The Donald Trump campaign has many Americans shaking their heads in disbelief — surely there are better candidates from among the most famous Americans, and surely some Americans must be famously partly because of their achievements in leadership, advocacy, or diplomacy. To that end, here are 11 celebrities who should run for President.
These 11 famous people are overall liberal, but the pool from which they were drawn was not. I started with a large list of candidates drawn from show business, the military, major award winners, and more, including prominent conservative activists like Ted Nugent and libertarians like Penn Jillette. The overall pool received up to 2 points for their education, 1 for military background, up to 2 for record of activism, 1 for any political offices held, fellowships or awards they’d won (but not the Academy Awards, Grammys, or the like), and up to 2 for their overall qualities of leadership and diplomacy both domestically and on the world stage.
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The final list includes actors, writers, a U.S. Senator, a scientist, and an astronaut. They range from atheist to Catholic to Hindu, with backgrounds in activism and raising awareness for issues around the world. Two of the actors have already played the U.S. President . . . Consider that a dry run for the real deal. None is among the 11 most Googled female celebrities in the world, which will disappoint the many people who believe Beyoncé represents our best hope as a nation. (Beyoncé will technically be eligible for the 2016 election, as she turns 35 in September of 2016.)
One factor that ruled out many of the best potential candidates was that they must be natural-born U.S. citizens. Obvious favorites like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are not eligible, even though the Governator has been a U.S. citizen since 1983. Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, was born in Prague and became a U.S. citizen in 1957 — she was not eligible to serve as President even as part of the constitutional line of succession. Freakonomics writer and radio host Stephen J. Dubner asked her about it in a recent episode.
“I do think that naturalized citizens should be eligible,” Secretary Albright told Dubner, “but after living in the country for a long, long time. I think that you cannot be the citizen of a country that you’ve just kind of arrived in, and I do think that it requires understanding the country.” She turned down an invitation from Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel to campaign for the Czech presidency “because I hadn’t lived there, I didn’t understand it.”
For now, foreign-born U.S. citizens will have to wait.
11. Kal Penn — 4.5 points
The House and Harold & Kumar franchise star has a history of activism for the Democratic Party. Born to first-generation Indian immigrants, he represents the American dream in a very relatable way, and he left House to serve in the Obama White House. He has a degree in sociology from UCLA. Penn, whose given name is Kalpen Suresh Modi, will be just 39 in 2016, but he has been involved in public politics since the first Obama presidential campaign in 2007. And to give up the plum role of beloved character Dr. Lawrence Kutner on House shows a pretty high level of commitment to the cause, especially when his character was killed off with no avenue to return.
10. Martin Sheen — 5 points
Actor Martin Sheen, whose real name is Ramón Estévez, may seem like a red herring on this list because he played our most beloved fictional president on the West Wing. But Sheen’s real life imitates his art: He is politically liberal and a devoted Catholic, with decades of stable family life and public service. Like Kal Penn, he was born to two first-generation immigrants.
In a recent interview with Krista Tippett for the radio show On Being, Sheen said, “Working as an actor on The West Wing, reflecting the most powerful office in the world, it seemed to me the most important thing was to project the humanity of that office, and that whoever occupied it had a responsibility to be more human than anyone else around him.”
9. Angelina Jolie — 5 points
Leaving kitschy Hackers and a troubled early personal life far behind her, actress Angelina Jolie has become a bona fide diplomat and global thought leader as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In addition to her global advocacy, she has raised awareness for women’s health in the U.S. and abroad by sharing her genetic testing for breast cancer and her subsequent preventive surgeries. Jolie is cited as one of the few true celebrity diplomats, in contrast with many dilettantes.
8. David Simon — 5 points
David Simon was just 31 when his career-making and influential nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets was published. By then he’d already been a Baltimore newspaper reporter for nine years, but his life abruptly and permanently changed when Homicide was adapted into an award-winning TV drama. His subsequent project, The Wire, is often listed as one of a shortlist of best television shows ever made. With Treme and Show Me a Hero, Simon continued his advocacy for underfunded urban populations. He crusades against the War on Drugs and other discriminatory policies in a very direct way that sets him apart from most of the rest of the 11 celebrities who should run for President.
7. Ashley Judd — 5 points
It’s hard to imagine going from a romantic comedy leading lady to the White House, but Ashley Judd is the exception. With a famously fractious family background and a 14-year marriage to handsome cosmopolitan race-car driver Dario Franchitti, Judd has seen it all, and she advocates for AIDS organizations and women’s rights around the world. She earned a master’s degree in public administration from a special Harvard program for working adults. (Night school? She really is just like us.)
6. Captain Scott Kelly — 5 points
Ever since Liz Lemon named her imaginary boyfriend “Astronaut Mike Dexter,” astronauts have had that full title in my head: Astronaut Chris Hadfield is my favorite, but Astronaut Scott Kelly is a close second. During a long Navy career as a fighter pilot, Captain Kelly was chosen as an astronaut and is currently commanding a year-long mission on the International Space Station. His twin brother Mark Kelly, also a retired astronaut, is married to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head as part of a mass shooting during a public event in Tucson, Arizona.
5. Al Franken — 5 points
U.S. Senator Al Franken has a clear head start on the rest of this list, and when he was elected to the Senate, he proved that voters were willing to either overlook or embrace his previous life as Stuart Smalley. With a strong record on labor, healthcare, and other classic Democratic causes, Franken transitioned from hosting for progressive Air America Radio — alongside an honorable mention for 11 celebrities who should run for President: comedian Marc Maron — to running for U.S. Senate representing Minnesota. After an extremely narrow first election that came down to a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling, Senator Franken was comfortably reelected in 2014 and is a serious but affable presence for his constituents.
4. Danny Glover — 5 points
Like Martin Sheen, Danny Glover has played the U.S. President, in his case for 2009’s blockbuster disaster movie 2012. Glover’s image as a believable authority figure shows in his many roles as detectives, judges, and other smart people in charge. But Glover also has a career-long record of activism in both domestic and global politics. Again like Sheen, Glover has been arrested during a political protest. His parents were both active in the NAACP and would be proud of Glover’s half a dozen nominations for that organization’s awards for representation in pop culture.
3. George Clooney — 5.5 points
Like Angelina Jolie, George Clooney is recognized as a legit diplomat and world thought leader. His activism has mostly been in the area of peacemaking, especially in the Darfur region of Sudan but really around the world as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. His wife Amal Clooney is a successful international human rights lawyer and many joked that Mr. Clooney was “marrying up” or that he was his new wife’s “trophy husband.” But her serious role on the world stage reflects her husband’s increasing interest in world events during his thirty-plus-year acting career — he’s no longer only the dreamiest doctor or campiest Batman.
2. Ta-Nehisi Coates — 5.5 points
Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates grew up in the Baltimore described by David Simon in his newspaper work. He dropped out of Howard University, a Historically Black College, to work as a journalist before eventually landing at the Atlantic during a political discussion golden age alongside Andrew Sullivan, Jeffrey Goldberg, Megan McArdle, and more. His elegant, meticulously researched essays about race, politics, and history — most famously, 2014’s “The Case for Reparations” — culminated in 2015 that included one of the year’s best books and a MacArthur “Genius Grant.”
1. Bill Nye — 5.5 points
For Americans of a certain age, Bill Nye — “The Science Guy” — is our Mr. Wizard, building his career on making challenging ideas both graspable and interesting to children and adults alike. With a degree in mechanical engineering and a background in comedy, Nye now serves as a worldwide advocate for science, progress, and reason in general as a response to the rising movements of creationists, climate change deniers, and more. Nye is Executive Director of the Planetary Society and promotes space exploration, often hosting Star Talk with his friend and science communication colleague Neil deGrasse Tyson, who also just missed making the list of 11 celebrities who should run for President. Nye would be the second U.S. President to hold a patent — the other is Abraham Lincoln, whom Nye could pass for in a pinch, given a good fake beard and some spirit gum.
