Why Oprah should never be President
OPRAH Winfrey might have given a rousing speech at the Golden Globes, but that doesn’t qualify her for the highest office in the US, writes Tory Shepherd.
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THE idea of a black woman turfing the Orange Narcissist from the Oval Office is rather enchanting.
It’s also a dire indication of just how low leadership expectations have fallen, and the triumph of the momentary over the momentous.
Oprah Winfrey — actor, talk-show host, billionaire philanthropist — lit up the commentary channels with her Golden Globes speech. She was named the first black female winner of the Cecil B. DeMille Award, a hall of fame-type prize, and she seized the day to deliver one helluva speech about a brighter future.
“When that new day finally dawns it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure they become leaders that take us to the time where nobody has to say ‘me too’ again,” she intoned.
Her delivery was warm, passionate, empowering. She was mainlining the Zeitgeist, the upswell of women calling out abusive men. Of brutally powerful men, she said: “Their time is up. Their time is UP. Their time is up.”
The crowd had already been roused into standing before her, misty eyed. The camera panned from enraptured female face to enraptured female face.
Winfrey chalked out her own Cinderella, rags-to-riches path. She hailed the women who have spoken out and the men who have heard them. She even buttered up the journalists, which is never a dumb idea for someone aspiring to higher heights.
“I value the press more than ever before,” she said.
And so it began, the unofficial campaign for Oprah Winfrey to run for the United States Presidency in 2020.
Because she gave a good speech.
OK, there have been rumblings before. She entered the political zone by endorsing Barack Obama and friends of hers have thrown her name out a couple of times. The speech just hustled things along so swiftly that all of a sudden President Oprah Winfrey became a pollable possibility.
She has the celebrity status. The like-ability. Unlike sitting President Donald Trump she would never say she is “like, really smart”, but she actually is. She has proven business nous and genuine compassion for the downtrodden.
She gives tonnes of cash to charity and once gave a car to everyone at her immensely popular television show.
None of which makes her presidential material. Winfrey’s fairytale trip from poverty to immense riches may be inspiring but it’s not a welfare policy. Neither is charity.
Still, with a raft of good advisers (and the good sense to listen to them), the policy can come later.
The bigger problem is her similarity to Mr Trump. She believes in snake oil remedies and is willing to foist them on people.
For Mr Trump, it was the wall to keep out the Mexicans and his ill-conceived travel bans were going to protect against terrorism. Oh, and his very big nuclear button to Trump North Korea.
Winfrey’s history is also speckled with fantastical promises. Take her promotion of The Secret, a delirious idea that you can make things happen just by thinking them. She has entertained all sorts of woo woo over years on her show from anti-vaccination to magical skincare techniques. She promotes them via the “Oprah effect” — everything she touches earns gold.
One of the key offsiders on her show (Dr Oz) has talked up Reiki (a bunkum belief about hands-off healing), homeopathy (basically using very expensive water or alcohol as a purported cure), and flirted with talking to the dead.
Even her current catchphrase — “Speak Your Truth” — has the nonsensical whiff of utter mumbo jumbo about it.
People have referred to her as the most powerful woman in the world, as a “spiritual leader” and a “priestess”.
At the Golden Globes women swooned before her, looking as though they were about to start speaking in tongues or bending in prayer.
#Oprah2020 had begun.
Some pundits believe that if she makes it through the gruelling hell of an election campaign, she might just win and end up with access to that old nuclear “button”.
She’d need more than The Secret to be a good President, though.
The US, like the rest of us, needs ideas more than rhetoric.
We need leaders who are true problem-solvers and work as unifying forces. Judgment, integrity, and some wiliness. Not just the ability to give a good speech and sell shedloads of books.
There is an upside to being a non-career politician but there has to be some serious substance there.
It’s tempting to say, hey, Winfrey trumps Trump. She may even be a stable genius.
But if the best we can hope for in the leader of the free world is a billionaire celebrity talk-show host who specialises in trite inspirational quotes and dodgy pseudoscience, we really have sunk low.
Tory Shepherd is the state editor of the Adelaide Advertiser.
Originally published as Why Oprah should never be President