Leo must learn that ‘cult of me’ politicians have a short shelf life
THE triumvirate of Trudeau, Macron and Varadkar seem to think that they have modern, polished politics all wrapped up among themselves. Unlike traditional politicians, who trade on policy, this new breed – all male and in their forties – appear to be more interested in becoming stars on the world stage than in making the world a better place.
The cult of ‘me’ seems to be very close to the surface and the pursuit of fame relentless.
The Messiah pose, with hands outstretched, as if greeting disciples, is particularly prevalent and is beginning to look more than a little contrived.
But should politics be a little more than a personality contest, sprinkled with liberal amounts of marketing of a single besuited candidate?
In spite of their cultivated images, expensive suits, the grooming and the gushing social media postings, none of those three comes even close to the dashing John F Kennedy, who was a natural star in his own right.
JFK captured the public imagination. He had dazzling good looks, natural humour and terrific oratory skills, combined with a finely tuned moral compass that extended beyond the purely personal. What sets JFK apart from his modern pretenders to the throne is that he personified the adage that true stars are born, not made.
What we have now is photo-op governance, where policy plays second fiddle to publicity.
Emmanuel Macron’s make-up bill for his first three months in office came in at a blush-inducing figure of €26,000.
That doesn’t even include hairdressing – and he is a man.
Notwithstanding the fact that Frenchmen tend to be a little vain in the first place, this is a ridiculous figure for a politician, never mind a movie star.
Macron has taken to the role of being French president like the proverbial duck to water.
His social media postings are filled with staged photos of himself smouldering into the camera. Hilarious.
A video he posted of a meeting with Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is more like a vintage Peter Sellers sketch than a meeting between two modern European prime ministers.
While popular abroad, the ever-coiffed Macron has found his popularity has collapsed at home, after less than a year in the job.
Likewise for Justin Trudeau, Canadian prime minister, whose international star status continues to hold for now on the world stage, but is very much in a downward spiral at home.
In short, the magic is wearing off and the platitudes are wearing thin.
His fondness for himself and his love of novelty socks has grown irksome to Canadians, who are tired of the fact that he has delivered on few of his promises, bar a gender-equal cabinet.
People have cottoned on to his method of distraction. If everyone is focusing on your socks, then perhaps they won’t focus on what you are doing or, more importantly, not doing.
Who can take Trudeau seriously as a politician when his wife posts pictures of him in his pyjamas on Instagram, painting a mural on the wall of his basement with his kids? Too much information, frankly. On the home front, we have similar issues at play with Leo Varadkar, who seems a big fan of personality politics. His love of social media as a marketing tool to promote brand Varadkar is fast reaching overkill.
We don’t need a photo of every meeting that he attends. We know the Taoiseach gets to attend a lot of meetings. Nothing new there.
His apparent attempts to only be associated with good news stories just screams out: “I want to be popular.”
His Strategic Communications Unit (SCU) scored a massive own goal because the medium became the message.
The term ‘vanity unit’ has been used to describe the SCU, which comes in at an eye-watering figure of north of €5m.
In spite of protestations to the contrary, it is hard for the public to
see that it is anything other than a vehicle to show Varadkar himself in a positive light. Why else would you pose with a llama – which is in fact is an alpaca – and then post it on your Twitter account?
Spin is a dirty word in politics, compliments of Tony Blair, a man with enormous vanity and a monumental ego.
WHEN Blair swept into power in 1997 with a landslide, he pronounced to cheering crowds: ‘“A new dawn has broken.” He was referencing the repackaging of the Labour Party as notionally new.
In fact, the Blair government was obsessed with controlling the media, courting celebrities and promoting the cult of Blair as a hero for the little people.
With the mastery of former journalist Alastair Campbell, spin became how politics worked from then on. Importantly, Campbell was a media and not a marketing expert.
Ultimately, it backfired on them and Campbell in his diaries admitted that he regretted that political communication, an essential component of effective government, became debased as spin and staged photo opportunities, with Tony Blair stripping his teeth into a faux smile.
Current incumbents could do worse than remember the wise words of Abraham Lincoln: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
The alternative is a veritable bonfire of the vanities in favour of serious politicians interested in what they can do for their country.
Those promoting their shallow, stylised selves to garner glory for their own personal gain will most likely have a short shelf life.
Let’s be honest here, there is nothing more loathsome than a vainglorious man.