How Celebrities Killed the Democratic Party

The 2024 campaign was one for the photo albums, for sure. Investigations, indictments, assassination attempts, ticket-switches, an incumbent president not seeking re-election, all while worldwide tensions hit fever pitches and the American public continued to lose confidence in their government.

There were also many blunders as to why Democrats lost this election so badly. For clarification, we do not consider President-elect Donald Trump’s (R-FL) win a landslide, but it wasn’t exactly a squeaker either. Sweeping the swing states by fairly convincing margins, while running up the tallies in deep-blue states to not only win the popular vote, but possibly shuffle the Electoral College landscape, is a win we would consider significant. In fact, if Trump and company can make good on their promises, we think 2024 has the potential to join other presidential elections known as “watershed” elections, those in which large voter realignments occur.

In short, it wasn’t a landslide victory for Trump, but it was a significant one, nonetheless.

As Democrats immediately began pointing fingers for their humiliating defeat, more and more plausible theories continue to come to mind. From former President Barack Obama (D-IL) lecturing and effectively shaming black men for not backing Kamala Harris (D-CA) more soundly, to Harris’ October admission that “there isn’t a thing that comes to mind” when asked on The View if she would make any major changes from her boss’ administration.

The list goes on, but perhaps the worst nail in the coffin was Democrats’ open embrace of celebrities on the campaign trail.

Historically speaking, it’s a tried-and-true method of winning over voters. It’s not a new concept, nor is it one that Republicans have shied away from either. Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally featured Tucker Carlson, Hulk Hogan, Dr. Phil, and Elon Musk. Meanwhile, Harris was courting the same types of celebrities that Democratic presidential nominees in recent cycles have brought on the trail with them. Oprah Winfrey, Lizzo, Beyonce, and Eminem are a few celebrity endorsements the vice president received.

The difference between these two palettes is that one is made up of celebrities and figures who actually galvanize the public in more settings than just their crafts. Harris’ entourage, while they appeal to a broad range of the population, there was a noticeable dissonance between the weight of this campaign and the celebrities’ apparent lack of synergy with issues and policy.

Moreover, Harris’ campaign shelled out millions of dollars for these appearances, which they claim have gone to logistical costs, not directly into the bank accounts of her surrogates. That’s fine, but it’s still an embarrassingly large sum of campaign funds that ultimately handed her a worse result, Electoral College-wise, popular vote-wise, and demographic-wise than Hillary Clinton (D-NY). In fact, many of Harris’ numbers in states, counties, and among demographics are some of the worst for a Democrat in generations, while she also managed to lose counties that haven’t backed the GOP since the late 1800s.

Spending all of that money on celebrity appearances hoping that enough young voters take note and feel that Harris “relates” to the public was a perfect case study in the Democrats’ hubris this cycle.

Look no further than Lizzo’s appearance with Harris in Michigan. Lizzo, born Melissa Jefferson, is a pop star, rapper, and flutist, who has been a lightning rod among some on the right for her apparent rise to stardom coupled with a personality deemed by some to be obnoxious and disrespectful. These aren’t views on her – frankly, we don’t know her at all – but this is just some context that might have been a factor in Harris’ decision to bring Lizzo aboard.

Lizzo’s appearance in Detroit was not only an attempt to swing younger voters who might feel somewhat slighted by the online discourse around a pop star, but also since Lizzo was bringing some hometown cred to the campaign.

The problem is: Lizzo was born in Detroit and relocated to Houston with her family when she was ten. She graduated from high school and college in Houston, becoming classically trained on the flute while dabbling in hip hop. She lived out of her car for a year hoping to make it into the music scene – we can respect her tenacity here – and moved to Minneapolis in 2011. Now, the Grammy Award-winning artist lives in a $24 million mansion in Beverly Hills.

At Harris’ Detroit rally in the home stretch of the campaign, Lizzo – whose ties to Michigan are as tenuous as Tim Walz’s (D-MN) grasp of political optics – proudly told voters that if Harris were elected president, then every city in America could be “like Detroit.”

That’s right. Kamala Harris had a celebrity come to her rally to tell the country that, if elected, every city in the country would be comparable to perhaps one of the absolute worst-run ones.

Fact-checkers continue to debate just how much celebrities were paid, and while they’re challenging the validity of claims that the Harris campaign footed a $2.3 million bill for her appearance, it still doesn’t take away from Lizzo’s – and Harris’ – backwards logic.

Celebrity participation in politics is certainly nothing new. Ronald Reagan (R-CA), Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), Al Franken (D-MN), Jesse Ventura (Reform-MN), and, of course, Donald Trump (R-FL) are notable standouts. Apart from exploring or winning elected office, celebrity endorsements and campaign trail appearances have been perennially common.

However, celebrity endorsements aren’t what they are now. When politics was a more civil game and strictly more centered around national security and the economy, celebrities were typically seen as guest appearances, rather than critical endorsements to swing a wild-card election.

Celebrities on the campaign trail now, especially in the Harris 2024 campaign, are nothing more than lollipops that a fifth-grader would hand out to his/her classmate’s to get elected as class president. Lizzo’s comments about Detroit also show just how shockingly out of touch she is with the general public and her original home city.

It’s incumbent upon Democrats to do a full autopsy on this election to see exactly what went wrong, but many seem intent on finger-pointing, blaming their core constituents for not backing Harris or showing up at all, and running a staunch anti-Trump campaign and a pro-”we’re-not-really-sure” message from their own corner.

They seem to be missing the fact that Harris lost a predominantly working-class state because she invited a hilariously out-of-touch to lecture the residents of a state in which she has not resided since she was ten. She’s now thirty-six.

If Democrats can’t understand that, then they deserve to never win another election again.

Suffolk County also had its share of celebrity politics this year. Former CNN commentator John Avlon (D-Gramercy Park) ran a campaign that made national outlets bullish on Democrats’ chances of flipping NY-01, and with it, the House of Representatives. He outspent Congressman Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) nearly four-to-one.

The end result? He performed slightly worse than Bridget Fleming (D-Noyac) did in 2022, a barely-red year where the red wave washed ashore only in New York and Florida. Typically, House district margins will shrink and grow reflective of the environment and type of election year. With a more partisan presidential election in a deep-blue state – or maybe formerly deep-blue – NY-01 should have been tighter, on paper, than it was in 2022.

As it turns out, a predominantly working-class county wasn’t enthused by a Manhattan elitist using his East End summer home as his bona fide to Suffolk. He lied about the date on which his house was purchased – 2009 – even when it was purchased in 2017 by the same LLC linked to his Gramercy Park co-op.

Who would have thought?

And yet, Suffolk Democrats, as well as national Democrats, will continue to scratch their heads and wonder why their party is in ruins.
Harris lost this race because she believed this to be a popularity contest and by bringing as many “popular” celebrities to her campaign instead of pursuing more concrete policy issues to connect with voters who have actual problems. Then, these same out-of-touch elitists insulted the intelligence of the voter by virtue of comments like those of Lizzo, all while Harris stood by and cackled. It’s even been reported that many Harris rally attendees only showed up because they were under the impression they would receive entertainment from Beyonce at one rally. The bait-and-switch tactic is an insulting, yet classic, political tactic, but it’s astonishing the Democrats went as far as they did for absolutely no payoff whatsoever.

That theory also says that voters didn’t care about hearing Harris’ talking points; they wanted a free concert that they ended up not receiving.

Ultimately, it’s not necessarily celebrities in general who are the problem, but it’s the particular spread chosen. Trump’s appears to have galvanized voters who have long recognized these faces from television and entertainment. Harris’ appears to have been on the most spectacular political blunders this country has likely ever seen.

This brings us to our final point: many on the left, especially progressives, view themselves as part of the “resistance.”

Here’s a life tip: if you have at least half – maybe two-thirds – of Washington, celebrities, mass media, international dignitaries, brands, social media, conglomerates, and an omnipresent technological era on your side, you’re not part of the resistance.

You’re with the elites.