The Democrat Utopia

[BigRedBuster]

The Oprah conversation is really fascinating. I agree with what you posted here. Vox ran a piece holding her to account for the crank medicine she's willingly spawned and indulged through her show, and that's one area I'd have a lot of question about her judgement. I also agree with what Jon Favreau said, which is not to be so quick to dismiss the power of the ability to inspire out of hand. He, after all, worked for Obama, whose political star also shot through the roof on the back of one well-timed speech. But Obama was a constitutional law professor and Senator, so it's not a 1:1.

And there's a lot of good meta conversation here too, highlighting for example how quick we are to cast her into a Magical Negro (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicalNegro) role. And how there have been other big celebrity names floated for discussion before -- Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Kanye...and none of them met the same withering scrutiny about their abilities. 

Ultimately I think we are right to regard the celebrity presidency with this suspicion, and I hope we'll continue to do this the next time someone with the overwhelming advantage of icon status decides to "get into politics" by seeking the highest office in the land.

Though, counter-point: perhaps what we need is celebrity figureheads to occupy our attention, and remove much of the power and therefore dangers of the office. I dunno, that's too hypothetical for me!

It's a problem when the public equates fame and being articulate with being well versed in issues and having quality stances on those issues to help fix real people's problems.

I have never been a fan of Oprah and her show.  It just doesn't appeal to me to trot out a bunch of people with problems and sit around and act like you're crying over their issues and want to fix them.  But, that's just me.

All that aside, Oprah has been incredibly successful in building her little empire and creating wealth for herself....by crying over other people's problems.  

American people have a fixation though on liking someone that is famous and then somehow creating this myth that they are somehow so smart they can do anything.  Oprah is very articulate and said all the right things the other night.  I will say that's one hell of a lot better than the idiot we have in Washington right now. 

However, I would hope the American people will learn and realize we need to put someone in office that actually has experience in governing and finding solutions to problems.

 

[zoogs]

I've never had interest personally in Oprah's show, but I think that's an unfair reduction with some language that is problematic for a number of reasons. She's a credible, inspiring voice for reasons other than her TV success. I will say I share a lot of your negative appraisals of the nature of TV in general. It just seems like a world where the skills you have to practice and hone are not exactly going to bolster your case as a public servant. The unfortunate thing is, as you point out, they're exactly the things that would make you an exceptionally effective campaigner.

I think of any celebrity figure, she's as well versed in issues as anybody. There's a difference between understanding issues, though, and having political experience. I'd encourage celebrities or CEOs or whoever else really to get into politics if they care about these things. But run for governor, or Senator, or district rep, or local rep, or mayor, or something. Politicians can come from different backgrounds! Diversity is good. You don't need to be a six-decade Congressperson to be President but maybe it shouldn't be the first public service role you've ever had.

We need to just take the way we are used to evaluating political aspirants and burn it down. Reality show presidencies are the natural, inevitable outcome of reality show campaigns and theater-as-politics. I'm as worried in our ability to discern the difference as you are.

 

[Landlord]

And there's a lot of good meta conversation here too, highlighting for example how quick we are to cast her into a Magical Negro (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicalNegro) role. And how there have been other big celebrity names floated for discussion before -- Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Kanye...and none of them met the same withering scrutiny about their abilities. 

I don't have any reason to believe that Oprah doesn't care about the things she says she cares about, and it's more than likely that she's a good person with a big heart. However, I simultaneously think she's also an opportunist and a self-serving TV star. 

In the case of a Mark Cuban or a Zuckerberg, they demonstrably have some qualities that you would expect in a President to translate quite well. Cuban, for instance, is self-made, and whenever he comes across as a prick it's usually for the right sort of ethical thing. He's never really shown evidence of being interested in glory or fame or riches, but uses the things he has towards a cause he thinks is worth it. In other words, at the very least he's a refreshing change of pace in ways that don't seem produced for the media. I don't imagine he'd be particularly qualified, but he's also publicly expressed a reluctance to ever go for it (think Maximus' reluctance  to lead in Gladiator). Zuckerberg is kind of an enigma but is a literal genius who's on the forefront of technological and social progression in the world. Maybe I just don't know enough about Oprah, but a daytime talk show, a book club, and a media empire named after you, while impressive and full of great benefit to our culture, doesn't translate at all into a qualification for public service.

None of that is to take away from or be disproportionately critical of Oprah's accomplishments and success as a woman, a person of color, etc. It's more just that if I'm entertaining the idea of a celebrity for public office I either want them to be dramatically unorthodox in the most refreshing of ways or certifiable geniuses. She doesn't check either of those boxes for me.

Unfortunately almost everyone in our country pays attention to the flash over the substance. Again, not to accuse Oprah of lacking in substance, but "Oprah" is as much a person as it is a powerful marketing campaign, and that's all marketing is; flash.

 

[zoogs]

Uh, disagree strongly about Cuban, unless by "qualities" you mean being a loud man. Like, the first thing you say about Cuban is that he's self-made. Oprah was born into poverty but this is omitted from her blurb -- "self-serving" "opportunist" are used instead. Really, why? Cuban makes his billions in the largely exploitative industry that is professional sports, off the backs of taxpayers who fund his stadiums and athletes most of whom are churned through the system if they even make it to his league. Oprah's commitment to social causes is well known, and her causes include access to education and opportunity for those from impoverished background, to promoting the mainstream acceptance of LGBT. Yet Cuban is the guy who gets "right sort of ethical thing" cred, while Oprah's just a person with a big heart who probably cares about the things she says she does? Cuban, whose politics serve his own billionaire class first and foremost? Because what, he did a few social media rants about Trump after realizing the opportunity that was being paved for him? He, the guy who did the social media circuit big time during election season and repeatedly talks about maybe running for office, is the Reluctant General Maximus in this story and Oprah, who went to give a speech for #TimesUp and #MeToo at an awards show, the opportunist?! Oprah, whose genuineness and ability to connect to people, is passed over in that category too for Mark Cuban's "not produced for media", presented in contrast?! Are you kidding?!

Zuckerberg, he's in the dominant corporate conglomerate world where he belongs, but I'll save that rant for another time. 

How much does it take for a vastly higher quality woman to be recognized as even level with -- much less swiftly discarded in comparison to -- a guy who'd be an absolute joke to the term 'public servant'? Everything you chose to attribute to one and not the other, they're only things that are repeated a million times every day about other women and men, in the political arena and otherwise. I point this out not to throw barbs at you, but to try to show how absurdly gendered our lenses can be.

 

[teachercd]

\

I don't have any reason to believe that Oprah doesn't care about the things she says she cares about, and it's more than likely that she's a good person with a big heart. However, I simultaneously think she's also an opportunist and a self-serving TV star. 

In the case of a Mark Cuban or a Zuckerberg, they demonstrably have some qualities that you would expect in a President to translate quite well. Cuban, for instance, is self-made, and whenever he comes across as a prick it's usually for the right sort of ethical thing. He's never really shown evidence of being interested in glory or fame or riches, but uses the things he has towards a cause he thinks is worth it. In other words, at the very least he's a refreshing change of pace in ways that don't seem produced for the media. I don't imagine he'd be particularly qualified, but he's also publicly expressed a reluctance to ever go for it (think Maximus' reluctance  to lead in Gladiator). Zuckerberg is kind of an enigma but is a literal genius who's on the forefront of technological and social progression in the world. Maybe I just don't know enough about Oprah, but a daytime talk show, a book club, and a media empire named after you, while impressive and full of great benefit to our culture, doesn't translate at all into a qualification for public service.

None of that is to take away from or be disproportionately critical of Oprah's accomplishments and success as a woman, a person of color, etc. It's more just that if I'm entertaining the idea of a celebrity for public office I either want them to be dramatically unorthodox in the most refreshing of ways or certifiable geniuses. She doesn't check either of those boxes for me.

Unfortunately almost everyone in our country pays attention to the flash over the substance. Again, not to accuse Oprah of lacking in substance, but "Oprah" is as much a person as it is a powerful marketing campaign, and that's all marketing is; flash.

I am a big Cuban fan for a lot of reasons.  He is very much a normal person.  He changes his mind, he admits it, he believes in things that sort of contradict in some peoples minds (which I love because it ruins agenda driven people) and I do love how he loves to poke fun at Ivy Leaguers and people that think you need to wear a tie.  

 

[Landlord]

I'd also be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that Oprah probably never had the luxury of being "casually dressed cool/candid fun person" in the same way as a famous person. But when you're comparing multi-billionaires, it's fair game to treat it as a ~mostly~, or at least relatively more, even playing field imo

 

[teachercd]

I'd also be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that Oprah probably never had the luxury of being "casually dressed cool/candid fun person" in the same way as a famous person. But when you're comparing multi-billionaires, it's fair game to treat it as a ~mostly~, or at least relatively more, even playing field imo

Amen

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

A quick poll of my friends turned up zero people who seriously wanted Oprah to run for President.

I'm not sure it's really a thing. Hopefully just viral speculation. 

But if that's where we're heading, why not Bruce Springsteen?

 

[zoogs]

It shouldn't have been a thing -- Oprah won an award and gave a speech at a Golden Globes that was all about awareness of this issue. It was a really powerful speech, and some people ran with it all the way to "please run and save us, Oprah". That it turned into an ultra-serious, withering review of her entire credentials is telling in a lot of ways. That it happened at all, that we'll go to these lengths to tear down her accomplishments, that we'll elevate others comparatively in her stead.

To shoot the breeze on other famous non-politicians who could get into politics, how about Steve Kerr and Greg Popovich? Sheryl Sandberg? Melinda Gates?

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

Gregg Popovich is everything Donald Trump thinks he is, but isn't: a smart, bulls#!t-hating winner,

Not to mention a military vet.

But like any smart guy with no taste for bulls#!t, Popovich would hate the Presidency. 

Steve Kerr is perhaps the most adept, in-the-moment public speaker I've ever seen.

We could do worse. 

 

[Landlord]

It shouldn't have been a thing -- Oprah won an award and gave a speech at a Golden Globes that was all about awareness of this issue. It was a really powerful speech, and some people ran with it all the way to "please run and save us, Oprah". That it turned into an ultra-serious, withering review of her entire credentials is telling in a lot of ways. That it happened at all, that we'll go to these lengths to tear down her accomplishments, that we'll elevate others comparatively in her stead.

To shoot the breeze on other famous non-politicians who could get into politics, how about Steve Kerr and Greg Popovich? Sheryl Sandberg? Melinda Gates?

Is this one of those things where it sounds like you're criticizing people in this thread, and then when asked to be explicit about it, it turns out you're talking about an ethereal, "them", who don't exist in our conversation?

If it's the former, I can tell you there has been no length gone to whatsoever. Speaking for myself, I went to zero effort and did not at all take seriously reviewing her credentials. A conversation was started about Oprah as a hypothetical Presidential candidate (essentially started by your 4 paragraphs, mind you), so I responded in a conversation about Oprah as a hypothetical Presidential candidate. If this would have been a conversation in a vacuum with different people 5 years ago, I would have said something similar. 

The length gone to to tear down her accomplishments is either non-existent or minimal compared to the length gone to to carte blanche assign zero effort candid opinions as microcosms of racist misogyny. Unless it's equally as telling of you and Vox to criticize her in gendered assumptions that powerful women are more prone to believe in and peddle pseudoscience?

I wasn't writing a peer-reviewed research paper of comparison between Mark Cuban and Oprah Winfrey. I was anecdotally using a handful of non-exhaustive bullet points to compare one billionaire celebrity who my perception of is as an actual candid person to another billionaire celebrity who's personality and personal ethic as an actual individual human being remain completely unknown to me behind a juggernaut marketing empire. Maybe I should have left it at, "Mark Cuban seems like a dude I can get an actual human glimpse of, while "Oprah" seems like an amorphous myth or computer algorithm of PR, and also f#*k me for not being entirely exhaustive in my research and mentioning more pros for a man v cons for a woman." 

I'm not sure why I bothered being like "oh btw I totally don't think he'd be qualified" and also "oh btw I get that it's not as easy for Oprah to be so authentic or reckless with her PR" when they are so utterly ignored. I thought it was obvious that Oprah/Cuban was a lose analogy for things like celebrity and PR and marketing machines, my mistake for assuming you'd pick up on the actual undercurrent of what I was trying to say.

I would be equally as skeptical and not in favor of Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah, Steve Kerr and Greg Poppovich as Presidential candidates. But I do happen to think that Kerr, Pops, and Cuban are entertaining and cool and seem decent enough, so I'd at least be entertained by them. Oprah is hard for me to have any idea about as an individual so I have no opinion on that, which leaves only skepticism. Please explain how this is telling, and please quit imagining the seriousness and the efforts put forward, or at least be a little bit more explicit about who you're talking about.

Edit: For public record, I also think Justin Bieber, Jay-Z, Chris Pratt, Drake, Kanye, Jimmy Fallon, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian, and plenty of others are good enough people who are also simultaneously crafty capitalists and opportunists. I made sure to include more men and more white people than non, even though the lexicon of pop culture icons are dominated moreso by women and black people. But also, for public record, these are very, very lose opinions about celebrities who don't care about me, who I don't care about, and about whom I spend very little time and attention towards. 

 

[Landlord]

Uh, disagree strongly about Cuban, unless by "qualities" you mean being a loud man. Like, the first thing you say about Cuban is that he's self-made. Oprah was born into poverty but this is omitted from her blurb -- "self-serving" "opportunist" are used instead. Really, why? Cuban makes his billions in the largely exploitative industry that is professional sports, off the backs of taxpayers who fund his stadiums and athletes most of whom are churned through the system if they even make it to his league. Oprah's commitment to social causes is well known, and her causes include access to education and opportunity for those from impoverished background, to promoting the mainstream acceptance of LGBT. Yet Cuban is the guy who gets "right sort of ethical thing" cred, while Oprah's just a person with a big heart who probably cares about the things she says she does? Cuban, whose politics serve his own billionaire class first and foremost? Because what, he did a few social media rants about Trump after realizing the opportunity that was being paved for him? He, the guy who did the social media circuit big time during election season and repeatedly talks about maybe running for office, is the Reluctant General Maximus in this story and Oprah, who went to give a speech for #TimesUp and #MeToo at an awards show, the opportunist?! Oprah, whose genuineness and ability to connect to people, is passed over in that category too for Mark Cuban's "not produced for media", presented in contrast?! Are you kidding?!

1. Criticize someone for being inconsistent in mentioning philantropy and perceived selflessness between two people

2. Fail to mention any philanthropic endeavors by Cuban, and only pontificate about his internal motivations, while going to lengths (word of the night) to heap praise on someone who doesn't need you to defend her against a random person on the internet who cares very little about anything actually being discussed.

3. ???

(I don't actually mind this, but it seems like something you very much mind on behalf of others)

 

[NM11046]

It's a problem when the public equates fame and being articulate with being well versed in issues and having quality stances on those issues to help fix real people's problems.

I have never been a fan of Oprah and her show.  It just doesn't appeal to me to trot out a bunch of people with problems and sit around and act like you're crying over their issues and want to fix them.  But, that's just me.

All that aside, Oprah has been incredibly successful in building her little empire and creating wealth for herself....by crying over other people's problems.  

American people have a fixation though on liking someone that is famous and then somehow creating this myth that they are somehow so smart they can do anything.  Oprah is very articulate and said all the right things the other night.  I will say that's one hell of a lot better than the idiot we have in Washington right now. 

However, I would hope the American people will learn and realize we need to put someone in office that actually has experience in governing and finding solutions to problems.

Its absolutely LAZINESS.  Instead of actually having to learn about a candidate, you know, read about their past, learn their stances on issues (from THEM not their surrogates or past tv appearances), listen to them talk at town halls, watch them present their ideas at debates- americans want to elect someone they think they know through their tvs.   It's disgusting.  We are not a population that is this stupid ... but are there more of them than us?

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

Its absolutely LAZINESS.  Instead of actually having to learn about a candidate, you know, read about their past, learn their stances on issues (from THEM not their surrogates or past tv appearances), listen to them talk at town halls, watch them present their ideas at debates- americans want to elect someone they think they know through their tvs.   It's disgusting.  We are not a population that is this stupid ... but are there more of them than us?

Yep. Laziness.

Laziness and brand names. That's how we got two Bushes and two Clintons. 

There's a fresh buzz about Joe Kennedy, and while he may be a worthy candidate, I kinda recoil at the extreme shortcut he gets to take. 

 

[zoogs]

Yeah so the point is that Cuban's philanthropy is not on the same plane as Oprah's, but the way he's presented and the way she is presented is in such stark contrast. And the larger point is obviously that this is standard practice for how we minimize women relative to men even when it's way, way, way off the mark. And how we view them with suspicion. It's actually pretty incredible how Oprah, who herself hasn't shown any interest in running, is being dragged as the political opportunist here when Cuban is the one who has talked loudly about running. It should be pointed out, and criticized.

You can read about Cuban's politics; he offers that up freely. 

That you "went to zero effort and did not at all take seriously reviewing her credentials" before deeming her to be all flash, opportunistic, and self-serving is obvious, and it's not a thing to be defending.