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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Or people just find humanizing moments in leaders and their spouses very endearing.
Here, I'll give you an example with Trump (probably the only example I have). There was one interview where he was asked about his youngest son, Barron, and his response was talking about how great he was with computers and technology, but in the typical boomer way of saying all the wrong terms with the wrong grammar. That's stayed with me all this time, he seemed very genuinely proud of him.
Biden has had plenty of these over his career. I like how he defends Hunter and doesn't see him as worse for having gone through a drug addiction. Leaked phone calls show it wasn't an act either -- he genuinely still loved and cared about his son.
And then you've got Obama, who was chock full of them. It's a big reason why he's so well-liked. He was very in tune with jokes about him and he played off of them. Remember the White House Correspondents Dinner where he said he was releasing his birth video to prove he was American, and then showed the beginning of Lion King?
Even Bush. He was listening to schoolchildren when he got the news about 9/11. He first finished what he was doing with the kids so they wouldn't be alarmed, and then he addressed the situation from an adjacent classroom. He made it a point to give those kids at least another hour or two of being able to be carefree kids, and I respect that.
That pretty much covers all of the ones in my lifetime that I've been old enough to pay attention to.
While I don't think your premise is correct, I appreciate the lengthy write up and the stories, it is possible the OP felt it was just an endearing story. I consume a lot of politcal media/news and not many people that are active politically (and not just vomiting left/right wing talking points from cnn/fox) think positively of this administration to the point it has become really doubtful for me that anyone can truly share positive info on Biden's family or the Biden admin unless it is to promote a politically motivated agenda. I think most people that still promote his admin fall into a few catagories: either they are very poorly informed/misinformed through watching bias media (cnn/msnbc, not to say right right wing media isn’t bias just doesn't apply here) with little to zero personal investigation or research, not politically involved/echo chamber because orange man bad and all conservatives are racist/bigots and want to strip women's rights, or attention seekers, the kind that only wish to be a victim or virtue signal. Sadly because people are so determined to form sides and be either team red or team blue, most people (especially young college age/indoctrinated youth) are very binary.
I think it's important to look at what causes the "conservatives evil" viewpoint. Consider the political exposure for someone under 30. In my lifetime, the only conservative administrations I've been able to observe are Bush and Trump. I saw McConnell apply a new standard to deny a Democrat president a SCOTUS pick, and then 4 years later watched him ignore that standard in an even more egregious situation. In just the last few years I've seen LGBT people be increasingly demonized solely by the right. I've seen conservatives outraged at trans healthcare that's recommended by medical/psychiatric experts. I've seen them outraged about basic vaccine science and wearing masks to stop the spread of disease. I've seen Trump baselessly claim his election loss was rigged, and incite an insurrection at our capital. I've seen abortion rights stripped away with absolutely no recourse. I've seen conservatives constantly harp on the national debt and deficit while a democrat was president, yet voted for tax cuts projected to add 1-2 trillion to the debt.
And perhaps the worst part, I've seen barely, if any, criticism of these actions by other conservatives -- especially conservative leadership. They tacitly approve of all this because it strengthens their power politically. How could I look at all this and not come out with a visceral distaste for Republican politicians?
Note that I said politicians though, and not voters. I grew up in a mid Missouri college town, which was a rich blend of conservative and liberal thinking in general, not just politically. I know there's value in conservative thinking -- in just the abstract, it provides a necessary balance to liberal thinking, and questions if changes are actually needed. Often times I believe they are needed, but it's an important mindset to consider.
All of this is why millennials and Zoomers have so heavily soured on the right. And the GOP still doesn't see it. They'd rather suppress the young vote and wonder why we don't see the brilliance in their ideas, instead of actually trying to understand the dislike.