Kamala Harris and the death of the celebrity endorsement

Poor old Bruce Springsteen. The legendary rocker bet the farm on an endorsement of Kamala Harris and may well have alienated about half his audience as a result. The ‘Boss’ who had built his career on empathising with the hard-grafting, blue-collar, Bud-swilling ‘deplorables’ with his anthems of white working-class alienation, recorded a folksy recommendation from the counter of a (real or staged – who knows?) diner. ‘Freedom, social justice, equal opportunity, the right to love who you want’ are on the ballot, pleaded Springsteen, adding that Trump’s ‘disdain for the constitution’ should disqualify him from office.

Harrison Ford followed suit in two ads run just before polling day. The Star Wars actor summoned the force to warn us of ‘the other guy’ (Trump’s name doesn’t sully his speech) ‘…embracing dictators and tyrants around the world’. ‘For goodness sake, don’t do this again’, pleaded Ford, advice that he might have been better taking himself when he was mulling over whether to make that fifth Indiana Jones film.

A tearful Jennifer Lopez outraged at a comedian’s (not Trump’s) joke about her beloved Puerto Rico (she was born in New York) emoted about how ‘we should be emotional.