Perhaps you are answering a different question than the question I am responding to. Which is:
If this is a discussion that is meant to dissect a particular politician, then I am mistakingly posting on the wrong thread.
Pinky
ISTM that this is a rather skewed view – and I do mean “skewed”, in that it hits close to the mark, but misses. Sure, those with the “pioneer spirit” worked hard, took risks, and endured hardships. Sure, such people contributed and formed the foundation of society. In no way am I detracting from that, nor would I wish to.
But the way you put it makes it seem as though the founding fathers were “ordinary people”. I beg to differ – each and every one of them was extraordinary (not perfect, mind you, but far from common). The issue at hand is not that they were “ordinary”, while a king is not; the issue is that a king was deemed extraordinary solely by virtue of birth, not accomplishment.
It’s applying the measure of popularity to our leaders that is so sad; furthermore, it’s the seeming debasement of admiring, and even celebrating, accomplishment (referred to as “qualifications” for this thread) in our political figures that is so egregious.
Yeah I never meant it to address a specific politician. I think you give a pretty good explanation, actually.
Further, I think that we Americans in general tend to subscribe to a sort of reversed version of the tall poppy syndrome as it’s called in the UK. The tall poppy syndrome states that the tallest poppy is the one that gets cut. Well here in the US we seem to want to elevate normal people to high-status positions. Instead of cutting people down (which we do also do) we seem to enjoy promoting ordinary-seeming people high-status positions. That way when someone does reach it, it doesn’t mean it’s out of our reach. What is intolerable, in our belief system is that there are positions of power which aren’t reachable by the determined guy with enough work.
No, it was just an aside, which is why it was in parentheses.
I beg to differ as well, because I did not make that statement about the founding fathers being “ordinary”. They certainly were extraordinary pioneer spirits. Americans are drawn to people who’s life story is consistent with the pioneer spirit.
I like what you wrote here:
Accomplishment can be measured in many ways, some of which can either elevate or demote the common man.
Pinky
PS: Your name, digital stimulus, creeps me out when juxtaposed with pinkyvee ! GAWD!
Pioneer Spirits? The Colonies had been a going concern for over a hundred and fifty years when they rebelled from England. One of the driving factors emotionally (I’ve always thought) was that the upper class planters were being treated like hayseed colonials by British aristocrats, hence the song Yankee Doodle. Most of the founding fathers were wealthy, all were highly educated (some by themselves). I seriously doubt any of them was himself a farmer, a bringer of water or a hewer of wood. These guys did not just fall off the turnip truck.
I guess people think that immigrants got off the boat and jumped into Revolutionary uniforms (which actually was true of mercenary troops who fought, only they had their own uniforms), flat broke and hungry, and when the war was done, hopped into covered wagons and went West, young man, went West. So we get Pioneer Spirits in the White House, just like the Founding Fathers.
ETA: Now we judge accomplishment on a far more fair basis than birth; we base it on money. And especially inherited money. That’s the really prestigious stuff.
Have we changed directions a little? Are we now discussing how we measure accomplishment?
OK
My measure of what makes for an accomplished American is not based on money. Certainly not inherited money or inherited power, like a monarch. I doubt I am flying solo on this one!
Let’s say that we agree that a particular farmer is accomplished. We think that particular farmer is accomplished because he/she is making a profitable living while growing food for the country. The farm is successful while in this farmer’s hands. If the farmer inherited the farm - in your opinion - does this inheritance make the farmer’s ability to remain successful less accomplished? Is that what you are saying?
Pinky
Which is why I said, “But the way you put it makes it seem as though…” I did not attribute any particular statement to you; rather, I said your view hit “close to the mark” but missed.
Of course it can. Look, let’s be clear here: I’m not trying to skewer your post or its general sentiment. There’s no denying that a huge streak of egalitarianism runs through the American Experience. If you’d like to digress into pedantic definitions of “accomplishment” and their relative merits, that’s fine – have at it. Personally, I have no desire to do so…I’d almost (almost, mind you) engage in a “pig on a lipstick” debate.
However, in the context of this thread, I’m pretty sure that the “common man” idea can be taken as “a guy I’d like to have a beer with” or some other superficially inane measure of worth. You know what? Consider the “guys” most people actually like to have a beer with. While there’s a small chance that one of those guys may have clawed his way up the corporate ladder to run a Fortune 500 company, or be a decorated war vet with endless tales of personal bravery and sacrifice, it’s much more likely he’s just a run-of-the-mill, blue- or white-collar worker whose latest bout with accomplishment is to elicit guffaws from his drinking buddies with a semi-witty comment about MaryLou the secretary’s cleavage.
“Common” is by definition mediocre; “ordinary” is undistinguished. These are things that should be overcome to qualify for leadership, not championed.
This is what they use in Germany & Italy now.
Japan uses Mixed Member Majoritarian. (Russia did from 1993 to 2003; I don’t know what they use now, rule by siloviki?)
So your last sentence is not actually accurate.
Note that I did not say one could not get respect without inherited money.
And how much status and respect does that farmer have in the overall scheme of things? Could he be elected President? Unlikely. But quite a few people who inherited wealth, dare I say a disproportionate number of people who have inherited wealth, have become president. The wealthy get more than money with their birth. They get great education, and they get high status, straight from the get-go. This used to be accompanied by a sense of noblesse oblige, but it doesn’t seem to be anymore - I’m hoping I’m wrong.
While Kerry may not have been credible as a football player, don’t forget that American football’s beginnings were very much rooted the upper class; in more recent times the Kennedys were known for touch football games at family get-togethers. (Maybe that’s why RFK had 11 kids!)
As to the whole “common man” or “common woman” thing, it’s a time honored tradition in American politics as well as business life. As you said, I think it’s a story we want hear over and over again, like a small child’s favorite bedtime tale. A boy born to a poor pioneer family becomes one of our two greatest Presidents. A kid from unremarkable small town origins becomes the greatest newspaper magnate the world has known. A street peddler from Warsaw emigrates to the United States and his becomes one third of what is perhaps the oldest and most famous logo in Hollywood.
But…!!
The people who are born poor and accomplish great things represent the exception, not the rule. They have great natural gifts of brain, drive, and purpose. Lincoln didn’t go from his log cabin to the White House in a single step, but by dint of many years of self-education followed by passing the bar, and after that by honing his skills and burnishing his professional reputation until he was one of the most respected lawyers in Illinois. Bill Clinton was born poor but became a Rhodes scholar. Even Richard Nixon provides another example; again growing up poor, but finishing at least third in his classes in HS, Whittier, and Duke Law. (Tricky Dick was also a skilled poker player which is not entirely surprising).
I don’t have a particular beef with McCain in this regard. He wasn’t the best in his class at Annapolis by a long shot, more the reverse; but at least he went to the Academy, stuck it through, and got his degree, ring, and commission. True he was pretty much forced into it by family pressure, but he showed he could take it. I don’t like his policies and will not vote for him, but I have to concede that he is substantially qualified for the job.
Palin on the other hand is a joke. She’s like the kid born in the next log cabin to Lincoln’s, that we never hear about. Why don’t we? Because that kid never did anything worth remembering. Even being governor of her state is not necessarily the most memorable thing that can be done. How many people know who their state governor was, say thirty or fifty years ago? She drifted from college to college and from career to career. That’s what makes this so dreadful. We’ve long had politicians who were not elites by birth, but who were unquestionably elites by accomplishment (forgetting for the moment that this concept stretches the etymology and literal meaning of elite). And people are just eating this up.
So it is with rich people, and everyone else as well, even if the rich do have a step-up that the rest of us don’t. Ex
The rich do have a leg-up that the rest of us don’t. What’s remarkable about the younger Bush is that he seems to have succeeded in turning himself from an Ivy League rich kid into a folksy Texas rancher, the kind who is less like LBJ and more like a spinach farmer fretting about whether the crop insurance company will grant an extension on his premium payment. It seems to explode the assertion by Paull Fussell that it’s nearly impossible for those born to privilege to sink deliberately.
That’s true, isn’t it? I hadn’t thought of it, but he doesn’t just fake low middle-brow - he lives it, doesn’t he? I wonder how he did that, and more, I wonder why he did that. I mean, it’s been helpful to him, but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you can set out to do because you think it will be useful. Or can you? And has he shown that kind of shrewdness?
Or did he just find it that hard to appreciate the high-brow good stuff when he was a kid? I mean, I don’t like wine, and it doesn’t matter how fine a wine you tell me it is or how many times I try it. Same thing with most arias and many piano or violin concerti. I don’t care for them, and nothing can make me like them (although they’re better than wine). So it may have been with W.
Rest assured the Ivy League schools have to take the rich and powerful legacies. They know better than to flunk them out. That is not part of the deal. Because Bush went to Yale does not mean much. They would not dare boot him out. A school graduating a long string of presidents gains much prestige. Even if they have to whore a little bit. They get great bequests and important speakers. It is a symbiotic relationship.
I never thought of that. I’d guess they must shower them with tutors and such if they’re not cutting it.
Jimmy Carter - the 39th President of the United States
PS: I voted for the farmer !
Pinky
Psst. Check out his early life. He took over the family business, which included, among other things, the family peanut farm.
Lots of the founding fathers were plantation owners, too. Not quite what I had in mind.
That said, Carter stands in all of our minds as one of the most exceptional human beings to hold the presidential office in history, and he did injure himself in a farming accident. But his renown did not come from farming so much as from being a comparatively wealthy and influential business owner in a tiny community. He definitely came up the old-fashioned way, by starting out in very local offices and working his way up to bigger ones.
They are called gentlemens Cs. You do not fuck with the big boys. They will get through. Bush was a famous carouser and doper. He got an advanced degree.
The President has to make judgmentt calls, I can understand why most vote for people with similar priorities. Of course I’d want a surgeon rather than my best friend to perform heart surgery on me, but a Presidents course is not that clear. In the words of LBJ, “A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.”