Hollywood’s Midterm Fail: Democrat Celebrity Endorsements Losing Their Effect
BY
The widely held belief that having celebrity endorsements are a key to electoral success came into question again following these 2018 Midterm Elections.
Previous experience with Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 run should have been informative: on the orders of the Hollywood billionaire class, Clinton managed to accrue a monopoly on celebrity endorsements from Hollywood, the music industry and 90% of the mainstream media. Unfortunately, these endorsements did not propel Clinton into the White House, as she lost to a highly unpopular Donald Trump. She drafted in pop star Katie Perry, Jay-Z, Beyonce, LeBron James and many others, to stump for her at rallies, and even used Perry’s chart-topping hit song, “Roar”, as the soundtrack in what now looks like a cringe-worthy 2016 election ad campaign, pledging heaven and earth to voters, including a promise of “debt relief”. Watch:
This year’s Midterm contest saw many of these same celebrities coming out to endorse and campaign on behalf of Democratic Congressional and Senate races, and as with Hillary – the results were mostly abysmal.
SEE ALSO: 2016: ‘What Russian Interference?’
In Tennessee, Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen lost to Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn despite the incessant campaigning and social media trolling by elite pop star Taylor Swift. This tweet below should have set off alarm bells for serious Democratic Party members, but unfortunately the party has fell under the spell of the cult of celebrity.
Phil Bredesen✔@PhilBredesen.@VoteMarsha, look what you made her do. @taylorswift13 doesn’t like your little games and she wants Tennesseans to know that you’ve been in the swamp long enough. It’s time for some fresh air up in Washington. https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2018/10/07/taylor-swift-bredesen-blackburn-senate-vote/1562054002/ …
Taylor Swift speaks out on politics for the first time; endorses Democrat Phil Bredesen for Senate
Music superstar Taylor Swift says she’ll be voting for Democrats Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper in November.
tennessean.com
In the Georgia governor’s contest, Oprah Winfrey led the campaign juggernaut in backing Democrat Stacy Abrams, as did Diddy, John Legend and Lil Yachty. As of Wednesday however, Republican Brian Kemp has declared victory in what was a very tight race. If that result holds, it would be yet another blow to Hollywood’s political endorsement machine.
In the Texas Senate race, Democrat candidate Beto O’Rourke attracted nation-wide support from the entire mainstream media, and as well as active endorsements and campaigning by superstars LeBron James, Beyonce, Travis Scott and other celebrities backing him in the hope he could defeat the Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. In the end, Beto O’Rourke was defeated by a lukewarm Cruz campaign.
One of the more shocking aspects of the Beto campaign was the high level of coordination between CNN and celebrities, in effect, using CNN as an arm of the Democratic Party. The following slug was prominently placed in CNN’s headline news lane on election day:
Judging by those lack-luster results, it would appear that the power of celebrity is waning for the Democratic side of the American political paradigm. Unfortunately, their Midterm woes didn’t end there.
Writer Jack Davis at Western Journalism also adds…
Other Democrats who found that famous friends do not translate into victory included Andrew Gillum, who lost his race for Florida governor to Ron DeSantis, despite the backing of Rihannaand DJ Khaled; and Ben Jealous, who failed to defeat Republican Larry Hogan in the race to be governor of Maryland despite the support of comedian Dave Chappelle.
Although Swift’s October support of Bredesen resulted in large numbers of voter registrations, it also led some fans to wish entertainers would do what they do best and leave politics alone.
What I learned this election:
No one cares what @taylorswift13 thinks.
No one cares what @Oprah thinks.
No one cares what @Diddy thinks.
No one cares what @rihanna thinks.
But celebs will still keep telling us who to vote for because there is no known cure for narcissism.
“I am a diehard Republican with conservative views. Most country people are conservative. I think you’re entitled to your opinion but just because you’re a celebrity you don’t need to force your views on me,” said Pennsylvania resident Michelle Marks, who was interviewed by The Guardian at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame.
The failure of celebrity endorsements to ensure victory is nothing new.
After the 2016 election, Paul Waldman of The Washington Post tried to dissect how celebrity endorsements could help or hurt a candidate.
He wrote that the issue of voter backlash is “particularly acute with liberal celebrities, because their involvement in the campaign reinforces precisely the argument Republicans are trying to make, which is that Democrats are the party of the ‘elite,’” he wrote.
Other studies showed that celebrities don’t inform voter choices.
“In terms of voting behavior, family and significant others are more influential than celebrities in engaging support for a political candidate,” Natalie Wood, a marketing expert at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, told Reuters…
See more at Western Journalism
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(TLB) published this article from where it originally appeared at 21st Century Wire with our appreciation for the coverage.
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