Breathe
By Susana Moscatel
When Taylor Swift decided to declare her support for Kamala Harris and set up a link for people to register to vote more than 400,000 people immediately visited the link, which sent them directly to the registration site in their states. The singer was born in Pennsylvania, one of the five most relevant states to determine who will win this election and although it is obvious that her influence and fans exist beyond any border and that many of the young people who will vote for the first time are her most ardent fans, there is no guarantee of anything here.
The influence of a Taylor Swift is unquantifiable, but on the other side of the fence we have Elon Musk, owner of Twitter (X) who, like it or not, is the mad scientist of algorithms and the one who has made sure that there is not a single conspiracy theory against the Democrats that does not reach our cell phones, whoever we follow, whoever we block. And yes, that's real influence.
Just as Mexico was in the last election (although perhaps not as precisely split down the middle as in the U.S.) there is a sad sort of "them versus us" that has never been so extreme in political elections, which, as far as the celebrities involved are concerned, swim in a sea of ironies and great anecdotes in this cycle, which are certainly entertaining to tell. But are they relevant? Let's draw conclusions together, shall we? I propose some pivotal moments for what we have seen in the last few months as starting points.
Last July 10, George Clooney said what thousands of Democrats were thinking, but few dared to say.Joe Biden was already looking too fragile to win the election. "He's not the same Biden I knew," he said after a fundraiser for the then-candidate. Fury at Clooney soon turned to gratitude when Nancy Pelosi, who was the first woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, was finally able to convince Joe to vacate the nomination for her vice president, Kamala Harris. Was it Clooney or was it that dreadful debate against Trump? It all added up. The actor's fame is money in the candidate's account, so no one can go so far as to say it hasn't been a major factor in how we got to this point.
It is ironic that, although the Republicans are the party of Ronald Reagan (an actor by trade) and even of Governor Schwarzenegger (who already endorsed Kamala a few days ago), they are always the ones who have Hollywood and the music industry (largely) against them. For the same reason conspiracy theories that include words like "Illuminati", "Deep State" and the like, are often part of this rhetoric that claims that celebrities like Tom Hanks, Beyonce, Eminem and Madonna are part of a "liberal" confraternity that seeks a new world order through the Democratic party. And for some reason a Hillary Clinton pizzeria where they claim they sacrifice children to drink their blood (old variant of the oldest and most horrible conspiracy theories).
But those are the usual ones. So many people are going to vote in this election because they genuinely believe that what they call "the mental woke virus" will make their sons go to school one day and come back as daughters, without them knowing that they went through a sex change operation between math and recess.
Both sides are engaged in cries of horror regarding what they think the others will do, and in some cases, not the sex change class, cases with good reason. If millions of women no longer have the right to choose what to do with their own reproductive decisions in that country it is directly a consequence of the justices Trump put on the Supreme Court in his tenure. When actresses, women like any other finally raise their voices against this they are told to shut their mouths and just entertain people. No matter how well thought out their argument may be.
We could go over every famous person who has participated in these elections and the costs they have had to pay for it, but there are too many. So many that, looking at the polls so evenly matched as of today, the instinct is to think they make no difference. Just last Saturday the incredible appearance of Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live drove the Republicans crazy with rage (nobody tell them that about the election closures we have around here or they go even crazier). And I doubt the coming together of several Avengers via video call, to support Kamala a week ago will change a single vote. This one just adds to the perception so many have of a Disney Verso Woke and aligned another of the constant complaints from people on that side of the political spectrum.
But there are still those that the great comedian Bill Maher calls "the Christmas Eve voters." You know, those who don't decide what to give until a day before Christmas and go crazy at the end trying to do it. And yes, those who can and probably will decide today's election. What else do they need to know about their candidates to make a decision? Do they need George Clooney to tell them what to do? Taylor and Beyonce to give them a personal duet about it? Trump to give them his bible he sells on TV? I highly doubt it. At this point it doesn't matter anymore. My money's more on the TikTokers who did awesome remixes of the former president saying Haitians were eating the pets to accentuate the ridiculousness of the speeches.
And let's devote a whole other text to how, despite the fact that the one who undoubtedly has wholesale photos and anecdotes with Epstein and Diddy is Trump, it is only liberal celebrities who are already being destroyed in the court of public opinion by mere social or labor association.
Having said all this, however, there is one thing we cannot forget: We are talking about a huge team of celebrities against a candidate who is without a doubt THE most unprecedented, indescribable and powerful CELEBRITY of all. The luck that Donald Trump has had is not even ... Forrest Gump. There is a huge list of people who have lost everything just for having been close to him, while this man has a great chance of getting back into the White House. The fact that he hit on the fact that people have resentment against each other makes it almost impossible for his followers to take seriously the message of celebrities, who are "OTHER PEOPLE" par excellence. So, if it's possible, after months of not detaching myself from this mess, I can only conclude: celebrities have been a major influence in setting agendas, appearing in the news cycle, raising funds, and drawing crowds at political events. They've even helped determine the candidates at the end of the day. But will they get people to the polls? Did they change a single voter's opinion in the moment that matters? I deeply doubt it.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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