Wanted! Candidates with Bad Character

What do we want in a president, that is, what kind of person?

I have to ask.  Because it seems that nice guys—sincere, honest, transparent, respectful, considerate, measured and well balanced, wise and insightful—are not respected and would certainly not score well in a debate.

Apparently we Americans like a good hostile attitude.  We seem to prefer politicians with a lot of anger, impatience, arrogance, haughtiness, and in-your-face attitude.  Could it be because this is how most of us Americans might be described when it comes to getting what we want?

It also seems that we prefer simple-mindedness, black and white and simplistic all-or-nothing thinking.  We don’t like complexity and prefer to believe that there are simple one-step solutions to everything.  If the problem is complicated, we don’t want to hear about it.  Come up with an easy solution and solve it quickly and make it go away, whatever it is.

Yes, we hate to wait.  We want immediate results, as in “what has the new president done in his/her first 100 days in office.  If there is no evidence of major strides, major changes, he/she is already failing.  What?!

So, when it comes to politics and politicians none of the quality character virtues apply.  They are not to be patient and kind or humble and wise, for that translates into weakness in our minds.  They are not to be deep thinkers and penetratingly insightful, for that makes us suspicious as to their decisiveness and we can’t easily predict exactly where they’ll come out on major decisions.  We prefer the, “don’t think, just do” approach to decisions.

They are also not to be considerate, respectful, and inclusive, for that is tantamount to fraternizing with the enemy.  It would seem that, for most of us Americans, anyone that does not think, believe, or act and conform to our way of thinking acting and being, should be identified as the enemy—as in “If you are not with us, you are against us.”

We even appear to dislike the virtue of integrity in our politicians.  Yes, it’s true.  For example notice how we prefer smear campaigns over campaigns that respect truth in substance and content.  We love it when our candidate exaggerates and stretches truth, even to the point of basically telling “little white lies” about his/her opponent, if it makes our favored-candidate look better and win votes.  We also love it when rich powerful people clandestinely throw huge amounts of money into the process, backing our favored-candidate with no accountability as to source, cost, intent, and effect.

So what character traits do we really seem to prefer in our candidates?  Apparently we like hubris, pride, and arrogance—an exaggerated sense of self in a candidate.  We like hate, anger, and mean-spiritedness in our candidates with an exaggerated sense of righteous-indignation who are more than willing to condemn anyone that falls on the wrong side of things.  We seem to prefer power-hungry, grandiose, self-aggrandizing pompous types with a self-conceited Superman self-image that basically says, “Give me enough money and power and I will save you; trust me, I am your answer to all your worries!”

It is no wonder that our country seemingly has so few quality good leaders from which to choose.