I think one of the larger problems Barack Obama faced is that he's cool and cerebral like George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Dwight Eisenhower and people like myself.
For me this inspires confidence, but most Americans expect a more emotional response to the point where only Eisenhower's resume as the General who won the war in Europe got him as far he it did. His Presidential campaign theme "I like Ike" was consistent with his personality, but this emotion-free pitch is not typically a winning strategy with voters.
The fake emotions of an actor like Ronald Reagan play really well in politics as do theatrical types like Churchill and Thatcher. Even uncontrolled temper tantrums and emotional outbursts coupled with a tendency to lie easily and often, as we have with Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, is preferable to most voters to a more cerebral personality.
Barack Obama is also an acting technician when he's giving a speech, but a contemplative lawyer in other settings like his interview with Trevor Noah.
In person Reagan was taciturn, non-expressive and tongue-tied — until he needed "the Reagan character" he had honed as an actor. The he was suddenly glib and switched on. But people who worked with him knew when he turned-on that expressive personality, he had also stopped listening so you'd have to maneuver him out of his "adopted personality" in order to be able to continue a serious conversation.
I was always awed and horrified by Reagan's technical abilities as an acting technician. Reagan was so good he could convey a feeling of emotional solidarity to people who he was asking to burn down their own homes if the situation called for it. By the time he had become a better actor than he was in his B films, he had already moved on to politics.
Trevor Noah's question about racism were obvious. Racism clearly played a factor in the Obama administration with many people, both positive and negative and that's a problem our society is still grappling with. In a recent study with hand puppets, infants instinctively like puppets who like what they like and dislike people who like something else. Small children prefer dolls who look like them to those who look different, until racism is learned when many non-white children begin to prefer white dolls - it's pernicious.
But as Donald Trump is discovering, people like Mitch McConnell are a problem for Presidents with all sorts of different personalities and colors, even those who are orange. |
