Quit Infantilizing Politicians: It Helps No One

From Biden to Fetterman to Trump, we need to stop infantilizing them

I've been witnessing a troubling trend recently when we talk about certain politicians.

We've trended into the territory of infantilizing political figures on both sides, including Joe Biden, John Fetterman & Donald Trump. It's unnecessary.

In politics, we have our biases and we all want to validate our advocacies for supporting certain politicians. However, infantilizing politicians makes you willing to turn a blind eye to their faults or make excuses for the inexcusable.

We say things like "I feel bad for him" or "he's not treated fairly" but when you do this, you're removing their accountability from the situation at hand. These are people who are in positions of great power and they volunteered for this.

They don't need your empathy, they need your scrutiny. Making the most powerful man in the world into a victimized figure only emotionally benefits the person who is infantilizing them.

Joe Biden is increasingly senile by the day but do I feel bad for him? No. He was lucid enough to run for the presidency and so I will treat him with the same level of scrutiny as anyone else. I treat him with the same high standards as any other President.

When you infantilize Joe Biden, you're reducing your expectations of the role of president. You start saying his clear statements were "misspoken" to rationalize his failure to communicate properly. His "you ain't black" statement gets remixed into an ignorable quip.

Yet if it were any other president, we'd hold him accountable for every statement given. We wouldn't ignore his cognitive decline, he'd highlight it. We'd talk about his fitness for the presidency rather than looking at him as "poor uncle Joe". We lose when we do this.

John Fetterman, unfortunately, suffered a stroke and I don't wish what he's going through on anyone but that's where my empathy ends. Unfortunately, I believe many people voted for him because they feel sorry for him: don't.

He signed up to become a Senator and he has enough cognitive ability to want to debate during his campaign and stay within the race. He had an opportunity to drop out, yet he didn't. Stop saying people forced him to remain because that removes his accountability.

John Fetterman wanted to become a Senator before and after his stroke: it's obvious. You should not feel bad for him, instead hold him to account like anyone else. When he makes it to D.C., do not lend him an ounce of empathy because he wanted the power & it comes with scrutiny.

With great power comes great responsibility and Donald Trump is not immune from it either. Whether you believe he was treated unfairly by the media or by Democrats, guess what? He signed up for this.

Infantilizing him makes him a victim figure & I refuse to look at any president as a victimized figure. Every president is treated unfairly in some way because the job requires scrutiny. We do not live in a monarchy filled with supposed infallible royalty.

We select our leaders and they're supposed to work for us, not the other way around. They don't require our emotional pity, they require our staunch scrutiny. Trump is a big boy and if he's supposed to be our country's leader, unfairness comes with the territory.

Too many people talk about Trump like he's a tragic figure in history who had no say in his treatment and all of the criticisms came from nothing. That removes all accountability from any of his actions because you've reduced him to a victim.

The most powerful people in our country should not ever be viewed as children who just need our helping hand. They should not have consistent excuses made for things you wouldn’t excuse from your political rivals.

Infantilizing people weakens people, not strengthens. Becoming a political "Yes Man" may make you feel good but you're doing everyone else a disservice. Ignoring the faults of these people or withholding criticisms is only emotionally self-serving: nothing more.

If you want your candidate to be stronger, you criticize their weaknesses. You point out their flaws. If you like someone, you don't become their sycophant, you become their advocate for change. You see them for what they are and refuse to perpetuate the lie of flawlessness.

You cannot change what you don't acknowledge and if we can't acknowledge the flaws of our leaders, then we will continue with the partisan mediocrity that we're dealing with currently. We don't want a society with unaccountable leaders because that's not leadership; it's failure.

Expect more from them and stop treating them like children. We want adults guiding our country towards prosperity, not a re-enactment of Lord of the Flies where the children are in charge.

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