After Taylor Swift’s public endorsement of Kamala Harris on September 10th, 2024 to her Instagram with over 280 million followers, The New York Times found that the website vote.gov had 405,999 logins to the site within the first 24 hours of the post. A report by CBS News states on a typical day the site gets 30,000 daily logins.
This is a call to attention.
An election should not be allowed to be swayed by a popularity contest.
Celebrities and politics should be separate. Politics are policy-driven while celebrities are not. A policy-driven approach is guided by established rules, regulations, or principles aimed at achieving specific goals or outcomes. It often involves formal frameworks that dictate how decisions should be made. Celebrities are often more publicity-driven than policy-driven, focusing on maintaining their public image and generating media attention rather than advocating for substantive policy changes.
Celebrities being openly affiliated or openly endorsed by a politician or a political party while not inherently wrong has its problems. Politics is a set of activities that are associated with making decisions within a group, in the grand scheme of things the decisions made affect a whole country and millions of people.
It’s not just Taylor Swift. Kamala Harris’ political opponent, former president Donald J. Trump, has some celebrities in his corner as well. It might be too early to see if Trumpamania will run wild with Hulk Hogan on the Republican’s side.
With another election right around the corner, many students and recent young adults will be voting for the first time which means they have the right to vote and the right to choose which candidate is best for their values. The art and influence of celebrities shouldn’t be able to sway the public as it seems it can.
Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris highlights the divide between policy and publicity. While Harris aims to regulate AI to protect celebrity likenesses, celebrities often prioritize their public image over substantive policy issues. This reinforces the idea that celebrities and politics should remain separate. It is important to be aware that politics is rooted in policy-driven frameworks, while celebrities are focused on media attention rather than meaningful change.
As a Canadian student, financial concerns like healthcare, groceries, and entertainment are pressing while managing school expenses. Taylor Swift won’t address these issues, only your elected officials can. Many young Canadians dream of owning a home, but celebrities like Hulk Hogan won’t lower housing prices. Your elected representatives will. This illustrates that celebrities and politics should remain separate.
Elected officials should continue to focus on policy-driven solutions, while celebrities will no doubt prioritize their public image over real change.
People should think for themselves and exercise their right to vote, rather than allow themselves to be swayed by the latest pop star.
In a diverse country like Canada (or the States), voters are entrusted with the responsibility to elect officials who align with their values. This emphasizes the need to separate celebrity influence from political choices, as meaningful change arises from policy-driven actions rather than publicity-driven endorsements.
Something like a presidential election should be treated with more care and worry than the popularity contest it seems to be turning into.