showcases its candidate. It’s zero-sum. And maybe that was the strategy, because the candidate was an inarticulate, pitiful, ceremonial figurehead, and to hide her and focus the attention on others was the best option on the menu, in which case the campaign had problems more fundamental than any celebrity can solve.
A politician cannot be a mere passenger on their own campaign, chauffeured to victory by a glistening entourage. They must be the driver, articulating how their leadership will tangibly improve the lives of the voters. Kamala Harris failed spectacularly in this regard. Her inability to outline a vision for how her presidency would benefit anyone outside her progressive base was glaring. Was it because she lacked the rhetorical skill to articulate her ambitions? Yes, but that was because she did not have much to articulate, beyond that Trump is bad and abortion is good, thereby offering nothing to the beleaguered middle-class voter who forms the backbone of any winning coalition.
So, the left leaned on celebrities, as if their presence might mask the void at the center of their campaign. And this strategy, in addition to undermining their own candidate, underscores a deeper rot in our culture: the fact that anyone celebrates celebrities at all. It is worth noting the etymology of the word “celebrity,” which shares its root with “celebrate.” In a more rational society, our “celebrities” would be people worthy of celebration: teachers, nurses, engineers, and the everyday individuals who quietly perform acts of extraordinary significance. Instead, we revere film stars and athletes, many of whom do little to merit admiration.
This misplaced adulation is both a cultural failing and a political liability. It alienates the very voters the Democrats claim to champion, and who Republicans actually do. People do not vote for glamour; they vote for the candidate who convinces them that their lives will improve. The more the left indulges in celebrity spectacle, the more they focus on status over substance, the more they telegraph their disdain for ordinary Americans and their concerns.
And now that the election’s over, here’s a proposal, in the spirit of unity, that I hope we can all get behind: let us all please postpone any plans for international travel until America’s celebrities have first had the chance to leave the country. We want to be sure there are plenty of seats available. It’s the least we can do for all they’ve done for us.
