This has been an oddly quiet Presidential election year. No doubt much of it has to do with the COVID-19 pandemic. Politics feed on what classical sociologist Emil Durkheim once called “collective effervescence,” or the excitement and energy generated by the gathering of a large group of people. Online versions of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions came and went without the usual effect of building momentum for the last stretch of the Presidential campaign. Watching video-streamed speeches just doesn’t cut it.
Reality of Division
It seems as though there is not much to debate about the two candidates, either. Opinions on the incumbent have been sharply divided already: people are either for Trump or against Trump, and both sides are going to dig their heels deeper and deeper all the way to the election day. At the same time, Joe Biden’s candidacy does not incite much enthusiasm if my friends on the left of the center are any indication. “Not that I support Biden,” one of my Democrat friends told me. “I just don’t want Trump to win.” Although the addition of Kamara Harris to the ticket did raise some interest, the very fact that the V.P. choice was the most exciting news for the campaign says a great deal about his candidacy.
And then, there’s the suspicion, on both sides of the political spectrum, that the other side is cheating, by manipulating voters with misinformation, rigging the voting process, or yet worse. In thirty odd years I’ve been watching U.S. Presidential elections, I’ve never seen so much fear and loathing preoccupying everyone’s mind to the point where actual policy discussions almost seem like an afterthought. So what a non-voting resident to do in this abysmal political reality?: flip on Netflix and seek solace in binge-watching political dramas.
TV Presidents
Madam Secretary premiered in 2014, as the Obama presidency entered its last two (a.k.a. “lame duck”) years. Reluctant Elizabeth McCord is wooed by President Dalton -- her former CIA boss -- to join his cabinet as the Secretary of State. One episode after another, she navigates complex domestic politics and averts international crises with wit and cunning, yet never losing her decency and optimism. In the sixth and final season, the integrity of the Secretary-now-turned-President is affirmed by the people, in the midst of an impeachment attempt by her political opponents.
By contrast, Designated Survivor, premiered two years after Madam Secretary in the year of Donald Trump’s successful first presidential bid, presents a much darker political landscape, starting with a massive conspiracy to destroy the U.S. political structure. Thomas Kirkman begins his presidency entirely without choice, with no Congress, no Cabinet, and Capitol Hill in the ruins. Unlike ever popular McCord, his approval rating is a historic low, and even though everyone – including himself -- admits he was handed an impossible job he never wanted to begin with, his dismal popularity becomes a serious political thorn on his side.
If popular support (or lack thereof) creates a stark contrast between these two fictional Presidents, McCord and Kirkman share one important trait in common: they are both political outsiders, who came to Washington with altruistic motives. They both lamented the loss of personal freedom as demanded by their high political positions, fought constant self-doubts about their ability to lead the country and found unconventional solutions which no political insiders would even imagine. They all but gave up hope at moments of crisis, only to harken back to their moral values as the ultimate compass.
The skepticism toward Washington’s political machinery is nothing new in American public opinion. The trust in the power of a political outsider is a long-standing motif in American movies, from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) to Dave (1993), as Megan Garber on The Atlantic magazine (November 16, 2016) pointed out in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. Coming out of the political climate of the mid-2010’s, two TV shows also seem to reflect the same resentment toward the political establishment, which, Garber and many others have argued, catapulted Donald Trump to the Oval Office and costed Hillary Clinton a chance of presidency.
There is one major difference between two fictional outsider Presidents and the real-life outsider extraordinaire Donald Trump. In their former lives, McCord and Kirkman were both academics out of limelight; Trump a flashy New York real-estate tycoon. This tells us less about their personae than the perceptions of college professors who avoid public attention and eschew monetary gain vs. money- and attention-grabbing pop-culture figure known for obnoxious antics.
All I can say is that academics I know in real life are not that quaint; they may have their idealisms, but academic politics can be as vicious as any other – we simply can’t harness as much money or power as multi-millionaire businessmen or Washington politicians.
Now the Election
My insider views of academic politics aside, it is noteworthy that fictional outsider-Presidents often appear in our popular culture at the times of political turmoil. In 1939, when Mr. Smith Goes to Washington came out, the United States was at the blink of World War II; 1993 was the first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, following the two-decade long Regan-Bush era. It is uncanny that both Madam Secretary/President and Designated Survivor series ended last year, as though to give way to the unfolding political drama in real life, in which Trump is the main character – whether a hero or villain, depending on where one stands in the political spectrum.
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