Back in a quieter, simpler time (specifically, right before the 2016 election), it was Kanye West who seemed to declare that he was going to be running for president in 2020. In addition to the expected amount of guffawing going on, there was a somewhat surprising volume of support on the left for such a plan. That came crashing to a halt when he put on his MAGA hat, however. But without Kanye, where will progressives look for their own celebrity candidate to challenge Donald Trump?

Never fear, citizens. Rushing to the rescue may be… Angelina Jolie. Or at least she was hinting at it during a recent BBC interview. (Business Insider)

Angelina Jolie dropped a big hint that she might move into politics and run for president. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme on Friday, which she guest edited, Jolie said she would have dismissed the idea before but that she would now go where she is “needed.” When host Justin Webb said he had put her on a list of Democrats who might run in 2020, Jolie laughed and said “thank you.” Jolie, who serves as a special envoy for the UN’s refugee envoy and campaigns against sexual violence, said she would stay quiet “for now” because she feels she can “get a lot done without a title.”

The actress goes on to declare, “I’m also able to work with governments and I’m also able to work with militaries, and so I sit in a very interesting place of being able to get a lot done without a title and without it being about myself or my policies.”

The first question to ask is whether or not this is something she’s seriously considering or if it’s just a BBC radio host looking for some clickbait. Take a listen for yourself. It’s only a couple of minutes long.

Toward the end, she’s definitely laughing along with the host, but her comments prior to that aren’t delivered as a joke at all. She talks about her ability to work “with governments and with militaries.” She invokes the “c-word” in saying that her top goal is to be able to “make change.”

Is Angelina Jolie really considering this as a possible option?

By way of disclosure, I’ll just say that I’ve long been a fan of her work and have never paid much attention to her politics. From her performances in Gia and Girl Interrupted right up through her turns as the heroine of Tomb Raider and beyond, she’s done a lot of films that I enjoyed. Her appointment as a UN Goodwill Ambassador seemed rather odd at first, but I’ll even go so far as to say that she’s taken that platform and done a lot with it, driving charitable donations from around the world to help disadvantaged people on nearly every continent.

So does that prepare her for a role as President? To be charitable, she probably has some extensive ties with the leaders of other nations and has experience interacting with a variety of cultures. But to my knowledge, she’s never actually run anything aside from her own professional interests. She has no legislative experience I’m aware of. (Then again, neither did Donald Trump.)

One thing she has going for her is name recognition. I would imagine most of the country recognizes her name and could probably list off some of her films. But I’d rather see her stick to what she’s doing now than start diving into the Washington Swamp. Of course, when the BBC radio host mentioned there would be 20 or 30 Democrats running in the primary and said he was adding her to the list, she didn’t argue. So if she’s running as a Democrat I suppose it’s none of my business anyway.