M7 Blog: Presidential Popularity
Type of document Essay
1 Page Double Spaced
Subject area Political Science
Academic Level High School
Style APA
References 1
Order description:
Throughout the semester you will be expected to participate in course blogs. You will post your responses to prompts and reply to other students’ posts. This forum is meant to provide you a venue for reflecting on course concepts, sharing your own examples of the concepts, and engaging in discussion with your fellow students.
Your analytical posts should be at least 2 paragraphs long and substantially targeted to address the central topic/theme of the blog. In your posts, you should use examples and citations to support your arguments. I strongly encourage you to make the posts lively and engaging. We want this to be fun for everyone to read. However, be mindful that your posts should be clearly written and detailed.
In addition to your own posts on the subject, it is expected that you will be writing responses to the posts from your classmates. You should regularly read and respond to this blog.
Grades for the blog will be assigned using the rubric attached to the blog. I strongly encourage you to review this rubric before starting the assignment.
It has been argued that Americans hold their fictional presidents (those represented in popular culture – movies, television shows, etc…) in higher regard than the actual men who occupy the White House. Indeed, Reuters conducted a poll during President Obama’s time in office that found fictional television presidents were more popular than he was: Read the story here. Of course President Trump has his own public approval ratings to consider. We don’t have a direct comparison for Trump to fictional characters, but you can track his presidential approval ratings by visiting the Gallup Polling site.
I suspect many of you are unfamiliar with the television show The West Wing, but it was a very popular political drama on NBC (1999-2006). You can watch an interview, from 2002, with The West Wing creator, Aaron Sorkin below. (You might be more familiar with his work as the head writer on the HBO show Newsroom.) As you watch the interview, pay attention to the qualities and attributes that he tried to impart on his fictional president (Josiah Bartlett).
Netflix created its first original programming with the launch of a show entitled House of Cards. The shows main character (Frank Underwood) manipulates every situation and person to achieve power and his political ends. It is a very unvarnished and unflattering look at American politics. While it is fictional, it attempted to frame the show by using current policy debates and proxies for real people. For example, Season #3 has a driven Russian premiere whose attitude and presence invokes thoughts of Putin and the Kremlin. If you are unfamiliar with the show, you can watch the following trailers for each of the first three seasons, but be warned that doing so probably gives away some of the plot and drama. There are expected to be five seasons in total.
House of Cards – Season 1 – Official Trailer – Netflix [HD] – (Time: 2:29; closed caption available)
House of Cards – Season 2 Trailer #2 (Time: 2:22; closed caption available)
House of Cards – Season 3 Trailer (Time: 0:46; closed caption available)
In the end, it is worth considering the overall popularity of American presidents. More specifically, what is it that we, as Americans, are looking for in our president?
The Gallup Polling Organization has been tracking (weekly) presidential approval ratings since Truman. If you follow this link, you will be able to interactively look at the rise and fall of presidential approvals and compare Trump with others who have held that office. (Of course President Trump’s final ratings will have to wait until his time in office is over.) Notice that the general trend line for presidents is to see their approval ratings decline while they serve. Alternatively, you can also see this trend line by playing with the data at the University of California’s American Presidency Project website.
I’ve given you a couple of presidents from pop culture to consider as models under which the public evaluates their real president and I encourage you to consider the qualities that these characters possess that make them popular. Do we expect to have these same qualities in our current leader? Is this realistic? What advantages do fictional presidents have over the real ones?
As you create your blog entry, highlight a fictional president (television, movies, books, etc…):
Describe their personality and politics.
Are they popular in the context of their own drama?
What do you think public perception of them is? In other words, is this fictional character popular with the audience who is watching the show?
