Political Aesthetics and American democracy.

John F. Kennedy famously trounced his Republican rival and fellow future president, Richard Nixon in the very first televised debate for candidates to America’s highest office. JFK appeared young, full of energy and with a smile that many would come to instinctively know as the Kennedy grin. Nixon looked disheveled, short, and so out of sorts that even his mother called him afterwards thinking he was sick. Nevermind that Kennedy was a mere 4 years younger than Nixon and that Kennedy had a host of disclosed and undisclosed illnesses that left him far more sickly than his Republican counterpart.

The debates crystalized a new view of democracy in America. Radio had brought a certain importance to the quality of a politician's voice but television amplified and enhanced the need to appear visually presidential, whatever that means. It wasn’t good enough to have a positive vision for the future or a set of well thought out policy desires. A candidate has to appeal to something in the voter’s aesthetic senses. 

Lots of things seem to affect the aesthetic of a politician. Being tall certainly helps, the Kennedy smile clearly seems to have been beneficial, a steady and resolute disposition, and least fortunately for half the population, being a man. Obviously I’m not suggesting a universal rule. Less aesthetically pleasing candidates beat out more aesthetically pleasing candidates all the time. What I’m laying out is more the general rule by which democratic politics has operated in the television era. 

But maybe that traditional view of the ‘appearances’ model of democratic politics doesn’t go deep enough. In an era where identity politics is named and shamed as a unique and new phenomenon (something I strongly disagree with), it only makes sense that aesthetic candidates mean something different for different voters. 

The Changing Face of Media

During the television era, the aesthetic was clearly defined and reinforced by the faces that the major networks chose to vet and display on their channels. The rise of the internet and even before that, cable television, started the process of jumbling the aesthetic. More options allowed for a greater variety of faces to be displayed for viewers and users. This process obviously brought about alternate styles, appearances and maybe most importantly, racial diversity which had been heretofore fairly restricted in traditional media. 

The digital revolution has allowed people from all walks of life and backgrounds to see others who look like them or have similar stories. This is a good thing. The previous model edged on safe images which would appeal to the highest number of people meaning that straight white men received the vast majority of views on traditional platforms. The digital age righted this imbalance and gave people of all backgrounds a sense that they belonged in the aesthetic universe. 

In the realm of politics, this aesthetic broadening opened the door for candidates who did not only fit that old model. Since the turn of the century (a useful proxy for the digital age), the racial and ethnic diversity has increased substantially in Congress. Every election since 2000, save for the 08’ election, has sent a more racially and ethnically diverse cast of representatives to Washington. Likewise, the 118th Congress includes the highest ever number of women representatives and senators in the history of both bodies.

Barack Obama won election for the presidency in 2008 and it’s no surprise that he took advantage of digital media to spread his image and message to voters. He started the campaign as a dark horse candidate to the much more established former First Lady and Senator Hillary Clinton. This isn’t to say that Obama won the presidency purely because new media allowed for a greater range of aesthetic possibility, but it couldn’t have hurt either.

Partisan Identities, Partisan Aesthetics

The growth of digital media also corresponded with the rise of intense partisan polarization in America. The growth of ‘Red America’ and ‘Blue America’ has resulted in a wave of cultural sorting. Where you live, what you wear, what car you drive, what you choose to eat, and where you shop all are probabilistic factors in which party you vote for or ascribe to. Voting for a party in the 21st century is increasingly tethered to identity traits, whether inherent or selected. 

Sorting identities into each political party therefore makes for a separation of aesthetics. What is aesthetically pleasing to certain identities will not be pleasing to others. Factor in the power of affective or negative polarization and it not only reinforces one’s own identity aesthetic preferences but manages to also make the preferences of the other party’s aesthetic ugly or even repellent.

Opportunities and Pitfalls

The bifurcation of political aesthetics in America is bad. Being able to code out your political rivals without ever hearing them talk for even a minute about their guiding principles or policy preferences further dumbs democracy and can lead to the caustic form of partisanship which has destroyed other states and led to various forms of political and social decay, like authoritarianism, totalitarianism, or civil war. 

Maybe this is just how things are destined to go in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic democracy which has historically been dominated by a single racial/ethnic group. There will always be tensions in crafting a truly responsive democracy. Minorities have to be assured that they won’t be trampled on by the majority and it can be difficult for groups which have historically been in the majority to adjust to losing their grasp on political power. 

But there are opportunities in a system defined by coded identities. When candidates manage to crosscut identities and assume aesthetic elements of one party but the policy preferences of the other. I was bullish on senator John Fetterman because he managed to cross the identity of progressive policy with the aesthetic of a rural midwestern ‘regular guy.’ Standing at 6 foot 8 inches and preferring a hoodie and cargo shorts to a drab suit, Fetterman appealed to the aesthetic common to any person who has ever wandered into a medium to small sized American town. Yet his politics matched more with those living in metropolitan centers. 

Aesthetic of the Extreme

Opportunism doesn’t just come for the mainstream politician, it also benefits the bizarre or extreme potential politicians who would have never cracked the staid aesthetic of the television era. The curious case of Donald Trump, a man obsessed with television, who spent much of the 80s and 90s as the butt of a televised joke, found his platform in both the traditional media world and the digitized one. His reality show The Apprentice cast him in the aesthetic mold of something that he wasn’t but had always attempted to be, a cut-throat successful businessman. 

Trump used that image boosting to transition to the digital political stage where he held completely idiosyncratic beliefs from most politicians in either party. Trump’s digital success wasn’t possible in the television era because his views would never have received the same amount of oxygen as they received online, particularly twitter. Mixing the mystique of the businessman with the unnuanced rhetoric you were most likely to find in a country bar, Trump was able to maximize the traditional aesthetics of the television era with the populism of the digital age. 

One of the most curious aesthetic elements of the Trump phenomenon has been coding certain elements of masculinity to his physical presence. This is primarily a product of the digital sphere where you can find any number of cartoons, drawings, and memes which cast the out of shape 70+ year old as a physical titan with bulging muscles and super hero like qualities. It’s bizarrely out of step with the actual body of Trump but it makes some sense in an aesthetic of masculinity which has become a defining feature of the online right. 

This aesthetic of masculinity mixing with politics in the digital sphere can also be witnessed in the thus far unsuccessful campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president. This past week the DeSantis campaign shared a bizarre video that seemed to contrast Trump’s permissive record on LGBTQ issues with DeSantis’ hardline record. But the elements of the video that are most interesting are the ways in which DeSantis is shown along with flashing lights of muscular action heroes, meme characters like ‘GigaChad,’ the serial killer from American Psycho and Leonardo DiCaprio’s coked-out banker from the Wolf of Wall Street. I'd have to imagine this is  bizarre from an average voter’s perspective but makes perfect sense for a campaign which has been previously criticized for being too online where this sort of masculine meme aesthetic has real purchase. 

A final example of this masculine political aesthetic comes in the form of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who is running for the Democratic nomination while holding many views that track more with a far-right audience. In June, a video of the shirtless Kennedy doing push ups and incline bench press went viral for how in-shape the 69 year old looked. Kennedy included the comment “getting in shape for my debates with President Biden!” in a clear contrast with his 80 year old opponent. The video was viewed more than 10 million times. 

Politics as Aesthetics or Aesthetics as Politics

RFK Jr. is in many ways channeling the same skills that his Uncle, JFK, used in his debates with Nixon during the 1960 campaign. By using the aesthetics of running for public office the younger Kennedy (at a much older age than his uncle during his run) is embarking on the playbook that was so successful for the elder. The main difference is that the aesthetic lens through which each man was viewed is necessarily different. JFK was a television president who appealed to the traditional view of American excellence and leadership in his era. RFK Jr. is appealing to a similar aesthetic but in an era when the power of digital media means that his actual policy beliefs can be far wackier than anything his uncle ever proposed. 

I should probably be clear that I don’t believe that policy preference has zero bearing on democratic elections. Much of the identity sorting and aesthetic coding that I’ve written about here are the downwind result of policy preferences. However I do think it’s necessary to view democracy with a much greater eye towards what aesthetic winds are blowing and not just what policy preferences a candidate espouses. Further, while this isn’t just an American problem I do believe it is where we see the politics of aesthetics at their strongest. American democracy is driven by personality; we vote for people, not parties. Many parliamentary systems allow for party voting and party allotment of positions meaning that individuals play a lesser role in getting voters out of the polls.

What does this all mean for the 2024 presidential election? I think it’s hard to say this far out. While I’m a big fan of Joe Biden and what he’s been able to accomplish in this political environment, there is no doubting that his aesthetic works against him. His bumbling speeches and clear signs of elderdom demonstrate exactly what he is, a very old man. If, as seems likely now, he gets a rematch vs Trump I think he manages to pull out on top again for the same reasons he won in 2020. But if he has to face someone else from the Republican party I think his clear signs of age will make any alternative seem the livelier and more exciting aesthetically candidate.

Who knows, maybe the DNC will replace the primary system with a powerlifting meet and the President will have to face RFK Jr. in a battle to see who can squat, bench press, and deadlift the most weight. It might be just as instructive for the median voter as any debate could be.