How is a national leader meant to present themselves? While I was scrolling through Instagram, I saw our president call a reporter “piggy.” It disgusted me, and more so, it made me reflect on how far we have fallen from a “professional” president and politicians. I do think it’s a step in the right direction that our politicians have begun to be more personable, especially to younger generations; however, it is still critical that politicians maintain an air of professionalism.
Throughout President Donald Trump’s terms, I have seen a drop in political professionalism and in maintaining basic decorum in communicating with the public, especially the other side of the aisle. Distant are the days of funny quips and the boringness of early 2000s politics, and that’s a bad thing. In politics, mean things have always been said, insults have always been said and scandals have always happened; just read any tabloid.
However, what’s different now is the lack of apparent care about scandals or word choice. During Obama’s terms, Fox News threw a fit when he wore a tan suit, yet no less than four years later, they dismissed the idea that the Hollywood tapes were unpresidential (where the president said that celebrities could grope women).
The president of all branches of the government has the most sway over the way the world views the U.S. There quite literally is a “Thank you USA” song about Bill Clinton’s intervention in Serbia. However, it’s a known fact that the past decade has been the most embarrassing for the country. The president has launched mean attacks on foreign leaders, journalists, and ordinary people. Do the ends justify the means in this situation? How is it good for the country and in line with American tradition to just insult leaders and call them names? Will we see a positive outcome?
When did it become normal to insult each other like kindergarteners? We all learn very quickly that honey is better than vinegar in compromise. So why isn’t this working, and why are we being nasty in government? Well, simply put, both on the right and on the left, it has become advantageous to be mean, divisive and suitable for short sound bites. Politicians have always lived and died by those moments. Take, for example, during the Mondale-Reagan debate, in which Reagan highlighted the value of his age with a quip about his opponent’s youth and inexperience. He then went on to win one of the largest landslides in history.
Now, why are personal insults on political stages so common? Well, maybe the politician has changed. Donald Trump ran in 2016 as a Washington outsider, and as someone who had never been in the “elite” despite being a long-time donor and active in politics before.
So sure, maybe there was a bit of an outsider case, and with the sway Trump has within the Republican party and the swaths of red voters, maybe the fact that Trump has set the norm of calling reporters “piggy” or mocking foreign leaders has given the confidence to his party’s members to say outlandish things.
I am not saying that tradition is everything, but at the end of the day, a baseline level of respect is needed at any negotiation, and politics is the ultimate negotiation. When it gets more and more difficult to sit down and talk about policies, or even civil liberties in a calm, civil manner with my neighbor, or turn on the TV and see my president call a person a pig, what example does that set for my political discussion with my neighbor?
