As soon as the G7 ended, Joe Biden flew to Los Angeles, where George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barack Obama were waiting for him.
Surrounded by many other Hollywood stars, the group has raised nothing less than $30 million for the 2024 campaign.
Important, the support of the stars?
For several electoral cycles, Democratic candidates have been stocking up on stars who, beyond financial contributions, do not hesitate to use their notoriety to become spokespersons for the party and the candidate.
If their financial contribution is not negligible, it is far from certain that appearing with their favorite candidate is beneficial for the cause. For several years, studies have shown that a large majority of voters attach very little or no importance to the comments of big names in the entertainment world.
Worse than leaving voters indifferent, it is fairly regularly argued that the repeated interventions of stars have a more negative than positive influence.
Remember how much people loved the murderous tirades of comedian Ricky Gervais while he hosted the Golden Globes?
Gervais understood before many others that the public was fed up with the accumulation of these moralizing speeches relayed by people whose daily lives and concerns are at the same time as the daily lives of 99% of the population.
Elites far from the concerns of the average voter
Once again during the 2024 campaign, we will be told again and again that every vote counts. Do Clooney, Roberts and the others have enough credibility to change the situation?
It’s probably possible to win some votes this way, but relying on this kind of strategy indicates that Democrats are not learning from their mistakes.
Rightly or wrongly, the party that claims to defend the poor and the middle class, the party that believes in investments in health and social services, is very often perceived as the party of the elites.
Democratic strategists seem to have forgotten, or neglected, a notion that popularizers or teachers apply daily: we must take people as they are, and where they are, if we want to gain their trust.
Republicans never stray from this notion. Whether we respect the elected officials of this party or not, they stick to the people, to the point where they are capable of winning the vote of the poor by cutting social programs!
Of course, Biden’s visit to Los Angeles was just one episode in a long struggle, but he and his advisors should limit this kind of exercise.
Capable of empathy, Biden should bluntly put down those who look down on people and leave the flashiness to those whose job it is. The star is the one who notices, stunned, that the world is changing rapidly and who has the impression of being only a negligible quantity in the eyes of leaders.
