Jessica

Vozel

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October 13, 2008

Presidents Can’t Be Heroes in Today’s Partisan Atmosphere

In tough times, we hope for heroes or hope to be heroes ourselves. As America’s economic situation worsens in the midst of a presidential election, some of us look to our party’s candidate in hopes that, if he is elected, this terrible mess will be resolved under his capable direction. We pile our hopes onto our candidate of choice, partly because of the campaign rhetoric that so skillfully makes us believe the candidates are capable and have a plan, and partly because we badly want to believe it.  

As for the politicians themselves, certainly they entertain fantasies of their own heroism – of turning this thing around, making their supporters proud and their detractors believers after all. To this end, John McCain “suspended” his campaign a couple weeks ago in hopes that he would swoop in on a white horse to the White House and unite the parties to get the bailout bill passed. Barack Obama, for his part, promises that “the world as it is is not the world as it has to be,” and that his fresh perspective as president is the missing link to American prosperity and world peace.

I’ve even caught myself fantasizing about Barack Obama taking a seat in the Oval Office, issuing forth the change he’s promised, and proving the critics who called him too optimistic, too rhetorical, wrong. Our problems – economic and social, local and abroad – will be solved; we’ll reinforce our superpower status and President Obama will take his place amongst America’s great history of heroes. But then I snap back to reality: Heroes, in our climate of partisan politics, cannot exist.  

First of all, presidents simply aren’t capable of the sweeping change they promise, because they’re (thankfully) not the only ones who vote on such changes. There’s the pesky House and Senate to worry about, and often it’s tough to get all of those political bodies to agree on legislation. After all the debating and compromising, there might be a shred of resemblance between what passes and what was originally put on the table.

Then, even if the president is successful in making a significant difference in the trajectory of our country, those who didn’t vote for him, or even downright despised him – and we’ve certainly seen lately that McCain supporters are capable of that sort of disdain – will be loathe to admit to the man’s successes. They’ll credit anyone but the president – the president’s advisors, Congress (especially if Congress is full of members of the party opposite of the president’s), the House, the changing of seasons, the American Spirit, etc. Or, they’ll downplay the success and search for ways in which we will still fail.

What it comes down to is this: Heroism is subjective. Even our country’s greats were not undisputed heroes in their time. Take Abraham Lincoln, your standard American hero. He rose up from nothing – from pennies to the presidency. He united our country after a time of deep division. He freed the slaves. Yet, despite all of this, or maybe because of it, someone hated him enough to assassinate him.

Maybe now he is considered an unquestionable hero, but certainly not in his own lifetime. With a country as divided as ours was back then, it would have been impossible for everyone to get behind one man without feeling like they were giving up part of what they believed in. America in the present isn’t yet divided at that same dangerous level, but we are divided enough to be biased in choosing our heroes.

At the debate last Tuesday, John McCain called Ronald Reagan his hero. To some, Ronald Reagan is a hero. To others, not so much.

McCain himself has often been called a hero for his time spent serving our country and suffering in a Hanoi prison. He’s injected a bit of that “heroism” rhetoric into his campaign – referencing the ways in which his time spent serving has changed him. Plenty of people acknowledge McCain’s heroism, and even plan to vote for him because of it. Others are skeptical. Rolling Stone, for example, published on their web site this week a scathing piece criticizing McCain’s history as being one of coincidence and of connections, not of any sort of personal heroic qualities.

Superheroes have the benefit of being apart from politics. They are clearly on the side of good, and thus they are heroes to everyone but the bad guys. But in this particular superpower nation, good and bad are blurry lines that are made clear only as time passes and history begins to define them for us.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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