Trump, Dr. Oz and Our Political Cult of Celebrity

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

New York Times Opinion

New York Times, Journalism, News, Society & Culture, Ross Douthat

4.0 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Celebrities. They are ubiquitous in American culture and now, ever increasingly, in our politics. From Donald Trump to Dr. Oz, the memeification of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine — the power of celebrity has gripped our democracy and society. We want our elected officials to be superstars, but is that a good thing? So today, host Jane Coaston is joined by Jessica Bennett, contributing editor to Times Opinion and Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, to discuss our modern celebrity politics phenomenon and how it’s shaping our cultural and political realities. “I’m distressed that we’ve conflated celebrity and politics because I think it gives politicians the wrong goals, the wrong motives,” Bruni says. And a lot of that is on us — the fans. “We place values on celebrities that may not actually represent them, and they become something outside of themselves,” Bennett says. “They start to represent something that has nothing to do with the person who’s actually there.” Warning: This episode contains explicit language.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I take responsibility.
0:02.7	I take responsibility.
0:06.0	I take responsibility.
0:07.8	It's the argument I'm Jane Kostin and those are celebrities.
0:14.3	Atoning for white privilege in public in the summer of 2020.
0:18.4	For every unchecked moment.
0:20.4	For every time it was easier to ignore than to call it out for what it was.
0:25.1	Call out hate, step up and take action.
0:30.5	It's a video that went around social media after George Floyd was murdered.
0:34.1	And it was, in a word, weird.
0:37.2	I did not like it.
0:39.9	Personally, I wanted the elimination of qualified immunity and reforms to policing at the state
0:45.1	and federal level.
0:46.6	Instead, I got white celebrities being awkward.
0:50.0	The mixing of celebrity and politics is something that fascinates me.
0:54.1	And it's not new to be clear.
0:57.7	Celebrities are incredibly powerful people in American culture.
1:00.9	And when they run for office, for better or for worse, lots of people vote for them.
1:05.5	But what is the celebration of government doing to our democracy and to our culture?
1:10.9	And is this what we really want?
1:14.0	My guest today are Jessica Bennett, contributing editor to Times' opinion where she leads
1:18.0	our gender coverage.
	...

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