Celebrities Do Not Have The Political Star Power They Thought They Did

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

Oprah Winfrey’s hypocrisy and Robert De Niro’s suggestion that he might to leave the United States are reminders that, at the end of the day, celebrities are just people — with no greater understanding of the political landscape than anyone else.

Their declarations of doom and gloom have become background noise in a country that is tired of being talked down to. For years, celebrities have wielded their platforms like megaphones, hoping to sway voters and shape public opinion.

Yet, despite their drama and declarations, their political star power appears to be waning.

Take Oprah Winfrey, for example, who found herself embroiled in controversy after it was revealed her organization accepted a significant amount of money to conduct a townhall with Vice President Kamala Harris. But now, critics are left asking: Did Oprah’s endorsement even move the needle for voters? Was there anyone genuinely on the fence about Harris who decided, “You know what, if Oprah’s on board, I’m in”?

The fallout from this has only further eroded trust in celebrity endorsements.

Then there are the celebrity escape plans. Robert De Niro, for example, suggested in 2016 he might leave the United States if Trump won.

But what is truly laughable is the hypocrisy of the countless celebrities who back in 2016 shouted: “If Trump wins, I’m out of here!” Cher and others were loud and proud about their disdain for a Trump presidency. Yet, when the moment came, they stayed put — clinging to their mansions in the United States rather than booking flights to Canada.

It begs the question: Why the double standard? If America under Trump is as terrible as they claim, why not leave? Or is it that, deep down, they know there is no better place to live than the United States?

Celebrities threatening to leave the country have become as predictable as award-show standing ovations. These threats serve less as genuine convictions and more as performative gestures meant to energize their social media followings. Yet, the average American sees right through it.

For most working-class voters, celebrity complaints ring hollow when they come from people who enjoy wealth and freedom. The idea that Robert De Niro, who became famous portraying gritty, tough-as-nails characters, feels so aggrieved by election outcomes that he might move abroad is almost comical.

Moreover, the notion that these stars believe their opinions hold more weight than the average American’s is a glaring example of Hollywood’s elitism. Their proclamations of moral superiority may resonate in the echo chambers of coastal cities, but for the rest of the country, it is just noise.

And here is the kicker: President-elect Donald Trump now has more followers on X than Taylor Swift, one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. The fact that Trump has outpaced the ultimate celebrity in social media influence shows that America is not as enamored with Hollywood elites as it once was.

A larger question looms: Do celebrity endorsements even matter in politics anymore? Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign surely thought so when it brought in Oprah, but the results suggest otherwise. Harris’ historic unpopularity has not been bolstered by celebrity star power.

In fact, it could be argued that Hollywood endorsements hurt more than they help. Many Americans see them as out of touch, self-serving or even condescending. After all, why should a multimillionaire actor or singer have any more influence over an election than a small business owner in Ohio or a teacher in Texas?

As Trump’s return to the White House sends shockwaves through the liberal establishment, perhaps it is time for Hollywood to take a hard look in the mirror. Their star power no longer carries the political weight it once did. Americans are increasingly skeptical of those who claim to speak for the “common man” while living in gated communities and vacationing in the South of France.

The truth is, America is not perfect, but it is far from the dystopian nightmare Hollywood claims it will become under conservative leadership. And maybe, just maybe, it is time for these celebrities to stick to what they do best — entertaining — and leave the politics to the people.

Bob Rubin is the Founder and President of Rubin Wealth Advisors. Learn more about him by visiting www.rubinwa.com.

Related Topics:#DailyCaller BobRubin CelebritiesUSPolitics feature OprahWinfrey RobertDeNiro

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US Halts Construction of Five Offshore Wind Projects Due To National Security

Published on December 29, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum leveled the Trump administration’s latest broadside at the struggling U.S. offshore wind industry on Monday, ordering an immediate suspension of activities at the five big wind projects currently in development.

“Today we’re sending notifications to the five large offshore wind projects that are under construction that their leases will be suspended due to national security concerns,” Burgum told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. “During this time of suspension, we’ll work with the companies to try to find a mitigation. But we completed the work that President Trump has asked us to do. The Department of War has come back conclusively that the issues related to these large offshore wind programs have created radar interference that creates a genuine risk for the U.S.”

Predictably, reaction to Burgum’s order was immediate, with opponents of offshore wind praising the move, and industry supporters slamming it. In Semafor’s energy-related newsletter on Tuesday, energy and climate editor Tim McDowell quotes an unnamed ex-Energy Department official as claiming, “the Pentagon and intelligence services, which are normally sensitive to even extremely low-probability risks, never flagged this as a concern previously.” (RELATED: Trump Admin Orders Offshore Wind Farm Pauses Over ‘National Security Risks’)

Yet, a simple 30-second Google search finds a wealth of articles going back to as early as October 2014 discussing ways to mitigate the long-ago identified issue of interference with air defense radars by these enormous windmills, some of which are taller than the Eiffel Tower. It is a simple fact that the issue was repeatedly raised during the Biden Administration’s mad rush to speed these giant windmill operations into the construction phase by cutting corners in the permitting process.

In May, 2024, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) own analysis related to the Atlantic Shores South project contains a detailed discussion of the potential impacts and suggests multiple ways to mitigate for them. An Oct. 29, 2024 memo of understanding between BOEM and the Biden Department of Defense calls for increased collaboration between the two departments as a response to concerns from members of Congress and others related to these very long-known potential impacts.

The Georgia Tech Research Institute published a study dated June 6, 2022 detailing “Radar Impacts, Potential Mitigation, from Offshore Wind Turbines.” That study was in fact commissioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), a private non-profit that functions as an advisory group to the federal government.

Oh.

A report published in February 2024 by International Defense Security & Technology, Inc. describes the known issues thusly:

“Wind turbines can create clutter on radar screens in a number of ways. First, the metal towers and blades of wind turbines can reflect radar signals. This can create false returns on radar screens, which can make it difficult to detect and track real targets.

“Second, the rotating blades of wind turbines can create a Doppler effect on radar signals. This can cause real targets to appear to be moving at different speeds than they actually are. This can also make it difficult to track real targets.”

The simple Google search I conducted returns hundreds of articles dating all the way back to 2006 related to this long-known yet unresolved issue that could present a very real threat to national security. The fact that the Biden administration, in its religious zeal to speed these enormous offshore industrial projects into the construction phase, chose to downplay and ignore this threat in no way obligates his successor in office to commit the same dereliction of duty.

Some wind proponents are cynically raising concerns that a future Democratic administration could use this example as justification for cancelling oil and gas projects. It’s as if they’ve all forgotten about the previous four years of the Autopen presidency, which featured Joe Biden’s Day 1 order cancelling the 80% completed Keystone XL pipeline, a year-long moratorium on LNG export permitting, an attempt to set aside more than 200 million acres of the U.S. offshore from future leasing, and too many other destructive moves to detail here.

Again, a simple web search reveals that experts all over the world believe this is a real problem. If so, it needs to be addressed as a matter of national security. Burgum is intent on doing that. All half-baked talking points aside, this really isn’t complicated.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Daily Caller

While Western Nations Cling to Energy Transition, Pragmatic Nations Produce Energy and Wealth

Published on December 29, 2025

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Vijay Jayaraj

History will likely remember 2025 as the year energy corporatists finally stopped pretending there is a climate crisis. For a decade, a bizarre theater of the absurd played out as titans of the oil and gas industry apologized for their core business while pledging allegiance to a “green transition” that existed mostly in the imaginations of Western bureaucrats. But the curtain has seemingly fallen.

ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest energy producers, has slashed $10 billion from its low-carbon investment commitments through 2030. Simultaneously, the company announced that it expects $25 billion in earnings growth from 2024 to 2030 to be powered primarily by increases in oil and gas production, which will push daily output to 5.5 million barrels of oil equivalent by the end of the decade.

This is not a company abandoning climate responsibility but rather at last recognizing what has long been obvious: The path prescribed by the climate industrial complex is economically destructive and operationally impossible – even with massive government subsidies.

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For years, the global energy strategy has been surreal. Companies that built the modern world on the back of energy-dense hydrocarbons indulged those celebrating the arrival of wind turbines and solar panels to power civilization. But reality, stubborn and unforgiving, has interrupted the psychedelic revelry.

ExxonMobil’s low-carbon investments will be paced to policy support and customer demand, says the company. That is corporate speak meaning that spending on green projects is paused unless the government – using our tax dollars – subsidizes the risk or until a market exists.

Megaprojects, once heralded as the future, are now in line for deferral. Why? Because without taxpayer handouts, the economics of trying to bury underground a plant food like carbon dioxide simply do not work – and defy common sense.

The energy sector is pivoting from a strategy of “grow clean at all costs” to “returns first, transition last.” “Green” projects are being relegated to a secondary capital bucket – a token for good PR instead of a core activity.

Europe’s Shell and Aker BP and Canada’s Enbridge have withdrawn from the Science Based Targets initiative to establish “science-based emissions reductions.” This was a retreat from what is described as a “credible, science-based net-zero framework” because there was neither credibility nor science. It was a political suicide pact. The energy giants looked at the cliff’s edge and refused to jump.

British multinational BP, having abandoned its promise to go “Beyond Petroleum,” has raised its oil and gas spending and softened its renewable targets.

ENEOS Holdings, a Japanese refiner, has discarded hydrogen production targets, with CEO Tomohide Miyata explaining that “the shift toward a carbon-neutral society appears to be slowing.”

These U-turns represent a renaissance in policy realism. Energy needs do not disappear because politicians make speeches at climate summits or corporations allocate funds to ESG programs or governments attempt to control consumption and choices of appliances and automobiles.

Second thoughts about an inevitably doomed “green” transition is a victory for the single mother in the U.S. trying to budget for winter heating and for the small business owner in the U.K. whose margins are crushed by one of the highest commercial electricity rates in the world. And for the billions of people in developing nations, this pivot could be salvation from generational poverty.

The question now is whether governments will recognize what corporations have made clear: that the energy transition was a fantasy infused with scientific language and draped in moralistic gingerbread. Or will they continue to increase subsidies and regulations?

Very likely, there will be a bifurcation: on the one hand, western bureaucracies, particularly in Europe, continuing an economic decline under mandates and taxes, and on the other, pragmatic governments, many of them in Asia, pursuing prosperity with fuels and technologies that work.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Va. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.