Cult of the Contemporary Personality

Andrew Malcolm writes for the McClatchy papers, here from the Kansas City Star. His topic this morning isn’t the caucus-reporting mess in Iowa, but the nature of presidential politics in modern America. It’s an insight I find worthwhile.

The modern American political reality is that the Republican and Democratic parties today are basically just brand names. They’ve become hollow, fundraising fuselages of once vibrant organizations that get captured every four or eight years by someone new with a contemporary personality packaged for the times.

That personality slaps on a new poll-tested label that appeals to enough varied voters in just the right places to cobble together an Electoral College majority.

He shows how that description fits Bloomberg, Sanders, Trump, Obama, and Bill Clinton - Bush 43, not so much. Although Malcolm doesn’t, you could make the same argument for Reagan. Each of the men on this list have been idiosyncratic ideologically, either changing parties or holding views out of their party’s mainstream.