Once upon a time in America, being a rich celebrity was considered its own reward. A whole television franchise was devoted to their fabulous lifestyles, houses and airplanes. No one suspected that anything was lacking in the lives of tech billionaires, Hollywood moguls or famous talk-show hosts.
Then came Donald Trump, and suddenly the wealthiest .01 percent was confronted with a new standard of personal achievement to be measured against. Increasingly they are being asked, often but not exclusively by themselves, “Are you running for president?”
The latest household name to be mentioned in the same sentence as “2020” is the inescapable Oprah, who if elected would be the first woman president, the first one-name president, and in many ways the natural heir to President Trump: a household name steeped in tabloid culture, prone to eschewing fact-checking in the cause of a higher, or more marketable, truth. She could, for instance, expand Trump’s crackdown on crime by undocumented aliens to include alien abductions.
To be fair, it’s not clear that Oprah is seriously, or even casually, considering running for president; the speculation stems from an interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg Television that was recorded in December but just aired Wednesday. Rubenstein asked, “Have you ever thought that, given the popularity you have, [and] we haven’t broken the glass ceiling yet for women, that you could actually run for president and be elected?” Oprah seemed nonplussed by the question, admitting that “I never considered the question, even the possibility … I just thought, I don’t have the experience, I don’t know enough … now I’m thinking, oh!” — an answer that could be merely equivocal, or a subtle plug for O, the name of her magazine.
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