Why Oprah Shouldn't Be President

Oprah Winfrey

It occurred to me in the hubbub around Oprah Winfrey's incredible speech at Sunday night's Golden Globes that the Democrats likely would never have a "Donald Trump" that looked like Donald Trump.  Trump is the epitome of the Republican Party's trajectory in recent years.  He's a businessman in a party that favors capitalism and the opinions of the successful more than anything else.  He's a straight white male in a party that increasingly and more glaringly favors all three.  He eschews political correctness and examples the American Dream of wealth, a beautiful wife, a happy home, and continued success.  These are all, to Democrats, mirages, and hiding some of the hateful messaging behind him, but it's proof why he's so teflon to a certain core of his supporters-he's basically an incarnation of everything Republicans have been striving to want in a candidate, and though when they got him he ended up being a disaster, he's so clearly their dream guy that they can't let it go.

Many people in recent months have written about how Mark Cuban or Mark Zuckerberg or Tom Steyer could pull a page out of Trump's playbook and run as a brash-talking billionaire, waltzing into the Democratic Primary in the exact same way, but this feels like it's an idea that A) lacks creativity and B) ignores some basic tenets of the Democratic Party's belief system.  The Democratic Party's base, were they to come up with a candidate in a lab, would be someone all-inclusive, who likes strong progressive ideals but also appeals to the masses.  They might be rich, but they would have become rich by building people up, rather than down.  They would be a beacon for disenfranchised people, particularly women, communities of color, and LGBT people.  They would be someone who clearly cared about issues that matter to us, and would, in a way that Trump speaks to millions of Americans in a level they feel is their own, have a way of connecting with the average American voter in a way that traditional politicians can't.  They would be someone we dream of being, but have no hope of ever becoming.  In other words-they'd be Oprah.

I realized this because I wouldn't be won over by Mark Zuckerberg or Mark Cuban.  They're too cut-for-the-same-cloth like Trump.  They're rich, straight, white men who have been rich so long they have no concept of what it's like to be poor or even middle-class.  They talk down to crowds, and don't have the experience where I'd trust their acumen without some sort of political experience to back it up.  What I forgot was, if there was going to be a Donald Trump, someone that appealed to at least the core base of Democrats, they would have to be someone who, well, appealed to me.  I'm a dyed-in-the-wool member of the Democrats, and have been my whole life.  If a candidate may make you want to put on your rose-colored glasses, they'd have to be a candidate that would at least get me to try to start making excuses over their faults.  They'd have to be a candidate that objectively has a lot of similarities to Trump in terms of lack of political experience, celebrity status, perhaps even a bit of cult of personality, but whom I would be offended by being compared to Donald Trump.  Oprah Winfrey is perhaps the only non-politician in America who could make me do that.

I love Oprah Winfrey.  Few people don't, and certainly few people on the left don't.  More than pretty much any figure in American culture, Oprah Winfrey is one of those celebrity's I listen to, respect, and who can help formulate my opinions.  I have read every book club entry she's selected in at least the past ten years, I subscribe to her newsletter, and watch her interviews.  Her speech on Sunday moved me to applause in the middle of my living room, and I trust her judgment.  Her life, patience, and determination is what I strive to achieve in my everyday life.  Winfrey is a billionaire, but in the way that the right feels about Trump, is a billionaire who feels like they "know me."  Her shows and sense of understanding of other people, thanks to a charisma largely unparalleled in modern life and the interviewing-skills of a Pulitzer Prize-winner, is impossible to resist.  While not all of them would feel the same way, few people on the left, few Democratic base voters, would claim to actively dislike Oprah Winfrey.  And her Globes speech proved that she can rally the troops.

I don't know if Oprah Winfrey will run for president.  I honestly doubt anyone does (perhaps not even Winfrey herself knows).  But it's easy to see what would be deficits for other candidates not being a problem for Winfrey, in the same way that they weren't deficits for Trump.  Winfrey obviously has no elected political experience, and is unmarried but lives with her boyfriend.  She has pitted fights against people that normally would be a problem in an election (specifically the agricultural industry in the 1990's), but probably wouldn't be punished too harshly for it.  She's not a progressive in the Bernie Sanders sense, but more one in the Obama mold.  Her politics, I would imagine, are not that dissimilar to a Biden or Hillary Clinton, quite frankly, and she's likely to be less for and idea like free college considering her own-your-future philosophy on her show.  This is speculation, of course, as Winfrey hasn't met the gamut of the DC press corps and her views aren't always publicly announced, but if Trump could sustain a teflon sheen, I suspect so could Winfrey.

But the fact that the two share such similarities also illustrates another problem with their connection-that they both lack political experience.  Trump ended up being a great candidate not in the sense that he ran a great campaign, but in the sense that he won.  This is one of the few times where Trump's "the winners write the rules" mentality probably works, as American politics has become so base in recent years that the winner winning is all that matters in terms of their campaign.  But Trump has been a terrible president, because he wasn't prepared for the hardships of the job, the demands of the job, and the wave of backlash that would meet his world.  Though Winfrey has a stronger obvious work ethic, it's foolish to believe that she also doesn't have something of a veneer of celebrity to her name.  Winfrey hasn't always been in a position of power like Trump, so this might not be a shock to her system (she grew up an impoverished black girl in Tennessee, and has written about her struggles as a woman and person-of-color, things that Trump cannot possibly understand as the white son of a multi-millionaire), but she's been rich for a long time, and adored for nearly as long.  Certainly Winfrey would struggle when she eventually couldn't pass a bill through Congress that was a promise, and the backlash that would ensue.  She's not magic, despite some meme-protestations, and this would happen.  A woman that is treated as a near religious figure in some sects of the population might have issue with suddenly moving to 41% approval ratings (which would inevitably happen), and with the demands of being the leader of a political party.  This is not to mention that Winfrey's personal politics, particularly when it comes to human rights and women's rights, might make for a struggle when negotiating with countries like Russia or China.  It's marvelous for liberals to imagine Winfrey in charge of something like our healthcare system or our education system, but less so when it comes to imagining her trying to negotiate with countries with poor human rights records that nonetheless are vital to avoid a recession.  All-in-all, we would find out that Winfrey is mortal, just like Trump and all those before her, and that we'd be left with someone in office who, however insanely talented, doesn't have the experience required to be president without a stronger foreign policy acumen.  I've had one president learn on the job, and while I have more confidence in Winfrey to admit her shortcomings, I feel like we need an established progressive voice with government experience to be our nominee.  Let's not take the wrong lesson that Trump could win away from celebrity candidates, but instead the right lesson that celebrity candidates do not make strong presidents.