In the most recent spat between democrats and republicans, President Barack Obama took a very different approach from previous occassions. He schooled the republicans. He acted like a professor speaking to a student who keeps interrupting with baseless mundane questions purely to disrupt the class proceedings.
This is something Barack Obama can do easily and repeatedly. Yet he refrains from being condescending and curt towards the republican disruptions and distractions.
This makes me wonder if the professorial attitude has a negative connotation in the US, and where did this belief stem from?
The position of President must be an aspirational one, and hence must be filled by an aspirational person. Someone who we look up to, not someone we want to have a beer with, someone we want to have a profound conversation with.
Phrases such as Media Elites, Professorial, are all compliments in a lot of the world.. it says that you are special, have achieved distinction, yet in the US they stand for “out of touch” and insensitive.
This debate in my mind arises from the glorification of the blue collar worker and the vilification of the white collar worker.
But this debate has now been simplified and used to political advantage.. surely there will always be more blue collar workers than white collar workers, but does that mean we start putting into offices of power those with lower credentials, less education merely on the merit of them being blue collar?
More importantly it is a farce being committed on blue collar workers and does not benefit them in any way.
Instead it supports mediocre white collar children of privilege who cannot rise to the top even with the resources available to them and hence choose to paint themselves as people who represent the blue collar worker and are fighting against an elite and cold system.
This seems like a dangerous and expensive habit .. George W Bush is a perfect example of this farce. Born to wealth with immense resources available, failed to do well at school. Could not get jobs on his scholastic merits and then rebranded himself as a working class joe who understood the common man.
He was no good at the job of president, and that should have been the end of the trial with a president just like us!
Barack Obama was elected by individuals who wanted a well educated, intelligent president. One who will quiet the trouble makers and more importantly silence them with his intelligence.
President Obama should flaunt his education and his intelligence. I want to see more statements like “it’s not class warfare, its math”. I think the core supporters of President Obama want him to act as the no-nonsense professor we are sure he can be and bring sanity and discipline back to the process of legislation.
But alas as the topic title says, maybe that won’t win him the next election until Intelligence & Education are revered in the US as much as Military duty & beer drinking capacity.