In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the titular tyrant is thrice offered the crown of Rome. Yet each time the crown was offered to him, “he put it by with the back of his hand, thus, and then the people fell a-shouting.”
Caesar at least had the circumspection to feign modesty. As the modern presidency grows in political power and cultural weight, it has acquired Caesarian pretenses. (That some people seem favorably disposed to this trend does not help.) And the crown of the presidency is being offered promiscuously — albeit provisionally, hypothetically, for now — these days. The latest would-be recipient: actor Matthew McConaughey. Asked recently about running in 2024, McConaughey said:
Yeah, I’ll consider it in the future, I’d be arrogant not to. Absolutely, I would consider it. . . . If I got into any form of politics, I’d be remiss not to also go in as an artist and a storyteller; help put a narrative together. You’re the CEO of a state and a nation, a lot of compartmentalization and choices to be made. They scare me but I’m not afraid of ’em.
It is, in fact, the height of arrogance here for McConaughey to believe that his consideration of this choice is not merely warranted, but demanded. He added, “If that happened to me, I would be pulled into it. If I’m living right, which I’m trying to, we get pulled into things . . . it’s inevitable. I didn’t choose it, it chose me.”
It sounds like, for McConaughey, a presidential run would be in his stars, not in himself. This is not true; the choice for him to do so would be his own. It is fair to say, however, that such a choice would be made amid the institutional decay and political centralization that, taken together, have convinced politicians (and politics-adjacent figures) that the presidency is the only political office worth holding. Modern media, responding to similar incentives and the additional one that a central political figure is a convenient focus and a reliable source of drama, encourage further civic debilitation. Now, any two-bit political attention seeker with an outsized ego and a circle of yes-men considers a run for president.
Modern presidential aspirants, moreover, tend to share a warped conception of politics. There is a sense of the presidency as a powerful, totemic office, alone capable of such miraculous feats as uniting a divided country and healing a tortured national soul. But the very grandiosity inherent in such a presumption serves only to magnify national division. The consequence of high aspirations is low results; disappointment curdles into resentment, and bitterness at the obstacle that remains in the form of those who, rationally exercising their political rights, do not go along. Everyone is made worse off.
The republic faces many headwinds, though we should still believe it salvagable. It is discouraging enough to see what has become of the presidency. But to think also of the potential power of celebrity to wash over what remains of our political institutions is to despair. That McConaughey thinks of himself as a viable presidential contender exemplifies both injurious trends. He could do the nation a favor by ceasing any such pretensions.
It is not likely that, in the unlikely (though not impossible) event that McConaughey became president, he would become some kind of Caesar. But the civic attrition he would invite by even launching a campaign would render America just a little more susceptible to further political decay. At the end of such a trajectory, a real Caesar might be there waiting for us. And that would not be alright, alright, alright.