More of an activist than a politician, but Michelle Obama is also very good at connecting with her audience.
Michelle Obama is only in her 50s. The other women are all around 70 or older. It’s a certain age.
And just to make one thing clear
Stop internalizing every fucking thing I say as an attack on you and QT3. For fuck’s sake. If I thought everyone on this board was a misogynist asshole I would’t fucking be here so stop pretezling yourself into interpreting my posts that way.
Ok, but age generally makes men less charismatic as well. Bill Clinton is 72, and he is not nearly as effective a speaker as he was. Sanders and McCain were often regarded as less effective for the same reason. Trump is the only person who was first elected to the presidency in his 70s.
And let’s not forget that charisma was a knock against John Kerry.
I think part of he reason it positively correlated with age, is because older people have less connection and understanding to the issues experienced by younger generations. I’d say there is a band, you grow up and are able to understand the issues of your parents, you experience your own first hand, and you see your children’s daily. But your grand children are at a greater remove. The student debt crisis is far more isolated to someone who went to school in the 60’s and whose kids went in the 90’s. So they don’t fully grasp the struggle of the younger generation today, not in he same visceral way.
That I think leads to the perception of charisma. It’s that they don’t feel as passionately or directly the struggles of the increasingly younger generations.
They didn’t change, but the world did.
Nah, charisma is just a thing, some guys have it, some don’t. Barack Obama will be charismatic his whole life, Bill Clinton still is even if other adjectives creep in, Reagan still was, and so on. Male movie stars remain charismatic well into their 70s.
Charisma, for women, means good, young sex appeal. Can’t be a young starlet at 70. The bar for old lady charisma is absurdly high, because charisma means masculinity or straight up physical attractiveness.
Men tend to be allowed to age more gracefully then women. We see that all the time, not just in politics.
Now the list I referenced specifically has handshake in it. I think it was thrown in there as kind of a throw away, just one of many lists that people use to determine whether these women are “personable.” Now the problem with the handshake is it is a Catch-22 for women, and also men when they handshake with a woman. There are books, seminars, days of training all committed to the dealing with the handshake and someone of the opposite sex, years of it and we’ve gotten pretty much no where with it. And that’s because this gentle women but firm for professionals just leads to conflicting standards and no one knows what they should do until you do it wrong and then everyone knows at that moment.
Now Hillary got hammered for smiling, not smiling, clothes, her femininity juxtaposed against a strong leader. Warren and Pelosi, especially Waren now because she might run, are getting the same treatment, by the media and obviously during discussion too.
Now it’s not a secret that Cortez clicks with the public. So when I say they go after these older women, and people hold them to impossible standards, that does not mean I am unaware that there are people out there who just play to the crowd better than they do. Of course there, but that doesn’t change the fact that we can spend weeks talking about white pant suits as a do or do not while some 70 year old guy, most 70 year old guys, don’t endure that much or if they do, not nearly as long.
Barbara Bush had charisma until the day she died.
I don’t believe we asked Barbara Bush to be a strong leader of one of the most powerful countries on the planet while at the same time being everyone’s conflicting ideal of the perfect woman complete with how photogenic we thought her smile might be and if wearing a pants suit might send the wrong message.
So did my great aunt, but neither would have been considered charismatic if they had run for office. Likability is a totally different story when you aren’t asking people to vote for you.
Betty White for Prez.
When people flatly state that “Person X has no charisma,” as if it’s a fucking fact and everyone has to just deal with it, it pisses me off. Especially when the person who says it is a member of a different race or gender than Person X. I suspect that I am not alone. And I am a white male. I can’t imagine how grating it is to someone OF the race and/or gender of Person X to hear it.
I’m not directing this at anyone specific here at Qt3. I am screaming it into the blackness of space.
Does charisma only apply to people in your own race and gender?
Because that seems insane to me.
Try again.
It would have because picking Palin lost him a shitload of votes as people saw it as a sign of poor decision-making.
Leiberman would’ve been a pick that would’ve been rational.
Yeah but he picked Palin because his campaign was floundering and he chanced a Hail Mary.
This.
I think likability largely translates to f*ckability. Men hang on to it longer. Older women campaigning past their LFD get called shrill and other labels when they no longer have it. Sucks that the so-called biological imperative isn’t gender balanced.
I saw Saint Etienne live recently and felt really bad about my internal reaction to watching Sarah Cracknell dancing and singing on stage at her relatively advanced age.
Person Donald Trump has no charisma…deal with it, Dave!
I don’t really think that’s it. Rather it’s the ability to connect to people on an emotional level (although I suppose for some percentage of men that means sex.) Reagan certainly wasn’t anyone’s sex symbol, but many people found him charismatic (I never did, politics aside his style just grated on me. Maybe because most things he said was just bullshit, I don’t know; same thing with Bush II. Could also be I find that aw-shucks affect entirely fake.) A lot of people on this board complain that Warren has no charisma. For a lot of us on the left she does but it’s useless getting in an argument about it. Point being, aside from truly gifted individuals, I think charisma tends to be in the eye of the beholder. (Nesrie is also right in that women face hurdles men simply don’t.)
This article was posted in another thread but explains 🍄rump’s appeal:
Charles Duhigg: Why Is America So Angry? - The Atlantic)
As Averill watched, he felt a shock of recognition. Everyone believed Trump would be out of the race soon. But Averill wasn’t so sure. “He understands anger,” he thought to himself, “and it’s going to make voters feel wonderful.”
It’s a counter-factual so impossible to settle, but which states do you believe would have provided the 97 more electoral votes McCain needed to win in 2008, if he’d picked Leiberman instead? I can’t find them.
Hey what do you guys think of McCain rising for the dead and being the VP on the 2020 Democratic ticket. I think he’d have a shot as some of the religious conservatives would see this as sign from God. Plus I bet he’d do a absolutely great job hosting SNL