0073 | May 27, 2019
2020 Democrats: How to “Look Presidential”
People are willing to sacrifice a lot to be near greatness. From Plato’s Symposium to starfuckers, the desire to be near the powerful has been with us a long time. But to be near that kind of power requires a sacrifice.
| C.T. WEBB: 00:19 | [music] Good afternoon, good morning, or good evening, and welcome to The American Age podcast. This is C. Travis Webb, editor of The American Age. And today I’m talking to you from Toronto, Canada. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 00:28 | Yes, yes. Hi. My name is Steven G. Fullwood. Welcome to the show. And I am coming to you from Harlem. And I am the co-founder of the Nomadic Archivists Project. And I’ve kind of just all mixed that up, but go right ahead [laughter]. |
| S. RODNEY: 00:44 | My name is Seph Rodney. I’m missing a middle initial. I wish I kind of had one right now [laughter]. I am coming to you from the South Bronx. I’m a senior editor, actually, at Hyperallergic blog. And I’m dropping into senior now because I had a conversation with my boss, Hrag Vartanian, last week, and he said, “You’re a senior editor now,” and I thought, “I am, and I think that’s worth saying out loud.” So here we are. |
| C.T. WEBB: 01:10 | Yeah. I saw it on LinkedIn [laughter]. And you were like, “I’m going to need all new business cards. Thank you [laughter].” |
| S. RODNEY: 01:21 | And a valise to carry around my ego [laughter]. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 01:26 | Harvard, Harvard. Yes [laughter]. |
| S. RODNEY: 01:31 | Harvard [laughter]. |
| C.T. WEBB: 01:35 | So this is to remind our listeners that we practice a form of what we like to call intellectual intimacy, which is giving each other the space and time to figure out things out loud and together. And today we’re continuing our conversation. This might be our last. We might do one more, kind of just keeping abreast of the Democratic field in the 2020 election. And today’s conversation is coming out of our last conversation. Steven, well, why don’t you just kind of take us in? What led us to today’s topic? |
| S. FULLWOOD: 02:06 | Sure. What led us to today’s topic was that I made a comment on our last podcast about Kamala Harris not appearing to me to be presidential. And it’s very provocative, and I remember, actually, stuff that you did the same thing there. You were like, “Oh.” |
| S. RODNEY: 02:22 | Oh, sucky, sucky now. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 02:24 | Right [laughter]. So I’ve had a week to kind of sit with this question and think about it. I just want to lead off by saying it was an ignorant comment [laughter]. It was just a straight-up ignorant comment. I was thinking about– sometimes when I don’t want to go to something immediately, I’ll look around it, I’ll go search the bushes, but I really need to be in the house, in a particular room dealing with a particular question. And so I was like, “Well, I’m low to believe or low to say that presidential means White male.” And I was thinking– or at least in the US context because all over the world, we’ve got all different kinds of examples of what presidential is. But I realize I was responding to– two things. One, ignorant comment. And two, that Kamala Harris, to me, although very bright, very smart, and an excellent interrogator, there’s a coldness to her, and there’s a ruthlessness, right, that has been marked out in her past as a prosecutor. But also I’m exhausted with cold, and I’m exhausted with ruthless. And so Elizabeth Warren who, by contrast, feels more warm and accessible to me– and I realize that’s like I’ve got more work to do to think about this because I’ve never been put in a position where I had to think about why I was voting for someone past, “I don’t like that person.” because I vote against people as opposed to for them. That’s largely been my thing. So I have a political education that’s just beginning at 53. So I just wanted to be very transparent about that. So that’s what I have. |
| C.T. WEBB: 04:08 | So on the Elizabeth Warren front, I’ve never met her. I have a friend and colleague who teaches at William & Mary, and she’s pretty involved in politics. Her politics are, I would say, a shade towards radical from progressive. I mean, she’s pretty radical in politics but sort of kind of dutifully votes for Democrats, kind of grits and bares her teeth when she does it. But she’s met Elizabeth Warren and said she is awkward as hell in person and that she basically comes off like a nerd. And I was like, “No wonder I like her so much [laughter].” because, sort of, when she goes and does– she’s very filled with sort of passion, but what you see when she talks to people about her subject matter and her concerns are her deeply felt intellectual concerns, and around people, she’s quite awkward and seems to be dutiful about the glad-handing that’s necessary because that would’ve been– I would be with– so I have that anecdote to draw from, but that would’ve been my impression of her as well. She does strike me as a warmer figure. I’ve only ever seen her on TV or watching things on my computer or whatever. |
| C.T. WEBB: 05:42 | So Kamala Harris, to me, does feel presidential. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that term other than it’s pretty limited in what it actually describes, right? You’re really just kind of giving a shorthand for a feeling about someone when you say they look or seem presidential. I could very easily see Kamala Harris being an effective president even though I’m not– even though I’m not a huge fan of– she’s definitely not at the top of my list. But I do think that, at least on television, she projects a kind of gravitas in seriousness that I think the position requires, honestly, to do. I mean, it requires a number of other things, but one of the things that doesn’t get talked about a lot when we lambaste the current president is that he just doesn’t seem like a very serious person to me. We take him very seriously in the media, and we talk about him all the time, but he just does not seem like a serious person to me. So, anyway, I’m sorry. [crosstalk]. |
| S. RODNEY: 06:56 | I want to go further into unpacking the term presidential. I think that one of the things that’s been said so far by Steven is that the sort of comment that initiated this conversation was made in ignorance, which is fine. But you’re coming around to understanding that the term has a particular kind of resonance for you. Travis, you’re saying that one of those resonances for you is gravitas. And you’re kind of intimating too that there’s a sort of kind of ruthlessness too that you’re perfectly fine with. I tend to lean in that direction as well. I think I’m okay with a president who’s ruthless. And let me say this because I’m being transparent. I think that’s because I value a certain kind of ruthlessness in myself. And I don’t know that that necessarily is good, but I do have that streak in me, and I do value it because I do think that there are moments– and it comes up being an editor. It also comes up being a teacher. There are moments when I feel it’s really important for me to say, “No, that’s incorrect. No, we cannot do it this way.” |
| S. RODNEY: 08:17 | And to paraphrase what Steven said before the podcast started, when we were just talking about what’s going on in each other’s lives, I’m not going to prioritize your feelings in this moment. I’m going to prioritize the work, and your feelings have to wait. Not that I don’t care about them. Not that your feelings are not important. And not that, at some point, I should not be a kind of cultivator of your comfort and your agreement. But in some cases, that’s not the priority. And so that kind of ruthlessness is something that I think of as presidential too. |
| S. RODNEY: 09:02 | And I think this is actually part of the problem with the term and the way we use it and with Donald Trump, is that people see that ruthlessness as a kind of defining characteristic for him. So where we recognize rightly that this man is a degenerate and an imbecile, that he literally does not read reports– he’s not required to but does not read the reports on foreign policy, on energy, on immigration, on a raft of issues that he purports to lead the country on, that given all this, he clearly is an unserious man. He does not know, and he does not care. And he doesn’t even care to know. Despite all that, there’s a kind of ruthlessness to him when he says, “Ah, yeah. If I didn’t pay your taxes, that makes me smart.” Or there’s a ruthlessness to his calling these other countries, that clearly aren’t as developed as the ones we want to have immigrants coming from, shitholes. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 10:23 | Shithole countries, yeah. |
| S. RODNEY: 10:24 | Right. When he makes these sort of off-hand but very sort of brisk and angry denunciations, people take that to mean that he is willful and serious. And so there’s a kind of ruthlessness, I think, that is the sword that swings both ways with regards to this notion of presidential. And I’m finding it really problematic. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 10:55 | I want to push back on ruthless really quickly, Travis, if you don’t mind, just for a moment, that I looked it up. Having or showing no pity or compassion for others. That’s not what I think you’re talking about, Seph. I’m talking about that with Trump, but when I think of you and you being a good editor, I’m thinking you’re just having clarity, and you’re doing your job, which I think is different from being ruthless. |
| C.T. WEBB: 11:20 | Yeah. So I was thinking– it was funny that you did that. I was also parsing the word, and it comes from rue, right? So, like, to regret. And so someone that– |
| S. RODNEY: 11:29 | Right. You would rue the day. |
| C.T. WEBB: 11:32 | Yeah. Someone that doesn’t regret the things that– isn’t weighed down by regret. So– |
| S. RODNEY: 11:40 | Doesn’t look back. |
| C.T. WEBB: 11:42 | Yeah. So I would probably– I mean, I would say two things. I would say, yeah, a good leader needs a dollop of that because otherwise you’re Hamlet, and you cannot muster the will to action. Of course, too much of that makes you inhuman or– |
| S. RODNEY: 12:05 | Makes you Richard III [laughter]. Right? Right? [Where you’d risk?] all will, right? It’s all will acting on the world and screwing the world, and yeah. |
| C.T. WEBB: 12:14 | Yeah, yeah. Great connection. And so, yeah, I don’t want that to be the defining characteristic, right? I don’t want that to be even, maybe, the top three, but it’s got to be in the mix because the things that I believe in, the principles that I believe in have very entrenched economic and political interests arrayed against them. And unlike what is very common amongst a certain kind of liberal thinking, I don’t think that it’s ignorance that puts people always on the other side of issues. I think it’s competing epistemologies. It’s competing world views. They [crosstalk] that way– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 13:00 | Oh, I agree. Exactly. I think it’s coded that way, but yeah, you’re right. Yep. |
| C.T. WEBB: 13:07 | They fundamentally see the world differently than I see the world. And like the Bhagavad Gita, I’m fine with doing combat with them. I mean, I don’t mean physical combat. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But, I mean, on the field of ideas, I am fine that there are people that I want to defeat. Now, amongst those people are those that you don’t need to defeat that are then persuaded by the victor. Right? I mean, that’s, in fact, most people. Most people don’t have very deeply-held cherished principles that they follow. They love their families. Maybe they’re interested in their job. They really like Game of Thrones. Whatever it is, right [laughter]? Maybe that’s– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 13:46 | Or not. |
| C.T. WEBB: 13:47 | Right, right, right. But there are people on the other side of what I and, I think, Steven and Seph– the things that we believe in, and those people on the other side just have to be defeated. We have to beat them– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 14:00 | But do the people need to be defeated or do their ideas need to be defeated? I just want to put that in there. |
| C.T. WEBB: 14:04 | Sure. No, no. It’s fair. It’s fair. |
| S. RODNEY: 14:07 | Both. Both, I would [laughter] say because I think that– no, no. Really, I think that– right. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Let’s talk about specific people. People like Jacob Wohl need to be defeated. And by defeated, what I mean is that their ideas need to be shown to be completely without merit to the point that, if this person is brought on another– is brought on a media outlet, a TV show, a radio program, a podcast, etc., that what should greet them the moment they start talking is laughter. Or better yet, as when Betsy DeVos tried to give the– what is that called, Steven, when you appear before a graduating class, and you give the–? Not– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 15:00 | Commencement. |
| C.T. WEBB: 15:01 | Commencement. |
| S. RODNEY: 15:01 | Thank you. Commencement address. They turned their backs on– they booed and jeered her, and they turned their backs on her. That’s what should happen to Betsy DeVos everywhere she goes. That’s what should happen to Jacob Wohl. That’s what should happen to Devin Nunes. That’s what should happen to Rick Santorum. I mean, everywhere these people go because their economic, social, ethical ideas– Franklin Graham. Everywhere they go, their ideas should be shown to be absolutely bankrupt and laughable. That’s what needs to happen, I think. |
| C.T. WEBB: 15:45 | Yeah. I mean, I think the only thing– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 15:46 | I’m on that. I’m on that. |
| C.T. WEBB: 15:47 | The only thing I would– the only thing I would say– the only thing I’m not entirely convinced by is that– and it really just depends on the day. I just don’t know where I land on it. On one hand, I don’t know. Do you engage with these people in open debate in order to show the laughability of their ideas to so roundly defeat them in front of others so that they cannot, in good conscience, return to the field, which, whether they do or don’t, or you completely ignore or don’t engage? |
| S. FULLWOOD: 16:28 | It’s a little bit of both, right? It’s Elizabeth Warren vs Bernie in terms of Fox News, right, where she goes, “Why am I going [over?] this hate-spewing network that does a lot of damage?”, and Bernie goes on and says, “Hey. My ideas come. Let’s have it out.” |
| C.T. WEBB: 16:45 | Yeah. That’s a great example. |
| S. RODNEY: 16:47 | Yeah. Pete Buttigieg did the same thing, right? And he went on there, and he said, “There are some things that Donald Trump says that are so awful that I just ignore them.” So he did a bit of both, right? He went on Fox News and said, “Actually–“ |
| C.T. WEBB: 17:00 | Well, and didn’t–? |
| S. RODNEY: 17:01 | Go ahead. |
| C.T. WEBB: 17:01 | No, I was going to say, didn’t Buttidevs say something like– Buttigieg, rather. Didn’t he say that– he just kind of dismissed the tweets in a off-handed way, and wasn’t he cheered by the Fox News audience or something like that? I mean– |
| S. RODNEY: 17:13 | Yes, yes, yes, yes. I heard them. Yeah. |
| C.T. WEBB: 17:16 | I mean, so that’s a pretty interesting data set, right, I mean, to draw on when you’re evaluating who the Fox News audience is. So here he is at a Fox News talent hall dismissing Donald Trump’s tweets as, essentially, ridiculous, and people, a significant number, are cheering. I would not have predicted– if you had said to me, “Let’s predict what’s going to happen,” that would have not have been on my list of predictions. And so that’s a really valuable encounter to be aware of. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 17:47 | But Elizabeth– I’m sorry. I was going to say that Bernie had a lot of folks cheering for him as well. That was a couple of months before. So there was a precedent for it that Fox’s news wasn’t just packed with a bunch of Steven– whatever his name is. From the White House. Steven– the terrible guy– |
| C.T. WEBB: 18:05 | Miller. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 18:05 | Miller. So it wasn’t just a bunch of people who were Trump supporters no matter what. They had an array of people. So I think that’s interesting. |
| S. RODNEY: 18:13 | So do you think– let’s get back to– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 18:15 | But [crosstalk]. So they’ve got to do this. Go ahead. |
| S. RODNEY: 18:17 | Yeah [laughter]. Let’s back to this term. So do you think, then, that the people that we’ve talked about so far, Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren– do you think that all these people are presidential? And in what ways are they, then? And can I say it? |
| C.T. WEBB: 18:39 | Why don’t you start? Yeah, yeah. |
| S. RODNEY: 18:41 | I think they all are. I think that the problem with US culture is that the notion, as it is used popularly, or rather the term, as it is used popularly, tends to connote someone who is not wonky, someone who looks very self-assured but also is sort of, in a way that Kamala Harris is, is– the term you’ve used before, Travis, is gravitas, but that’s not it. It’s not what I’m thinking of. It’s more like composed, I suppose. The part of the problem with Bernie, which is the one who– |
| C.T. WEBB: 19:21 | Unflappable? |
| S. RODNEY: 19:22 | Yeah. Maybe. Unflappable. The problem with Bernie is that he is the most– he is the furthest away from that. He’s the one who looks most like a sort of nutty professor. Right? The hair’s kind of flying, he’s gesticulating, his glasses are a little off [laughter], and he’s flapping one arm in the air. I think that I am okay with that, but I don’t think that that– in terms of the way that popular culture looks at the term presidential, I don’t think he quite slots into that. He’s not quite the round peg in that round hole, right? I do think that the other ones are. And I think that part of the problem with Joe Biden is, Joe Biden comes across as precisely that too. White man, smiles a lot, perfect teeth, unflappable, and sort of doesn’t get– and is sort of above the fray. He is like, “Oh, well, that’s just silly. I’m not going to [laughter]– I’m not going to deal with that. We’re going to [laughter] be fine. America can do American [crosstalk]–“ |
| C.T. WEBB: 20:26 | Slogan, slogan, slogan. Insert here. |
| S. RODNEY: 20:28 | “–further tomorrow, and on to the next horizon–“ |
| C.T. WEBB: 20:34 | Rallying? |
| S. RODNEY: 20:35 | Yeah. I feel like that is exactly part of the popular definition of presidential, and I think that’s part of its failing. |
| C.T. WEBB: 20:48 | Yeah. I agree with that characterization. I think if it wasn’t for 2016, I would say no one like Bernie Sanders is going to get elected president because you just look at him, and he does look like he loses his car keys every day [laughter]. That’s what he looks like. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 21:11 | Wow, wow. “Where are the keys?” |
| S. RODNEY: 21:15 | Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. |
| C.T. WEBB: 21:12 | That is what Bernie Sanders– “oh, the glasses are in my face. Oh, that’s right, that’s right.” |
| S. FULLWOOD: 21:21 | And furthermore– |
| C.T. WEBB: 21:23 | But I don’t know about Donald Trump. If you would have asked me in 2015, I would have said there’s no way Donald Trump is going to win presidency. |
| S. RODNEY: 21:30 | Because he’s an idiot. |
| C.T. WEBB: 21:31 | So I don’t have any faith in my prognostication about who could possibly or not possibly win a presidential election in the United States in the 21st century, so. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 21:45 | I think that’s a very powerful thing. I think your prognostication– that thing [laughter] you did, that word you said because– so I was looking up presidential, and I was looking at articles earlier. And so just a couple of things. Leadership ability, what we envision they might have. A vision for the world and America in the world. A certain kind of character. A knowledge of history and the ability to communicate. Donald Trump has none of these. And he beat out senators, he beat out congressmen, he beat out mayors, he beat out a bunch of people, right? And so I agree they’re all presidential. Absolutely. Earlier on, I was going on about who appeals to me, and I was feeling kind of sad because I was thinking, “Well, I’m thinking about appeal, but maybe that’s the problem.” Because if we’re talking– the New York Times just had a piece published today called How Much Political Experience Does It Take To Be Elected President? And so they went through the 23 candidates, and 7 of them are senators, 6 of them are house members, 3 are governors, 3 are mayors, 2 have no political experience or military experience, one’s a cabinet member, and one’s a vice president. Right? And then they go on to talk about the 2016 election, and they rate the Republican candidates there, and Trump trounced them. So what was it about Trump? What was it about his appeal? I mean, we can go on about the art-right and all of that, but I’m kind of like you, Travis, where I don’t know who can emerge from a field like this and what would be the rubric for it because we think, “Oh, if we impeach Trump, the political wisdom is, then that means he’s going to win in 2000– he’s going to win in 2020,”– |
| S. RODNEY: 23:37 | Which is ridiculous. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 23:39 | –which I still can’t really get behind, but I feel like I got to hear some more, and I got to crunch it. But I think that– at the bottom of my impatience with a lot of candidates is that sometimes I feel like they’re stepping too lightly and that they’re trying to figure out which way the political winds are going to say these things. Elizabeth Warren has a plan for everything. It is a joke. “You know what? I got a plan for you.” I think someone tweeted her and said, “I got man problems.” She was like, “I got a plan for that. Text me.” And I thought it was funny. I was like, “It may be made up, but it speaks to what she’s trying to do.” Buttigieg, to me, he has said nothing that I think was remarkably distinguishable from any other political candidate. I do feel like Bernie loses his glasses every day [laughter]. But I also feel like Bernie– I feel like he’s the grandfather you might want to hug every now and then and just go, “What’s this?” “Oh, it’s my phone, granddad [laughter].” I feel like he’s– I like to think he’s more effusive and warm, but he gets so wrapped up. And I don’t think that’s a problem. I just think it could be a problem for a populist that is hard to read when it comes to politics because I think most of us are not that well-educated. I think we’re just going on either what we’ve read or, “I like the way she looks.” |
| C.T. WEBB: 25:06 | Yeah. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Seph, do you want to– do you want to finish up? |
| S. RODNEY: 25:10 | Sure. I was just thinking that if I had my way, I would actually– yeah, no, I would parcel out the incoming cabinet by using a lot of the people who’re running for the office of president now in different positions. So I would put Bernie as sort of the secretary of commerce– rather, of energy. And I would have Kamala Harris be– that’s the way to pronounce her name. Kamala Harris to be attorney general. And I would have probably Elizabeth Warren be vice president, actually, because I think that she may not be able to convince people that she’s presidential enough, but the president would need someone like her who’s actually guiding policy, period, across the board. And I would parcel it out. There isn’t really enough time to get into all the positions and posts that I envision for people, but I do think that one of the key things that is happening. And the orange menace did this, and maybe it’s actually a good thing. He’s forced us to rethink and, maybe, sort of loosen up the definition of presidential because he broke the mold, right? He broke the mold. So maybe, just maybe, it’s possible now to imagine someone like Ocasio-Cortez in 10 years being president because you cannot look at Trump’s candidacy and think, “Yeah, white men are good.” That’s not [crosstalk]– |
| C.T. WEBB: 27:06 | Yeah. I really appreciate it. It’s so funny. It’s such a small tweak. I didn’t really put it in those terms, but I really do appreciate thinking of his election as the breaking open of a possibility. I’ve certainly thought about it in positive terms as far as coalescing and clarifying, kind of, and creating a sense of urgency but actually kind of breaking that really ossified mold of what it meant to be a president. Maybe Obama cracks it, but then Trump shatters it. |
| S. RODNEY: 27:41 | Broke it open. Yes, yes. Exactly. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 27:42 | Shatters it. |
| C.T. WEBB: 27:44 | Yeah, that’s a great way to think about it. That’s a great way to think about it. I appreciate that. Steven and Seph, thank you, as always, for the conversation. |
| S. RODNEY: 27:53 | Thank you. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 27:53 | Thank you. Yeah. Great. [music] |
References
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