Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, ripped his party on Friday for trotting out high-profile celebrity endorsements during the 2024 election cycle.
Appearing on “CNN This Morning,” Landsman suggested that the Kamala Harris campaign banking on celebrity support to boost her chances of beating President-elect Donald Trump was bad strategy because ordinary Americans are indifferent.
“Like, no one cares what some of these – we like their movies, we like their music. Who they’re voting for? Eh, not so important,” the lawmaker told CNN anchor Kasie Hunt.
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Hunt prompted Landsman’s point with a clip of a virtual voter focus group meeting during which the participants criticized the Democratic Party for its lack of authenticity and reliance on Hollywood elites to sell their message.
One of the voters said, “I feel like the celebrity endorsement at its max has to go away because everybody’s laughing, and it’s all just a star-studded circus.”
Another voter chimed in, telling Democrats that if they want to win in the future, they need to “talk to the grassroots, talk to the people.”
Landsman told Hunt that he agreed and he hears the calls for moderation from people in his own community.
“I got off of social media a while ago, so no Twitter, no Instagram, no TikTok. Now we have accounts and I put stuff up there, but I’m not scrolling” he said, mentioning his work accounts.
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“I get all my information from people, so, back home, whether it’s on the soccer field – I’m a soccer dad – or at the grocery store, or at our town hall, this is exactly what I hear, which is ‘Do the work,’ ‘Please be normal,’ ‘Be pragmatic,’” he said.
“Yeah, we like when the center left and the center right work together. That’s what we want. That’s where you’re going to solve problems,” he continued, before adding that the voters’ perspective on celebrity endorsements is “hilarious, because it is true.”
Hunt followed by asking if the endorsements “make Democrats seem out of touch,” to which Landsman replied, “Yeah, I suspect if you’re hanging out with these celebrities – it’s not the life I’m living, so yeah sure, that feels different.”
The Harris campaign brandished multiple major celebrity endorsements this cycle, enlisting the likes of pop star Beyoncé, rapper Cardi B, singer Usher, rock star Bruce Springsteen and others to get the public to vote for Harris.
Even pop superstar Taylor Swift endorsed Harris, though the support didn’t seem to boost her to beating Trump, who won a second term in a decisive victory last week. This prompted popular commentators and “Brilliant Idiots” podcast co-hosts Andrew Schulz and Charlamagne to wonder recently if someone as culturally powerful as Swift is now irrelevant when it comes to politics.
“But for real, Taylor Swift really don’t got the – she don’t really got the juice like that,” Schulz remarked. “She don’t!” Charlamagne replied.
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