Will Ferrell, Red Hot Chili Peppers Hop On Bernie Sanders Bandwagon

The Bernie Sanders campaign is unveiling its “Artists & Cultural Leaders” caucus supporting the Vermont socialist’s campaign for President. Actors Will Ferrell, Danny DeVito, Susan Sarandon and some 100 other celebrities jointly signed a statement backing Sanders against Hillary Clinton for the Democrat nomination.

We — the undersigned artists, musicians, and cultural leaders of America — are excited to endorse a new vision for our country.

It’s a vision that pushes for a progressive economic agenda.

It’s a vision that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment, and gets big money out of politics.

We endorse Bernie Sanders to become the 2016 Democratic Nominee for President of the United States of America.

The roster of the artistic 1 percent includes all members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Norm” from Cheers, Jackson Browne, Belinda Carlisle and Jello Biafra, frontman for the iconic punk band, Dead Kennedys.

Shepard Fairy, credited with creating the iconic image of Barack Obama’s primary campaign against Hillary in 2008 is also among Sanders’ supporters. Naturally, too, Ben Cohen, eponymous co-founder of the Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream empire, long a subsidiary of giant Unilever corporation, is on the list.

Obviously, virtually no one on the list has anything substantive, or particularly interesting, to say on economic policy in the U.S. They do, however, represent a crack in the presumed narrative that the entire Democrat infrastructure has lined up behind Hillary Clinton.

It adds a certain “cool” factor to the septuagenarian hopeful Sanders, who is actually older than Clinton. In recent polling, Sanders has opened a wide lead over Clinton with the youngest voters, and with voters on the farthest left of the Democrat party.

During his fight with Hillary for the nomination in 2008, Barack Obama was aided by a particularly expert piece of propaganda organized by musicians Will.I.Am. The music video, featuring cuts of Obama’s speeches, features a range of celebrities and musicians endorsing Obama over Hillary.

Not since Lini Reifenstahl had an artist created such powerful propaganda around a candidate’s speeches. It isn’t clear that Will Ferrell, Danny DeVito and Flea could organize a similarly effective pitch.

Still, it will be fun to watch.