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2024: Ten big moments when politics and culture collided
The line between entertainment and politics seems blurrier than ever these days, and not only because the most powerful leader in the world is once again going to be, among many other things, a former reality TV star.
The ubiquity of social media, the bitterness of political polarization, and the ferocity of the culture wars leaves almost no aspect of our societies untouched by politics these days.
Here’s a look at ten big moments from 2024 when popular culture shaped, or was shaped by, the biggest political stories of the year.
A “Childless Cat Lady” from Pennsylvania endorses Kamala Harris
In what was perhaps the biggest celebrity endorsement of the US presidential campaign, pop superstar Taylor Swift announced to her 280 million Instagram followers in mid September that she’d be voting for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
The endorsement from the year’s most streamed artist wasn’t exactly a surprise – Swift went for Biden in 2020 and has been outspoken on liberal and progressive issues for years. But it provided a shot in the arm for the Dems after a “cruel summer” largely defined by Joe Biden’s bruising and way-too-late withdrawal from the race, and Donald Trump’s seemingly-miraculous evasion of an assassin’s bullet.
Notably, Swift signed her post, which showed her holding one of her three cats, as “A childless cat lady.” That was a swipe at Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance, who had earlier criticized women who choose to buck traditional gender roles by having cats but not kids.
It was one of the many ways that gender played into the election, with the Democrats emphasizing issues that were important to many women, such as protecting the right to abortion in a a post-Roe world, while the Trump camp, looking to draw the largely untapped support of young male voters, leaned into messages of macho masculinity and the idealization of more traditional gender roles.
Hulk Hogan rips his shirt off at the RNC
“Let Trumpamania run willlllld, brother!!!” Speaking of macho masculinity, in July, former pro-wrestler Hulk Hogan took the stage at the GOP convention, and in a fit of indignant rage about the attempted assassination of his “hero” Donald Trump, threw down his blazer and ripped off his tank top to reveal a Trump Vance shirt. The crowd went WILD.
It was the craziest on-stage moment at a GOP convention at least since that time Clint Eastwood lectured an empty chair in Tampa in 2012. And as pop culture clashups go, the 71-year old Hogan, his steroidal intensity undiminished by the ravages of age, was something of a time warp: a throwback to the over-the t0p world of 1980s and 1990s celebrity and pro-wrestling culture where Trump himself once held court.
But the mutual embrace between Donald Trump and the world of combat sports was part of his broader strategy to reach those crucial young male voters. He locked up the support of Dana White, the head of Ultimate Fighting Championship, and frequented podcasts popular with fans of mixed martial arts and boxing: perhaps no stop was more influential than his three hour sit-down with the biggest pod of all, The Joe Rogan Experience.In the end, it worked. Trump won over huge numbers of young male voters, particularly in Black and Latino communities – one of the keys to his victory.
Supper scene cooks up controversy at the Paris Olympics
It was the shot seen ‘round the world. The Paris Olympics four hour long opening ceremony in July briefly included a scene featuring more than a dozen dancers and drag queens gathered at a feast table, on either side of a woman in a halo-like medieval headdress. The feast, revealed under a large cloche, was a quasi-naked man painted blue on a bed of fruit.
Did it look a lot like an ultra-progressive remix of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper? Many Christians and church leaders thought so. It was a “disgrace,” according to Donald Trump. “The war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds,” tweeted House Speaker Mike Johnson. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said it showed “the moral void of the West.” Even the pope got involved, with the Vatican denouncing the “offense to numerous Christians and .. believers of other religions.”
The ceremony’s artistic director later said, maybe a little improbably, that the reference was actually to a classical Dionysian feast and that the scene was meant to “talk about diversity.” The Olympic committee apologized for offending Christians.
But as ever, the battle lines of the ongoing culture war between conservatives and progressives were brightly drawn – and everyone on all sides saw the scene precisely as they wanted to.
South Korea forces North Korea to face the music
What is all that racket? Oh, it’s just the South Korean government using 20-foot tall speakers to blare K-pop hits across the Demilitarized Zone towards North Korea.
The ear-splitting move, made in June, was part of an escalating propaganda war between the two sides. Earlier, North Korea had begun sending hot air balloons filled with trash and excrement across the border to the South, in response to South Korean activist groups which had sent their own balloons northward laden with propaganda leaflets and USB thumb-drives full of soap operas and music banned in North Korea’s ultra-totalitarian society.
All of this loudly echoed a broader deterioration in relations between the Koreas this year. With talks on the nature of any potential denuclearization of the North long-stalled, Pyongyang finally renounced any prospect of reunification, blew up cross-border liaison offices, and cut all road connections with the South.
With North Korean Supreme leader Kim Jong-un’s pal Donald Trump returning to the White House next year, and South Korea’s politics in chaos after the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, keep an eye on how both the politics, and the music, play across the Korean peninsula next year.Oscar winner refutes “hijacking of Jewishness” at the Oscars
Few global issues were, or remain, as polarizing in 2024 as the conflict in Gaza, and those tensions took center stage early in the year at the Oscars, when Director Jonathan Glazer won Best Picture for his film Zone of Interest, a portrayal of the banal family life of the Nazi official in charge of Auschwitz.
In his acceptance speech Glazer, who is Jewish, said his film was a testament to the evils of “dehumanization”, and that he “refuted” those who “hijack Jewishness and the Holocaust” to justify Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
The blowback was immediate. The Anti-Defamation League, pro-Israel leaders, and more than a thousand other Jewish film professionals blasted Glazer, with some accusing him of a “modern blood libel.” Just as surely, critics of Israel’s occupation and those calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas leapt to Glazer’s defense.
The episode underscored not only the deep divisions within America about the war in Gaza and the US relationship to Israel, but the political and generational splits within America’s Jewish community itself over this issue.French striker Kylian Mbappé gives an assist to President Macron
Look, we’re not going to touch the heated debate about who the best soccer player in the world is right now. But for a great number of people, it’s 25-year old French striker Kylian Mbappé, who plays for Real Madrid and is the captain of the French national team.
Over the summer, Mbappé took his star power from the pitch into politics, when he weighed in on France’s snap elections. After the far right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen won the first round on a platform calling for a fierce crackdown on immigration, Mbappé, who is of Cameroonian and Algerian descent, said “It’s catastrophic, we really hope that this will change and that everyone will mobilise to vote... and vote for the right side.”
He wasn’t the only member of Les Bleus to weigh in against Le Pen. Others did too. After all, the French soccer team itself has long been at the center of the fraught debate over French immigration and identity – perhaps never more so than when a majority non-white team won the World Cup in 2018.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s coalition managed to eke out the second round, but only by concocting a strange bedfellows alliance with the far left. National Rally, meanwhile, rang up its best election result ever, setting up Le Pen for a decent shot on goal if she decides to run for president in the 2027 election.Gaza war takes center stage at Eurovision
Politics always – always – crashes the party at the annual summit of kitsch and crooning known as “Eurovision.” In recent years the conflicts in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh have both spilled onto the stage.
This year, it was Gaza. As 20-year old Israeli performer Eden Golan belted out her entry “Hurricane” she was immediately met with boos and cries of “Free Palestine!”
The song itself was controversial from the start. The contest’s organizers, who try their best to keep politics out of the affair, had rejected an earlier version called “October Rain,” an Israeli perspective on Hamas’ Oct. 7 2023 terror rampage, which killed more than 1,200 people.
By the time Eurovision rolled around seven months later, the IDF had visited massive destruction on Gaza, killing tens of thousands, displacing nearly all of the enclave’s two million residents, and drawing accusations of war crimes. The “Free Palestine” protest movement was in full flower, and it popped up at the Eurovision contest ahead of Golan’s performance.
In the end, “Hurricane” placed fifth in the overall contest. Like many Eurovision entries over the years, it is certain to be less memorable than the controversy that surrounded it.
Dead Austrian economist makes UFC cameo
In a surreal, instantly viral moment that even the shrewdest bookie could scarcely have predicted, Brazilian UFC fighter Renato Moicano in February gave a post-fight shoutout to… an influential school of 20th century European economists.
“If you care about your f***** country,” Moicano declared, his cheek still oozing blood after a bruising bout against France’s Benoit Saint Denis, “read Ludwig von Mises and the six lessons of the Austrian economic school motherf*****!”
Now, it’s not every day that a mixed martial artist runs your political economy book club, but Moicano’s comment reflected the rising popularity in Latin America of the so-called “Austrian school” economists, a fiercely laissez-faire group who despised even the merest hint of “socialism.”
Argentina’s “anarcho-libertarian” president Javier Milei, who has taken a “chainsaw” approach to government spending, is probably the world’s most prominent Austrian school disciple these days.
But Mises’ ideas are popular among a broader set of new right populists in the Americas and Europe who see themselves at war with both “globalism” and an overbearing administrative state.
“F*** all of these motherf****** globalists trying to push this politically corrupt agenda,” Moicano went on. “If you want to talk about politics and the economy, read ‘Democracy: The God that Failed by Hans-Hermann!’”A big fat Indian wedding stokes controversy
If you think weddings are getting crazy expensive these days, you’re absolutely right. In mid July, Anant Ambani, a son of India’s richest man, married his fiance Radhika Merchant, a pharma industry heir, in a months-long nuptial extravaganza that cost some $600 million in total.
The 2,000 person guest list for several pre-wedding parties and the event itself was a who’s who of the global political, fashion, and cultural elite: the Kardashians, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Indian PM Narendra Modi, two former UK prime ministers, the Jonas Brothers. There were private concerts by, among others, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, and Pitbull.
Around the world, people followed the festivities, the outfits, the gossip online. And not all of them liked what they saw.
The over the top opulence of it all – and the chummy relationship between the country’s ultra-rich and its politicians – stoked criticism among those who pointed out that India is, after all, a country where some 200 million people languish in poverty, and just 1% of the country controls 40% of the wealth. To put things in perspective, at India’s current per capita income of $2,500, it would take an average person 240,000 years to pay for a wedding like this in cash.Honorary mention: your opinion.
Did we miss anything in this list that you’d have included? If so, let us know here and we may include it in an upcoming edition of the GZERO Daily.
Opinion: Mike Tyson, born killers, and the Democrats’ media problem
There are times in life when it is important to listen to Mike Tyson. For the Democrats, right now is one of those times.
As some of you may know, the fearsome former heavyweight champ is about to fight Jake Paul, a 27-year-old boxing-curious YouTube star 30 years his junior. It will be Iron Mike’s first real fight in almost 20 years.
For anyone who remembers watching Tyson in the ring – or even challenging him on “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!” as a child – it seems obvious that Iron Mike, even at 57, is going to kill Glass Jake, isn’t it?
But I’m not a boxing analyst, I’m a political analyst, and so what sticks with me is the way Tyson, in a recently released Netflix documentary entitled “Countdown Paul vs. Tyson,” explains the difference between himself and Paul.
“He’s a manufactured killer,” Tyson says, watching as Paul claims to be the new face of boxing. “Television and papers made him a killer. I’m a natural-born killer.”
Manufactured killers versus natural-born killers. This distinction is on my mind these days as I’m reading the post-mortems on Kamala Harris’ election loss to Donald Trump. In particular, the ones that focus on how Trump’s deft engagement with non-traditional media – in particular, podcasts popular with young men – helped him win.
The Democrats, some are saying, need to “build their own Joe Rogan.” The reference, of course, is to “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the most listened-to podcast in America. Rogan, a former UFC fight commentator and one-time Bernie-bro, has become a celebrated voice in MAGAland, and a hugely influential figure among the millions of young men (of all races) who flocked to Trump at the polls.
Trump spent three hours with Rogan and his 11 million regular listeners, while Harris refused, reportedly because she was worried about backlash from some of her progressive staffers. This has become a microcosm of the ways Democrats failed to get out of the mainstream media bubble to engage with voters who were either undecided or disillusioned.
The problem for the Democrats isn’t that they don’t have a media ecosystem of their own. They do – it’s just that it’s mostly the mass media, precisely the kinds of outlets that are suffering a slow-motion knockout as Americans’ trust in legacy media plummets.
The data on that score are stark: Only about a third of Americans trust mass media now. The partisan splits on it are glaring. Some 54% of Democrats still trust the mainstream, but only half as many independents agree. Among Republicans, the mark is just 12%.
Podcasters and streamers have leaped into this vacuum of trust. Over the past 15 years, the share of Americans who regularly listen to pods has quintupled to nearly 50%. That doesn’t even capture the millions of hours people spend getting news and views from streamers on YouTube, Rumble, and other video platforms.
Conservative activists and campaigns have exploited this space particularly well, with 1%-funders like the Kochs, the Wilkses, or Peter Thiel pouring huge amounts of money into finding and elevating young influencers who have audiences – and credibility – of their own.
Countering that from the left, if the Democrats want to, won’t be easy. As some have pointed out, many young, left-wing influencers are at a disadvantage. The right-wing influencer set is funded by a whole constellation of conservative billionaires, but left-of-center activists with a more overtly “soak the rich” message might find it harder to get similar funding from Democrat-aligned one-percenters.
Democrats certainly need a better media strategy. But the biggest mistake they could make would be to believe it’s possible to “build” a Joe Rogan or even a series of Joe Rogans. You can’t build that any more than you can grow a Mike Tyson in a laboratory.
To get out of the wilderness, the Democrats need to get out of their bubble. They need to go find – and support – some natural-born killers of their own. Trying to simply manufacture them, in a deeply anti-establishment era, would only lead to more knockouts at the ballot box.
Beijing's struggle to keep the Olympics COVID free
COVID-19 positive cases leading up to the Beijing Olympics, a proposed defense pact between Ukraine, Poland, and the UK, and the Joe Rogan/Spotify scandal -- Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
First, how is COVID-19 affecting Beijing Olympics prep in China?
Well, we've got already well over a hundred members of Olympic athletes and staff that have tested positive twice, which means they ain't playing. They're not involved. They're going to go home. And these numbers are going to go way up. I do think that this idea of a complete closed loop system, the Chinese have more ability to implement and execute on that than pretty much any country in the world. So I doubt you're going to see spread from the Olympics into the broader population, but you're going to see a lot of people with COVID coming in because omicron is so incredibly spreadable. And that's going to be yet one more thing that dings a very weird Beijing Olympics with diplomatic boycotts and populations unhappy about where we are and not having fans and all the political challenges and censorship and surveillance of phones and data going to the government. And it's just so politicized that you hate to see that with global athletes, and global athletics, but that's where we are. I do say that I'm glad that the athletes are still competing. It's one of the few things that can bring us all together on this planet.
What's the update with the Russia-Ukraine crisis?
Well, the interesting thing that came out is this early stage announcement that there's a defense pact going to come between Poland, the UK and Ukraine. I understand Poland, because Poland of course sees themself as frontline, most vulnerable to the Russians, and if the Ukrainians go, what happens to us? But in the case of the UK, either there's not much to this and we'll see that it's not really a defense pact, or there is something to it, and it's a complete desperation move by Boris Johnson, who is in his last sort of gasp as prime minister, having screwed up just about everything over the last few months, get caught in lies and getting whacked by his own party members. Former PM Theresa May just took a chunk out of his hide yesterday and was applauded roundly. We'll see. If they actually are saying that they would come to Ukraine's defense if there were any Russian incursion, there's no way that was brought up with the Americans in advance. The US would not have approved that. And I think the UK's going to come in for great criticism. But watch very carefully what comes out here, okay.
Finally, Joe Rogan and Spotify, who's right, who's wrong?
It's a tough situation in the sense that he's a pretty controversial character and he's had some people online that spout lots of information that's not really good. But he does try to bring on people from all different political walks of life, some of whom I like, some of whom I think are kind of fringe and wacko. I do think you have more responsibility about the fringe people when you have that kind of an audience, because it does actually have a real impact. But I also take Joe Rogan on board when he says that there were a lot of things that used to be described as disinformation and you could be de platformed for it, and that's no longer the case. In the case of wearing masks, I mean, that's because we needed those masks for frontline workers. I understand why it was messaged the way it was at the time was for the best in terms of public safety. When it comes to denials and literally calling out as fake news the idea that COVID came from a lab in Wuhan, not intentionally, but escaped from it, I mean that honestly was misinformation and it was covering up from scientists and doctors that have done their field a disservice and have undermined themselves. And I do worry about that and I'm glad that Rogan mentioned it. So look, I don't think a lot of people are going to change their mind on Rogan on the base of this, but I will say that he's not going anywhere. And if you're his fan, you're probably still his fan and he's going to keep on keeping on for Spotify.