Spencer Pratts insurgent bid for Los Angeles mayor is drawing predictable fire from Hollywoods progressive establishment, which may be the clearest sign yet that his campaign is striking a nerve.
According to RedState, the former reality television personality has been relentlessly hammering incumbent Democrat Mayor Karen Bass, arguing that her tenure has accelerated the citys decline and exposed the failures of left-wing governance in one of Americas most important urban centers. That criticism has not sat well with the entrenched entertainment and political class, which has grown accustomed to ideological conformity and deference from anyone seeking public office in Los Angeles.
The latest celebrity to take a swing at Pratt is actress and television personality Lisa Rinna, who used the American Music Awards as a platform to sneer at his candidacy. Rinna told Variety that she does not believe a reality star is qualified to run the nations second-largest city, a remark that fit neatly into Hollywoods habit of dismissing outsiders who refuse to play by its progressive rules.
Pratt, however, refused to accept the insult quietly and responded with a pointed reminder that his past on television hardly compares to Basss radical political history. As one viral post summarized it, #SpencerPratt has responded to Lisa Rinna after telling Variety at the #AMAs that she doesnt want to see a reality TV star become mayor of Los Angeles: Hey Lisa, if youre against me because I was on a TV show in my 20s, wait till you learn what Karen Bass was doing in her 20s
His message was accompanied by a clip from a television interview in which he highlighted Basss long-documented affinity for the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Variety, often dubbed the Hollywood Bible, framed Pratts remarks as a mere allegation, saying he claimed Bass supported Castro in her youth, but the record shows that this is not some baseless charge tossed off for political effect.
Independent journalist Andy Ngo has previously documented Basss ideological sympathies, noting that, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, was a devotee of Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro. In 2020, she had to walk back her open praise for Castro as she was being considered to become Joe Biden's VP running mate. (Biden committed to a DEI black woman nominee.) Ngo further observed that, In the 1970s, Bass traveled several times to Cuba, underscoring that her ties to the communist regime were not casual or incidental.
Pratt seized on that history to turn Rinnas attack back on both the actress and the mayor she implicitly defends. In remarks that cut through the usual Hollywood posturing, he said, "'The reality, pun intended... is that was from 20 years ago,' Pratt - who was known as the villain on the MTV show - said, before torching current mayor Karen Bass."
He then drew a stark contrast between his youthful television fame and Basss radical activism, declaring, "'If we look at what Karen Bass was doing 20 years ago, she was in Cuba learning how to make bombs with the people who would then go to bomb Capitol Hill.' 'So, if we're looking at backgrounds, I'm pretty proud of what I was doing at 20 on reality television,' he quipped." He reinforced the point again on social media: Hey Lisa, if you're against me because I was on a TV show in my 20's, wait til you learn what Karen Bass was doing in her 20's...
Pratts willingness to confront both Hollywood elites and entrenched Democrats has drawn comparisons to another political outsider who upended the establishment: Donald Trump. As RedStates Becky Noble observed, No one had ever seen a candidate like Donald Trump, and no one has ever seen a candidate like Spencer Pratt. His campaign ads are genius. Each is better than the one before it. In the latest ad, Pratt has gone to what looks like Skid Row, armed with a stencil and a power washer. The result: a message that reads, 'Imagine if the streets were this clean. Spencer Pratt for Mayor of LA.'
That ad encapsulates Pratts broader message: the citys decay is not inevitable but the direct result of policy choices made by progressive leaders who prioritize ideology over public order and basic competence. Like Trump, he appears to have little interest in playing nice with a political class that has presided over rampant homelessness, crime, and filth while lecturing residents about equity and climate virtue.
Like Trump, Spencer Pratt is done being polite, Noble wrote, capturing the mood of a candidate who seems more interested in telling hard truths than currying favor with the cultural elite. He is not afraid to call out the bull cookies that California Democrats have been feeding the residents of Los Angeles for years, even though they are the ones who voted for them.
Rinnas intervention, far from damaging Pratt, only highlighted how out of touch many Hollywood figures are with the daily realities facing ordinary Angelenos. Those infamous lips may be moving, but what she says is, lets vote for more decline, the piece observed, noting that many Tinseltown stars are quick to sound off on politics while offering little more than the rhetorical equivalent of silicone implants.
Pratt, by contrast, brings more to the table than a tabloid persona, including a political science degree from the University of Southern California and a clear grasp of the policy failures hollowing out Los Angeles. He has tapped into a growing public frustration with the citys direction, channeling a zeitgeist of major dissatisfaction for the way things are being run in the City of Angels that the current leadership and its celebrity defenders seem determined to ignore.
Once again, his rapid-fire response to Rinna showed he is more than ready to tangle with what the article calls intellectual lightweights who mistake fame for insight. He still faces a steep climb in one of the bluest jurisdictions in the country, but his campaign has already demonstrated that there is a hunger for candidates willing to challenge progressive orthodoxy and call out the failures of one-party rule, and the only real shame is that there are not more contenders like him willing to do the same.
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