America Wants a Messiah
Since I was a young boy, I've always been into the political horse race....REALLY into it. The nature of the beast, and the media's breathless coverage of it, makes it relatively easy for a good share of the population to get swept into the pageantry of primary and general elections for President. But what separates me from (apparently) virtually everybody else who gets most attached to Presidential politics is that I don't go into the race looking for a messiah around every corner. The one exception was in 1992, when I thought Iowa Senator Tom Harkin walked on water in his doomed pursuit of the Democratic nomination that cycle. I was 14, so I feel my naivete about what one man can be expected to accomplish simply by winning a Presidential election was a little more justified than what I've witnessed adults young and old treat Presidential candidates since. I'm sure there's always been a degree to which a hopeful nation channels its desires onto a charismatic leader going back to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, but in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, the public really seems to have lost its mind in how high it sets its expectation bar for Presidential performance.
At one level, impassioned enthusiasm for electing leaders is a good thing, as we need a certain level of energy to keep a democracy functional. There was a fair degree of enthusiasm for both Bill Clinton and Ross Perot back in 1992 that seemed proportionally appropriate. I wasn't a fan of George W. Bush or the politics of his supporters, but I never got the sense that even the so-called "Bush-bots" treated Dubya with the same degree of hero worship that they treated Ronald Reagan then or now. I was too young in the early 80s to pick up on the far right's love affair with Reagan at the dawn of his Presidential career but he was clearly the first example in my lifetime of a political leader elevated to superhero status by his fans. And despite a turbulent Presidency that created more losers than winners and set the template for America's long-term death spiral into becoming a Wall Street subsidiary, Reagan is the only political figure of my lifetime looked back upon as a messiah by large swaths of the population committed to Reagan's brand of tribal trench warfare politics.
But far and away the most common examples of messiah politics have emerged in the last decade where a new idol seems to emerge every five minutes....the newest shiny object on the scene who represents an empty vessel for a certain demographic of the population to tags their aspirations onto. The clearest example of this is of course Barack Obama whose oratory sent "thrills up the leg" of cable news anchors and led crowds full of awestruck young supporters at his rallies fainting at his undying charisma. As most politicians do, Obama fed this beast with the way he ran his 2008 campaign, waiting until after he was elected to downplay expectations of what was gonna assuredly be one of the most challenging Presidential terms in American history. Nobody in their right mind had any expectation of prosperity raining down upon America following Obama's election given the hole America was in back in 2009, but it was nonetheless expected by millions of people who had assigned messianic powers to Obama based on the charisma of his speeches during the campaign. Now I certainly haven't agreed with everything Obama has done over the course of his two terms as President, but have nonetheless been quite impressed with where the country has ended up at the end of his tenure compared to where it began. But most Americans, even his supporters, want to see the country go in a different direction moving forward. The Obama Presidency was a letdown to them....and given the expectations, how could it not be?
During the Obama era, the Republicans have made numerous attempts to manufacture their own messiah, with mostly ineffective results. Bobby Jindal and Bob McDonnell are some of the clearest examples of hero fails the Republican establishment tried to foist on people, but some degree of short-lived messiah accolades stuck with Chris Christie and Marco Rubio before it became clear they fell far short of expectations even to the least discriminating audiences. But a genuine messiah did emerge on the Republican side during the Obama years with "crazy grandpa" libertarian Ron Paul, whose cult was smaller than Obama's but considerably more devoted....to the point of hijacking state conventions in 2012 and turning over the primary and caucus outcomes to replace the delegates for the winning candidate with Ron Paul flacks. The modestly sized faction of Ron Paul followers fervently believed what Obama's supporters believed a few years earlier....that installing this one man as the nation's leader would change everything entirely for the better.
Which brings us to 2016, where a nation more angry, agitated, and in need of hero than ever before has managed to find two more out of this year's selection of Presidential candidates. Bernie Sanders is an unlikely figure to emerge as an aspirational vessel to America's youth, but that's exactly what has happened as Bernie's brand of democratic socialism sounds pretty good to a nation of young people looking at a higher and higher price of entry in pursuit of the American dream with dramatically shrinking returns on the back end. Bernie hits the nail on the head in diagnosing nearly everything that's wrong in America, but far more than Obama eight years his messiah bona fides are poised to fall disastrously short in a political environment where even the basic functions of government are obstructed to the point of paralysis. Even if Bernie were to overcome very long odds and get a mandate from the American people to lead the country, the checks and balances of the American government would prevent him from accomplishing all of his lofty goals, especially in a nation this polarized. The young people who view him as their savior would definitively get their hearts broken in the most soul-crushing way.
But surpassing Bernie, Obama, and every other false messiah in recent American political history is Donald Trump, a masterful snake oil peddler who has whooped a neglected faction of the Republican base into a frenzy with a populist, paleoconservative pitch that is as vague as it is phony. Picking up on all the unsavory trends from recent political campaigns and melding them into one toxic hairball, Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign theme makes Obama's "hope and change" pitch from 2008 seem like a labyrinth of intricacy by comparison. But where Obama had some actual policy points hidden beneath the airy salesmanship, everything Trump is offering is a bag of feathers. From assuring us that Mexico will pay for a wall on our border to rewriting trade deals to going after terrorists' families, the entirety of Trump's policy agenda is supposed to be accomplished entirely by the force of his personality. The fact that the establishments of both parties who he'd have to work with if elected hate his guts matters not at all to Trump's sales pitch or to the people buying that sales pitch. The traditional rules of getting things done in Washington only apply to mere mortals after all, and with Trump, Americans are electing a messiah!
It's gotten to the point where I wish parties would not elect charismatic candidates anymore. Much as Democrats stick their noses up at the memories of Al Gore and John Kerry's campaigns against George W. Bush, there was no expectation that either of their hypothetical Presidencies would defy gravity and fix everything wrong with the country simply based on their soaring oratory, the strength of their conviction, or their past successes in business or reality TV shows. The flip side, of course, is that such technocrats do not inspire high voter turnout, meaning we're caught in a vicious cycle where every four years both parties are expected to put up somebody "inspiring" enough to make crowds faint in their presence....or at least punch black people in the face. The only real solution to this messiah cycle is for the American people to grow up and realize the limitations of both the office of the Presidency and political leaders' ability to control events. If the messiah du jour doesn't reverse the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression in the first six months of his Presidency and you're already declaring him a failure and a disappointment, then you probably believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny too.
I used to believe a President had the power to single-handedly reverse all the nation's endemic problems and return us to a fantastical golden age.....but then I got old enough where I had to shave my facial hair.
At one level, impassioned enthusiasm for electing leaders is a good thing, as we need a certain level of energy to keep a democracy functional. There was a fair degree of enthusiasm for both Bill Clinton and Ross Perot back in 1992 that seemed proportionally appropriate. I wasn't a fan of George W. Bush or the politics of his supporters, but I never got the sense that even the so-called "Bush-bots" treated Dubya with the same degree of hero worship that they treated Ronald Reagan then or now. I was too young in the early 80s to pick up on the far right's love affair with Reagan at the dawn of his Presidential career but he was clearly the first example in my lifetime of a political leader elevated to superhero status by his fans. And despite a turbulent Presidency that created more losers than winners and set the template for America's long-term death spiral into becoming a Wall Street subsidiary, Reagan is the only political figure of my lifetime looked back upon as a messiah by large swaths of the population committed to Reagan's brand of tribal trench warfare politics.
But far and away the most common examples of messiah politics have emerged in the last decade where a new idol seems to emerge every five minutes....the newest shiny object on the scene who represents an empty vessel for a certain demographic of the population to tags their aspirations onto. The clearest example of this is of course Barack Obama whose oratory sent "thrills up the leg" of cable news anchors and led crowds full of awestruck young supporters at his rallies fainting at his undying charisma. As most politicians do, Obama fed this beast with the way he ran his 2008 campaign, waiting until after he was elected to downplay expectations of what was gonna assuredly be one of the most challenging Presidential terms in American history. Nobody in their right mind had any expectation of prosperity raining down upon America following Obama's election given the hole America was in back in 2009, but it was nonetheless expected by millions of people who had assigned messianic powers to Obama based on the charisma of his speeches during the campaign. Now I certainly haven't agreed with everything Obama has done over the course of his two terms as President, but have nonetheless been quite impressed with where the country has ended up at the end of his tenure compared to where it began. But most Americans, even his supporters, want to see the country go in a different direction moving forward. The Obama Presidency was a letdown to them....and given the expectations, how could it not be?
During the Obama era, the Republicans have made numerous attempts to manufacture their own messiah, with mostly ineffective results. Bobby Jindal and Bob McDonnell are some of the clearest examples of hero fails the Republican establishment tried to foist on people, but some degree of short-lived messiah accolades stuck with Chris Christie and Marco Rubio before it became clear they fell far short of expectations even to the least discriminating audiences. But a genuine messiah did emerge on the Republican side during the Obama years with "crazy grandpa" libertarian Ron Paul, whose cult was smaller than Obama's but considerably more devoted....to the point of hijacking state conventions in 2012 and turning over the primary and caucus outcomes to replace the delegates for the winning candidate with Ron Paul flacks. The modestly sized faction of Ron Paul followers fervently believed what Obama's supporters believed a few years earlier....that installing this one man as the nation's leader would change everything entirely for the better.
Which brings us to 2016, where a nation more angry, agitated, and in need of hero than ever before has managed to find two more out of this year's selection of Presidential candidates. Bernie Sanders is an unlikely figure to emerge as an aspirational vessel to America's youth, but that's exactly what has happened as Bernie's brand of democratic socialism sounds pretty good to a nation of young people looking at a higher and higher price of entry in pursuit of the American dream with dramatically shrinking returns on the back end. Bernie hits the nail on the head in diagnosing nearly everything that's wrong in America, but far more than Obama eight years his messiah bona fides are poised to fall disastrously short in a political environment where even the basic functions of government are obstructed to the point of paralysis. Even if Bernie were to overcome very long odds and get a mandate from the American people to lead the country, the checks and balances of the American government would prevent him from accomplishing all of his lofty goals, especially in a nation this polarized. The young people who view him as their savior would definitively get their hearts broken in the most soul-crushing way.
But surpassing Bernie, Obama, and every other false messiah in recent American political history is Donald Trump, a masterful snake oil peddler who has whooped a neglected faction of the Republican base into a frenzy with a populist, paleoconservative pitch that is as vague as it is phony. Picking up on all the unsavory trends from recent political campaigns and melding them into one toxic hairball, Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign theme makes Obama's "hope and change" pitch from 2008 seem like a labyrinth of intricacy by comparison. But where Obama had some actual policy points hidden beneath the airy salesmanship, everything Trump is offering is a bag of feathers. From assuring us that Mexico will pay for a wall on our border to rewriting trade deals to going after terrorists' families, the entirety of Trump's policy agenda is supposed to be accomplished entirely by the force of his personality. The fact that the establishments of both parties who he'd have to work with if elected hate his guts matters not at all to Trump's sales pitch or to the people buying that sales pitch. The traditional rules of getting things done in Washington only apply to mere mortals after all, and with Trump, Americans are electing a messiah!
It's gotten to the point where I wish parties would not elect charismatic candidates anymore. Much as Democrats stick their noses up at the memories of Al Gore and John Kerry's campaigns against George W. Bush, there was no expectation that either of their hypothetical Presidencies would defy gravity and fix everything wrong with the country simply based on their soaring oratory, the strength of their conviction, or their past successes in business or reality TV shows. The flip side, of course, is that such technocrats do not inspire high voter turnout, meaning we're caught in a vicious cycle where every four years both parties are expected to put up somebody "inspiring" enough to make crowds faint in their presence....or at least punch black people in the face. The only real solution to this messiah cycle is for the American people to grow up and realize the limitations of both the office of the Presidency and political leaders' ability to control events. If the messiah du jour doesn't reverse the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression in the first six months of his Presidency and you're already declaring him a failure and a disappointment, then you probably believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny too.
I used to believe a President had the power to single-handedly reverse all the nation's endemic problems and return us to a fantastical golden age.....but then I got old enough where I had to shave my facial hair.
posted by Mark at 8:23 PM
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