Oprah for president?

In the wake of her speech at the Golden Globes, Oprah Winfrey is thinking of running for president, according to a couple of her friends.

Employing ever-so subtle understatement, the Washington Post observes:

It’s no longer all that far-fetched to think that someone known primarily for their work on TV and with absolutely no governing experience could not only run for president but also win.

And don’t forget The Rock:

Connecting an uber-popular name like “Oprah” with “presidential campaign” is naturally going to generate loads of excitement. (Also, let’s not forget the speculation about “The Rock 2020.”)

The ironies here are like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly dropping into a giant vat of chardonnay during a hurricane in the middle of a royal wedding.

Oprah, after all, is everything Trump claims to be but isn’t, to wit, actually self-made, actually a billionaire, actually intelligent, actually hard-working, actually popular with a majority of the public, etc. etc. So it would in many ways be only fitting if she, of all people, chased Cheeto Mussolini back to the outer boroughs.

On the other hand, electing a plutocratic TV star with no experience in government to the presidency seems like a dubious precedent to follow. Oprah would of course be almost infinitely preferable to Trump as president, but I would consider a randomly selected American adult to be almost infinitely preferable to Trump as president, so that’s not saying much.

One thing is certain: anybody who thinks this can’t happen is wrong. In an America which seems increasingly like a mashup of of Network and Being There (for you kids out there, in the 1970s these movies were considered over the top political satires) I wouldn’t even say it’s especially unlikely.