Los Angeles:

Many celebrities, from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé to George Clooney and Harrison Ford, proved unable to prevent Kamala Harris’ landslide defeat in the US election, highlighting the limited impact of massive celebrity support on voters.

Instead, it was Donald Trump and the Republicans — who received little support from the entertainment industry as a whole, but who exploited a targeted subset of well-known hypermasculine influencers — who won comfortably.

So have Democrats’ longstanding relationships with Hollywood and the music industry, including last-minute appearances by Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, finally made a difference?

“Not in this election, clearly,” said Laurence Maslon, an arts professor at New York University.

“At the end of the day, people probably realize that Beyoncé and George Clooney don’t have to worry about the price of gas or the price of eggs, so maybe it doesn’t matter.” , he told AFP.

Celebrity endorsements have long been part of America’s electoral fabric, harkening back to the days when Frank Sinatra fought against the “Rat Pack” to support John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Even this year, Hollywood-led fundraisers raised tens of millions of dollars for Harris’ record campaign war chest.

But their actual influence on votes has always been “mixed,” said Margaretha Bentley, an associate professor at Arizona State University who teaches a public policy course on Taylor Swift.

“It’s never going to be the golden ticket that everyone is looking for,” she said.

Mark Harvey, author of “Celebrity Influence: Politics, Persuasion, and Issue-Based Advocacy,” agrees that we “should not be terribly surprised” by celebrities’ lack of impact.

“There is no real scientific basis behind this idea that celebrities can influence people to vote for candidates,” he said.

– ‘Macho’ –
Celebrity advocates have only ever been effective when advocating for very specific issues on which they are widely considered experts, Harvey added.

As Donald Trump delivered his victory speech Wednesday morning, the new president-elect was surrounded by famous names from the sports world and showered him with praise.

UFC boss Dana White was lovingly praised as “tough” and “a job done”, while golfer Bryson DeChambeau was celebrated as “fantastic” and even having a “slightly longer” commute than Trump, golf lover.

Loud cheers — and a significant portion of Trump’s speech — were devoted to his best-known supporter, tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Trump also received last-minute support from Joe Rogan, the influential host of one of the world’s best podcasts.

The Republican may have benefited from these associations because, in an election “largely driven by cultural issues, one of the most important cultural issues was masculinity,” Harvey said.

“That ‘be a real man’ kind of thing, the Trump ‘macho’ kind of thing… that’s the kind of thing Joe Rogan plays all the time.”

– ‘Shocked’ –
For Democrats, this latest landmark experiment will require a “thorough self-analysis…of what they did and did not do, and what could have succeeded,” including with celebrity support, he said. Bentley said.

Ashley Spillane, author of the report “Celebrities Strengthen Our Culture of Democracy,” acknowledged there was a “debate” about “the value and impact of celebrity support for candidates.”

But there is still “strong evidence that celebrities have a real impact in promoting comprehensive, nonpartisan civic engagement,” she wrote via email, noting Swift’s support for Harris, who has been credited with driving 400,000 people to a voter registration site.

Even if their support failed, Hollywood celebrities showed no indication Wednesday that they would remain silent.

When Trump’s victory was announced, several well-known figures took to social media to express their frustrations.

Academy Award winner Jamie Lee Curtis said Trump’s victory would mark the start of “a definite return to more restrictive times, which some fear will be draconian.”

“Fascist in total power… This may have been the last free election,” wrote actor John Cusack. “The horror is coming.”

Pop singer Cardi B, who appeared at a rally in Harris last Friday, wrote simply: “I hate y’all.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)