Aspirational Politics
What Do You Want to Be? It's a Simple Question, Yet....
Who do you admire? What exemplifies the kind of person you want to become? Who has those qualities that serve as a role model for you and provides the temperment of the person you want to be?
These are very simple questions. They’re the kind of things a grade school student is typically asked and forced to stand up in front of a crowd on which to give their first speech. Yet few realize how important these questions are in relation to our politics. In particular, people don’t realize that these formative questions lay the groundwork for the type of people we become and what political parties we tend to join later on.
Gallup had a poll in which it asked for the most admired man and woman.1 Most often, the most admired man is the President at the time, while the woman is the First Lady. It should come as no surprise then that Barack Obama has dominated the poll since 2008 and Michelle Obama has since then as well.2 Trump tied Obama in 2019 and the only time he won it outright was 2020. Who were the last two non-Presidents/First Ladies to win? Well those honors go to a couple religious leaders; Pope John Paul II won the distinction in 1980 after being appointed pontiff, and Mother Theresa won it in 1995 and 1996. It seems we tend to admire people with a level of moral authority.
Which brings me to the crux of my interest in this. Earlier this week, Jonathan V. Last who writes for https://www.thebulwark.com/ wrote
[I]t’s important to understand the aspirational longings of political movements, even if they're currently impractical.
For instance, if you wanted to take the least-charitable view of progressives and what they really want, you might say something like, “They want to eradicate lines between genders and races and create a hyper-inclusive society while also instituting universal healthcare—even if it's at the expense of others.”
Conservatives’ views of the media and Russia suggest that their aspirational longing is to use the power of the state to crush their perceived enemies, including (especially) the press.
This piece got me thinking who it was I aspired to when I was growing up in the 1980s. When I was a kid growing up in industrial Wisconsin, who were the Republicans people held up as aspirational? Well, they were successful businessmen mostly. It was the start of the Gordon Gekko "Greed is Good" era and yuppies, stock brokers, Dynasty wannabes and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous were what people aspired towards. Names like Lee Iococca, Peter Ueberroth, Steve Jobs, Michael Miliken, and Milton Friedman were looked up to as aspirational figures; wealth for wealth’s sake. This image made Republican’s a thing people wanted to be. Growing up, a smart kid who worked hard wanted to be Alex P. Keaton, not a member of the Partridge Family. Adults wanted to be Joan Collins, not Sally Struthers. You too could be rich and wealthy if you had the smarts, initiative and entrepreneurship to do it.
Who was in the middle of all that interest, respect and fame at the time (besides Robin Leach)?
Donald J. Trump.
He lived that kind of life. And its the aging version of the '80s thirtysomethings that are the ones voting for him now. This generation of Republican voters still adheres to that brand image of Republicans from the 80s, and whether they are holding their nose or whole hog into MAGA, its that brand they still remember.
But if you are a kid growing up today (or in the last seven years), what is the view of Republicans you see? It’s Tucker, Hannity and Ingraham and FOX News getting caught in lies and sued for what everyone already knew was an open secret; that they don’t believe the crap they push. Its a Victor Orban or Putin or some other leader with a narrow worldview--their own authoritarian dogma. And if you don't adopt it, you're not one of them, and deserve to be crushed. It’s the multitude of wannabe Nazis, racists and anti-semites who are just thrilled to have a party that they feel has their backs. It’s every bit the “basket of deplorables” Hillary Clinton called it.3
If you grow up these days, as I did in the 80s, you aren't looking to the Republican Party for examples to live up to-- you're recoiling in terror and sprinting in the opposite direction. Nobody in the Republican Party represents what you want to become in life, unless you want to be George Zimmerman or Kyle Rittenhouse. These are not the kind of people one wants to be.
The GOP is going to continue to wither because of it.
PurpleAmerica’s Recommended Stories
I can’t say enough good things about Jonathan V. Last. His daily newsletters highlight three stories to focus on; sometimes they’re interrelated, but often they aren’t. If you are ever interested in finding something to read, subscribe to his newsletter.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
Looking at the list of Gallup’s Most Admired Person(s) its interesting to see who people chose who WEREN’T Presidents or First Ladies. Here is the entire list:
Douglas MacArthur (1946, 47, 51)
Elizabeth Kenny (1951)
Ethel Kennedy (1968)
Golda Meir (1971, 73, 74)
Henry Kissinger (1973, 74, 75)
Pope John Paul II (1980)
Mother Theresa (1980, 86, 95, 96)
Margaret Thatcher (1982, 83, 84)
That’s the whole list, although it should also be noted that Hillary Clinton was the most admired woman as a Senator, from 2002 to 2017. Since 2017, Michelle Obama has held the title.
PurpleAmerica Cultural Criticism Corner
I’ve mentioned who Republicans championed as aspirational in the ‘80s earier, but what about the Democrats? Who did they hold up?
Well, it was these two guys.
Who else? Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, John F. Kennedy (Boomers were having kids in the 80s, and there was a lot of Kennedy Nostalgia). There was no love for the last Democratic President at the time, Jimmy Carter; the Carter years were ugly, and most worked hard to forget them. Democrats were perceived as wimpy, hippies, lacking backbone and nostalgic idealists. If Republicans were Alex P. Keaton, Democrats were Father Keaton.
Nobody wanted to be Michael Gross.
Footnotes and Parting Thoughts
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It seems Gallup stopped asking this question after the 2020 results.
It should not be lost that Barack Obama provided a strong positive male role model to more than one generation of african-americans, supported by almost every age demographic. An entire segment of society, often lacking in such positive role models, now see him as a ray of hope of what could be where before there wasn’t one. Even to many non-POC, he is the standard bearer of what a gentleman and positive family man in the modern age should look like.
And honestly, has a political moniker ever so aptly described it? I don’t think anyone could come up with a more apt description, but if you want to give it a shot, post your suggestions in the comments.