{"id":40724,"date":"2012-07-05T10:24:19","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T14:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp\/?p=40724"},"modified":"2013-02-22T10:26:34","modified_gmt":"2013-02-22T15:26:34","slug":"democracy-grows-ever-more-pandering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/2012\/07\/democracy-grows-ever-more-pandering\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy Grows Ever More Pandering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"first\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidents_2009_2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-40728\" title=\"presidents_2009_2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidents_2009_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"361\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidents_2009_2.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidents_2009_2-150x135.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidents_2009_2-300x270.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>\n<p><strong>KATHLENE M. writes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">My nine-year-old son and I have noticed that modern day pictures of presidents &#8212; since at least Kennedy &#8212; tend to have ridiculous smiles on their faces, undermining the stature of the position. I&#8217;ve sent three different images so you can see what we mean. (Nixon and Kennedy have goofy grins in one of the group images.)<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I&#8217;ve also noticed that, since at least George W. Bush, presidents love to crack jokes at various events (like the White House journalists dinner) as if they&#8217;re part of a comedy entertainment show. Hollywood has probably had an effect on this since the 1980&#8217;s when there almost always is a one-line quipping sidekick for the protagonist (e.g., &#8220;Beverly Hills Cop&#8221; and many movies since then).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Is this part of the dumbing down of America, making the seriousness of our times more palatable and funny to the sheeple? Or is this a reflection of something else?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laura writes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Some of the earlier presidents are smiling mildly.\u00a0As a\u00a0dentist\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp\/2011\/11\/the-smiley-society\/\">pointed out<\/a> here,\u00a0people were much less inclined to show their teeth before the era of modern dentistry. But, that can&#8217;t fully explain the\u00a0un-serious expressions and wide grins since the fifties.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I think\u00a0we are seeing\u00a0the\u00a0influence of the universal franchise here. The earlier presidents were appealing\u00a0to men with serious responsibilities. Voters had the\u00a0burden of property and supporting their families and\u00a0workers. They\u00a0were disinclined to want permissive handouts from the government because\u00a0they ultimately\u00a0would\u00a0have to pay for them. They\u00a0would have had no interest in\u00a0a <em>compassionate <\/em>president. In fact,\u00a0that would be the last thing they would want.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Things changed completely. The later presidents &#8212; even Nixon &#8212; are saying, &#8220;I am a truly nice guy.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0As Jim Kalb says, democratic tyranny is <em>soft<\/em> and likeable<em>. <\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_40730\" style=\"width: 624px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidentsruler.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-40730\" class=\" wp-image-40730\" title=\"presidentsruler\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidentsruler-1024x477.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"614\" height=\"286\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidentsruler-1024x477.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidentsruler-150x70.png 150w, https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidentsruler-300x140.png 300w, https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/presidentsruler.png 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-40730\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u00a91999-2013 HarmonyDesigns.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-40726\" title=\"The Presidents\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/The-Presidents1-1024x480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"491\" height=\"230\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/The-Presidents1-1024x480.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/The-Presidents1-150x70.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/The-Presidents1-300x140.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/The-Presidents1.jpg 1369w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 491px) 100vw, 491px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\">&#8212;- Comments &#8212;-<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Kathlene writes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Thank you, Laura, for your insight about the universal franchise which I had not considered. When the universal franchise is combined with the influence of television on the voting public and our national obsession with image, your explanation is very plausible.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I wonder if this will eventually change as people turn more to blogs and twitter feeds for information, and less to television news and manipulated images. How many people are as turned off as I am by pictures of President Obama smiling and joking during his campaign stops while our country faces serious problems?<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<strong>Laura writes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Yes, it is annoying, but Mitt smiles a lot too.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; KATHLENE M. writes: My nine-year-old son and I have noticed that modern day pictures of presidents &#8212; since at least Kennedy &#8212; tend to have ridiculous smiles on their faces, undermining the stature of the position. I&#8217;ve sent three different images so you can see what we mean. (Nixon and Kennedy have goofy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40724"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40827,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40724\/revisions\/40827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkinghousewife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}