A Harsh Political Reality

It’s much easier to be a celebrity demagogue than an actual leader. You are not obligated to make good on any promises, nor are you required to respond effectively to any challenges.There’s no expectation of accountability, as you have no authority. All that is required of you is talk, and the closer you cleave to the 8th grade comprehension level of your fan base (supporters seems a disingenuous term) the more successful you will be. Speak of policy only in generalities; it’s not your job to come up with actual ideas. Your job is simply to provide form and figure for the undifferentiated plebeians who—by their very nature—know not what the fuck they do.

It is a supremely cushy job, and you would have to possess a truly legendary stupidity to want to ruin that by running for actual office.

Imagine being such a person, a simple voice unused to actual challenge. Imagine your custom is to be fawned over by drooling simpletons who like you precisely because you don’t seem to be any smarter than they are. Would you really want to throw yourself into the wolf pit by seeking nomination? Would populist rhetoric shield your neck from people who have spent decades sharpening their knives for the express purpose of slitting throats?

Such a person, more suited for a book signing or a softball interview, would be eaten alive by the opportunistic, Machiavellian world of American politics. It would be an absolute bloodbath, and a humiliating enterprise for that certain fool. A person cannot be both a leader and a celebrity.

At first glance, leadership and celebrity seem similar. Both are fickle enterprises that are reliant on the public will. This is superficial.

Leadership implies action, and controversy, and the possibility that people will grow to hate you for what you do. Yet the post demands that you do, for better or worse, and submit to the heartless forces of history for judgment.

Celebrity is inert: a passive enterprise that is buoyed up entirely by the throng. It is—as they say—being known simply for being known, at best for what you represent but never for what you actually do. The leader does not have the luxury of being reduced to a symbol until long after his or her death. The celebrity is instantly transmogrified by the crowd, pseudo-immortalized in flesh, and stripped of all essential human features. This is especially true if the essence of your celebrity is parroting the simplistic opinions of a benighted subgroup. You become those opinions; you become those people. They tie their egos to you and, as a consequence, your ego becomes tied to theirs—your identity is defined completely by them. It is a gruesome symbiosis, one which the leader cannot afford or maintain. The good news is that once inaugurated as a Symbol of the (Certain) People, you become incapable of doing any evil in their minds; however, you are also deprived of the ability to do any actual good, as doing would invite controversy and potential disdain. Your role is but to preen, and grovel, and pander until the day you die.

Even then history will deny you judgment.