Matt Saunders

Because the presidency isn’t made only for television

I’m scared that that needs saying, but I get it. I get how easy it is for us to get swept up in this election spectacle and miss the one job we’re called to do here: to hire someone for a very, very important position. On one hand is a candidate who was already fired once for failing. One who failed to unite or care for the country; who failed to manage an administration; who fails to understand or check his childlike emotions; who fails to even follow the law. One the other, we have a team that embodies the best of American civil spirit, self-sacrifice, and hard work. Two tireless civil servants who can mind the shop and more. Who would you hire?

In our collective activism, horror, enthusiasm, and urgency, we all indulge in big symbolic swings and breathless proclamations. Perhaps we’re all a bit lost in this hall of mirrors. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for the seduction of the image, for the compelling narrative, for the power of fantasy to change the world—but the presidency isn’t made only for television, and we need to aspire to a public conversation deeper than blind heroics or cartoon villainy. In our election cycles, labels like “fascist” or “socialist” are tossed like effigies, hollow of a connection to what they mean. What actually horrifies me is this politics of personality and a campaign run as mean-spirited stand-up. (When the obsession is with the rally, we should all be worried!) We should instead hope to ditch the empty spectacle in the White House, because when no one substantial is there to do the job we’re only going to be thinking in hoopla and thinking small. We can’t vote for brand affection or on our own entertainment. 

Horror, too, is entertainment. So are the crisis and spectacle. Chaos is fun in the movies, but give me a president who is chiefly capable! Lucky for us, Kamala Harris will also be a compelling president. Facing the most undisciplined, undemocratic, un-self-aware, divisive, and—I’ll say it—incompetent major party candidate in modern times, here comes a fiercely intelligent, self-made, and accomplished public figure, willing and eager to work. This shouldn’t even be a question.

Matt Saunders is a professor of art, film, and visual studies at Harvard University.