I know I pimp heavily the work of James David Barber's Presidential Character, and I've already made my analysis of Joe Biden's traits heading into the 2020 general election.
But I wanna confirm my reading of Biden's habits and potential performance as President, so I went looking for research from other observers. It's always good for the soul to find out other people see the same things you see...
Anywho, here's some links to what I found that matches my conclusion of Biden being Passive-Positive.
From "The Political Personality of Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden," by Aubrey Immelman in a working paper for College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University via Digital Commons:
The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Biden’s primary personality pattern was found to be Outgoing/gregarious, complemented by a secondary Accommodating/cooperative pattern and subsidiary Ambitious/confident features.
The prominence of the Outgoing pattern, in conjunction with a distinctive Accommodating pattern in his overall personality configuration, is indicative of the conciliatory extravert subtype. This personality composite provides the personological substrate for a strong affiliation motive. These individuals are driven to seek approval; they want others to like them and view them as a friend or ally. To achieve that motivational goal, they often compliment, praise, or flatter others, presenting an image of goodwill. When disagreements occur, they attempt to smooth things over, sometimes at the cost of conceding.
Leaders with Biden’s personality profile are likely to exhibit an interpersonal leadership style, characterized by flexibility, compromise, and an emphasis on teamwork. The general tenor of a Biden presidency likely will be conciliatory, which could render a prospective President Biden vulnerable to manipulation by pressure groups and handicap him in negotiations or conflicts with foreign adversaries...
In terms of presidential temperament, Joe Biden seems most similar to Barber’s (1972/1992) passive–positive presidential character — leaders such as William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, and Ronald Reagan, characterized by an ingratiating personality, optimism, and a desire to please. These affiliation-motivated presidents are low on the need for power and do not invest much energy in the office of the presidency but nonetheless like the job...
Here's something from a source I normally don't quote from (the American Conservative) in a June 2020 article by Robert W. Merry:
...but Biden’s ability to work with senatorial colleagues was a hallmark of his image over the decades of his congressional tenure. The highly regarded Congressional Quarterly book of political profiles, Politics in America, praised Biden for his ability to work with North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms when Helms was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and Biden was its ranking member. Said the book: “Biden’s ability to maintain lines of communication with all groups often has made him, rather than Helms, the key vote on Foreign Relations.”
This can be viewed as evidence of a Positive trait, based on the Barber scale. Even after 30 years in the Senate, said Politics in America, “he still exhibits the intelligence, drive and passion of his youth.” The key word here, in terms of presidential character, is “passion.” Positives demonstrate a zest for the job and an openness to people, even those in the opposition who represent impediments to success that must be dealt with through persuasion, cajolery, back-slapping, and old-fashioned horse-trading. Positives love that game; so does Biden.
On the Active/Passive scale, Biden seems to tilt toward passivity... Thus does it appear that Biden represents a likely Passive/Positive president. Recall, Barber sees presidents in this category as wanting to be loved and thus ingratiating—and easily manipulated. That indeed is one of the knocks on Biden by conservatives—that he is being manipulated in his campaign, and would continue to be as president, by his party’s emergent leftist radicals...
Merry might need to recognize that the fears of Biden being manipulated by the Far Left Progressives is mirrored by the Progressives' fear that Biden will be manipulated by the Moderates and Centrists that Merry would view as advocates to his issues. Ah well, can't please everyone.
P.S. Merry, I can explain to you why Barber graded Reagan as a Passive-Positive, drop me a message we'll talk aboot it.
To round out to a nice third entry, here's an Atlantic article from Franklin Foer about Biden's campaign struggles and rebounds:
In the face of upheaval, he’s given reason to hope that the traits that were his supposed weaknesses could prove to be his great strengths. If one of the ultimate purposes of protest is to push politicians, he’s shown himself a politician willing to be pushed. His tendency to channel the zeitgeist has supplied him with the potential to meet a very difficult moment...
More than other figures in the Democratic Party, Biden can speak warmly about the protesters without risking political backlash. With his gaffes, which sometimes veer toward the politically incorrect, he’s hardly an easily caricatured avatar of wokeness. His penchant for cringeworthy remarks, and his old-time mannerisms, help cushion whatever anxiety some white voters might have about his tough criticisms of police and blunt condemnations of systemic racism...
The challenge for the Biden candidacy is to bridge an alliance with a resurgent left. Biden, a creature of the Senate, has to convince young people rushing to the barricades that he’s worth a trip to the polls. And the challenge for the left is to accept that Biden is its greatest chance of achieving its long-held dreams. What he’s demonstrated over the past week is a willingness to play the role of tribune, to let the moment carry him to a new place...
What Foer speaks to is the conciliatory nature of a Passive-Positive, a sizable amount of humility and self-deprecation (traits sometimes shared with Active-Positives) mixed with the awareness of the moment and the ability to attune to the needs of others (in this case, the needs of Americans both Left Center and Right battered by four years of trumpian abuse).
In terms of our nation's need for a Passive-Positive figure, in many respects this makes Biden the perfect antithesis to donald trump, a pure Active-Negative and thus polar opposite in nature to Biden's Congenial traits (referring back to Merry's article, even Merry notes the unhappy, grasping and raging traits of trump puts him squarely in the A-N chart).
This is where we are at: The choice is between a benevolent, congenial Biden and a rage-filled, destructive trump.
It shouldn't be that hard a choice, America. For the LOVE OF GOD, vote Biden.
1 comment:
Biden is a fundamentally decent human being, and smart enough to recognize the changes the issues he has dealt with for his whole career have gone through recently.
The ability to be swayed by good argument and evidence is as likely to get his signature on Elizabeth Warren's legislation as it is to compromise away some of it.
It's up to us to generate the pressure required to push him back the other way.
First it's up to us to get both of them in the position to pass said legislation.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
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