Comments on: What does an Obama victory mean?

By: Carlos Falces

Carlos Falces — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 13:15:50 +0000

A really interesting post, and a reminder of the way we deal with the facts about our leaders. And it suggests me that maybe partisans could be more sensible to situational explanations for presidential decisions and outcomes that are negative or not in line with their expectations, instead of change their oppnions about the president or their previous oppinions about the issue. That is, and atributional based strategy to deal with vicarous dissonance. But even more interesting, is the possible ocurrence of anticipatory vicarious dissonance. For example, if you are really connected to your leader, but you guess that some (as usual) or most (as sometimes happens) of her/his promises will not be acomplished, you could forewarn yourself (and others) that there are other causes beyond your leader responsability that will explain the possible bad outcomes for the group. In the extreme of this, would be the followers self-blaming for possible bad outcomes that usually would have been atributed to the leader.

By: Don Berg

Don Berg — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:29:12 +0000

Upon reading the headline I was hoping for a little more insight into the situational constraints that must surely be at work within the role of U.S. President, regardless of who is in the office and what party they are aligned with. I suspect that there are a variety of contextual pressures that arise from the momentum of institutional relationships in the organization of federal government that are far more powerful than the role of a president, the person occupying the office of the president, or the party arrangements that enable that person to assume that role.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

(It is my suspicion that such forces are at work tempering his actions that has me almost more excited about what Obama might be able to accomplish when he becomes an ex-president than what he is likely to accomplish in office. Given the record of ex-democratic presidents and a particular ex-vice president in recent years I cannot even imagine what Obama could accomplish.)