A focus on physical appearance has long been a part of the political dynamic. But it does feel like it has become obsessive
A couple of days ago my editor emailed a suggestion for a column about beards and politics. My initial thought was that it was a dumb idea.Maybe you are looking around for someone to blame for all the ink spilt, C02 emitted and tweets tweeted about Justin Trudeau’s South American adventurer’s beard. Well, it shouldn’t be him.
My own inconvenient truth grew in as slowly as a late-seeded crop in dry land in a Prairie drought. And in patches. My own son noted the “chin straps.” But I didn’t care as I was no longer a candidate for anything and hated shaving. Both of those things are still true. The fact is that what can be so very superficial about our analysis and discussion of politicians, conveyed by both gratuitous meanness and good intentions has been around as long as … well … politics.
As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affection if I were to begin it now?What the people might have thought, be damned. He took young Grace’s advice and no doubt that of others, and grew that most iconic of beards.There is the infamous exchange between Winston Churchill and Bessie Braddock, MP. Ms. Braddock had called out Churchill for being “disgustingly drunk.
A focus on a candidate’s physical appearance has long been very much a part of the political dynamic. I leave it to the reader to decide what if any of this might be in good fun and acceptable and what might be cheap and unacceptable. But it does feel like something about it has become almost obsessive. This is especially true for female candidates who are subjected to a scrutiny of the superficial that is an order of magnitude worse than the worst of the #TrudeausBeard tweets.
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