Sam Smith – I found it interesting that Michael Pence raised the same issue about presidents as I happened to be working on. As he explained it, “I believe we have to resist the politics of personality.”
I covered my first Washington story 66 years ago and my father was a mid level official in the New Deal. Since then one of the biggest changes in politics is that it has become more a subculture of show business and less the way it used to be. The more traditional politicians still reflect the complexities of their specific constituencies, but many see themselves not as serving others but being a star in their field.
One of the major changes in the way we think about politics has been television, whose effects have included diminishing community and its traditional rules in favor of those of show business. Two of the most successful presidents in this alteration were Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump both coming out of the entertainment trade.
You have to go back to Lyndon Johnson to find a president who, while hardly a charming show business figure, earned backing due to his extensive pragmatic political actions. In many ways Joe Biden is a pol attempting to do as well as LBJ. He occasionally succeeds as in the recent deficit furor but still hardly matches LBJ.
The deficit resolution, however, got me thinking along these lines because it reminded me of how good politicians used to work, not to prove that they’re right every day but to make some substantial changes. Bernie Sanders, for example, is excellent in his positions but hardly a hero in getting things done.
In short, I was raised believing that in politics you didn’t solve everything, you just made headway in a complex and confusing society. Those skilled at that these days are rare and far between.
1 comment:
As one of your contempories of that distant past when things were far less fraught with thefog incessant propagnda which divert our attention and reasoning we must see thrugh the of misinformtion .
semper Paratus
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