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Monday, September 15, 2008

Why do we want presidents who are "just like us"?
Posted by Jill | 7:36 AM
Our water heater is nine years old. It could probably go another couple of years, but I'm going to have it replaced this week because I don't want to have to wake up one morning and find the entire basement flooded because the water heater went. I'm calling a plumber to come in and do it.

Maggie the Idiot Cat needs her teeth cleaned. Assuming I can get an appointment in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to call the vet and make an appointment.

I had a colonoscopy last year. I went to a surgical center, where the procedure was done by a doctor and the anesthesia administered by an anesthesiologist.

You want a web site? I can do that for you. If you want a house built, or if you need a coronary bypass, or if you need your driveway paved, you don't call me. You call someone who knows what s/he is doing.

Would you pay $100 a seat to watch minor league baseball? I wouldn't. I don't think I'd be satisfied if the Mets fielded the Brooklyn Cyclones at Citi Field next year and expected me to pay major league prices. Your neighbor may be able to fix any car ever made anywhere on earth, but you wouldn't want him to operate on your brain tumor.

So why on earth do people in this country want presidents who not only are "just like us" but who represent the WORST in "just like us"? And why does putting on a blue-collar pose so often suffice to represent "authenticity"?

I don't even remember a time when Americans wanted a president who was better, smarter, and more able than we are. My parents worshipped the ground Adlai Stevenson walked on, and I grew up learning that Stevenson was derided for being too smart, too much of an "egghead." And that was years before professional sports figures became the standard for American "heroism." But Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy weren't the kind of incurious nitwits that are presented to us today as candidates for the executive branch under the guise of being "just like us."

Ronald Reagan got away with it because he had a nice smile, but Reagan was not only wealthy but a movie actor. But because he played regular guys in the movies it meant he was one. George H.W. Bush managed to ride the Reagan smile into a term in the White House. His son managed to erase a history of wealth and privilege and reinvent himself as a hardscrabble Texas wildcatter in a cowboy hat who you could sit next to at the corner bar at night. Now John McCain, another child of privilege who married money is showing up at NASCAR events all but admonishing his wife to "whip 'em out", and we're supposed to think that putting a self-described "hockey mom" one melanoma recurrence away from the Presidency is a good thing -- because she's "just like us."

Of course when we HAD a president who grew up "just like us", the media derided him as an arriviste who didn't belong. So I guess the point is not to BE "just like us" but to PRETEND to be "just like us."

Why do we worship mediocrity? Why do we want to be led by mediocre people? Isn't it just possible that people like Barack and Michelle Obama, whose achievements are their own, don't keep scorecards on the rest of us? Isn't it possible that the Obamas, and people like Bill Clinton, accomplished what they did because it was what they wanted to do? Are we so insecure that if we have leaders who have accomplished more than we have, it's somehow a reproach to us, and therefore we're more comfortable with people who could be our neighbors?

I have very nice neighbors, but not one of them thinks s/he would make a good president. Hell, I'm the only one who's even tried a run for local office.

George W. Bush can put on a Texas drawl and a cowboy hat and behave like a buffoon, but it doesn't make him able to empathize with an auto worker who's lost his job after thirty years. Barack Obama can wear a suit on a hot day and pontificate about the intricacies of Iraq policy and it doesn't mean he can't. Empathy and the ability to relate to others are not a function of what clothes someone wears or how he speaks or the photo-ops he does while on the campaign trail.

Have we become so self-involved as Americans that we can only accept as our leaders those who we think reflect what we see in the mirror? Are we so insecure in our own sense of self-worth that a president who's smarter than we are is somehow a threat?

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8 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
It's a mystery. I want someone smarter than me, but I guess some think that's a bad thing?
9/15/08, 8:32 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Have we become so self-involved as Americans that we can only accept as our leaders those who we think reflect what we see in the mirror? Are we so insecure in our own sense of self-worth that a president who's smarter than we are is somehow a threat?

YES! YES!
Isn't that what's being taught in schools these days? No one should be "better" than you. No one IS "Better" than you!
So when someone comes along who really is "better"......
Personally, I'm not sure I'd want anybody for President who'd want to have a beer with ME....
9/15/08, 10:54 AM  
Blogger Citizen Carrie said...
Nice rant, Jill. I was thinking about it myself last night. If we're going to nominate the Sarah Palins of the U.S. for VP, we might as well just open up a phonebook and nominate someone at random from the White Pages.

I was looking at a list of Palin's "credentials" the other day, and it reminded me of the little bios you read in the "Movers and Shakers" corner in the local paper's business section. You know, the people who have just been promoted to group manager at some PR firm.
9/15/08, 11:35 AM  
Blogger D. said...
Populism, in greater or lesser strength, has run through American politics (and other countries' politics to a lesser extent) pretty much since the early days (what's with my fingers not wanting to type a correct word this morning?)--see Andrew Jackson. But this manifestation has been particularly destructive, probably because it is being promoted by demagogues claiming to speak for "the working guy" in ways that disempower workers.

What was that old slogan? "Vote for the smart guy; it's important."
9/15/08, 12:42 PM  
Blogger Nan said...
Nicely said. It's a mystery to me, too. If we want the best for everything else -- the best mechanic, the best doctor, the best teachers for our kids -- why are we Americans so anxious to put someone in the White House we can feel superior to?
9/15/08, 4:02 PM  
Blogger Bob said...
It's odd. The same people who insist McCain has the "experience" are thrilled with Palin's inexperience, shes like a shiny new state quarter coin. But a lot of white Americans want an excuse, any excuse, not to vote for the black guy with the strange name & be able to justify it without being called racist. For that reason alone I've had an uneasy feeling about Obama's chances since last January, because it's hard to go wrong underestimating American voters.
9/15/08, 4:45 PM  
Blogger Distributorcap said...
i dont get it

i also know there is a ton of people out there who just HATE democrats - period. like the maverick myth - the welfare queens with cadillacs and raise your taxes myth

old myths die hard. these people would rather suffer than have a democrat in office. look what they did to clinton - who actually improved their lot
9/15/08, 7:37 PM  
Blogger Rhode Island Rules said...
Yup, Yup, I am ready to be President.
I am old enough to remember when you wanted people smarter than yourself to be your leaders and indeed your news people.
The whole self esteem movement ruined it all. Everything anyone did was good. You are terrific. You can do anything!
When they started to include remedial classes in college is when we lost it. College used to be for 2 kinds of people - those whose intelligence stood so far out that scholarships were available or those whose rich parents bought them a place at the table. For the rest of us it was 18 and out. You went to work. Of course in those days (not too ancient by the way, I'm talking about the late 1970's - early 80's) you could start with an insurance company or bank right out of high school and work your way up.
Then came the movement that couldn't recognize the honors students at graduation because everyone else would feel bad.
Now a bachelor's degree is about equal to a high school degree. Anyone with enough money can get one.
No longer is hard work and smarts revered. No, now it's the blank page Sarah Palin who is all ambition willing to be used by the neocons who is exciting and fresh.
She is truly the Manchurian candidate.
It's all about enriching yourself at everyone else's expense.
Since Palin thinks the world is going to end in her lifetime why does she need the money? If she thinks her reward is coming with the rapture do you really want her finger on the nuclear trigger?
9/15/08, 10:10 PM  
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