The Man

I still remember one of the best classes I have had the opportunity to take in university. It was in Syracuse, in 2014. I had chosen it quite inadvertently after learning that I could not select any traditional communication classes because they were reserved for regular students due to the fame of the Newhouse School of Communication. I would later realize, judging by the interactions I had had with its students, that the prestige it was claiming was far from correlated with the actual skills of its students. The class I registered for was called “Lincoln’s rhetorical worlds”. The only reason I had chosen to follow it is because of my general curiosity regarding Lincoln. I had read a lot of comics as a kid and my favorite, Les Tuniques Bleues, was a fiction story for kids about the American civil war. Although Lincoln is not always portrayed, I came to vaguely understand that he was the leader of the federate forces, that is the northern areas of the country, which tended to be more developped and more progressive (if that term could already be applied then). The south, by contrast, was utterly determined to retain its plantations and economic power that was correlated to abusing slaves. Although it is taught in most US history lessons that Lincoln was a friend of the repressed black population as it can be asserted by pointing at the Emancipation Proclamation, my course forced our small group of students to dig deeper into the actual declarations, political speeches and testimonies of people who were close to Lincoln. The underlying finding that shocked us all was clear, Lincoln was racist. He didn’t believe that black and white races were equal and mostly came up with the Emancipation Proclamation as a political tool that would reinforce his support and constitute a material gain over the South by deregulating its economy. This made me dislike the man quite a bit, especially since his story had been romanced for so many decades in popular culture. But what I also learned from that course is that one ought to distinguish between the man and the president. When it comes to occupying such a high function, one cannot simply associate all of the personality traits of a man to the president. Even though he had personal convictions and views about American society and the world, Lincoln possessed a very unique strength, that of being able to separate himself from his function, and to be the president that the union needed.

Reality TV politics

We now live in an age where the cult of the self is at its prime. It goes hand in hand with the hyperconsumption model that progressively was instituted by the neocapitalist train, as it is a sensational marketing tool that urges us to focus on personal pleasures and instant gratification instead of the more tradional community based efforts. Donald Trump’s candidacy can hardly be praised when it comes to the rhetorical narrative he chose to abide by yet it resonated with a large majority of middle class Americans who, across decades, have been primed to honor the cult of the self, to praise the image of an invincible man, a strong, determined leader whose wrath upon ennemies cannot be contested. So Trump managed to win the elections and now the American elites as well the most of the traditional allies of the world’s superpower are panicking. Will Trump lead his nation directly into the wall that he’s planning to build at the border of Mexico? Will he be capable to negotiate international deals with seemingly hostile world leaders and find peace agreements with Middle Eastern states? It’s all about the show for Trump but at some point, he will need to weat the shoes of the president and calm down. From then on, he will need to learn fast and efficiently how to become a good president. Or at least that’s what Lincoln did…