Celebrity matters. Charisma matters.
 |
| AOC |
Guess what?
Yesterday this blog's readership doubled, from from people referred by Facebook. The photo yesterday was this photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
People wanted to know more about AOC.
Apparently she interests people. She is attractive, photogenic, young, new, controversial.
Some readers disagree strenuously to one of this blog's ongoing observations, that in the current news media environment, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the rest of social media, the political environment is better understood as an entertainment spectacle than as a policy debate.
Objectors say I am too facile. They tell me they care deeply about policy nuance, for example between between "Single Payer," "Medicare for All," "Universal Access," and other potential changes in the health care system, and that they will choose their favored candidate accordingly. They say that likening politics to Commedia del Arte archetypes trivializes politics. We aren't seeing just matchups of professional wrestling characters or oversimplified Heroes, Fools, and Knaves. We are making policy choices.
They note that the future of the world hangs on this. This is serious.
 |
| John Delaney |
But I am observing that we are seeing the serious business of team coalition building through political imagery, branding, and theater, not the serious business of policy articulation and choice.
This is the Super Bowl, not C-SPAN. There is a big element of spectacle.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has been in Congress for less than two months, has a national following, and is now identified by shorthand, like Cher, or JFK.
Meanwhile, John Delaney, a three term Democratic congressman from Maryland, a self-made multimillionaire, who filed to run for president in the summer of 2017 and who has been to New Hampshire 51 times and to Iowa over 20 times, and has scores of staff in each state, is an unknown.
He remains unknown.
He just left a Monroe County Iowa spaghetti feed, then a West Side Family Restaurant in Poweshiek County, then on to Black Hawk County, and then on to a Veteran's group, and then a Meet-And-Greet in Perry, Iowa. He is doing the serious hard work of running for president. He is talking seriously about issues.
And so far, at least, it just doesn't matter. He hasn't got whatever "sparkle" people want in this current political/media environment.
 |
| Merkley meet and greet |
His politics are progressive within the range of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and AOC. He shares their overall policy approach. He is younger than Sanders and Warren, he is likable, he doesn't have the "Socialist" baggage of Sanders nor the heritage baggage of Warren.
He has a quiet, humble manner. People tell me that--after 3 years of non-stop Trump--they welcome low-drama, earnest humility.
He is perfect, right?
My observation is that this is what people say, but not what they do in real life. They don't want a listener. They aren't in fact drawn to a person who leans down to hear from a supporter. They want this in a spouse, a friend, a "good person", a re-electable Senator, but apparently not in a presidential candidate.
Whatever it was people in Iowa wanted in Jimmy Carter in 1976 is not what they want now.
 |
| Listening |
Apparently a presidential candidate today needs to be bold, erect, sharp-edged, commanding. One doesn't need to be male to be that. OAC proves that. But there is a style that the current media environment seems to demand. Trump, amid all his flaws, has it.
People watch him because they find him interesting. Then, watching him, many are persuaded by him.
John Delaney doesn't have whatever that thing is that causes people to be interested. To click.
Jeff Merkley presents as a very good person, humble and earnest. Maybe that will catch on, but I don't yet see it.
3 comments:
The democrats and the leftist media are desperate for a new "hero", and they've anointed AOC as their savior before she's done anything. The public wouldn't even know who this woman is without the almost daily fawning by the press.
To recap: DJT has media savvy, but little or no grasp of substantive policy issues, and yet he is President and, as you have pointed out, has a good chance at re-election. Merkley, quiet, humble and thoughtful, has as much of a chance as Delaney (who?).
AOC (not OAC, which usually stands for “on approved credit “), breaks the mold for Dems: she has created her own brand, which she is not not shy about defending on Twitter (she can give as good as she gets) and has already used her brand to put forth a far reaching & disruptive policy vision..
Leadership...
"the political environment is better understood as an entertainment spectacle than as a policy debate."
💯
Post a Comment