Fixating on a President's Lifestyle: A Missed Opportunity to Inform

President Trump39s diet along with other aspects of his daytoday life has served as extensive fodder for the news media On August 9 2016 amp8212 nearly three months to the day before he would be elected president amp8212 The New York Times ran a 1300word piece entitled quotDonald Trump39s Diet He39ll Have Fries with Thatquot which described in detail Mr Trump39s favorite meals from fastfood to spaghetti The author all the while used Trump39s food preferences to draw conclusions about his personality and worldview even going so far as to suggest that his food choices quotbespeak a certain lack of creativity and parochialismquotThis fixation on the president39s diet would continue after he was elected with extensive coverage of the president39s decision to serve a buffet of fastfood to the Clemson Tigers championship football team at the White House during the 2019 government shutdown There were also countless news stories written about President Trump39s habit of having two scoops of ice cream rather than one And earlier this month Business Insider ran a story on the day of the Soleimani Strike under the headline quotTrump was eating meatloaf and ice cream at MaraLago as news of Iranian Gen Qassem Soleimani39s assassination brokequotAt first glance one might be tempted to argue that stories such as these are written just in good fun President Trump39s lifestyle after all has been of interest to the media and general public long before his entrance into politics And for many it39s perennially interesting to read about celebrities of the political variety or otherwise However a president39s diet and lifestyle choices amp8212 despite their dubious relevancy amp8212 receive considerable amounts of ink potentially eclipsing issues of true national import And furthermore a fixation on the incidentals of a president39s lifestyle preferences may also betray another unfortunate development the trend in viewing presidents as national role models as much as what they ought to be which are stewards of the duties outlined for them in the ConstitutionIn the view of many writers including George F Will the presidency over the years has increasingly been imbued with this quotextraconstitutional role as role modelquot This likely began around 1901 with President William McKinley who believed that the office of the presidency should be leveraged to quotshape the public39s minds and moralsquot This belief has continued ever since extending well beyond just diet such as when President George W Bush put his personal exercise habit in a national context quotI have an opportunity to send the message to the American people that I39m serious about exercising amp8212 and you should be tooquot This is what another Times piece written a month after President Trump39s inauguration was getting at when it asked if the Trump administration can be expected to quotset as previous administrations have a culinary example for the nationquot while contrasting the Trump White House from an Obama White House that had sought to popularize healthy eatingThe Constitution gives the president of the United States a number of responsibilities from being commanderinchief of the armed forces to appointing ambassadors to quottaking Care that the Laws be faithfully executedquot The Founders never imagined that the office of the presidency would surpass Congress in terms of influence in fact they considered the latter body of government the most fundamental branch amp8212 and they even feared the very concept of an American president The Founders of course also worried about Congress becoming too powerful However today from The Washington Times39 quotTrump Centralquot on down media coverage too often forgets that not everything is about the presidencyAs such we know far too much about the lifestyle choices of our presidents and far too little about the actual gears that are creating policy and law The House of Representatives for this reason has been considering a bill to strengthen the teaching of civics in reaction to recent findings establishing that quotonly 32 percent of people in the United States surveyed were capable of naming all 3 branches of Governmentquot amp8212 and that more than a third of Americans could not name a single quotright guaranteed under the First Amendmentquot However many of these same people might recall off the top of their heads President George HW Bush39s hatred of broccoli President Bill Clinton39s brisk jogs or the contents of President Obama39s summer playlist Even today many voters likely know more about President Trump39s fastfood favorites than the state of ongoing trade negotiators with China or any provisions in the recentlypassed USMCAAlthough it may very well be true amp8212 as Howard Dean once told me amp8212 that people vote based on whether they emotionally like a candidate rather than on the actual issues a candidate supports that does mean that voters cannot try to step out of that mindset Part of the burden is certainly on voters and readers the issues are covered if one takes the time to look for them But the presidency is still front and center in media coverage today and there is no more glaring example than incessant news coverage of a president39s lifestyle choices Politicians presidents or otherwise needn39t be turned into celebrities or role models Besides the incidentals of their personal lives likely aren39t as telling for how they might govern as many might be tempted to believeClick the social buttons to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Fixating on a President's Lifestyle: A Missed Opportunity to Inform

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Erich J. Prince

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Fixating on a President's Lifestyle: A Missed Opportunity to Inform

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Erich J. Prince

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