Meryl Streep’s rebuke of Donald Trump during the Golden Globes ceremony on Sunday has revived the familiar complaint, heard from the left and right, that Hollywood’s liberalism hurts the Democratic Party. In Jacobin, Eileen Jones argued that Streep “strikes me as about the worst possible spokesperson imaginable for the Left in an era of working-class rage, so naturally she’s embraced even more tightly by liberals doubling down on their delusional Clinton Democrat worship.” National Review’s David French offered a conservative assessment that made essentially the same point: that Streep’s speech shows “why Trump won.” “Lots of voters don’t like to be hectored,” he wrote. “Lots of voters defy Hollywood’s commands.”

French, however, does think this liberal alliance has won something more important: the culture wars. “Indeed, since 1968—when the modern Left really got rolling—the Democratic party has been largely losing ground,” he argued. “But in that same period, whose cultural values have most advanced? The secular Left has taken a sledgehammer to God, family, and country—the pillars of our national culture—and Hollywood has led the way.”

This wrinkle exposes an argumentative flaw: If Hollywood is powerful enough to make people lose faith in God, family, and country, then why should it be a liability in winning elections? The whole business of Hollywood is popularity, which is also the whole business of winning elections. If celebrity endorsements are partly to blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss, why did her husband and Barack Obama win the White House with a comparably impressive set of star endorsements? And if these endorsements are so toxic, then wouldn’t celebrity candidates be even more so?

But history shows that celebrity candidates can win, and it’s for the same reason that politicians like Obama and the Clintons tout celebrity endorsements: We live in a media-saturated world where fame has persuasive power.

Of course, celebrity candidates seem to surface more often in one major party than the other. Two of the last four Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan and Trump, had substantial showbiz careers. Arnold Schwarzenegger won the governorship of deep-blue California, and would have contended for the presidency if not for the constitutional requirement that candidates be natural-born citizens. Fred Thompson is best remembered for his performances as a tough but fair district attorney on Law & Order, but he also served as senator from Tennessee. The Democrats have nothing comparable except for Senator Al Franken, and he was always more of a political comedian than a movie star.