President as celebrity-in-chief

TV's “The Apprentice” P.T. Barnum-style pitchman Donald Trump is riding the high tide of politician as celebrity. It may lead to an exclusive Pennsylvania Avenue address, but if so, he's not the first to get there. Politics as pop culture entertainment was first harnessed by blue dress intern-chasing “Slick Willie” himself, Bill Clinton. In 1993, a youthfully rakish, shade-wearing future president played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show. He also brazenly told the MTV generation whether he wore boxers or briefs (so Monica Lewinsky need not be consulted on the matter).

Likewise in 2007, Joe Biden's storybook 'first mainstream African-American who is articulate, bright, clean and nice-looking' had the same shiny newness as Bill—and a cool aloofness that appealed to superficial millennials, twice. In all three cases, Clinton, Obama and potentially Trump, all appeal to the lowest common denominator of the American electorate. Bill ran as a baby-boomer, regular guy centrist and won. Likewise, Obama successfully hid his ultra-liberal mind-set, ran on the nebulous slogan “hope and change,” and also won. Now we have Mr. Trump following suit, except his is a red-hot firebrand style of making dubious, wild promises (Mexican-paid border wall-building; expelling 11 million illegal squatters) absent specific plans.

To a man, theirs is the power of image and personality. Indeed, none of the above should be taken seriously or have the opportunity to hold the most important office in the world.

America does not need another unpredictable, “celebrity” egotist as president in 2017. 

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
http://www.americanthinker.com/author/david_l_hunter/
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Iowans 'Iffy' on Demagogue Trump vote Cruz

It seems that salt-of-the-earth Iowans have seen through the P.T. Barnum act that is Donald Trump's insurgency and have sensibly chosen a solid conservative, Ted Cruz, with 28%, a 4-point victory.  The element that has makes one wary of The Donald is his style of aggressively impugning dissenters. In the glaring example of Fox moderator Megyn Kelly, it doesn't even rise to that level. Last August, she asked a fair question during the first Fox debate regarding Mr. Trump's publicly uttered misogynistic statements. That makes her a good reporter not Trump's “lightweight, third-rate or bimbo” as he today claims for not liking her query then. Identical to Mr. Obama's habitual, thin-skinned petulance, Mr. Trump is making something that is strictly the business of the political process very personal.

The next leader of the Free World needs to “keep [his] head when all about [him] are losing theirs....”  A standard enumerated in Rudyard Kipling's poem “If.” That's a person made of finer stuff, specifically an even temperament who will honor Constitutional prohibitions. This my-way-or-the-highway form of governance hasn't worked for the last 7 years—and it will work no better with another egotist except with a little 'R' by his name.

Still, any Republican is better than the Democrat/Socialist alternative. Indeed, the only big house Mrs. Clinton belongs in has doors that lock people in and is not painted white. Yet, whomever ends up in the Oval Office should not only speak plainly, but also respect differing opinions as sacrosanct to a healthily functioning democracy. That's not the current national front-runner of either political party who remain Trump and Hillary, a truly iffy scenario for American voters.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog

http://www.americanthinker.com/author/david_l_hunter/

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