So will America EVER elect a politician AGAIN?
A reality TV star is President. A talk show host seems the best hope of beating him. With a population fixated on television, Twitter and fake news, the alarming question that is now facing the world’s most powerful nation...
THE President of the United States historically doubles up as that nation’s Commander-in-Chief of its enormous armed forces, but the way things are going, each election contest in the future may also be for an unofficial third title: America’s Celebrity-in-Chief.
If that sounds like the title of a reality television show then it’s apt because the current incumbent of the Oval Office is a star of that genre.
It was the cachet of appearing on The Apprentice, rather than his alleged business acumen, that brought him to the level of national attention that facilitated his election as US President.
How does the Democratic Party wrest back control of the Presidency from Trump? Well, this week a clamour grew for chat-show host Oprah Winfrey to challenge him as that party’s candidate in the next presidential election of 2020, all prompted by a speech she made at the Golden Globes awards ceremony.
Trump, the self-declared ‘very stable genius’, certainly decided to take the suggestion seriously. Never slow to spot an opportunity to boost his ratings, he immediately cried ‘bring it on’, proudly boasting that he would beat her if she ran… although he threw in a doubt that she would contest against him.
To some the prospect of a Trump-Winfrey election showdown is appalling, a further example of the debasement of politics and a belittling of the requirements for governing.
THE office is too important, surely, and too sensitive. The people who hold it for four or eight years have the capacity – through the use of nuclear weapons – to destroy the world. More positively, they should have the ability, through their policies, to improve the lives of as many of their fellow American people as possible during their terms of office. They should aim to end up as at least a positive page in the history books.
Trump’s tenancy, hopefully, will be seen as an aberration, not the starting of an era in which celebrities battled to see whose ego would come out on top for the enjoyment of their television and social media audiences.
To others the idea of a celebrity gladiatorial battle might be seen as great fun, enlivening something that would otherwise be boring: instead of having to endure politicians, either unexciting or untrustworthy, we could have two celebrities head to head in the ultimate popularity contest.
The prize for viewers – which they would be before they acted as voters – would be the eventual winner providing four years of subsequent entertainment for us all (even if many would pretend to be horrified at perceiving it that way).
Honestly now, who would be following Hillary Clinton, had she won, as avidly as we do Trump? For those who are intellectually honest, and impartial in their politics, the idea of Winfrey as a presidential candidate – or the winner – is nearly as repugnant as Trump being the occupant of the White House. (Note: I wrote, ‘nearly’.)
That has nothing to do with her personality. She seems – from what we have seen of her – to be a far nicer person than Trump, not the type to boast of forcing herself sexually on others, for example, as we know Trump has done.
She donates to charitable causes instead of pretending to do so. She seems to genuinely care about other people instead of always thinking of herself. To liberals, her articulate and carefully crafted speech at the Golden Globes about sexual misconduct and abuse of power showed that her heart is in the right place and that she can express herself appropriately.
It was a welcome antidote to the ill-mannered, poorly considered boastful buffoonery on painful display in Trump’s ramblings, in speeches and on Twitter. While there are disputes about the veracity of much of the content of the Fire And Fury book by Michael Wolff – which I have read from cover to cover – much of what it contains rings true because it tallies with what we have seen in public.
Most decent people would recoil at Trump’s behaviour on Thursday, as reported widely, when he apparently described Haiti, El Salvador and unnamed African countries as ‘s**tholes’, implied everyone in Haiti was HIV positive, and that people in Africa all lived in huts. Unfortunately, however, Winfrey’s qualities are of a type that might embolden the Trump supporter base to take her down and in the most hostile of fashions.
Her Golden Globes speech most likely came across to them as the type of weakkneed, do-gooder nonsense they hate. These people don’t like piety, even those who proclaim themselves God-fearing.
And, to many of them, it was surely worse that all of this stuff came from what they would consider to be a female version of Obama. Black and a woman. What a terrible combination as far as the racist and misogynistic – who are numbered among some of the Trump supporters – are concerned. Before you complain about misrepresentation I
know that not all Trump supporters can be described that way, but a good number can.
How these people would love to beat Winfrey in an election contest. It would re-energise them, particularly those who have reason to be disappointed by the Trump performance in office. On the other hand, how the liberals and the left would love the symbolism, as much as anything, of having Winfrey oust Trump from the White House.
It would revitalise the moribund Democrats. It would be a massive victory in the so-called culture wars. But, in a normal ordered world, this shouldn’t be the choice offered to the American people.
Winfrey has done little or nothing in her life to suggest she has the abilities to govern, to lead the management of the world’s most important government.
She is more than an accomplished media performer – one of the most popular ever – and her rise to certified billionaire status is based on her own ability, rather than anything handed to her.
However, those are not qualifications to be President. She has no relevant experience. It says something that’s very uncomfortable when one of the most sensible comments made on the prospect came from the comedian Seth McFarlane – a man responsible for gross movies such as Ted, a film about a foul-mouthed talking teddy bear.
‘Oprah is beyond doubt a magnificent orator,’ he tweeted this week. ‘But the idea of a reality show star running against a talk show host is troublingly dystopian. We don’t want to create a world where dedicated public service careers become undesirable and impractical in the face of raw celebrity.’
IGET his point and will return to it but, as it happens, McFarlane is someone I partly blame for facilitating the rise of Trump, along with an American media which, in the quest for ratings and advertising bucks, gave his rise too much time and attention and acted as an accelerant. In 2011, McFarlane hosted, on the Comedy Central channel, a truly obnoxious ‘roast’, which basically consisted of a roster of comedians making insulting, lewd and occasionally somewhat funny, comments about Trump.
While the idea that somebody who was musing, even then, about standing for the Presidency would participate in something so tacky is somewhat counter-intuitive, the whole event played to those who likely had little interest in politics but would respect a guy who would allow himself to be subjected to the ‘roast’.
When I saw the event repeated on television in 2016 – not long before the election – I regarded it as further evidence of how ill-suited Trump was to the gravitas and required dignity of the office. I hoped that American voters would think the same. How wrong I was, given that 60million of them (three million fewer than Hillary Clinton as it happens, but in the right places electorally), voted for Trump.
Clinton ticked all of the boxes that McFarlane quoted in his tweet and more: a clear and focused intellect, long service in politics, experience at the highest level, an understanding of process and a capacity to engage with it.
But to many she wasn’t likeable, not just because of what they perceived she stood for, but her apparently haughty manner. And Trump kept shouting that she was ‘crooked’, and encouraged chants of ‘lock her up’. Now he is threatening again to set the FBI on her, an abuse of his position. You can’t imagine Winfrey, in debate with him, responding in kind.
I suspect McFarlane has missed the even bigger point, however. Voters aren’t necessarily interested in electing competent people to do a job, let alone experts, as Trump’s victory must conclusively proved. Indeed, they will punish them if they perceive them to be boring. They will indulge narcissists, barefaced liars and sexual exploiters if they interest or excite them.
Niceness is too bland and ordinary for many of them.
Like economic decisions, voting is often as much, or more, of an emotional than a rational decision. Votes are cast from the gut, not the heart or head, on impulse rather than detailed consideration, in protest rather than in support of someone and what they can do.
Also, it may not be what someone can do if you vote for them, but putting them in place to stop what others would do if they were elected.
Voting often depends on recognition and Americans recognised Trump from a programme many of them liked and enjoyed on the television. But while Winfrey benefits from the same recognition – and is widely liked and loved – it still may not be enough, because in the field of political vote-getting Trump may be the bigger, better entertainer, because he plays to baser instincts.
Like it or not, Trump demonstrated a strange sort of charisma on the campaign trial. The most successful politicians in the modern era may not necessarily be better legislators or administrators but, just like the people who win voter polls for meaningless TV contests, they have something that attracts and causes people to overlook the shortcomings in their personalities or character.
Others, lacking charisma, can’t overcome those deficits. We watched Trump’s television speeches, dreadful as they were, and followed his tweets, alternatively aggressive and alarming, because they were entertaining.
How can a boring politician – or a nice celebrity – compete against that?
WORSE, too much cynicism and distrust is applied by the electorate to nearly all politicians, a position that is lazy and dangerous. A plague on all your houses.
Even if Trump remains deeply unconvincing in his claims to represent those who feel left behind by economic change – or to be genuinely interested in them – he was able in 2016 to catch and manipulate the underlying mood of enough voters. He might, despite everything the media reveals about his incompetent administration, be able to do so again. There is a long way to go, however, before the primaries begin for the Democrats to pick their candidate. Much may happen to undermine Trump in the meantime.
His health – mental as much as physical – may not hold up. The Bob Mueller investigation into his Russian contacts may not reveal anything damaging (although Trump, in his public behaviour, seems so suspiciously worried to make me think that it will, and that the attempted cover-up may be worse than the actual contacts).
At present Trump is banking on getting credit for the continued growth of a strong US economy that he inherited from Barack Obama. There is a growing sense, however, of an economic bubble about to burst.
It’s true that many career politicians have failed too when they reached the highest office, be it in the US or elsewhere. Sometimes the job overwhelms them or they are ill-prepared. Sometimes they fail to provide convincing leadership or to connect with their audience. Being a president or leader is a near impossible task, one where it is so difficult to keep a majority happy. But we should want people with at least some relevant experience, expertise and genuine interest to do the job in the public interest. Not because they are just celebrities.