Pure Charm

Less a short story, more a quasi-opinion piece on American electioneering, Donald Barthelme’s “The President” begins with a dry note of reluctant timidity. ‘I am not altogether sympathetic to the new President,’ confides the narrator. ‘He is, certainly, a strange fellow (only forty-eight inches high at the shoulder).’ His girlfriend disagrees: eight sentences later she enthusiastically explains that although the president is a ‘strange fellow, all right. He has some magic charisma’. The president has a certain air, an attractive presence, which slowly begins to release the narrator from the strictures of his timid doubts.

 

This story satirises the American political game of competing for the presidency, chiefly focusing on the multiple media tactics used to propel individuals/candidates to superhuman heights. Originally appearing in Barthelme’s second collection Unspeakable Practices, Unspeakable Heights (1968), the story’s humorous treatment of such politically charged subject matter remains strikingly relevant today.

 

Barthelme satirises the design of political rhetoric, its mission to sway and convert audiences. The unnamed president’s political speeches, for example, are so well-delivered that they make supporters faint. In an Italian restaurant, the narrator exhibits his new-born enthusiasm for the president’s campaign, raising a glass of ‘warm red wine’, passionately cheering across the table to his girlfriend: ‘The President!’ His utterance creates a disturbance: a waiter swoons behind them. ‘Other waiters carried [him] out into the kitchen.’ Then, at a rally, the narrator notices a lady in front holding a baby. ‘I tapped her on the shoulder. “Madam,” I said, “your child has I believe fainted.”’ The melodrama of Barthelme’s absurd scenarios raise presidential electioneering to a new level – a politically thickened world where even babies sway and soon to the chimes of political campaigning, as they too fashion into ready-made supporters.  

 

In reality, the president’s speeches are dead air relying on a collection of carefully used confidence tricks. For those able to stay awake, the speeches turn out to be utterly meaningless. ‘When he finished speaking I [could] never remember what he has said,’ the narrator admits. He knows deep-down that the president’s political language over-relies on flash-words, mixed with the pure charm of behavioural techniques. On television, the president ‘stares directly into the camera (an actor’s pre-empting gaze) and begins to speak. One hears only cadences’. The president’s words are hollow, a mere collection of vacuous terminology. He draws on the same resources of a film actor, his ‘pre-empting gaze’ being only a performative gesture, exhibiting the crucial role his masked charisma plays – the construction of so-named ‘cadences’, the rhythms of a man set on winning.

 

But the president’s performance works. In the end, the narrator experiences a change of heart and becomes a committed supporter. Following his media appearances, the president transforms from an admittedly ‘strange fellow’ to a monumental political figure – ‘loved and looked up to, a mode of hope for millions’. The narrator has become convinced of the president’s personal capabilities, expecting ‘great things of him’. At a town hall both Sylvia and the narrator attend a program. ‘We applauded until our arms hurt. We shouted until the ushers set off flares enforcing silence.’ The media devices have done their job; the trick of the president’s many representations of himself have altered our narrator’s loyalty.

 

This story offers a perceptive gaze into how representations in the media (i.e., television, advertisements, public events) set to reconfigure our sense of reality. It is a warning sign -- a note of danger -- to its readers, imploring them to practice healthy scepticism toward media giants and their teams, their mechanisms in the public sphere. A warning sign which is all too relevant in today’s media-flooded world.

 

Exposing media charm. Donald Barthelme, 1964 © Time