{"id":296809,"date":"2026-05-02T16:48:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296809\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T16:48:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:48:21","slug":"why-spencer-pratts-grievance-politics-are-more-l-a-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296809\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Spencer Pratt\u2019s Grievance Politics Are More L.A. Than You Think"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSpencer Pratt<\/a> \u2014 the 2000s reality TV star turned 2010s online influencer turned 2020s populist firebrand \u2014 is now a formidable candidate in the L.A. mayoral race, gauged by fundraising totals, poll numbers and incoming criticism from chief rivals. This ascent is a shock for the city\u2019s liberal establishment, which considers him an unqualified clown. It shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis reactionary run, a revivalist pitch to make the city \u201conce again \u2018camera-ready\u2019 for all its citizens\u201d by cracking down on crime and corruption, has gained traction with his rollout of a slick and mischievous digital strategy. It culminated in a recent campaign ad<\/a> rollout riffing on Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d to knock his competitors, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass<\/a> and progressive L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman<\/a>. The button on the spot was a callback to his own Act I inciting incident \u2014 how his house burnt down in last year\u2019s Pacific Palisades wildfire as a result, he insists, of government incompetence.<\/p>\n

\n\tPratt posted<\/a> his most revealing meme three days earlier, on April 26: Himself embodying Michael Douglas\u2019 put-upon worker on the poster of Falling Down. That\u2019s Joel Schumacher\u2019s 1993 revenge thriller about a fed-up white Angeleno who embarks on a violent odyssey across an alienating urban hellscape to reunite with his daughter. Pratt reproduced the tagline \u2014 \u201cThe adventure of an ordinary man at war with the everyday world\u201d \u2014 but edited out the character\u2019s wielding of a pump-action shotgun. (Douglas\u2019 protagonist is a laid-off contractor in the then-collapsing local defense sector; as it happens, Pratt\u2019s grandfather was employed as a military engineer for a Southern California defense firm.)<\/p>\n

\n\tPratt\u2019s channeling of Falling Down is apt. After all, the film is a straightforward parable about the attempt to reassert authority amid chaos. It was released the last time L.A. was at its nadir, battered by natural disasters, economic woes and the widespread civic unrest that followed the verdict in Rodney King\u2019s police beating.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor generations, and with few exceptions, the city has been defined by liberal ethos and Democratic Party machine politics. Even brand-name billionaire developer Rick Caruso\u2019s $100 million-plus campaign war chest and spin on latter-day Rockefeller Republicanism<\/a> couldn\u2019t win him the mayoralty last go-around. Yet within this sprawling bubble, L.A. has long cultivated consequential strains of backlash, from Howard Jarvis\u2019 tax revolt to the xenophobia of Stephen Miller, who currently oversees the White House\u2019s anti-immigration policies.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow there\u2019s Pratt, a figure whose candidacy has been embraced by a broad swath of right-oriented media spanning the Murdochs\u2019 key outlets to the biggest online influencers (both Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla have endorsed him). Pratt first made his name as a villain on MTV for, among other gambits, rumormongering about an alleged sex tape involving his co-star. He was still cashing in on his notoriety as recently as January when he published a tell-all memoir that reads like the ultimate oppo file<\/a>, full of character self-assassinating disclosures about his personal and professional life.<\/p>\n

\n\tNone of this appears to matter much to Pratt\u2019s supporters, who like President Donald Trump\u2019s MAGA base see him as an improbable savior and imperfect vessel whose shock-value messaging \u2014 on fraud, waste, bureaucracy and other municipal ills \u2014 is validating. Exhibit A: Other candidates speak of various humanizing technocratic approaches to help the \u201chomeless,\u201d and some opt for the euphemized term \u201cunhoused.\u201d Meanwhile Pratt, believing improperly treated drug addiction to be the core problem, often refers to them as \u201czombies\u201d when making his case that enforcement against street encampments has been bungled.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe prominent L.A.-based culture critic Meghan Daum, whose work often targets liberal pieties, announced<\/a> on Apr. 26 that she\u2019s voting for Pratt, citing his directness about the encampments. \u201cWe want to be in a place of reality,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are ready for a no-bullshit era and Spencer Pratt may be the one to usher it in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPratt\u2019s campaign donors range from law firm partners, mid-level studio executives and small business owners to aestheticians, police officers and retirees. According to city disclosure filings, they also include former Lakers leader Jeanie Buss, actress turned anti-vaccine activist Jenny McCarthy, realtor-to-the-stars Kurt Rappaport, reality TV producer Jeff Jenkins (Keeping Up with the Kardashians) and OANN host Ginger Gaetz \u2014 wife of controversial former GOP House Rep. Matt Gaetz and sister of Southern California arms-manufacturing billionaire Palmer Luckey.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn insider industry set has increasingly embraced Pratt. On April 27, film producer Hilary Shor posted on Threads about a lunch that Larry David\u2019s wife Ashley hosted at her house for the candidate. \u201cMiracles do happen I am voting for him,\u201d Shor wrote, adding that actress turned philanthropist Irena Medavoy \u201cand many others were transfixed by the power of his message which hopefully will help save our town.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPratt shares with Trump, his fellow reality TV alum, a telegenic charisma that can swerve between anger and affability. Still, his outlook and shtick are perhaps most legible through a distinctly Angeleno lens. (Anyone who\u2019s spent much time along the coast is familiar with the brah-litics of men with sunglasses perched atop their heads who profess their love for burritos, crystals, guns, flip-flops and their favorite blue-eyed blonde.) Pratt descends from Sam Yorty, L.A.\u2019s 1960s populist mayor with a major law-and-order bent, and Wally George, the 1980s local TV host known for his combative critiques of what he perceived to be leftist excesses, fueled by an insult-driven humor.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe mayoral primary is a month away. A runoff election, held Nov. 3, is all but certain. Whether or not Pratt wins, the grievance politics and spectacle style of his candidacy is likely to define the remainder of the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spencer Pratt \u2014 the 2000s reality TV star turned 2010s online influencer turned 2020s populist firebrand \u2014 is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4132,48,52,51,47,50,49,80054,125867,43125],"class_list":["post-296809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-karen-bass","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-nithya-raman","tag-politcs","tag-spencer-pratt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}