How Much is “Being Cool” Actually Worth in Politics?
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The stage is set. After a week packed with speeches from the Democratic Party's biggest stars, Kamala Harris is officially the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. But besides the party brass, various celebrity speakers and performers were woven throughout the schedule at the convention. Please welcome actor and director Tony Goldwyn. Tony Goldwyn.

nine-time NBA champion and coach of the 2024 Olympic gold-winning men's basketball team, Steve Kerr, Oprah Winfrey, multi-platinum artist and activist John Legend. It was an undeniable illustration of how much of a hold the Harris campaign has on the culture. But how much does that matter? And can Republicans make up lost ground when it comes to pop culture? Or has the war already been lost?

In an election this tight, how much is being cool actually worth? I spoke with my colleague, New Yorker staff writer Nomi Frye, about Kamala Harris's cultural blitzkrieg. You're listening to The Political Scene. I'm Tyler Foggett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker.

Hey, Nomi. Thanks for coming on the show. Hi, Tyler. It's always a pleasure to come on. I'm so excited to talk to you about celebrity culture and campaigns, our two favorite things. Yes. So the Harris campaign is barely a month old at this point, but it seems like in a very short amount of time, Kamala Harris has gone from being perceived as a celebrity

super unpopular vice president to having her own version of Obama mania. Like, I think the word they're trying to use now is Kamala Nominon. Oh, God. I didn't. I wasn't. Kamala Nominon. So like the chapel, the chapel run song. Oh, feminine.

It's a feminine, non-anon. Oh, I guess that is what it is. It's from Hot To Go. Yeah. I'm guessing that's the takeoff. I thought it was just a butchering of phenomenon. I mean, no, it is. But yeah, you're right. I feel like it might be a takeoff on the Chapel Roan song. Yeah, so Kamala Nomenon. They're trying to make fetch happen. And I'm just wondering what your take is on how this cultural embrace happened so fast. Yeah.

I think we were so low that there was nowhere to go but up, basically. So you are saying, I think rightly, that it's not like everyone was all in on Kamala for the entirety of the Biden administration, you know, and like, oh, we wish she was president and like she would do such things.

a better job and she would like she could really lead the nation to a new place. It's not like... The Dick Cheney we need and deserve. Exactly. Exactly. So it's not like she was waiting in the wings to sort of take her rightful place and everybody was just hoping for that the entire time. Not at all. But I think that...

that the way things have gone with Biden, and especially the last few months before he announced that he was quitting the race, was so depressing. Yeah. And so dispiriting. And people were so desperate that basically they were just primed to kind of

run crazy with basically anyone who wasn't Biden. And the fact that Kamala is a young woman of color, I think it adds to the sense of relief, even just in terms of like pure biological longevity. Yeah.

You know, it's like the scene in Pulp Fiction or something where like Uma Thurman overdoses and then has the adrenaline shot into her heart and sits up. Yeah. And it's like, I'm alive. I feel like this is kind of what's been happening here. The kind of sudden move from like nothing to a big something. I mean, do you think there's anything about...

And Harris's personality or like persona, though, that especially facilitates this, because I feel like you're right that there's, you know, definitely the fact that she is young, at least in candidate terms and is a woman of color. But I don't know, I feel like the Dems could have slotted in differently.

I mean, they wouldn't have, like, because she doesn't have the experience. But it's like there are other people who are basically of the same age or, like, even like a Gretchen Whitmer type. And you just, I can't imagine that person having the same cultural cachet. Yeah. I mean, I do think there's something a little bit glamorous about Kamala.

It's California.

We haven't had for a while since the Obamas, probably. Yeah. A bit of stardust, possibly. And a kind of flexibility that maybe has been missing, a kind of like looseness, which I think used to be read as like loopiness and is now read as a kind of like fun, flexible, loose, young, alert kind.

Kind of thing, you know, rolling with the punches. And by that, do you mean like she's still kind of evolving as a politician and like even her policies and whatnot? It's like she does seem like the kind of person where like if you could get in a room with her and explain to her like your side of things.

Yeah, I mean, she seems to me potentially flexible.

As you know, the campaign is super young. And so there has been up to now, I think, less focus on policy and more focus on vibe. It's a vibes election. It's a vibes election. And the vibes were bad. And now the vibes are good. And the question is, can we keep those good vibes going? Can we stretch them out to voters?

They just got to keep this train moving and kind of like, how do we keep the excitement going? How do we keep the vibes positive in a way that will continue to attract? I was going to say viewers, which is interesting. I meant to say voters, but I do think. They're the same.

that's exactly it, right? It's like, how are these candidates being viewed and perceived? And, you know, which determines how people will end up voting. It's maybe less about ideology and more about feeling. Is there a real difference? And like, do you think that it's useful for the Democrats to kind of treat voters as viewers? Which, I mean, it seems like that was kind of the ethos of the convention, like giving people a show with the roll call, which was

you know, pretty fascinating in comparison to the RNC roll call, which, like, genuinely put me to sleep. Yeah, it's a spectacle, basically. And I think, you know, I mean, this isn't a new thing. If I'm thinking about even...

Reagan in the 80s, right? Always thinking about Reagan. Always thinking, but never not thinking about Reagan. The move from Carter to Reagan was the move to, I mean, talk about kind of Hollywood glamour, right? Ronnie and Nancy in the White House and a return to sort of like the beautiful kind of mid-century America that we lost in the 60s and 70s. And let's have these like

You know, icons, basically, which is kind of like, let's view them rather than, like, let's think about what they're going to be doing to Social Security. You know, or it's like, again, the difference between...

issues and vibes. And so I think the idea of like viewing and spectacle is incredibly important to how people are going to end up voting.

I mean, speaking of spectacle, one of the big rumors at the DNC was that either Beyonce or Taylor Swift was going to make a surprise appearance and introduce Harris before she gave her keynote speech on the final night. And neither one of them showed up. But it was like people were so obsessed with whether they would that I think like viewership went up. It was just a big thing. And I'm wondering, I mean,

Were people interested in this because, like, we're interested in everything that Beyonce and Taylor Swift do? Or is there, like, a genuine feeling that one of them could shift the election in Harris' favor? I mean, I think certainly, like, the power of Taylor Swift especially is insane. Yeah. I mean, we know this. It's like there hasn't—I don't think there's ever been a star like her maybe in America. Like, just in terms of, like—

buying power and decision power. And it's the fandom is so rabid. And I mean, I don't need to tell you. Oh, yeah. Tyler, you are. I'm one of them. You are Swifty. I totally am with you on the power of Taylor Swift. But I'm also sort of like, why do we keep expecting these celebrities like Swift or like Beyonce who like clearly supports Harris or else like Harris wouldn't be using her, you know, Beyonce's song as like her campaign anthem. Like, why do we expect them to come out and like

Yeah. I mean, has there been research on kind of like the effect of celebrity endorsements on undecided voters? Yeah, the jury's out a little bit. I mean, from what I've read, because I'm working on a piece about this right now, which will come out later this week, but it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like

It seems like there's definitely evidence showing that celebrities can boost civic engagement. So, you know, getting people to register to vote, even like getting people to call their congressman and like, you know, say that they're upset about like an abortion ban or something. Like celebrities definitely have the power to do that. They can boost overall turnout, the whole like getting up the vote thing, making voting cool. But...

It's much harder to create like a – basically to draw like a direct link between a celebrity endorsement and a candidate getting a bunch of votes. And part of that is just like there are all these like underlying factors. And I think there's also the whole thing where it's like Taylor Swift and Beyonce are like liberal coded. Sure. Yeah, that's the thing. And so like their fans very well could be liberal coded too. I mean –

Taylor Swift especially is coded liberal, but at the same time, she is at this point like an avatar for America in a lot of ways. And so I could see like red state women especially being swayed by her potentially. So I think, you know, to your question, to go back to your question about what would be the difference of them like actually announcing it.

I think it's a momentum thing. You know, I think it's like, this is so big, it can't be stopped. I have to say this. I'm going to, you know what I mean? Rather than just like assuming people know, I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris, right? Yeah. One thing that

studies do suggest is that when celebrities endorse candidates, it can be almost better for the celebrity than it is for the candidate they're endorsing because it's like good for like your brand essentially. Right. It's like I couldn't stay silent. Right, right, right. I'm on the right side of history. Yeah, yeah. I have to say like we can't go back in terms of like abortion or, you know, women's rights in general or gay LGBTQ rights. I can see that

working for her. One thing that's kind of funny and that I've been sort of thinking through is back in 2016, Taylor Swift did not endorse either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. And she later told Vogue that it was because she thought it wouldn't help because it was a race in which

Trump was basically using all of the celebrity endorsements against Clinton and showing – basically using it as like evidence that she was this like hack who was supported not only by the political establishment but also by the establishment of Hollywood. Right, the power centers of the entertainment community. And it's interesting because it's like that could just be like a cop-out. Like I think that there's also a usefulness to someone as big as Taylor Swift being –

because why alienate all of the, you know, potential Republican fans of yours who like have been following you since your country days. But I do wonder what you think of that argument that,

Hillary Clinton was damaged by the sheer amount of celebrity support she received. Yeah, I think there's something to it. I mean, I think 2016, there was famously a sense that there's no way Trump is going to win. You know what I mean? This is a done deal. Like, let's all hug each other before, like, the votes have been counted and kind of be, like, secure in our kind of upper-class...

quote unquote out of touch, quote unquote don't know the real America, quote unquote don't know the real struggle of the people, rich celebrity community, right? Yeah. That's like so smug they can't even imagine that there's another America who would elect someone like Trump. I think...

That smugness and that lack of fight and that kind of a lack of concern with like obviously grievances that people actually had that made them turn to Trump was a real thing. I think there's something to it, you know, and I do think that it's also something to watch out for now with Kamala.

Nomi, I'd like to talk more about the rest of this campaign season and what Trump and Harris can do to either maintain their coolness or revive it in Trump's case. But first, we're going to take a quick break. ♪

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So we were just talking about how Trump beat Hillary and you mentioned your surprise when Biden beat Trump. And one like kind of pet theory I have is that it might all just come down to which candidate is better.

I know that sounds like super kind of like inane, but in an election where like we're talking about like which candidates are cool and which ones are weird, I feel like we're kind of being prompted to think about it in this way, in a funny way. But with Trump beating Hillary, we can talk more about what that appeal was. But I think that a big part of it was just that she wasn't cool. And even if she has every celebrity under the sun supporting her, there was just this sense that she is a bureaucrat. And if you go back to 2016, there are all of these

kind of like apologetic articles written by her supporters that are sort of like Hillary Clinton isn't cool and she doesn't need to be. Like that's a headline from Salon. And I feel like now, now that we're like further away from that election, we can sort of think about how much it sucks for her to have to come after Obama basically who like was extremely cool and then to have a Democratic candidate who was like

very qualified, but just like doesn't have the same raw, you know, energy and like a bagel store or whatever is just that's a really hard thing. And so, you know, with Biden beating Trump, I feel like part of that was just that he was sort of immune to Trump's insults a little bit like. Yeah. But I'm curious what you think about coolness is something that voters are attuned to or that even, you know, swings them one way or the other. I think it's very important.

I think it's very important. Thank God. And I do agree. I mean, I kind of feel bad that this is the case. I mean, I do think that obviously, first of all, let's face it. No politicians are cool. Like, it's like— Not even Obama? No.

OK, maybe Obama, you know, he's like a kind of like a handsome detached man, you know, who's extremely smart. But in general, politics are about combination of, yeah, being a bureaucrat in some way and also letting kind of like the business of politics. You have to let it in some ways supersede politics.

belief or supersede ethics. I mean, unfortunately. And there's just something not totally cool about that because you're constantly like you have to constantly negotiate and make deals. That said, coolness or perceived coolness, at least, or, you know, relative coolness is

is very important to get someone elected. And I think the moment or one of the moments that that became clear with this cycle was when Trump got shot. And his ear was grazed by, I guess, the ricochet of a bullet. It was a bullet, yeah.

And he had that, you know, iconic moment of raising his fist with his ear bloodied. He got the shot. He got the shot in. And I think people kind of...

across the board, you know, not even like diehard Trump people, right? I think anyone with eyes saw that and they were like, damn. Yeah, damn. He did that. Whatever else you can say about him, and there's a lot to say. I'm no lover of Donald Trump, obviously, but that was just in terms and again, that like viewers and voters thing, right? Yeah. It was for the viewers. He knew how to play it for the viewers. He was like, I'm

I'm still standing, bitches. I got to give him something. Yeah. And he did that. And I think that was a moment where everyone was like, or I don't know if everyone, but many people...

We're like, okay, race is over. Like. It's done. It's done. We have like this, you know, doddering old man. We have this other guy. You can't even kill. Who you can't kill. He's unkillable. And, you know, when it was a very kind of like, kind of at least on the level of visuals, that was a moment where like the, oh, damn, he's cool. You know, you got to give him that.

It just like it was a confluence of crazy things like he almost got assassinated. Only his ear was grazed. So he had like kind of the valor of like withstanding an assassination attempt.

But, you know, nothing really happened. Like, he was golfing the next day. And even now you see him and he doesn't have, like, it doesn't seem like he has, like, a scar or anything. No, like, how did it happen? It's like it never happened in a way. And so all he got was the image. And the image was incredibly effective and kind of cool. Yeah, and I mean, the image is, like, probably one of, like, the...

It'll probably be one of the most famous photographs ever. But then at the same time, it's like I talk to people and I feel like a lot of them have forgotten that he did get shot in that moment. I guess I was surprised by how long that moment lasted, which is to say that it barely lasted at all because like, was it the following, not the following week, but it wasn't too long after that, that Biden stepped down or stepped out of the race and endorsed Harris. And I feel like she has been able to complete that.

Yes.

Damn, it's over. It's done. And then, I mean, something else happens. And granted, what happened was big. You know, Biden stepped down, which everybody or so many people were wanting him to do. And so it was a big deal when he stepped down and endorsed Kamala. So it's not like it's a nothing. But you are right to say that so quickly the Trump getting shot and the coolness bump cycled through.

out and the Kamala is brat, you know, thing started cycling in and kind of changed up the narrative. Yeah, it's interesting how fast these things move. I feel like this election has had like seven turning points already. And it's like two seconds long. I mean, it's like everything is happening so fast, too. Totally. Yeah. Going back to the question of celebrity endorsements and the celebrities who are kind of lining up on either side of the aisle, it seems like

Harris has all of the mainstream celebrities and then Trump has these more...

kind of like niche celebrities who are on his side, like Dana White, the CEO of the UFC who spoke at the RNC, Aiden Ross, who's one of the biggest online streamers in the world. And Trump recently had an appearance on the comedian Theo Vaughn's podcast, which went viral. So you're way up with cocaine more than anything else you can think of. Cocaine will turn you into a damn owl, homie. You know what I'm saying? It'll, you'll be, you'll be.

You'll be out on your own porch, you know, you'll you'll be your own street lamp. You're freaking. And is that a good feeling? Well, it's a miserable feeling. But you do it anyway, just like the guy you're saying with the scotch. And I've been trying to figure out whether these, you know, interviews that Trump has been doing with people like Vaughn, whether those will actually help him, because it seems like on one hand, these guys have like.

massive followings. But it also doesn't seem like it's translating to... I don't even think I see, like, more people on X, which is, like, owned by Elon Musk, who, like, has also endorsed Trump, posting about Trump. And so maybe it's just, like, I'm so in my bubble that I'm not even aware of how this is helping Trump. But I also get the sense that in the whole, like,

you know, celebrity game in terms of actually getting support. Like Trump is, it's a pretty lopsided thing in Kamala's direction. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, and again, it's,

What you're saying about the bubble is, of course, the whole thing, right? I think it must have an effect on a certain demographic. Young men, probably, who listen to—I mean, Aidan Ross, there's an audience for that, and we shouldn't forget that, you know? And again, that's sort of like, it's not going to help if we think everybody is like—

all in on the coconut, you know? Nomi, I'd like to get into more about how celebrity and culture could come into play the rest of this campaign season. But first, we're going to take a quick break.

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So you were mentioning earlier that, you know, Harris, it's like it's been a very fast rise. But we've seen people on the Internet move on really quickly from things. People are fickle. And I'm wondering if you have thoughts on what she can do to ride the wave all the way into the election. What if she suddenly hires me as an advisor after hearing me on this podcast? I'm joking. It's interesting because I was just reading something.

The cover story in New York Mag yesterday with Charli XCX where this was her famously her summer, you know. Yeah, the brat stuff. That's all Charli XCX. Yeah.

But what happens in the fall, right, is the question. Well, that's—I was thinking, what happens, like, in November when it's snowing outside and the Democrats are still talking about brat summer? Exactly. So I think, you know, I was reading about Charlie, and I was thinking, this really is a pickle, and it's terrifying because it's like you have this moment. It's your moment. Everybody—you're everywhere. Everybody wants you everywhere. Everybody thinks you're cool, or most people think you're cool. But—

then there's the potential of a comedown. And that's notoriously the hardest thing. And I think with...

And it's a come down that would be happening right before election day. Exactly. And I think with celebrities, it's a very delicate dance that some know how to do where you kind of like step away for a little bit. You know, you like give the public a lot, but then you know too that you can oversaturate and you kind of step away and then come back with a different look or whatever. But of course,

With Kamala, she has a campaign to run and there's not that much time, but there is still time. There are a couple months, you know, or slightly more where, you know, she has to remain fully in the spotlight as much as possible, winning hearts and minds. And that's a conundrum.

Because, like, you got to keep the momentum, but you don't want people to get sick of you. And it's kind of crazy that this is the way it is right now, you know, because it's like we can't obviously like always in campaigns, you saw the candidate a lot, like on the nightly news or whatever. You saw Bill Clinton on Arsenio playing the saxophone, et cetera, et cetera.

But the level at which we're exposed to everything right now is unprecedented. Well, it's interesting because we're exposed to so many things, but it's also hyper curated. Like, you know, I think it's been 36 days or something since Harris has done like an actual like sit down interview with, you know, like a cable news network. This is something that like J.D. Vance and Trump talk about all the time, like that she's hiding and she'll come out on stage at the DNC with all our celebrities behind her, but that she's not actually hiding.

Yeah, I think, you know, again, I think it's a delicate dance because I think the Dems understand, I think, that it's really fragile. Yeah.

Things are fragile. The public is fickle. It's like only a month ago we were literally hanging by a thread. And so how do we not go back to that place? And I'm not sure I have an answer, but I do think that it does kind of hinge on like people not getting sick of you and feeling like cringe, like you're trying too hard or like you're going back to a kind of smugness mindset.

You know, I mean, I'm thinking about Bernie and how Bernie was always cool. Yeah. Because Bernie... He's just real. He was real. He cared about the issues. He was a real one. And he wasn't... He was, like, curmudgeonly. And he attracted cool people, you know, like, canonically cool people, like Public Enemy, you know, or, like, The Strokes. You know, just like...

People who you couldn't say, I mean, you can say a variety of bad things about anyone, I'm sure, but like essentially in the annals of cool, like you were like, okay, these people are not cringe. Yeah. You know? And these people aren't. But also Bernie didn't win. Yeah. Bernie didn't get the candidacy. So it's like, so maybe, you know, and again, maybe it's a kind of ghettoized like bubble thing again. Yeah.

It's like for me, Bernie was cool, but obviously most of America didn't think that, you know, or didn't care about that maybe. Or the Democratic Party didn't.

was too kind of, like, against that to let that happen. Yeah, I feel like it's, like, it's not necessarily the coolest candidate who wins the primary, but it's the coolest candidate who wins the general. Oh, interesting. I feel like that's, like, that would be my argument. Oh, interesting. Okay, okay, I can see that. I can see that. It doesn't, I feel like it starts with Reagan. Yes. And then, like, goes, continues forward from there because, like, you know, Nixon, like... It reminds me of this...

Of this Simpsons, it was on one of the early seasons where Homer and Bart are watching like an archival clip of it was like a Duff beer commercial. And it was like Nixon debating Kennedy in 1960. And you see Kennedy saying, I hereby, you know, like. I would like to take this opportunity to express my fondness for a Duff beer commercial.

And then you see Nixon stepping out from behind the podium and saying like, I'd also like to express my fondness for that particular beer. And Homer says, The man never drank a duff in his life. The man never drunk a duff in his life. So, yeah, Nixon was not cool. You know, Kennedy was cool. Yeah. I mean, he was like, you know, a young man.

sexy sex addict, you know? And the nation responded. And the nation responded. Well, thank you so much, Nomi. Oh, my God. Thank you for having me, Tyler. This was a blast, as always. It's always so much fun. Nomi Frye is a staff writer with The New Yorker and co-host of the Critics at Large podcast. You can expect to find her latest work at newyorker.com.

This has been The Political Scene. I'm Tyler Foggett. This episode was produced by Sam Egan and edited by Gianna Palmer with engineering support by Pran Bandy and mixing by Mike Kutchman. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Special thanks this week to Rhiannon Corby. Chris Bannon is Condé Nast's head of global audio. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton-Brown. Enjoy your week, and we'll see you next Wednesday. My name is Madeline Barron. I'm a journalist for The New Yorker. I...

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