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Is the Golden Age of Celebrity Influence Over?

Dr. Munr Kazmir
4 min readNov 9, 2024

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All the star power in Hollywood didn’t help Kamala Harris — and may have hurt her.

Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash.

What the Democrats misread about America,” postulated Lauren Fedor and Steff Chavez for the Financial Times this week. As the Democratic Party’s election post-mortem continues apace, analysts and journalists are casting around eagerly for someone — anyone — to blame.

“Donald Trump’s win shows party’s agenda failed to connect with voters, say critics,” began Fedor and Chavez, moderately. “Trump’s emphatic victory marked a repudiation of not just Harris but also her party’s progressive agenda and its failure to understand the concerns of the majority of US voters.”

Why did so many voters reject the Democratic Party’s vision for the future of America?

Some answers are comforting to the Democratic Party: “Voters worldwide are punishing incumbents for inflation,” “Post-pandemic backlash,” and “It was Liz Cheney’s fault” being some of the more popular and/or imaginative.

Other answers aren’t as easy to swallow. Accusations that the party is out of touch with the concerns of working-class voters are flying thick and fast.

One issue that keeps coming up is the subject of celebrity endorsements.

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