by Donna M. Goldstein and Kristen Drybread, University of Colorado Boulder
Two ex-girlfriends are conservative after accusing Georgia Republican Senate candidate and former football star Herschel Walker of pressuring her to have an abortion and giving her money for the procedure. Walker’s position with voters was expected to decline.
One reason is Walker’s absolutist stance on abortion. He says that abortion should not be legal even if it is due to incest or rape or because of the mother’s health.
Instead, Walker denies the allegations, which appear to have increased his win rate rather than diminished it. why? Because he’s a celebrity, not a politician.
We are sociocultural anthropologists and have studied white-collar crime and political corruption in the United States and Latin America. Candidates like Walker may have previously broken the rules and ruined candidates, benefiting from a template developed by former President Donald Trump who figured out how to turn celebrity status into political success. I can confidently say that I have received
The formula, which helped transform Trump from a real-estate mogul and celebrity TV character into a Republican party leader, includes getting the public to register violations as entertainment.
Adopting this template, several Trump-backed celebrity candidates have converted their personal fame into endorsement from Trump’s base in the 2022 midterm elections.
Take a closer look at Walker. Cali Lake, Republican gubernatorial candidate for Arizona. Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, better known as Dr. Oz, explains how Trump not only puts character before policy, but also steered politics down the path of rewarding celebrity politicians for bad behavior. reflects the
Celebrity Candidates for Trump
Lake, a former newscaster for local Fox TV station in Phoenix, was a celebrity in Arizona when she announced her run for governor in June 2021.
Since then, Lake has performed political stunts, including falsely claiming at a press conference that her rival Katie Hobbs dressed as a chicken and broke into a campaign office.
Lake regularly accused journalists of lying about Hobbes and of voting to prevent the Pledge of Allegiance from being recited in schools. He has not said whether he will accept the results of the 2022 midterm elections.
These antics, marked by celebrity rule-breaking, mobilized Trump supporters.
Meanwhile, Oz has established himself as the host of The Doctor Oz Show, a daytime show that reviews medical and wellness products, especially diet-related products, and answers questions about health and wellness. Now running for Senate from Pennsylvania, Oz got to mock opponent John Fetterman’s diet.
And in a live debate in October 2022, Oz questioned Fetterman’s recovery from his stroke in May 2022, asking if he could understand and respond to what Oz was saying.
Walker employed his own Trump-style ploy by revealing an honorary sheriff’s badge to the audience during his only scheduled debate against Senator Raphael Warnock. It was intended to prove his goodwill in support of the police. However, the badge was not an actual police badge. Instead, it’s a token prop gifted to him by the Georgia State Sheriff.
Such performances by celebrity candidates do not appear to diminish their reputations. And it seems.
bad behavior before trump
Celebrity politicians have always been bound by different standards than traditional politicians.
As media commentator Neil Postman points out, former U.S. President and Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan often said things that weren’t true, but he had no responsibility for doing so.Reagan praised South Africa’s apartheid regime for ending racism when it didn’t, and repeatedly argued that trees are harmful to the environment. Still, he remained a popular politician, as most voters who supported him were more concerned with his ability to tap into emotions than with the veracity of his statements.
Sensing this, Reagan spent time in the White House focusing on emotional impact rather than accuracy.
There are also instances of Democratic politicians misbehaving, and conflicting ways in which they have represented themselves professionally. , resigned for prostitution to prostitutes. Springer had a successful television career as a daytime talk show host. “Saturday Night Live” comedian Al Franken, who later became a Minnesota senator, resigned in 2017 over allegations of sexual misconduct. But in his case, Franken’s bad behavior only kept him out of politics, and he couldn’t get into it any more.
But this kind of political norm has changed with the rise of Trump’s political power. Because Trump has come to rely less on his ability to entertain and entertain his fans than on his ability to inspire confidence.
trump shift
Throughout his political career, Trump has effectively used his vulgar and derisive humor to elevate his status as an entertainer, transforming his opponents from sometimes rigid, humorless politicians to grotesque and laughable people. . This humor would have been considered disrespectful and unpresidential if uttered by others or said by Trump himself outside the political arena.
Trump deliberately humiliates and embarrasses his political rivals, and his supporters celebrate these transgressions at his campaign rallies.
At a rally in 2016, Trump pretended to fire a gun while criticizing members of the U.S. military accused of desertion. At a rally in October 2022, Trump threatened to rape a journalist in prison.
Performances like this are effective not only because they inspire the call-and-response style of propagandistic celebrity fandom, but also because they resist the influence of criticism. No matter how harmful and humiliating Trump’s performances are to their targets, they can always be dismissed as comedic entertainment.
Walker, Lake, and Oz are now using their celebrity status to defy long-established rules of political engagement, making morally questionable entertainment a viable political strategy.
These newly established rules show that Walker’s alleged hypocrisy is not his political demise. The American public is now conditioned to appreciate the antics of celebrity-turned-politicians and to believe they must be held to a different standard than others.
Donna M Goldstein is a professor of anthropology and Kristen Drybread is a lecturer. University of Colorado Boulder. This article is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Please read the original article.
