Oprah Winfrey's speech at the Golden Globes was as powerful as reports have suggested. Few people hearing it live could have doubted that it would boss the headlines for days.
It is easy to be cynical about Oprah (it feels rude to call her “Winfrey”). All that sharing. All that emotional openness. All those novels in her book club being treated like self-help tomes.
The briefest glance at her biography should shut down any such whinges. She was born in Mississippi, so poor she wore dresses made of potato sacks to school. From the age of nine she was abused by a cousin, an uncle and a family friend. At 14 she gave birth prematurely to a child who died almost immediately.
That's just the start. It required more than mere talent (of which she has plenty) to fight her way to a position as the most influential media figure in the United States.
She addressed this saga during her speech. “I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault,” she said. “Because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue.” The speech employed an intricate structure that moved, in melodic cadences, from biographical snippets to a biblically phrased call to action.
“A new day is on the horizon,” she incanted. Nobody has more powerfully addressed the reckoning on gender inequality that spread outwards from the Weinstein revelations.
She is clever. She is intelligent. She is an extraordinary communicator. None of this means she should stand for president of the United States.
You will have read that calls for Oprah to stand in 2020 began within seconds of the speech ending. In fact they began even before she stood up.
During Seth Meyers’s opening monologue, a verified Twitter account for NBC, the Globes’ broadcaster, positioned the words. “Nothing but respect for OUR future president,” beneath an image of Oprah. The network later apologised for a startling breach of political neutrality.
We have no knowledge of her opinions on foreign policy. We don't know if she has any grasp of economics
In the aftermath of the oration, the #oprah2020 hashtag went ballistic. Billie Jean King tweeted: “Go Girl Go!” Sarah Silverman doubled down with “Oprah/Michelle 2020”.
But this is all so much hot air. Oprah would never consider standing for office. Right? Not necessarily. When the Los Angeles Times asked Stedman Graham, her long-term partner, about the idea, he said she would "absolutely do it. It's up to the people".
If he means the people inside the Beverly Hilton, then the US should prepare itself for a pasting not seen since Ronald Reagan held Walter Mondale's head down the lavatory in 1984. It hardly needs to be said that Oprah's followers expect their hero to stand on the Democratic ticket.
Hang on a moment. It was only a little over a year ago that the Dems were chastising Donald Trump for his lack of political experience. Hillary Clinton's greatest strength was, apparently, the knowledge she had picked up as a senator and as first lady of the United States. She had been a part of the Democratic machine for half a century. We didn't even know where he sat on the political spectrum.
Trump loves Oprah
As recently as the 2000 election, making a hopeless campaign for the nomination of the Reform Party, Trump attacked Pat Buchanan from the right. "I guess he's an anti-Semite," Trump said. "He doesn't like the blacks, he doesn't like the gays. It's just incredible that anybody could embrace this guy."
There's an absurd anti-logic at play. You can't ascend to the presidency without becoming a 'professional politician'. That's what it will say on your payslip
A year earlier, he had suggested a noted liberal as his running mate. Guess who? “Oprah. I love Oprah. Oprah would always be my first choice,” Trump told Larry King. “If she’d do it, she’d be fantastic. I mean, she’s popular, she’s brilliant, she’s a wonderful woman.”
We’re getting sidetracked. No sane person is arguing that Oprah is as slippery as the Orang-utan in Chief. But, like him, she is being elevated purely on her status as a celebrity. We have no knowledge of her opinions on foreign policy. We don’t know if she has any grasp of economics.
Trump has so skewed the conversation that mere popularity is now enough to get a campaign started. Reagan began as an actor, but he'd been governor of California before securing the nomination. Eisenhower wasn't a politician, but he had organised the invasion of Europe.
This is bad. Abandoning professional politicians for celebrity candidates would signify that one aspect of Trumpism had triumphed. And there’s an absurd anti-logic at play. You can’t ascend to the presidency without becoming “a professional politician”. That’s what it will say on your payslip.
Oh well. All this is good news for Saoirse Ronan. Born in New York, she will, if she fills out the right papers, be eligible to stand in 2032.
