 |
| Beto O'Rourke |
"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century. . . . "
JFK inaugural speech, 1961
Presidents are more than a batch of policy positions. They are a statement about the present and future. They represent a mood, either of continuity or of change.
Beto is running. Tulsi is running.
They are the most likely vehicle for Democrats to say that they want change.
AOC is too young to run, but she is making news, daily, and she, too, represents change.
All three of these people are shaking up the Democratic Party. They are interesting to look at. They are photogenic. They are young.
They say or do unconventional things. Beto can ride a skateboard and show video of himself at the dentist. Really.
Tulsi openly says the American policy in Syria is dead wrong. Plus she is from American Samoa and Hindu.
AOC dances. Buys clothes. Says that the rich should pay lots more in taxes and that climate is an emergency, not a mere concern. She gets into people's faces. Fox cannot take their eyes off her.
Politicians with a long history are trapped by their pasts. They have track records to explain. More importantly, they learned old lessons. People in the 1960s who learned well the lesson of Munich in 1938 thought they were seeing Munich when they looked at the French collapse in Vietnam. (Wrong lesson. Instead they were looking at the fight for American independence from the British. We were on the wrong side.)
The politicians in current leadership learned well the lessons of the Cold War and America-the-sole superpower, the colossus astride the world. We thought we had won something, game over. In fact, we were losing the actual war taking place at home. The infrastructure was deteriorating, China had become the world's most competitive manufacturer, the middle class was falling behind, the financial sector was dominating the economy, the young couldn't buy homes, C02 was increasing, and the Gingrich revolution had frozen politics into partisan gridlock disfunction.
The people in charge were worried about the wrong things.
Frequent guest post author Thad Guyer warns that the older generation will hang onto power with every ounce of strength, and it will be taken from their grasp only when the next generation pries it from them. An ongoing theme of this blog is that presidential campaigns are not policy debates. They are presentations.
Policy-oriented activists disagree, and they represent a cohort of voters, even in primary elections. Donald Trump proved that. Trump was a showman. Republican voters liked the show. He appealed to voter emotion on values and identity.
Republicans liken Trump to Reagan. On policy Trump is the reversal of Reagan on everything presumably important. Immigration. Trade. USSR/Russia, deficits. But they are in fact alike on the most mportant thing: communication appeal. They were both interesting, they both understood the dominant media, and they both connect with a sentimental longing for American greatness and respect.
Beto, Tulsi, and AOC are not competing on head-to-head policy comparisons. They represent generational change. They represent "pushing reset."
All three are identified by a single word name. They have a presence.
They are using the new media. In 1960 television was new in politics and JFK used it better than Nixon. Most of my readers don't use Instagram and YouTube television and don't watch V-blogs. We don't get it.
There are others in the wings, too, if Beto flubs this, and maybe if he doesn't.
Seth Moulton and Eric Swalwell are both eying the race. Seth Moulton is 40 and a congressman from Massachusetts, and Eric Swalwell is 38 and a Congressman from California.
Seth Moulton has been positioning himself to be president since childhood. Harvard, the JFK and Business School, a Marine officer, tours of duty in Afghanistan, Congress, Armed Services Committee, not too liberal. He has touched all the bases and made no mistakes. He looks like a young president Kennedy.
Eric Swalwell looks like a young president from California central casting, visible on MSNBC and CNN speaking from his positions on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees on Trump related matters.
We will be hearing from these people.
They are the most likely vehicle for Democrats to say that they want change.
AOC is too young to run, but she is making news, daily, and she, too, represents change.
All three of these people are shaking up the Democratic Party. They are interesting to look at. They are photogenic. They are young.
They say or do unconventional things. Beto can ride a skateboard and show video of himself at the dentist. Really.Tulsi openly says the American policy in Syria is dead wrong. Plus she is from American Samoa and Hindu.
AOC dances. Buys clothes. Says that the rich should pay lots more in taxes and that climate is an emergency, not a mere concern. She gets into people's faces. Fox cannot take their eyes off her.
Politicians with a long history are trapped by their pasts. They have track records to explain. More importantly, they learned old lessons. People in the 1960s who learned well the lesson of Munich in 1938 thought they were seeing Munich when they looked at the French collapse in Vietnam. (Wrong lesson. Instead they were looking at the fight for American independence from the British. We were on the wrong side.)
The politicians in current leadership learned well the lessons of the Cold War and America-the-sole superpower, the colossus astride the world. We thought we had won something, game over. In fact, we were losing the actual war taking place at home. The infrastructure was deteriorating, China had become the world's most competitive manufacturer, the middle class was falling behind, the financial sector was dominating the economy, the young couldn't buy homes, C02 was increasing, and the Gingrich revolution had frozen politics into partisan gridlock disfunction.
The people in charge were worried about the wrong things.
 |
| Tulsi Gabbard |
Policy-oriented activists disagree, and they represent a cohort of voters, even in primary elections. Donald Trump proved that. Trump was a showman. Republican voters liked the show. He appealed to voter emotion on values and identity.
Republicans liken Trump to Reagan. On policy Trump is the reversal of Reagan on everything presumably important. Immigration. Trade. USSR/Russia, deficits. But they are in fact alike on the most mportant thing: communication appeal. They were both interesting, they both understood the dominant media, and they both connect with a sentimental longing for American greatness and respect.
 |
| Seth Moulton |
All three are identified by a single word name. They have a presence.
They are using the new media. In 1960 television was new in politics and JFK used it better than Nixon. Most of my readers don't use Instagram and YouTube television and don't watch V-blogs. We don't get it.
There are others in the wings, too, if Beto flubs this, and maybe if he doesn't.
Seth Moulton and Eric Swalwell are both eying the race. Seth Moulton is 40 and a congressman from Massachusetts, and Eric Swalwell is 38 and a Congressman from California.
Seth Moulton has been positioning himself to be president since childhood. Harvard, the JFK and Business School, a Marine officer, tours of duty in Afghanistan, Congress, Armed Services Committee, not too liberal. He has touched all the bases and made no mistakes. He looks like a young president Kennedy.
 |
| Eric Swalwell |
We will be hearing from these people.
1 comment:
If only we were trapped just in a bubble, but it's worse, we're in a video loop. Each new generation goes to Broadway and praises Death of a Salesman as topical and fresh until they're informed it's a topical rerun. 150 years ago Charles Dickens characters bemoaned the spoiled young gimme generation, and corruption in government and industry, and the schemes of populist blowhards.
No generation turns its power over to a younger generation, just its youthful glitz. The founders set age 35 for the presidency to prevent populist youthful glitz from usurping earned political power. Political power is controlled by wealth, governments by corporations, and especially media corporations. Citizen Kane was an old story even when written nearly a century ago.
Beto, AOC, Tulsi are scripted media stars, literally created by cameras. That's big fame but not big political power. Passing of power to a new generation is romanticism and myth. Young men winning the presidency is not at all commensurate with his generation winning a thing. It's a scripted video loop. Just ask Sanders, Biden, Pelosi and McConnell.
Post a Comment