President Donald Trump's political power has crumbled, said political strategist Chai Komanduri on MS NOW Tuesday, and one reason is that his cultural clout has collapsed.
"You know, Andrew Breitbart said politics is downstream of culture," said Komanduri. "We talk a lot about policy and politics, but I think MAGA and Trump have lost the culture. Quite simply, Trump is not cool anymore."
It might be surprising to people in liberal circles that Trump ever had a "cool" factor to begin with, Komanduri said, but 18 months ago after his election win, his connections spoke for themselves. "You had Hollywood stars like Sly Stallone go down to Mar-a-Lago. You had big country music stars like Carrie Underwood associate herself very much with Trump." There was an incident where country star Morgan Wallen "stormed off the set of SNL" to indicate woke politics was over, Komanduri said.
There was even a "Trump Dance," he added, and athletes were doing it on the field. "In football, in UFC. Christian Pulisic, the U.S. soccer team captain at the time, did it as well."
"Now nobody is doing the Trump Dance," he said. "The last time you saw Trump Dance was when Belgium did it after beating the U.S. to mock Trump."
After a year and a half in power, endless drama, and an uprising of public anger over everything from ICE raids to a slowing economy, "You don't see any stars or celebrities or musicians who want to associate themselves with Trump and his America 250 celebration," said Komanduri. "He couldn't get anybody to perform. He couldn't even get Milli Vanilli to accept his invitation to be at that America 250 celebration."
"So, it has fallen quite far for Trump," Komanduri concluded. "He is no longer seen as cool. He is no longer seen as ascendent, and the MAGA brand is not seen that way either."