The Curious MAGA Kabuki Celebrity of Sophie Cunningham

How Sophie Cunningham Became MAGA Barbie Without Fully Becoming MAGA Barbie

I like this New York Times headline from a Tania Ganguli article because it’s both ineffably very NYT and a good summary of a phenomenon:

She Avenged Caitlin Clark on the Court. Now Sponsors (and the Right) Love Her.

That conveys a lot of how a WNBA role player nicknamed “MAGA Barbie” became famous and yet there’s so much more to explain.

Then there’s this “wild” Chuck Klosterman prediction that was aggregated all over from the Bill Simmons podcast.

Sophie Cunningham, in the next, maybe, I’m going to say, 2050, is going to be vice president of the United States.

I don’t think that’s such a crazy call, at least in the sense that, if we’re talking so far out, she’s as probable a choice as anyone else.

It’s hard to accurately predict who the Vice President will be even two years from now, but I’d hazard that Chuck’s mostly reacting to the obvious: Sophie Cunningham has “it.” Part of why she has it, and this is just one factor in this person’s burgeoning fame, is that the affiliation is never made completely specific. Sophie is a practitioner of Cunningham Kabuki, where politics are more suggested than explained. She’s happy to ride this wave as a red-coded countercultural figure in the bluest-coded league, but stops short of becoming an overt activist. Look at this example.