The Cowboy Image

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Terms such as “Political Cowboys” and “Cowboy diplomacy” are often used in news reports, and to a lesser extent academia to describe the antics of particular politicians or approaches to policy in the United States and sometimes even at an international level. The Cowboy image is inherently linked to American society. It permeates every aspect of it including politics and is propagated through multiple media platforms, including: Hollywood productions, the music industry, and various forms of literature and print media. But what is this cowboy image? How is it employed in the political arena? And what can the use of these cultural images tell us about American politics? The use of the cowboy image is championed by a populace that is immensely
But, it also speaks to the wider systematic polarization within the American political system. Political polarization in the United States is a result of cultural and geographical polarization. South V. North, Republican V. Democrat and is firmly rooted in regional history. The cowboy persona which some of these Presidents and politicians choose to adopt, is inherently linked to the physical geographical place from which they hail and the role that place has played in the unfolding of American history. It shapes the character of, (as of yet at least) “the man”, his administration and ultimately the policy of the country for at least four years. The image and persona adopted by these men is nurtured by the regional culture and history of the place that they reside and represent. It can be seen in every president from Kennedy to Reagan and Bush to Obama.
The image of the cowboy as Jennifer Moskowitz notes in her article “The Cultural Myth of the Cowboy, or, How the West was Won” is “uniquely
The Bush family was, and is an oil family which resides largely in Texas. Despite being born in the northeast, Bush Sr. in Massachusetts, and Bush Jr. in Connecticut, the family has much stronger ties to the southwest and the frontier states. This again can be seen in the persona that they champion. In his paper “Presidential Address George W. Bush’s Cowboy Politics: An Inquiry” Stanley A. Renshon explore George W. Bush’s psychological state of mind and presents a man who is intimately tied to his home and his country. President Bush followed, and strove to uphold, a great moral and ethical code in the form of the constitution, just as Moskowitz states the mythical cowboy does. Renshon describes President George W. Bush as fiercely independent, and “his own man”, again characteristics associated by Moskowitz with the chivalric and romanticized mythical cowboy. But President George W. Bush does not only portray the traits of the mythical cowboy, but also of the Texas

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