> Everyone loved Musk, Trump, Oz, etc before they became politicians.

Musk has been controversial since the hyperloop, and certainly plenty of people hated him for many years for a variety of reasons. I could recap, but that's been out for years so you can probably fill them all in. Which is my point.

I have no idea who you thought loved Oz or Trump. Oz peddled scam cures. Trump was a failed real estate baron/casino operator/etc who played less of a failure on TV.

And Oz and Trump had failing TV shows. Oz was down 17% YoY right before he announced, putting him in 10th in the timeslot and Trump was also down like 17% YoY for a few years in a ro) before they hopped into politics. But even the people impressed by "can get on TV" faded on them.

I do feel that the Republican voting population and the audience for those shows had a significant overlap. Leading people likely to vote for them to think there was a sudden shift.