Edit: I buried the lede. I’m not a fan of throwing inexperienced celebrities/personalities into presidency, but there’s merit to having entertainers step into political positions. Good entertainers feel the pulse of their audience, determine what they want, and adapt to provide that. In politics, that sounds like being a spineless flip flop, but I doubt anyone would say that was the characteristic of Robin Williams’ performances or Jon Stewart’s work. They both chose to provide a benefit to the audience with deep laughter. Stewart took the benefit a step further with his 9/11 work.

Re: “ignoring that one president”. Look at the artistic works of these entertainers-turned-politicians. I theorize you can determine their political leanings from the diversity of their performances. Do they have a wide range of characters, where they can observe other people, take feedback, and present something that feels natural each time? I bet that diversity is rooted in a significant amount of empathy to understand other groups. Our do they play the same tough guy over and over, rigidly, as they project their ideal image? Probably gonna be someone that expects conformity and conservation of the status quo.

It’s obviously not a strict rule. De Niro, Eastwood, Pesci, and Wayne all played tough guys, but the second two only play tough guys. Reagan focused on westerns, which always carry a certain tough guy trope. Similarly, Trump played a vicious business mastermind. That’s it. People latched onto his TV personality all the same. Obviously, what we see is he continues to prove he was never as successful as he projects. I’ll never understand why anyone thought a country, a society should be run like a business. Businesses want profit. The profit is always loaded towards upper management. They don’t generously reward the bottom tiers for fun. They cut them, if anything. Getting cut by your own government is an insane thing to indirectly desire, but I guess these voters always believed it was other people, the right people, that would get hurt. Not the.