Taylor Swift & The Ballot Box

In this episode of Presidency Pending, Clare and Zim dive into the role of celebrity endorsements in US elections, comparing them with the Australian experience. With scandals, AI-generated endorsements, all things 'Brat Summer', and even some Taylor Swift trivia, this is one episode you won’t want to miss!

Join the discussion as they compare the American experience with Australia's more reserved approach, reflect on historical examples, and debate whether endorsements still hold sway in today’s polarised political landscape.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Clare Corbould

Dr Clare Corbould is an award-winning scholar of African American history with some knowledge of Pacific and Australian history, especially as they relate to the United States.

Host

Zim Nwokora

Dr Zim Nwokora is a political scientist specialising in the comparative study of political institutions, especially constitutions, political parties and political finance.

What is Presidency Upending?

Welcome to Pending Presidency, the podcast where political and historical experts discuss the latest news on the 2024 US election.
 
Hosted by Deakin’s Dr Clare Corbould and Dr Zim Nwokora, tune in for a thought-provoking discussion where everything is on the table. Will Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump? What do Australians think of the election? What do the latest opinion polls in Australia look like?
 
This podcast is brought to you by the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. Please note that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on this podcast are the individual's own.

00:00:00:14 - 00:00:35:00
Clare
Welcome back to Presidency Pending. A podcast bringing a distinctly Australian flavour to the burning questions in 2024's US presidential elections. I’m Clare. And I'm Zim. We're both academics in Deakin’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences. This week, we are taking a deep dive into celebrity endorsements during election campaigns, comparing the American and the Australian experience. So, to date we've heard from celebrities such as Taylor Swift obviously, Billie Eilish and Billy Ray Cyrus endorsing Harris and Trump.

00:00:35:02 - 00:00:59:20
Zim
So, Zim, tell me, how do celebrity endorsements affect voter perceptions of candidates, particularly, say, potentially younger voters? Good question. So, a celebrity endorsement is an endorsement from someone with a huge following, typically for reasons of music, that's often the celebrities these days, sometimes sports. If you go back further in time, people achieve celebrity for other reasons.

00:00:59:22 - 00:01:35:18
Unknown
In terms of understanding why celebrity endorsements matter, we think in political science that the people who follow celebrity celebrities often, come to the view that their opinion matters, and it's something that should be followed. There have been tests of the importance of celebrity endorsement. The most important, well one of the important tests, has been studies of Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008, which was associated with apparently a million new supporters for Barack Obama.

00:01:35:20 - 00:01:59:22
Unknown
More generally we think that celebrity endorsements matter to undecided voters, that's normally about 5 to 10% of the electorate, and they're particularly important for young voters. That's about sort of 15% of the electorate often. Right. Thank you. I'm, you know, the nerd in me really wants to ask how on earth do you measure that? But I think maybe we'll leave that for a more dedicated political science podcast.

00:01:59:24 - 00:02:22:03
Unknown
It's a good question. Clever research designs. Clare, how far back in US history do we see noteworthy celebrity involvement in elections, and how has it evolved over time? I think it dates back to the 1920s, which is actually when you get the rise of celebrity, I guess really, I guess in the form that we recognise it today.

00:02:22:05 - 00:02:44:01
Unknown
And that's because primarily of Hollywood, it's because of the communications boom that World War I engenders and the stars. You know, the famous example that we always trot out for lectures is the house of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford who wed, they were the 'King and Queen of Hollywood,' and their mansion in Hollywood was known as Pickfair.

00:02:44:03 - 00:03:09:06
Unknown
So the two of them got involved in one of Warren Harding's campaigns. So did Al Johnson, who was a singer, not a Hollywood star, he was the star of the very first talkie in 1927 which was called the Jazz Singer, in which he wore blackface, and that's the very first famous Hollywood talkie. But a couple of years before that he was for Harding, and I believe he was paid for this.

00:03:09:08 - 00:03:41:05
Unknown
And he released a song 'The People for Harding' or some such, and there was sheet music with his image and Harding's image side by side, so people would buy sheet music, play it on the piano at home, it was big middle class entertainment - so it dates back to the 20s. And then there's the odd one, but it's really then in the 1960s with JFK's run for the presidency and that kind of, you know, burnished image of the White House and Camelot and all the things that went with Kennedy and that sort of mystique.

00:03:41:07 - 00:04:09:14
Unknown
So he was very closely associated with the Rat Pack, which are the group of singers of that era - Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jnr. and others. Until he's not actually. So for a while he's very closely associated with them. It has evolved, I think. I mean, you know, in some ways it's the same. You're bringing the kind of, publicity that comes with a big name.

00:04:09:16 - 00:04:36:10
Unknown
That hasn't changed. I think the attention on younger voters has possibly changed. Because if you think about the 1980 campaign, when Ronald Reagan came up for the Republican Party, came up against Jimmy Carter, who was in the White House and running for the Democrats, they both, I mean, that was a that was the first election campaign were both sides had this huge array of stars on their, you know, behind them, I suppose.

00:04:36:16 - 00:05:05:15
Unknown
But they weren't young and they weren't necessarily appealing, I don't think, to young people, because we're talking like James Cagney for Ronald Reagan, and Muhammad Ali for Jimmy Carter, Willie Nelson. I guess I think of Willie Nelson as being so old that he was old then too, perhaps not quite so old, but maybe attracting swing voters, as you said, that's always, you know, in this election it's the 6% in the six states or whatever the phrase is.

00:05:05:17 - 00:05:35:24
Unknown
Yeah. So, it has evolved in one sense and in another it hasn't. Okay. Interesting. Funny how notions of glamour have changed over time too. Jimmy Cagney not so much. Yes. Imagine that today. Well, I mean, Kid Rock. Yeah. Imagine that yesterday. Zim, can you discuss some of the most impactful celebrity endorsements in recent election history? Who were they and what impact do we think that had on the outcome?

00:05:36:01 - 00:05:58:21
Unknown
Well, the standard one for answering this question is the Oprah endorsement, which had a massive impact, as I say, about a million voters apparently changed their mind because of it. It does seem like an awfully round number doesn't it? It does seem like a round number and I think it's important to bear in mind that a lot of that movement happened during the primary race.

00:05:58:23 - 00:06:23:08
Unknown
And I think that some of the discussion around endorsements doesn't do enough to distinguish between, general election campaigns after the party's primaries and the primary process itself. I mean, one thing that, I should stress is that one of the purposes of endorsements is to bring signal in a very noisy, uncertain context. So during the primary race, typically the candidates aren't so different from each other.

00:06:23:10 - 00:06:58:00
Unknown
So there's a lot of noise there. And what the endorsements do is help voters coordinate, steer voters toward one candidate instead of another, when basically the various candidates are almost substitutes in terms of ideology and what they would mean for public policy. When it comes to the general election, especially in a polarised era. There isn't that there isn't that, sense of uncertainty and therefore I think it's much more questionable how much movement can happen, during an election, a general election campaign, and especially during an era of high polarization like the one we're in at the moment.

00:06:58:02 - 00:07:29:12
Unknown
I would agree. I think, in fact, you know, I just said not much has evolved, I think one thing that has changed is that some celebrities, if they decide that in a polarised election such as the one that is taking place now, that they may decide that they need to endorse a candidate, I think this is precisely what's happened to Taylor Swift, who famously, if you're into her if you're a Swiftie, or even if you're not, in 2016 when Trump ran for the first time, she chose not to endorse a candidate.

00:07:29:12 - 00:07:56:21
Unknown
And two years later, she had come to regret that decision and went on record saying so, and I think that's the one, and this is another example that is sometimes used, where she got out 300,000 people registered in a very short time. And in 2020, she endorsed Biden. And more recently she's endorsed Harris. And I think it's motivated partly by the sense of the damage that would be done if stayed aloof.

00:07:57:02 - 00:08:16:04
Unknown
Yeah, I would agree with you. Though I do think that there must be commercial risks associated with with that move, even if, you know, if you're Taylor Swift and you're thinking about this from a purely commercial standpoint, then probably nearly all of your supporters are unlikely to vote for Donald Trump anyway. So maybe the risks are quite small.

00:08:16:06 - 00:08:42:20
Unknown
But still for many celebrities, there are risks in putting off large sections of a very divided country. I mean, at the end of the day, America splits nearly 50, 50, Democratic or Republican. There was, of course, the very famous quip by Michael Jordan I believe, who refused to endorse a Democratic candidate, saying that Republicans buy trainers as well.

00:08:42:22 - 00:09:09:13
Unknown
And you know, that in a sense captures the idea that there's commercial costs to excluding partisans of either side. Yes, and I think, I mean, that's why Swift's team said in 2016 don't endorse but perhaps they've come around. Yeah, that's a good question. Has she done this? But. Okay. That would be going a little bit on a tangent. How much Taylor Swift can we bear?

00:09:09:15 - 00:09:27:04
Unknown
Well, I, I'd be very interested obviously she released a statement and so on, but, I'd be interested in time to interview her and to know how she reaches a decision like that. Who's advising her? What's the logic behind it? How much of this is commercial? How much of it is personal? How much of it is? You know, if you like small p political?

00:09:27:06 - 00:09:59:24
Unknown
I think it's quite an interesting set of, questions. I cannot wait for you to interview Taylor Swift. Yeah, I think we will have to wait for that one, unfortunately. Let's see if we can get her on this podcast. I can, however, ask you a question now. Go on. Have celebrity endorsements ever backfired on a candidate or caused unexpected shifts in the electorate? I don't think there's a single kind of, you know, it's not like the case of Oprah Winfrey, which is the kind par example of how endorsements might move things.

00:10:00:01 - 00:10:30:17
Unknown
There's not one that comes to mind, but, politicians do need to take care in selecting or agreeing to and liaising with celebrities. So the case here again is JFK who was very closely associated with that Rat Pack and with the kind of cool of the 50s and 60s, and then, famously, Frank Sinatra was hosting a very, very lavish, expensive, you know, how ever many dollars a head dinner as a fundraiser for JFK.

00:10:30:17 - 00:10:58:21
Unknown
And Kennedy had recently learnt about - for listeners, I just cocked my head in a way that conveys that I'm skeptical about this. He had just learned about Sinatra's quite close ties to the mob. So he did not turn up to this fundraiser and that was the end of that relationship. Ooh, I did not know that. And in 1980 in fact Sinatra went for Reagan, partly because he was still hurt by that snub.

00:10:58:23 - 00:11:22:12
Unknown
And likewise with Sammy Davis Jr. It was a big event in Washington. And the Democrats did not invite Davis because he was married to a white woman and that was still too controversial in the 1960s. And again, Davis took great umbrage at that and so he supported Nixon in 1968. And there's a famous photograph of Sammy Davis Jr, coming up almost like a football tackle.

00:11:22:14 - 00:11:45:23
Unknown
He comes up from behind the lectern, grabs him around the waist for a hug. Great photograph of that. Which in turn puts Sammy Davis Jr on the nose with potential black candidates. So when Jesse Jackson ran in the 1980s he did not invite Davis to his events. Right. So, I mean, in some ways it's small beans and in others politicians need to be really careful.

00:11:46:01 - 00:12:08:15
Unknown
Yeah, but I can't think of a kind of really big example of it backfiring, perhaps you've got one but I can't think of a hugely unsuccessful one. Yeah not off the top of my head. I mean, I think there's quite a few examples where the endorsement didn't seem to have much impact. And that's, if you like, I think the default scenario.

00:12:08:17 - 00:12:35:22
Unknown
I think endorsements get a lot of attention. Their impact seems to be generally more marginal. And, you know, I think of the many Hollywood actors and actresses, singers Katy Perry spring to mind in particular, who endorsed Hillary Clinton. And, that seemed to backfire and she lost to Donald Trump of course. Well she didn't lose the popular vote of course but all that matters are those in the swing states.

00:12:35:24 - 00:13:10:01
Unknown
She lost electoral college. Yeah they're the rules of the game. Yes. That's right. I'm thinking too it was an endorsement of sorts. I mean, the other thing that's changed is that sometimes these endorsements seem to come without any knowledge of the candidates. Yeah. Yeah. And I think from a political theoretical standpoint, that poses problems or at least risks, because, here you have voters who are following someone who has a big platform, but not necessarily a great deal of knowledge about candidates, issues,

00:13:10:03 - 00:13:43:05
Unknown
Politics, public policy, and so on. And so the question is, is following, celebrity endorsements better than the alternative? So who else would voters be listening to? I think that's an interesting question. That is an interesting questions yeah. Because if, for example, if celebrity endorsements are crowding out the endorsements of, experts or party elites, who have, on the side of experts they have substantive expertise.

00:13:43:07 - 00:14:10:00
Unknown
If we're thinking about party elites, they have knowledge of, intimate knowledge of, the personalities, the character, the leadership qualities of the candidates, then maybe the public are following, noisy noise rather than signal. Right. So you've got the celebrities who are saying stuff that suggests that you should converge on someone for reasons that, may or may not be true.

00:14:10:02 - 00:14:31:17
Unknown
Well I mean the perennial problem of reaching voters right so I see what you're saying. And I guess the other ones that used to be very significant, and certainly in Australia, were editors and newspapers. Yeah. Yeah. Their endorsements used to matter a great deal. But of course, newspapers have played a huge, the media system, has played a huge role in the rise of celebrity endorsements too.

00:14:31:21 - 00:14:56:04
Unknown
You know, just thinking about the history that you've tracked. I mean, one could tell that story through the rise of newspapers, radios, cable TV, internet, social media. I mean, this is all in various ways helped make celebrity more important. If you think back to those 1920s celebrities it's in these very novel magazines, that of motion picture magazines, that are been sold to teens and young people,

00:14:56:04 - 00:15:31:21
Unknown
young adults, who are a new consumer market with newly disposable income too. So all of this is kind of connected. Yeah. You've got consumers who think of themselves, whose citizenship is based, in fact on, consumption. Consumption of luxury goods. I mean, famously, those Hollywood stars also backed deodorant, which, believe it or not, is a luxury good you don't actually need it. And the 1920s is full of a remaking of Americanness as cleanliness. Sorry, I might be diverting a bit, but that all these things

00:15:31:21 - 00:15:47:17
Unknown
Go hand in hand I suppose and it really affects who people listen to. Absolutely. All right, I've got a question for you Zim. Earlier in this campaign Donald Trump shared an AI generated image of Taylor Swift endorsing his campaign.

00:15:47:19 - 00:16:23:09
Unknown
What impacts do you think AI is having ion this election? I think AI is having an effect that we'll probably know after the fact. Certainly there is, a huge amount of disinformation spewing from various quarters, both domestic and international. There are bots all over the place I've been told. Listeners and viewers, I'm the one who's very online. I've been told. I stress that. I'm less online than Clare.

00:16:23:11 - 00:16:46:04
Unknown
So, this is all secondhand, of course. But, from what I gather, you know, the actual mechanics of the election will be very secure, as they were in in 2020 last time around. And so the question is, how does disinformation impact on voters preferences? And I think that's a very, very, complicated question.

00:16:46:06 - 00:17:12:05
Unknown
And, it's one that, you know, we'll have to grapple with in modern democracies going forward as the information context evolves. But just on the question about, the AI version of Taylor Swift, I did wonder the extent to which that would ever be credible given Taylor Swift's very strong brand, which is youthful

00:17:12:07 - 00:17:37:20
Unknown
And it's progressive, and the people at her concerts are very obviously unlikely to vote for Trump. And I think if the AI version of Taylor Swift was endorsing Kamala Harris, then I think that would we'd have credibility, plausibility, questions to ask. But endorsing Trump, that always seemed a little bit far fetched.

00:17:37:20 - 00:18:06:18
Unknown
So I wonder how much traction that was ever going to get. I think if you're a Swiftie, then the main options for your idol are to stay neutral or to come out for Kamala Harris. So in a sense, that's the choice that she's playing with. So I think, you know, anything that is beyond that range seems kind of implausible to the point that one would be skeptical if you saw AI along those lines. You know

00:18:06:20 - 00:18:18:14
Unknown
I mostly agree but it was either very soon after or very shortly before she endorsed Harris in that Instagram post signed childless cat lady, a reference obviously to JD Vance

00:18:18:16 - 00:18:33:02
Unknown
And his pro natalist vision nuclear family vision of what the United States should be. And Taylor Swift is now in her mid 30s and a childless cat lady. There was a photograph of her

00:18:33:04 - 00:18:59:00
Unknown
Hanging out with a very well known Republican and his girlfriend, Brittany. And this is one of those occasions where as an Australian I often read names and then I realise halfway through a lecture or talk that I don't know how to say it. So Mahomes? Mahomes? Yeah. Very famous footballer and his wife. And Taylor Swift

00:18:59:02 - 00:19:25:11
Unknown
And the wife, Brittany Mahomes, were hugging. And this went all over social media. Is she a Republican now? How can she hang out with those MAGA people? So, you know, maybe actually some people could have believed that Swift had changed sides. So perhaps. And I think were the Republican candidate a more mainstream candidate and not Donald Trump, I think, you know, that would be a more open question. Alright I've got another one for you

00:19:25:11 - 00:19:50:03
Unknown
I think. How does the role of celebrity endorsements in the US elections compare to Australia? Other notable differences, or can you make comparisons? Oh good question. I think that America is more celebrity obsessed. I think there's certainly, a celebrity aspect to Australian life, but the celebrities are fewer, they have lower status and I think generally people adore them less.

00:19:50:05 - 00:20:15:17
Unknown
And their political involvement seems to be, my guess is substantially lower than the activity of endorsements in American politics. I think part of it flows from my earlier point around the role and the prominence of the primary process in the United States, which I think opens itself up to celebrities playing a role as coordinators on a candidate.

00:20:15:19 - 00:20:37:21
Unknown
And I think the way Australian party leaders are selected is very different. And there, you know, there isn't a role for the celebrity in that. That's very much an internal party affair. And then when we get to the general election in both America and in Australia, a lot of the politics is structured by things we know like partisanship and the economy, so on.

00:20:38:02 - 00:21:04:13
Unknown
And so there's less space for influential endorsements of any kind, including by celebrities. Yeah I'm just trying to imagine how we might have responded in the late 80s if John Farnham decided to endorse someone. I think they would have been a huge amount of scepticism and, you know, a bit of get your hand off it really. Yeah. Well, John Farnham endorsed the Yes vote

00:21:04:15 - 00:21:29:19
Unknown
and I think that's a very interesting example where, the endorsements tended to line up on the side of Yes and, of course, Yes was defeated. And maybe one might say that there's something quite Australian in, you know, rejecting the choice of the establishment wherever it comes from. Exactly,. this is classic tall, poppy, cutting down tall poppies.

00:21:29:19 - 00:21:51:11
Unknown
So, maybe there's some of that. Certainly. I think for a politician in the current era where there is skepticism around elites, and that's not just in Australia, but I think one doesn't certainly find that in Australia, I think it's risky to tie one stock too closely to establishments of any kind. It's very good point.

00:21:51:13 - 00:22:05:07
Unknown
I've got a question for you, I might even have two in a row Clare. First of all, how do you think the increasing involvement of celebrities in politics reflects broader cultural changes in American society?

00:22:05:09 - 00:22:24:01
Unknown
That's a very big question. Well, I think, so we've sort of touched on it that the rise of celebrity culture and consumer culture generally is a big part of the story of the 20th century and 21st century in the West, not just in the United States but certainly in the West. I mean, it is this is something that I take from Elliot Perlman's

00:22:24:03 - 00:22:53:21
Unknown
book, Three Dollars. It was not that long ago that we did not hear at every hourly news update about the All Ordinaries Index, where consumption was not linked to citizenship or we didn't hear on the news about consumer confidence as a kind of sign of wellbeing, for example. So and I think because celebrities are, not just with political endorsements obviously but consumer goods, is so tied up with both of those things, with all of those things

00:22:53:23 - 00:23:18:08
Unknown
that that certainly has been a huge cultural shift. Broad cultural change? You know you could make an argument and I'm not the political scientist here, so I'm going out on a limb here that presidents tend to be more celebrity like in the last maybe four. I think maybe since Reagan. They've got rizz as the kids say.

00:23:18:10 - 00:23:42:12
Unknown
Yep, yep. In political science we don't use the term rizz yet, we talk about the personalisation of politics. And indeed, when talking about how Australian politics has changed many political scientists talk about the presidential-isation of politics. Again, you know, tying in with the phenomenon you just observed. I think some of ours are more presidential like than others, but all the focus you mean on the single person?

00:23:42:14 - 00:24:04:22
Unknown
Yeah, exactly. Who is not elected directly by the people in that sense. Yeah and in a country where the executive is technically the cabinet, not the Prime Minister. Yeah. So I think that's the case, I thought over them. George H.W. Bush might be the exception here. He wasn't exceptionally charismatic and certainly not celebrity like, but the person he beat in 1988 was even less so.

00:24:05:02 - 00:24:23:02
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. And then you think Clinton, you think of Obama. I mean, these are stars and in fact, I think this is something Harris is really needing to cultivate because I don't think she's a natural in front of the camera, but I think she's a naturally oh, she is if she's interviewed and she's comfortable. But I think Bill Clinton is famously charismatic.

00:24:23:03 - 00:24:51:08
Unknown
He can work any room but is also great on camera. Yeah. I mean there has been this, well I suppose there's always some fuzzing of the boundary between celebrity and politics, but perhaps the boundary doesn't really exist anymore. I think Donald Trump is the case in point, obviously. Yes. Well indeed. I've been thinking about his celebrity. In the, I mean, in the 1980s, he's got a cameo in Home Alone 2. I've recently been watching The Nanny again.

00:24:51:14 - 00:25:15:08
Unknown
They mentioned Donald Trump surprisingly often in early episodes. So it's not even later when they're kind of cultivating stars and bringing them in. Coz he's a New York point of reference. Yeah, yeah. And then he hosts The Apprentice for 15 years. Yeah. So he keeps that celebrity going with younger people, with migrants, with people who might not necessarily have known who the Trumps were.

00:25:15:10 - 00:25:37:01
Unknown
He's got great brand recognition. Indeed. And that segues quite nicely to my next question. How do you see the role of social media in amplifying the political voice of celebrities today compared to earlier eras? I mean, we've touched on this a little bit, too. It used to be newspapers, if you wanted to be a celebrity endorser, you needed to get the attention of the media.

00:25:37:03 - 00:26:01:19
Unknown
Now we all have our own publishing houses in our telephones. Yeah. I mean, when Taylor Swift endorses or when indeed Charli XCX, the British pop star in her early 30s, announces just after Kamala gets the nod, or Biden steps down, she says Kamala is Brat. Yeah. And a bunch of middle-aged people or older all go What is that?

00:26:01:21 - 00:26:41:11
Unknown
I include myself in that category. I mean likewise. I needed it explained very carefully to me, but now I can pass it onto you. Please tell us the viewers would be interested to know what brat means in this context, because we all have our own notions of brat. There's no hard and fast definition. There is that one. Ha ha. Brat in this context is the title, I think, of her album that had a particularly sort of lurid lime green, not quite lime, somewhere between lime and olive green cover, and Kamala Harris's team on the socials did a new image, a cover image for her, that was just in that colour

00:26:41:11 - 00:27:12:03
Unknown
as soon as Charli XCX said this. Anyway, being Brat means being authentic, being not too concerned that your less savoury characteristics will put people off. Just trying to accept yourself and to make the best of the better parts of it. That's how I understand it. I hope I've got it right. I've never felt more middle aged than explaining this to you, knowing that a 18 year old would be able to just, tell you like that.

00:27:12:05 - 00:27:37:22
Unknown
Well, there we go. I did not know that we lacked a word for that in the English language for that. Particularly, it came out with a lot of young women saying they were going to have a brat summer. Okay. And this coincided with Biden stepping down, with Harris stepping up. And really, it again is testament to her campaign team that they grabbed this and it got the attention of a lot of potential young voters, which are essential, of course, for Harris getting over the line in November.

00:27:37:24 - 00:28:01:13
Unknown
So in this case, it's a social media, I mean, it's a simple three word post, Kamala is Brat, by some very famous pop star if you're of a certain generation. And they took it and ran with it. Yeah. But I doubt very much that they knew this was coming. And of course it could have just gone into obscurity. Yeah. But this young woman has a reasonable profile.

00:28:01:13 - 00:28:23:20
Unknown
They saw an opportunity. Yeah. And she a brand. She has a language that she can articulate with impact. It's impressive. And for those of us who didn't catch it the first time, the way we caught it was a few days later when footage from CNN went viral. Yeah, a bunch of six people using their reading glasses to try to explain to each other what Brat is.

00:28:23:20 - 00:28:42:22
Unknown
As I have just done for you and someone did for me. Yeah. Excellent. Well, we all help each other to learn through this complicated era in that sense. So social media in that sense, it's certainly, it's not just an amplification. It's an opportunity for some celebrities. I mean, none of us had heard of Charlie xcx. I'm pretty sure she would have passed me by entirely had so not. So she's broadened her market too.

00:28:43:00 - 00:29:10:21
Unknown
Yeah, it's a win win. I mean, but as you say, the lack of oversight of these social media platforms is potentially a huge, huge issue for honesty, decency, trust in our public institutions and in our electoral processes both in Australia and overseas. Absolutely, awfully hard to regulate properly. Particularly when you think of the constitutional protections around free speech in the United States.

00:29:10:21 - 00:29:33:03
Unknown
Australia doesn't quite have those provisions. But I think in the United States context what to do with disinformation is a serious and ongoing problem. And it certainly could be here too. It could be universal right? It is here as well. Zim, is there evidence that celebrity endorsements are becoming less effective or even irrelevant in our current media?

00:29:33:05 - 00:30:00:09
Unknown
I think there is at least circumstantial evidence insofar as endorsements by, political endorsements, celebrity endorsements, Taylor Swift endorsements, in that order of importance, insofar as they matter most for undecided voters, the number of undecided voters is decreasing. And it's low because of intense polarisation. And therefore the sort of people who'd be swayed by endorsements, there's fewer of them.

00:30:00:11 - 00:30:28:05
Unknown
We do know, however, that young people are often more likely to be swayed by an endorsement. And also in the American context, you've got to bear in mind that, persuasion is difficult. So trying to convince someone who voted Democrat one year and to vote Republican four years later is always a challenge. And therefore, the more effective tactic if you're a political strategist is to think about two cousins of persuasion.

00:30:28:05 - 00:30:54:10
Unknown
And that's activation and suppression. And, you know, you want to you want to bring out your voters and suppress the votes of others, of your opponents. And endorsements are more likely to do that than actually to persuade, you know, to rally your base, to get them to the polls. And in a tight election, even if there's a relatively small number of undecided voters that can be decisive.

00:30:54:12 - 00:31:24:23
Unknown
Okay, Clare, what are some of the key ethical challenges or dilemmas that arise when celebrities endorse political candidates or causes? And how might these impact the integrity of the democratic process? I think we've touched on that too, that, you know, it's not an unmediated process to have an endorsement not be dropped into a pool of water and, oh hang on, or is it a tree falling in the forest? Metaphors are a problem for me.

00:31:25:00 - 00:31:31:10
Unknown
An environmental phenomenon. Nicely done.

00:31:31:12 - 00:32:01:07
Unknown
Yes. In order for it to be meaningful, it has to be amplified. And that's where I think the most serious ethical questions at the moment lie and I think we've touched on that. That most media is owned by partisan and very wealthy people and there is no way to get that across otherwise. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, how do political scientists view the crossover between pop culture and politics in modern elections?

00:32:01:09 - 00:32:24:04
Unknown
Is this a continuation of a longstanding trend or something new? I think we've largely dealt with that. But just in a nutshell, I think political scientists are very interested in how politics in all of its forms have evolved, and the role and interaction of culture in politics. And clearly we've talked about how that's changed and the role of celebrities in that.

00:32:24:10 - 00:32:48:05
Unknown
But I also think, and we've touched on this a little bit, the deep fundamental normative questions around what this means for democracy, what this means for the role of knowledge in democracy, like, who knows what? Who has power over directing opinions? What are the role of party elites versus media elites versus celebrities from Hollywood and so on?

00:32:48:11 - 00:33:17:04
Unknown
And I also think that there's interesting questions about who makes up the party in the United States, that political scientists are interested in. So it's not a coincidence that celebrities from Hollywood tend to endorse the Democratic Party. I think that in a conceptualisation of the party system it's almost fair to treat Hollywood elites as being at the core of the Democratic Party these days.

00:33:17:04 - 00:33:39:23
Unknown
In the same way that bankers were historically at the core of the Republican Party. So, you know that the Democratic Party is the party of much of the cultural establishment, if you like. So, I think that the way in which the cultural system interacts with the party system is an interesting set of questions as well.

00:33:40:00 - 00:34:05:08
Unknown
Thank you. I'm just thinking of all those country music stars who are very much Republicans and, but they're not, you know, they are expressly not Hollywood themselves. They are often very hostile in fact to, I'm not talking about particular country stars, but perhaps that genre. I mean, we've seen, Beyonce's country album was not probably her finest album.

00:34:05:08 - 00:34:10:09
Unknown
I'm prepared to say that and I'm a big fan.

00:34:10:11 - 00:34:39:14
Unknown
But she has not had a single nomination for the Country Music Awards this year. Is that right? I'm quite surprised by that. Yeah. So, for example, that there is a kind of, so this is not just of course about culture in politics but as ever about race too. Yeah. And, you know, when people speak of the culture wars I think that's really evocative of the interpenetration of culture and politics in American life for decades.

00:34:39:16 - 00:35:03:02
Unknown
And actually, this one last thing, I think this is probably something that's helpful here and that is the virtual rally, so called "virtual rally" that Harris conducted last week, hosted by Oprah Winfrey. And this, again, kind of brings a lot of these things together. Yeah, it's an endorsement, it's a huge celebrity endorsement. But, you know, Winfrey is more than just a celebrity endorser.

00:35:03:02 - 00:35:32:24
Unknown
she can move consumer markets. And here I thought it was kind of, look I haven't seem too much analysis of the results of this and it was only Thursday night, it was live streamed on Harris's YouTube channel, and people are coming to it still. I watched it on Sunday morning, for example. I think a million views within 24 hours. I don't know how long people hung around, but, Oprah Winfrey has a huge reach to white women.

00:35:33:01 - 00:35:55:04
Unknown
Yeah, obviously to African-American women as well, but to that huge audience who she reached through daytime television. They trust her, they read the selections in the Oprah Book Club. And I think this is probably why she was hosting it, in Michigan, swing state. And she has such positive valence. You know, you mention Oprah and people are either neutral or like her.

00:35:55:05 - 00:36:22:07
Unknown
Now think of Donald Trump and Elon Musk as a sharp contrast. Again, a man with a huge platform, loads of wealth, his endorsement could conceivably be worth a lot. But I imagine that it's on the whole a more complicated asset, if you're thinking about political capital, than Oprah's endorsement, which is unequivocally, unequivocally, a positive.

00:36:22:09 - 00:36:35:24
Unknown
So I think, yeah, it's a bit of a contrast between those two. Well-observed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's it. I think have you got anymore? No, I'm done with my questions. I think we've covered celebrity endorsement and some.

00:36:36:10 - 00:36:37:15
Unknown
and come back next week

00:36:37:15 - 00:36:44:19
Unknown
for our discussion of, unless something really happens this week that we can't resist talking about,

00:36:44:21 - 00:37:04:17
Unknown
Presidential scandals. Yeah, there might even be a scandal between now and then. Who knows? It's pretty good chance. Thank you for your interest in Australian and American politics. Please consider forwarding the pod to your friends and hit follow in your podcast app of choice. See you next time.