Monday, December 04, 2023

Celebrity Power

We're used to thinking of and talking about political power as a thing to itself. Who has it and what they do with it; who doesn't have it. 

We're also used to considering and discussing the comparative popularity of various celebrities; who can sell more tickets and whose advertising endorsement can move more consumer product.
 
Now we're living through a time in which the luminous celebrity popularity of a sleazy former president is magnifying his accrued political power in a mindboggling manner not seen before. It looks to me like at least half of the power in today's political realm Trump enjoys flows from his star-power from being the world's most worshiped damn celebrity -- a self-promoter like nobody's business.

Instead of a contest focused mostly on the two candidates' judgment and fitness to serve as president, if next year's campaign is allowed to become a game largely about the two candidates' entertainment chops/celebrity power, Biden will probably lose to Trump.

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