When sizing up President Obama with his Republican contender, I’ve compared their backgrounds, experience, and ideologies. Liberal/Conservative; private sector/public sector; Republican/Democrat. But have we thought about Romney and Obama’s leadership from a biological point of view? No, not Black/White. Alpha/Beta. Like a Boss, written by National Review editor Kevin D. Williamson, makes this case.
New Plateaus is not a political blog. It is a place to learn something fresh, to see the world or a particular issue in a novel way. Politics is not excluded, and today is such an example.
I guess it’s been the jeering toward Mitt for being out of touch, for being awkward on the mic, for being a Mormon, and for being rich that’s taken all the attention. And as a nice way to cap off our discussion of the rich, we’ll stick with it for one more paragraph, because Mitt, himself, provides a brackish twist:
Last week I wrote about differentiating the rich between those who are so because they’ve provided a service to many and increased the wealth pie for all vs. those headline-grabbing handful of rich who’ve gotten that way by exploiting others. This latter has been the light in which Anti-Romnians have caste the candidate. His defenders, though, point out the productive services his company, Bain Capital, has provided. I guess there’s an inevitable graying between the exploitative and productive. And we’ve found a representative in the Republican candidate.
Moving on, and regardless, the article in the National Review thinks Mitt should flex his wealth like the Alpha male he is.
Here’s an excerpt:
“You want off-the-charts status? Check out the curriculum vitae of one Willard M. Romney: $200 million in the bank (and a hell of a lot more if he didn’t give so much away), apex alpha executive, CEO, chairman of the board, governor, bishop, boss of everything he’s ever touched. Son of the same, father of more. It is a curious scientific fact (explained in evolutionary biology by the Trivers-Willard hypothesis — Willard, notice) that high-status animals tend to have more male offspring than female offspring, which holds true across many species, from red deer to mink to Homo sap. The offspring of rich families are statistically biased in favor of sons — the children of the general population are 51 percent male and 49 percent female, but the children of the Forbes billionaire list are 60 percent male. Have a gander at that Romney family picture: five sons, zero daughters. Romney has 18 grandchildren, and they exceed a 2:1 ratio of grandsons to granddaughters (13:5). When they go to church at their summer-vacation home, the Romney clan makes up a third of the congregation. He is basically a tribal chieftain.
Professor Obama? Two daughters. May as well give the guy a cardigan. And fallopian tubes.”
Rhetoric aside, the points are intriguing. Do you buy them? Does Romney being a supposed Alpha male influence your vote? Williamson at the National Review thinks it will, adding that elections aren’t really about policy or the economy, but about us voters looking for a chief for our tribe. And as a counterpoint to conventional wisdom, states that Americans really do like rich people.
This article stresses biology and wealth–and how Romney is the better of Obama because of each. Here it is in full, though there is a paywall currently up for it: Like a Boss
I know this is controversial stuff, but I did find it opening up new corners of thought. I hope you can agree. 🙂
to new plateaus,
-Brandon
I think it’s an interesting theory, but it would also be risky to put too much weight in it. There are far too many factors affecting what gender a baby becomes.
As a result, this cannot be taken as an indication of the status of a person. After all, Bush Jr, McCain, Cheney, and Clinton all had daughters.
However, I do think that the author’s conclusions about Barack Obama are flawed even if this theory is true. Yes, Mitt Romney has only sons and Barack only has daughters. However, Mitt was born into power – and Barack has only achieved it only in the last couple of years – after his daughters were born. So it’s silly to act as though Barack isn’t as manly as Mitt based on this theory – as Barack wasn’t “high status” then.