How Did Bernie Sanders Turn Grumpiness Into Charm?

[flamingdem]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/how-did-bernie-sanders-turn-grump-into-charm.html?mid=twitter-share-di

Before Bernie Sanders was known as the Democrats’ favorite grumpy grandpa — before Larry David lovingly mocked him in Saturday Night Live sketches, and before he became the hero of a thousand viral internet memes — he was known for being just, well, a grump. "Bernie was an asshole," a nameless Democrat who worked with Sanders on one of his campaigns told a Vermont alt-weekly last year, backing up the comments of other (mostly nameless) former employees who found him impossible. "Just unnecessarily an asshole." It wasn’t just staffers either. Sanders’s curmudgeonly ways extended to constituents — "Excuse me, shut up! You don't have the microphone," he shouted at activists protesting against Israel during a town hall in 2014 — and maybe most notoriously the press, which he’s been lecturing and cajoling throughout his political career.

Weirdly, the cranky-old-man persona has become one of his great assets in the 2016 race. It’s almost never talked about, thanks in part to his repeated insistence that the press focus on issues and not fluffy personality politics, but in the course of his run for president, Sanders has emerged as far more gifted at the politics of personal charm than the popular image of him as a cantankerous crank suggests. He’s shown a real pleasure for campaigning that’s obvious to anyone, managed to turn a career of stubborn commitment to his chosen policy issues into a convincing argument for the sincerity of his convictions, and learned to benefit from the caustic-septuagenarian caricature of himself. His charmless charm has become an unseen benefit over Clinton, who has worked (against immense sexism, among other things) for more than two decades to establish herself as the leader of the Democratic Party. Bernie, who’s never worried too much about getting people to like him, now has slightly higher favorability ratings and much lower unfavorability ratings than she does.

“It’s the rooms that move me, that energize me,” Sanders told The Guardian earlier this month, explaining how he’d come to enjoy the campaign grind and believe that he was onto something with voters. “I am really moved by it.” But it wasn’t really until the Democratic forum hosted by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last November that Sanders started to show that he could turn his reputation for self-seriousness into an endearing in-joke. Maddow, with apologies, told Sanders to pick from a stack of cards containing less-than-serious questions for the candidates. Sanders has a well-earned reputation of cutting off or interrupting reporters he finds unserious — he told a New York Times interviewer who asked him last year about the gendered coverage of Hillary Clinton, “I don’t mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, okay? Do you have serious questions?”

But instead of hectoring Maddow for the frivolity of the exercise, Bernie turned up the charm, mock-anticipating the questions he was going to be asked: “How many pairs of underwear do I own?” he guessed, referencing David’s SNL impersonation of him. “Am I really Larry David?” As the crowd responded to nearly everything with huge laughs, Sanders visibly softened a little. “Do you curse?” Maddow asked him, to which Sanders gestured at her like he was about to give her the best profanity-laced Brooklyn-tough-guy routine he had. “Not on this show!” he said. When asked what the biggest misconception was about him, he said, “People think I am grumpy. People think I am too serious.” He was deadpanning, and the audience was laughing along with him, but then he turned it into a moment that, with another politician, might have sounded canned: “I think what people don’t see is that I have seven beautiful grandchildren which are the joy of my life.” It was just about the least Bernie Sanders-ish thing he could have possibly said.

[MADem]

1. I don't find him charming. I find him irritating, and annoying, and negative.

But I'll admit, he isn't my first pick.

I'll bet that colors my perspective to no small degree.

He comes across like a crabby middle school principal lecturing naughty students for running in the halls, or something.

But what I do find GOOD about his candidacy is that he's helping to break the "tyranny of appearance" mold. We need to get away from the Dark Suit/Red Tie/Expensive Haircut/Capped Teeth/Spray Tan candidates we've had down the years. Personally, I'd like to see a woman running the country for a change, but at least Sanders has made a somewhat different view "acceptable" on TV.

[Cleita]

2. I always found him charming, but I had listened to him every Friday

on The Thom Hartmann show for over ten years. Most people only saw him in minute interviews on MSM about hot button issues.

[auntpurl]

3. I do not find him charming.

On the other hand, I think Hillary is wonderful.

Thank goodness we all have the opportunity to vote for our chosen candidate.

[Snotcicles]

4. lol.nt

[Mister Ed]

5. My teenaged daughter says, "He's the grandpa you wish you had".

She's a passionate Sanders supporter, and caucused for him last night.

[Rebkeh]

6. Easy. It's about sincerity

It's not grumpiness, really. Sincere people being authentic is charming, even if it comes across as grumpiness. Sincerity makes it charming.

On the other hand, insincere people trying to be charming, are decidedly not charming at all.

[flamingdem]

7. Bernie makes Fake out of fashion

People will have to figure out how to be sincerely sincere now.