As host of NBC's General Electric Theater from 1954 to 1962, Ronald Reagan enacted a new relationship between popular culture, corporate capitalism, and electronic media. Through his affiliation with General Electric and the celebrity he achieved through television, Reagan played an instrumental role in promoting the re-branding of the imagined community of the American nation as a republic of consumption. This phase of Reagan's career was a crucible for the formation of his political persona and political base.

As president, Ronald Reagan was the performing effigy of himself as the Hollywood actor—the sovereign/president reconstituted as the actor/president.