Bush, Kerry and the Psychology of Presidential Leadership

Introduction

As of this writing in late October, the 2004 US Presidential election is nearly upon us. Pollsters tell us it is one of the most closely contested elections in recent history; neither candidate has scored one of those ‘knock-out’ blows that might create a clear winner in the minds of voters before the final count is tallied.

I have watched the candidates square off in three televised debates and sampled the extensive media commentary both in the US and in Britain. Differences between the two candidates in terms of policy and fundamental political philosophy are, in my view, pretty significant and certainly worth debating. But more than anything else, more than the specifics of any particular disagreement over matters of policy or individual candidates’ personal records, I have been struck by one thing: the psychology of presidential leadership.

This election seems to have come down largely to psychological questions about personal leadership qualities and how the candidates craft their appeals to the electorate. This article offers one opinion on how the two candidates deliberately appeal (but in diametrically opposite ways) to fundamental psychological cravings of the electorate. In some cases, these appeals come in a form which I believe is psychologically unhealthy.

In fact, this article might have been called ‘Bush, Kerry and the Psychopathology of Presidential Leadership’.

A Psychological Interlude: The Real World vs. ‘Imposed’ Certainty

The relationship between the complexity of the real world and the certainty of any one individual’s views about that world fascinates me. The real world is not static and unchanging; it is not black and white; it defies simplification and certainty and predictability. Yet within our own minds, we can impose some certainty and predictability. The steadfastness of our personal ethical principles, for example, may bring clarity and certainty of direction to even the most messy of situations. In a sense, the certainty of our convictions can relieve us of the need to engage with every nitty-gritty detail of a given situation: if we already know what we think about a particular type of situation, we don’t need to spend time and mental energy evaluating each new example of that type of situation. If we already know how we think we ‘ought’ to behave in a given context, then we just do it, without deliberating or questioning what we ought to do.

While this kind of internal mental certainty often serves a useful and psychologically healthy purpose, at other times it can come into outright conflict with what our own experience of the world is telling us. In other words, sometimes what we believe ‘ought’ to be the case, or what we really wish were the case, just doesn’t match up with what is the case in the real world.

Applying this to the realm of how we view ourselves, some psychological theories (e.g., the underlying theory of person-centred counselling) trace the development of psychological disturbance to a conflict between an individual’s own self-concept and the evidence of the individual’s own experience of themselves or the world around them — i.e., a conflict between what the individual maintains is true and what the individual witnesses to be true. Faced with this kind of psychological disturbance, some people might alter their self-concept to take account of what their experience is telling them; some people might strengthen their self-concept, making it even more ‘certain’, and denying or distorting what their experience tells them; others might ignore the conflict altogether.

Whether or not we concetualize it in precisely these terms, I believe that each one of us deals on a regular basis with some kind of psychological trade-off between our internal certainty, on the one hand, and our openness to experiencing the complexities of the real world, on the other. I believe that John Kerry and George W. Bush both understand something of the importance of this trade-off, and that each is exploiting the psychology of this trade-off, albeit in notably different ways.

Opposite Appeals to Voter Psychology

Not knowing what one really believes is probably unattractive to voters; so, too, is failing to understand or be fully aware of the complexity of the world.

Listening to the Bush camp, one of the messages I take away is that once George W. Bush makes up his mind, that’s it: the matter is settled, there is no going back, there will never be any doubt what George W. Bush thinks or intends to do. Of John Kerry, the Bush camp would have us believe that the opponent can’t really make up his mind, and that even when he does, he is prone to changing it without warning, so one can never really be sure where he stands.

Listening to the Kerry camp, one of the messages I take away is that John Kerry has no problem making up his mind, but that what he believes and intends to do depends largely on what his experience of the complex and changing world tells him. Of George W. Bush, the Kerry camp would have us believe that the opponent might show resolve, but that he also displays poor judgement and fails to understand the complexities of the world.

George W. Bush has made a virtue out of being certain and steadfast — even if the facts of the world might occasionally get in the way. John Kerry has made a virtue out of paying attention to what is actually happening in the world — even if the facts of the world might sometimes mean his own beliefs or plans need to be adapted in response.

And each in his own way is appealing directly to the psychological balancing act with which each of us is familiar.

George W. Bush appeals to a psychological craving for things to be simpler, for the good guys to be good and the bad guys to be bad, for everyone in the world to be easily categorized as either for us or against us. George W. Bush offers us the opportunity to suspend our own mindful engagement with some of the messy details of real life and accept the strength of his preferred concept of the world as a substitute for our own.

John Kerry appeals to a psychological discomfort with the idea that his opponent might not know what he is doing, a discomfort with the thought that our well-being might actually have been endangered or damaged over the last four years as a result of handing it over to someone whose blind certainty fails to take account of how the world really is, as distinct from how he wishes it to be.

On Trust, and Thinking for Ourselves

Ultimately, each candidate asks for our trust. Each candidate reassures us that he has ‘a plan’ and promises us greater security if we will only hand over responsibility to him. In one sense, this is what leadership is all about: we place our trust in a leader to represent our interests, and we invest a leader with power to implement plans on our behalf.

But in another sense, this request for trust and the handing over of responsibility appeals directly to another aspect of voter psychology. Somewhere along the line, it seems to have become a virtue among much of the US electorate to display largely unquestioning loyalty to whoever occupies the White House at a given point in time, to accept that occupant’s view of the world simply because that person is the occupant of the White House. Each candidate, both the current President and the would-be President, invites us to bask in an aura of strength, to engage in what many would have us believe to be a virtuous ceding of one’s own critical engagement with the world for the sake of allegiance to the nation and its President.

This psychological urge is nothing new. Not long after the Second World War (1951, to be exact), a ‘lay philosopher’ named Eric Hoffer wrote a book called The True Believer, describing the psychology of mass movements and the urge to find meaning in something ‘greater’ by absorbing one’s own self into that ‘greater good’. Hoffer outlines some of the fundamental psychological weaknesses to which leaders of mass movements can appeal in order to promote unquestioning loyalty among followers. While I wouldn’t for a moment characterize the US election as a struggle of mass movements, the parallels in terms of both candidate behaviour and voter response are striking.

Those parallels relate directly to the balance I have described above between internal certainty and openness to our own experience of the world. In my view, there is a thin but extremely blurry line between asking for our trust and asking for us to cede our responsibility to experience and think for ourselves.

Our Choice

Throughout, in commenting on the US electorate, I have referred to ‘us’ and ‘we’ because, as a US citizen with permanent residence in the United Kingdom, I am eligible to vote in Federal elections — and have, in fact, already cast my own absentee ballot by post several weeks ago. But as of this writing, election day is still to come for the bulk of US voters.

As I noted at the outset, I believe the differences between the two candidates are, in terms of political philosophy and policy plans, very real and significant. But in addition to weighing these differences, I would urge voters to reflect on the psychological aspects of each candidate’s appeal. If you are eligible to vote in the US election, I would urge you to reflect upon the effect each candidate has on you as a person, in terms of the aspects of your own psychological make-up to which each candidate deliberately appeals. I would urge you to reflect upon the qualities which you yourself value in a leader, and to consider for yourself how the candidates measure up in this respect.

You may not agree with my own views of the candidates’ respective psychological appeal, but I hope to have offered some food for thought.