Politics & Power Quote by Gore Vidal

Vidal lands this like a sneer that doubles as a diagnosis: the presidency, once sold as stewardship, is being retooled as a role. The line’s bite comes from its casual certainty - “will be the rule” - as if the republic’s future has already been booked and broadcast. In Vidal’s worldview, that’s not prediction so much as indictment.

The Reagans are shorthand for a new political division of labor: Ronald, the genial performer with an actor’s timing; Nancy, the image manager and stage spouse; together, a brand. Vidal’s jab isn’t that Reagan lacked intelligence, but that television punishes complexity and rewards affect. “Perfect for television” sounds like praise until you hear the trapdoor: perfection is measured by telegenic calm, not competence, not moral seriousness, not governing results. The subtext is that the medium doesn’t merely report politics; it rewrites what politics is allowed to be.

Context matters. Vidal is writing out of the late 20th century’s accelerating media ecology: post-Nixon cynicism, the rise of professional consultants, the collapse of party machines into marketing operations, the nightly news as a national hearth. Reagan’s presidency crystallized the shift because he understood the camera as an instrument of power, capable of laundering conflict into reassuring narrative.

Vidal’s real target is voter complicity. “All a President has to be these days” points a finger at an electorate trained to confuse visibility with accountability. It’s an early warning about a culture where governance becomes content, and charisma becomes a substitute for proof.