Clint Eastwood has the Midas touch when it comes to acting and directing. Whatever project he touches seems to turn into gold. Eastwood has four Oscars in his trophy cabinet, including a Best Actor and Best Director award for the 2005 film Million Dollar Baby. However, Eastwood probably will not win any hardware from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his performance at the 2012 Republican National Convention.
The critically acclaimed actor, who is a staunch conservative, delivered a rambling 11 minute speech which did not seem to have a defined structure. In addition, Eastwood included an impromptu and imaginative dialogue with an invisible President Obama. Eastwood posed questions and gestured awkwardly at a chair beside his podium which represented the President. His delivery during these dialogues seemed forced and unnatural and thus made the great actor appear foolish.
One of those occasions was his introductory question to the President. While the question itself was not confusing, Eastwood’s delivery was rather rough. “So, Mr. President, how do you handle promises that you have made when you were running for election, and how do you handle them,” Eastwood said. “I mean, what do you say to people? Do you just — you know– I
know — people were wondering — you don’t — handle that OK.”
Even though the delivery of this comical device was rough, it still accomplished its goals of showing the faults in the Obama Presidency. In addition, the underlying message of the dialog displays the clever nature of Eastwood as an actor.
“I think it was cathartic for a number of Republicans,” Assistant Professor of Political Science Kyle Kopko said. “What was damaging was the rambling nature of the speech, not necessarily that there was an empty chair. Eastwood’s speech was clearly over-the-top in some regards. Obama is perceived as a rather “cool and calm” president, so that type of rhetoric was likely more in the vein of satire.”
More Importantly, Eastwood reminded common Americans about their role in governmental procedures. Many individuals often see the political sphere as out of their control. Others perceive it as a corrupt forum in which politicians take advantage of common citizens. However, Eastwood reminded voters that they have the power to transcend their government.
“The gist of his comments was this: the people of America own this country, politicians work for us, and when someone does not do their job, you have to let them go,” Jason Halberstadt said. “I don’t think anybody would disagree with that.”
Eastwood also questioned the motivations of the Obama administration to remedy the economic crisis. He insinuated that the Democratic Party does not have the motivation to amend this problem.
“There are 23 million unemployed people in this country,” Eastwood said. “Now that is something to cry for because that is disgrace, a national disgrace, and we haven’t done enough, obviously — this administration hasn’t done enough to cure that. Whenever interest they have is not strong enough.”
What Eastwood fails to address is that this economic climate was forged during the eight year tenure of the Bush administration. In essences, the Obama administration is still picking up the pieces. Focusing on small businesses and fortifying the platform of the middle class to bridge the wealth inequality gap seems like a step in the right direction.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would return the ideology of the trickledown economic system to this country. In such a system, the wealth of our nation would move from business owners at the top rung of our society down to middle class citizens. This is dependent up the ability of those businessmen to have the freedom to build their corporations. Measures to ensure this may include lowering taxes on the wealthy. That method was ineffective during the Regan administration. Furthermore, the middle class cannot sustain a large tax burden under this type of plan, especially with the prevalence of wealth inequality in American today.
