We may be approaching the time when political and 
executive figures may have to be recruited on the 
same basis as was formerly used for movie stars. 
Alternatively, it might be possible to transfer the 
Paul Newmans or the John Waynes from the 
entertainment sphere to the political sphere directly 
in order to satisfy the need of people to be 
reassured by images that remind them of all the 
people they might have been in some ideal 
existence.

Marshall McLuhan, “The President Who Was Not in 
Touch with the Present,” unpublished, 1974.