Will 2024 be the year of the celebrity candidate?

Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz are predicting Michelle Obama, the popular former First Lady, will run for president next year.

Oprah Winfrey’s spiritual advisor, Marianne Williamson is already running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

But don’t forget Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson.

The wrestler-turned-movie star revealed on a Trevor Noah podcast last month that both Republicans and Democrats have approached him about running for the White House.

The idea of celebrities replacing professional politicians is spiraling.

Tucker Carlson, the former cable news star, is reportedly on the short list of vice presidential candidates to run with the former star of a network hit show, “The Apprentice,” former president Donald Trump.

Hill Harper, who starred in CSI: NY is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan.

Ben Savage, who starred in “Boy Meets World,” is running for U.S. House in California, where former baseball star Steve Garvey is running for U.S. Senate.

This rising tide of celebrities using their familiar names to enter politics is one reason more than 35 current members of the House and Senate say they have had enough of life on Capitol Hill.

The most common explanation for the current dysfunction among House Republicans is that professional politicians, accustomed to fights over committee ranks and budgets, find themselves ill-prepared to be locked into politics as a competition for celebrity.

The best-known political players on Capitol Hill are no longer powerful committee chairmen. Now the top players are members willing to say and do what it takes to become political celebrities and use their high profiles to collect money and audition as cable news’ future stars.

“The Republican House is…like a theater full of actors in the circus,” observed Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) who is one of the members heading for the door.

According to The Daily Beast reporting this year,  Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) dedicated more than a third of her office’s $500,000 budget to “marketing.” 

“It is not normal for a member to prioritize media and comms over actual legislation like that,” a former Mace staffer told The Daily Beast. “In my experience with and in other offices, comms serves to promote what the member is doing legislatively. In Mace’s office, legislation served to get her more media opportunities.”

George Santos, recently expelled from Congress, has followed that path to a payday as a celebrity on the video app Cameo. For a price, he will make a personal video celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, and more.

“The move to capitalize on his celebrity was not surprising for Mr. Santos, 35,” the New York Times reported. The paper explained that Santos’ “short career in Congress [was a blend of] politics with antics of a millennial social media provocateur.”

The gold standard for celebrity politicians is President Reagan. But unlike today’s group, Reagan had been in GOP politics for decades, and had served as governor for two terms, before reaching the White House.

When “The Rock,” a man with no political experience, went to Capitol Hill, he got serious attention only because of his ability to command attention from voters.

“He’s got an incredible following, maybe the biggest,” explained Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.).

“I think he is a powerful influencer.” said Sen Susan Collins (R-Maine), adding that she “got as many pictures with him as I possibly could.”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) was quick to point out that Johnson “reaches 600 million people around the world.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) were among the politically powerful meeting with Johnson.

Johnson, a former Republican who endorsed President Biden in 2020, is  using his celebrity to get lawmakers to pay attention to what he says is a critical issue — the U.S. military’s lagging recruitment numbers.  

A 2021 poll showed 46 percent of Americans said they would vote for Johnson for president. The same poll by Piplsay, a consumer research group, found 63 percent of Americans said celebrities can “make good politicians,” with “the right team in place.”

“That was an interesting poll…I was really blown away,” Johnson told Noah. Both parties had “brought up their own deep-dive research that that, should I ever go down that road,” there would be a chance for success.

The celebrity for president phenomenon is reaching beyond the U.S.

On the world stage, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a comedian and television producer who played a president on television before becoming president in real life and emerging as a key global player as leader of his country’s war against Russia.

The newly elected President of Argentina Javier Milei, a dissident economist, converted his repeated media appearances — including ones where he screamed repeated expletives about socialists and wielded a chainsaw to get attention for government programs he wished to cut — into a celebrity and an election victory.

Meanwhile, Trump is on track to turn 2024 politics into a real-life court room drama surrounding his many alleged crimes.

His strategy is to use that reality show programming to his political benefit. To his fans, he is the hero being persecuted in a deep-state fantasy drama. Millions of them buy into this fiction, even if it is only as real as the professional wrestling shows in which Trump once appeared. 

If 2023 has taught us anything, it is that celebrity politics is growing. The Rock for President — will it be a movie. or a news story?

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.