Why the right can’t handle charismatic liberals

Explaining the Right is a weekly series that looks at what the right wing is currently obsessing over, how it influences politics—and why you need to know.

The Democratic Party has too many candidates and elected officials with charisma, and this is a big problem for the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

Over the past week, the right took to Fox News to discuss the love life of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York progressive. After a report that she had separated from her fiancé, the congresswoman was asked by a TMZ reporter if she would date a Republican. 

“I think a lot of politics sometimes, at least for me, is about values, and being aligned in values I think is tremendously important,” she explained.

This relatively anodyne response got Fox News host Julie Banderas hot under the collar, and she told her fellow panelists on the network’s “The Five” program, “Girl, no conservative would want to date you.”

That’s a weird statement to make about one of the most well-known political figures in America, who has appeared on the cover of publications like Vanity Fair and GQ, and is seen as a top prospect to be her party’s presidential nominee in 2028.

A few weeks before Banderas’ comment, her own Fox colleague Laura Ingraham was grousing that Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, also a rumored 2028 prospect for Democrats, purportedly wore “bronzer” and “rouge” as he assailed President Donald Trump for corruption. Fox has also voiced displeasure with telegenic Democrats like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Ingraham herself was recently very upset by Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s tight shirt.

“He seems like he’s always in the gym,” Ingraham said about El-Sayed. “He’s a good-looking guy, but it always feels like an act.”

This isn’t a new thing.

When Barack Obama was president and candidate for office, a major part of his appeal was the glamour associated with his youthful appearance, handsomeness, and the vitality of his family. In 2014, upset about all this, some on the right complained that Obama wore “mom jeans,” which the president joked about in a radio interview that year, noting, “I’ve been unfairly maligned about my jeans.”

Obviously, Obama’s jeans were no match for former President Ronald Reagan’s infamous sweatpants.

Back in 2022, right-wing outlets like Trump ally Steve Bannon’s podcast were lamenting the “look of strength” of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s trademark aviator sunglasses.

In the context of the right needing to line up behind Trump, it may shed some light on why they have to pretend obviously charismatic and telegenic Democrats are not just that. 

Trump is falling apart before the eyes of the world and is best known for wearing too-long red neckties and weirdly fitting suits. At times, his skin coloring seems to be otherworldly. Yet conservatives argue that Trump gives off an alpha “daddy” energy. 

And when they’re not cleaning up Trump’s image, they must contend with the weak energy of figures like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or his father, former President George H. W. Bush, who went into a negative charisma space when he threw up on Japanese leaders.

Even when the right has seemed to capture charismatic lightning in a bottle, like George W. Bush’s appearance in a flight suit to declare “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, the moment was undone by the foreign policy disaster that still reverberates to this day.

Conservatives prefer it when Democrats stick within the confines of right-wing caricature of the party. That means figures like 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, who was extremely awkward on the campaign trail, or his spiritual ancestor Michael Dukakis, another Democratic presidential nominee, who took an ill-fated tank ride during the 1988 electoral cycle.

However, historically speaking, a charismatic conservative figure like Reagan has been much less the norm than the Democratic alternative.

In addition to a cover model like Obama, former President Bill Clinton defined “cool” for many in the 1990s, playing saxophone on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned pantsuits into something of a fashion item during her time in the public eye.

Further back in time, then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt was named to the Merchant Tailor’s Association list of well-dressed men in 1937, and there are few people at any level of fame that achieved the level of style icon like former President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jaqueline Kennedy at the height of their influence in the 1960s.

Republicans have to pretend that the appeal of Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, Ossoff, Obama, and others is false, that they have no real support. After all, these are the same people who are stuck defending Trump now and, possibly in 2028, may have to argue in defense of Vice President JD Vance, who cannot order donuts without seeming like a man forever burdened with weirdness.