Over the last several decades, there has been an increasing fusion between celebrity culture and that of national American politics. Indeed, it seems while the issues surrounding contemporary politics become heavily cultural in nature, no aspect of ordinary American entertainment and consumerist life outside of the immediate realm of politics has been left unaffected by the polarized climate. Corporations, sports athletes, reality tv celebrities, and music artists have all weighed in on important political topics of the modern era, sometimes for better, and others to their detriment. The corporation Target lost millions of dollars over the summer of 2023 following the promotion of children’s clothing for pride month, and Anheuser-Busch suffered a similar fate after marketing bud light beer for the same purpose. The NFL has openly embraced progressive political causes. The popular music industry, which has been part of the leftist cultural movement since its modern inception in the 1960’s and 70’s continues to overwhelmingly produce performers who turn into leftist political activists.
Oprah Winfrey, a celebrity who has long been openly partial to Democratic political causes, has entered the news lately. Allegedly, the retiring senator Mitt Romney of Utah has made a claim in his new biography that Winfrey wanted to run for president in 2020. Oprah, now 69 years old, made a statement through a spokesperson that openly denied the claim. Winfrey asserted that under no circumstances did she ever consider running for the office of the presidency.
Romney had claimed in his biography that Winfrey had made a phone call to himself in which she had voiced her desires to run for the office and wanted Romney to be her running mate. The spokesperson confirmed that in November 2019, Oprah did indeed call Romney, but she did not do so to express her own desire to run for office. Instead, she called to share her sentiments that Romney should run for office on an independent ticket.
