JD Vance, Donald Trump’s newly chosen running mate to be his vice president if elected, is breaking a long tradition. Not by his national populism or his past as a successful essayist, but by another, much less political (although) aspect: his facial hair.
The Ohio senator is in fact the first bearded candidate on a presidential ticket since 1916. That year, the Republicans Charles Evans Hugues et Charles W. Fairbanks bowed to Woodrow Wilson, who was re-elected president that year for a second term. Even if we settle for a moustache, we only go back to 1948 and the candidate Thomas E. Deweyalso a Republican, also defeated (by Harry Truman). And taking only the vice-presidential candidates, the last one is called Charles Curtis in 1932: another losing Republican, while running for re-election alongside Herbert Hoover.
Ironically, Donald Trump hates beards. He has already publicly ordered his son to shave his. His dislike is such that American journalists have seriously wondered whether JD Vance’s body hair would disqualify him from a place on the Republican Party’s presidential ticket. These two men, who were still insulting each other in 2016really had nothing to be running mates with.
The 45e The President of the United States, however, seems to have come to terms with it. Donald Trump recently complimented JD Vance’s beard, which supposedly makes him look like a “young Abraham Lincoln”James David Vance, not content with being the first millennial to run for such a position, is thus breaking a long line of clean-shaven presidential candidates.
A trend started by Abraham Lincoln
The trend is old, but not original. At the turn of the 19th centurye century, the Founding Fathers of the United States sported clean-shaven jaws. According to the historian specializing in male body hair Christopher R. Oldstone-Moorethe beard does not coexist well with the powdered wigs of the Washington era.
Aside from the sideburns of John Quincy Adams (president between 1825 and 1829) and Martin Van Buren (1837-1841), the first American president to assert his facial hair was Abraham Lincoln. The story is well known: he let it grow on the advice of an 11-year-old girl, according to whom “All ladies love moustaches and will tease their husbands to vote for them”.
Abraham Lincoln’s pioneering beard is immortalized on the memorial statue in his honor in Washington DC | Ed Fr via Unsplash
“Abe,” president throughout the Civil War from 1861 until his assassination in 1865, unwittingly started a fashion. After him, nine of the next eleven presidents would wear beards or moustaches. A trend that, coincidentally or not, turns out to be more Republican than Democratic, although the Grand Old Party has changed a lot since then. But it was short-lived. At the beginning of the 20th centurye century, rumors emerged about the propensity of beards to transmit diseases. The razor became popular again.
Far from being trivial, the issue of facial hair is not just a matter of hygiene or personal preference. Thomas E. Dewey, the last presidential candidate to sport a moustache in 1948, faces “critics who compare it to the little figurine of the groom on the wedding cake. And the argument is quite decisive.”note Joel K. Goldsteinprofessor emeritus of law at Saint Louis University (Missouri).
Appearance has always played a role in politics. It’s no surprise, then, that JD Vance’s beard has been the subject of so much discussion. “Look at the debates between John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Richard Nixon (during the 1960 presidential campaign, editor’s note), adds Joel K. Goldstein. Viewers thought John F. Kennedy had won, while radio listeners believed Richard Nixon had won.
Then there is the lure of novelty. “It’s like when you look at all these presidents photographed in black and white and suddenly color comes in around 1953.points out the emeritus professor of law. Or when all the vice presidents are men and suddenly Kamala Harris appears. It makes a difference and it leaves a mark.”
JD Vance may not have realized it, having never spoken out on the subject. But he is a testament to the new popularity of facial hair. His beard could mark a return to the century-old fashion of bearded senior politicians. A way of asserting a rougher masculinity, which fits rather well with the semi-authoritarian agenda of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
Source: www.slate.fr
