Chelsea Clinton campaigned for her mother, Senator Hillary Clinton, with this tag: “I want her for my president!”
To this, I reply with a simple, onomotopaeic cry: Eeeeuwwww!!! Having suffered nearly eight years of Republican misrule under GW Bush, I cringe at the notion of a “personal president.” Chelsea’s creepy locution echoed dangerously close to the evangelical notion of a “personal savior.” But maybe Chelsea’s tic is yet another Protestant conceit. Hyper-individualistic Protestants own their Jesus. He’s an individual, i.e. “mine.” By extension, the next highest-ranking authority figure, the President, similarly becomes “mine.”
Having been raised Catholic, the concept of personal possession of Jesus, much less the U.S. President, seems alien, if not outright weird. In Catholicism, neither God, nor his Son, nor the Son’s Mother, Mary, were claimed as “mine.” They were “ours.” Or, the world’s. Or, belonging to and creatures of and belonging ever after, to eternity, if you will.
So, in keeping with my lapsed Catholic theology, the President of the U.S. is simply “the” President.” Or, at worst, “our” president. I would never claim him (or her) as mine. Even Obama! How on earth does one assign a personal, possessive pronoun to an institution? The Executive Branch? It’s not “mine.” It’s ours. As in, the People’s.
