Individuals often trump ideas in political arena
I grew up under the notion that ideas, not individuals, were important. Under this assumption, individuals are just vessels through which the larger ideas were carried out. It was the idea, not people, that was really important.
But I’ve changed my thinking on that, at least in the arena of politics. Individuals aren’t just the messenger boys of larger cosmic forces. Individuals are often the force themselves, for good and bad. Think of the cult of personalities that propelled both Stalin and Hitler to the madness of the last century. It was those individuals, not just their political ideas, that really mattered.
All of that may sound a little esoteric — who cares?
But this blending of ideas with individuals is the key to understanding today’s political environment, both in the nation and here in Barrow County.
At the national level, the Obama cult and anti-cults are the driving force of our political dialogue. Perhaps more than any other president since Ronald Reagan, President Obama personifies a political idea. He is for big government and a socialist-style economic and cultural system, the antithesis of Reagan’s less-government-is-better view.
But where Obama and Reagan differ is in their personalities. Reagan was larger than the ideas he espoused. He was no puppet of the Right or even of the Republican Party; Reagan as a personality was bigger than both. Through the sheer force of personality, Reagan moved the country down a conservative path and transcended traditional boundaries in the process.
President Obama, on the other hand, is much smaller than the ideas he represents. Despite an incredible gift for public speaking, his personality gets in the way. He is transparently disingenuous. He is egocentric. He cannot shape his political dialogue, but rather lets the dialogue steamroll over him. Where Reagan seemed larger than life, Obama appears smaller than the job he was elected to do.
While these two presidents represent very opposing political views, the larger issues of conservative vs. liberal are mostly lost in the cult of personalities they both created. The core of the debate gets lost behind the personalities of their leading spokesmen. Their ideas matter, but not nearly as much as nature of the individuals which espouse them. (Which is why the Republican Party is struggling to find a candidate to challenge Obama next year. The existing pool is thin and weak; there are no Reaganesque candidates among them.)
The same kind of thing has happened in Barrow County where personality politics is a blood sport. The viciousness of Barrow politics brings to mind the image of a chicken fight in which a dozen chickens with razorblades are dumped into a ring where they all slash at each other with indiscriminate haste.
Nobody embodies this feeling more today than Barrow County Board of Commissioners Chairman Danny Yearwood. No matter what the problem, Yearwood will get the blame even if he didn’t have anything to do with it.
That’s because Yearwood, like Obama, is smaller than the job he occupies. Due to personality, he is unable to convey a sense of leadership, competency and vision to the community.
The truth is, many of the problems the county government faces today were not created by Yearwood, but rather by the previous administration. The impending county tax hike will mostly go to pay for debt created by the previous board of commissioners. Yearwood and this board did cut county spending in many areas, but are being pillared over debts they did not create.
All of that was handled poorly because Yearwood could not step away from his own personality. He gets in his own way even when he tries to do the right things. In politics, it’s not just what you do that matters, it’s the way you do it.
The result has been a lack of confidence in county leadership. It feeds on itself. Small problems get magnified. It’s a cycle almost impossible to stop once it gets going.
Yes, ideas do count. As many despots have found over the centuries, you can kill individuals, but you can’t kill an idea. When an idea dies, it has to drown itself.
But very often, it’s the individuals and their personalities that matter most in the political arena. Individuals can transcend ideas, advancing them or squashing them. Individuals can be forces for progress, or they can be roadblocks to progress. Leaders can lead for good and bad.
And that is not always obvious during the election cycle. Who would have thought three years ago that Obama’s oratorical gift would be overshadowed by his peevishness?
While important, electing leaders is more than measuring their words on specific issues. You have to measure the individual, not just the rhetoric.
Leadership matters. Character matters. Personality matters.
If we reduce political evaluations down to just policy, we miss the bigger and more important picture: people matter.
Maybe we should remind ourselves of that as the elections of 2012 loom.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
All of that may sound a little esoteric — who cares?
But this blending of ideas with individuals is the key to understanding today’s political environment, both in the nation and here in Barrow County.
At the national level, the Obama cult and anti-cults are the driving force of our political dialogue. Perhaps more than any other president since Ronald Reagan, President Obama personifies a political idea. He is for big government and a socialist-style economic and cultural system, the antithesis of Reagan’s less-government-is-better view.
But where Obama and Reagan differ is in their personalities. Reagan was larger than the ideas he espoused. He was no puppet of the Right or even of the Republican Party; Reagan as a personality was bigger than both. Through the sheer force of personality, Reagan moved the country down a conservative path and transcended traditional boundaries in the process.
President Obama, on the other hand, is much smaller than the ideas he represents. Despite an incredible gift for public speaking, his personality gets in the way. He is transparently disingenuous. He is egocentric. He cannot shape his political dialogue, but rather lets the dialogue steamroll over him. Where Reagan seemed larger than life, Obama appears smaller than the job he was elected to do.
While these two presidents represent very opposing political views, the larger issues of conservative vs. liberal are mostly lost in the cult of personalities they both created. The core of the debate gets lost behind the personalities of their leading spokesmen. Their ideas matter, but not nearly as much as nature of the individuals which espouse them. (Which is why the Republican Party is struggling to find a candidate to challenge Obama next year. The existing pool is thin and weak; there are no Reaganesque candidates among them.)
The same kind of thing has happened in Barrow County where personality politics is a blood sport. The viciousness of Barrow politics brings to mind the image of a chicken fight in which a dozen chickens with razorblades are dumped into a ring where they all slash at each other with indiscriminate haste.
Nobody embodies this feeling more today than Barrow County Board of Commissioners Chairman Danny Yearwood. No matter what the problem, Yearwood will get the blame even if he didn’t have anything to do with it.
That’s because Yearwood, like Obama, is smaller than the job he occupies. Due to personality, he is unable to convey a sense of leadership, competency and vision to the community.
The truth is, many of the problems the county government faces today were not created by Yearwood, but rather by the previous administration. The impending county tax hike will mostly go to pay for debt created by the previous board of commissioners. Yearwood and this board did cut county spending in many areas, but are being pillared over debts they did not create.
All of that was handled poorly because Yearwood could not step away from his own personality. He gets in his own way even when he tries to do the right things. In politics, it’s not just what you do that matters, it’s the way you do it.
The result has been a lack of confidence in county leadership. It feeds on itself. Small problems get magnified. It’s a cycle almost impossible to stop once it gets going.
Yes, ideas do count. As many despots have found over the centuries, you can kill individuals, but you can’t kill an idea. When an idea dies, it has to drown itself.
But very often, it’s the individuals and their personalities that matter most in the political arena. Individuals can transcend ideas, advancing them or squashing them. Individuals can be forces for progress, or they can be roadblocks to progress. Leaders can lead for good and bad.
And that is not always obvious during the election cycle. Who would have thought three years ago that Obama’s oratorical gift would be overshadowed by his peevishness?
While important, electing leaders is more than measuring their words on specific issues. You have to measure the individual, not just the rhetoric.
Leadership matters. Character matters. Personality matters.
If we reduce political evaluations down to just policy, we miss the bigger and more important picture: people matter.
Maybe we should remind ourselves of that as the elections of 2012 loom.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
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