Julia Roberts’ Political Ad Was Right! (Just Not How She Intended)

Shaming Trump supporters backfires on Eight Percenters

Dear Readers,

Well, after almost two years, I’ve finally done it—I’ve enabled paid subscriptions! I’m heartened by those of you who have already pledged to support this Substack, and I’m finally taking you up on your generosity. 

As I’ve noted before, when I started Shiny Herd, I was searching for a way to understand The Great Chill, escape from the Eight Percenters, and release our problematic film—I might have mentioned The Coddling of the American Mind movie once or twice!

And now Courtney and I are embarking on other problematic projects, including bringing Rob Henderson’s bestselling memoir Troubled to screens big and small. (That will be a narrative feature with actors.)

But the more I dig, the more I find, and the more I realize more digging has to be done. 

I think many are misreading our present time. There are reasons for optimism, but I fear we could be entering a new phase that will be characterized by more suppression of forbidden ideas combined with even less transparency. 

As a dissident filmmaker who knows the system well, I think I’m privy to plenty of unique information. I deal with the monoculture all the time, and I speak with dissidents in entertainment, media, academia, and other fields all the time. I look forward to learning more about our strange time, and sharing what I’ve learned with you.

If that sounds interesting to you, please consider subscribing. Free subscribers will still enjoy plenty of content, and for $5/month or $50/year, paid subscribers will get extra goodies and full access to the archives. Perhaps most importantly for many of you, paid subscribers will support new features and more and deeper digging.

Thanks for making Shiny Herd a part of your day.

All the best,

Ted

Remember that political ad voiced by Julia Roberts? Turns out it was right, after all — just not in the way Julia intended. 

The ad opens in a polling place. 

An over-eager middle aged white man sporting a flag-n’-eagle ball cap blurts, “Your turn, honey!” 

As his wife sheepishly approaches the voting booth, we hear Roberts’ earnest voiceover, “In the one place in America where women still have the right to choose, you can vote any way you want.” 

The woman makes eye contact with her equally-sheepish girlfriend who stands at a voting booth facing her. The two women share a private moment—imagine hostages signaling “go time” for their escape—and then vote for Harris/Walz. 

The women strut out of their booths, and wide-eyed flag-’n-eagle guy can’t wait to ask, “Did you make the right choice, honey?”

“Sure did,” she responds.

She grins and flashes her co-conspirator a knowing glance. Julia wraps up the spot with one more line: “Remember, what happens in the booth, stays in the booth.”

Got the message? 

Who’s the Bully?

OK, try not to be distracted by that all-timer of a hyperbolic statement  —“The one place in America where women still have the right to choose.” Really, Julia, the one place? I mean, aren't viewers supposed to assume that poor woman at least chose to wear her bedazzled hat? Or maybe her Trumpy husband dresses her too. 

Imagine the ADR session for the ad: Julia stands in her sound-proof booth wearing headphones over a messy bun. Did she ever pause while rehearsing her 31 words of narration and consider improvising a less laughable opening? Even Joy Behar would have dialed that line way back.

But let’s return to the ad’s message: Hey ladies, we know your toxicly masculine husbands want to bully you into voting for Trump. But do the right thing, and they’ll never know.

Today the ad comes across like a parody of monoculture smugnorance, but the broad strokes are spot on. Many voters were intimidated into self censorship, and when they entered the voting booth they did vote their conscience. But the results reveal that Julia and her ilk misread the landscape. We now know there were lots of sheepish voters, but they weren’t Kamala supporters. 

Where the Shy Voters Are

Most polls underestimated support for Trump by a substantial margin (about 3 percent). Yes, that’s still within the margin of error, but so many mistakes in the same direction suggest systemic problems with the polls. Part of the story seems to be that the monoculture shamed plenty of Trump voters into self censorship. 

“Voters who favor him often don’t like to admit that they do.” Tom Lubbock says that’s a key reason why so many pollsters got it wrong, and he should know. Lubbock co-founded JL Partners, the most accurate of 2024’s major pollsters. It seems all the Hitler talk took a toll. If you hear prominent figures constantly compare your preferred candidate to one of history’s most barbaric mass murderers, you might not be completely forthcoming when someone asks you who will get your vote.

Lubbock explains how plenty of voters mouthed the socially-acceptable option—go Kamala!—even though they secretly supported “Adolf.” Lubbock’s team discovered the self censorship only because they conducted unusually long interviews. After 10 minutes, many likely voters said they’d vote for Harris, but when the conversation stretched past the 90-minute-mark plenty of them let their guards down and admitted to favoring the “wrong” choice.

Of course, the polling team simply witnessed human nature. The more we think everyone’s against us, the more likely we are to clam up and hide our true beliefs. But intimidation also hurts the thought policers. It warps the truth, and tricks them into believing a rosier version of reality. That puts Eight Percenters in a pickle. They love shaming, but shaming hurts them on election day.

So will Eight Percenters shelve their “Shut Up!” strategy? 

Don’t bet on it. After all, shy Trump voters foiled them in 2016, but Eight Percenters simply doubled down on shaming. The Biden-Harris victory in 2020 gave them less reason to rethink their rhetorical approach. And there’s another reason why Eight Perscenters will likely stick with shaming—it works. 

Yes, as we’ve seen, it can backfire. If you want to win elections, you need to know what voters actually think. But as is so often the case in our messy world, we’re not mulling over a clear choice between two options, one good and one bad. We’re considering a choice between mixed bags, and the shaming bag probably offers a better pro-con ratio than the more civilized alternative. 

So as much as I wish I could make a strictly political case for a culture of free speech, I just can’t. Shaming offers too many upsides. It stifles debate and makes the monoculture opinion look better by default. It produces a constant flow of messaging that nudges voters toward the “correct” choices. It also exerts a great deal of control over how people frame issues and which issues we discuss. 

So much of the work is done before the first debate begins and before the first political ad airs. That’s because shaming lets your team set the agenda. Not always and everywhere, but much more often than if it were left to the hurly-burly of an open discussion. 

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Top Down vs Bottom Up

Technology enabled bottom-up culture in many ways, but in other respects the current landscape makes top-down control easier than ever. Shiny herds in entertainment, media, and academia receive and enforce new dogmas faster than ever. With a few clicks, an innocent man in Poland can transform from respected member of the film community to infamous sexist. 

And the impact on him pales in importance compared to the chilling effect that spreads to onlookers. Such episodes distort the monoculture’s power and make it appear more uniform than it really is. But often, perception is what matters most, and the perception of uniformity helps keep would-be troublemakers in line.

But here’s hoping that the 2024 election might blunt Eight Percenters’ enthusiasm for thought policing at least a little. Their shaming backfired and we have a hilarious artifact to remind us of that.

And remember, as silly as Julia Roberts’ ad may be, the basic plot holds up.

It would reflect reality much better had the producers tweaked the casting a bit: Instead of an overbearing husband, the role of bully should be played by any number of prominent Eight Percenters (take your pick!). The sheepish voters represent countless Americans, so the casting possibilities are vast. 

Yes, they’d have to change Julia’s absurd opening line, and swap the insert shot of a hand filling in the bubble for Harris/Walz with one choosing Trump/Vance. But other elements could remain as is, including Julia’s final line: “Remember, what happens in the booth, stays in the booth.”

Ted Balaker is a filmmaker, and former network newser and think tanker. His written work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Reason, and The Washington Post. 

His recent film work includes Little Pink House starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and the new feature documentary based on the bestselling book, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Stream the very first “Substack Presents” feature documentary here on Substack or on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Google Play.

Ted and his wife and producing partner Courtney Moorehead Balaker are now making a narrative feature film based on Rob Henderson’s bestselling book Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.