US Politics: Sitting in Judgement

[Spockydog]

Yeah, and Trump did it so well that he is now odds-on favourite to get the job again.

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Just now, TrackerNeil said:

Haha, after Trump, I remember thinking, "Clearly, the nation can get by without a functional president. Maybe we should make it a part-time job?" 

Might not be the worst thing to split up the Presidential duties and have less of an "Ultimate Leader" role.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

I italicized that last part myself. Biden is an incumbent, and, all things being equal, a party is better off running an incumbent than a new candidate. Maybe Gretchen Whitmer or Andy Beshear would do better than Biden, but...well, citation needed.

I think that's a bit of an old way of thinking about things. Incumbents have advantages in name recognition, fund raising, political infrastructure, etc., but those are all things that are way easier to overcome these days. 

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

Oil rigger. Brain surgeon. Airline pilot. 

There's three I just pulled out of my ass.

None of those compare to what JFK went through during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is why I don't want someone Biden's age in office. The job is 16-20 hours a day, everyday, and some times you need to be up 48-72 hours at a time, maybe more. That's too much to ask of an elderly person. 

50 minutes ago, horangi said:

While I get the sentiment, that would eliminate not only all boomers, but all GenXrs, and decent bunch of older or just precocious Millennials from office.  Unless you are thinking of one of the hangers-on from Animal House, only like a third of the remainder that can vote would even meet the minimum age for President.

IMO the ideal age for elected officials is mid 30's to mid 50's. Everyone doesn't have to fall into that range, but the overwhelming majority should.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

35 minutes ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

It can't be that tough, Donald fucking Trump and G.W. Bush did it.  

They did it very poorly and we're all suffering for it. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

I mean, if you change the word Demanding to Important, you'll get no argument from me.

But let's be honest, having every single whim catered for, and being mollycoddled by the hundreds of people running around after you, is never going to be demanding. 

It's like when people talked about QEII when she died, as if she was this relentless worker, literally working her tits off until she dropped dead for the sake of the country.

Erm, no. 

 

The thing is all those people get time off, all the time. POTUS is 24/7; one is never not on duty.  Unless, as already pointed out, an unredeemable solipsist, sociopath, narcissist, psychopath, crook and rapist and traitor who has never done a day's work in his life already.

Which is another good reason POTUS cannot be for life or more than 8 years.  Not in these days of the globe so thoroughly connected.

 

Edited February 14 by Zorral

[Spockydog]

Pretty sure many of us have had jobs where you're always expected to be available. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to POTUS. 

So far, only Ty has offered up a reason why POTUS is extra demanding. The Cuban Missile Crisis. And, tbf, that's a pretty good one. 

Edited February 14 by Spockydog

[A Horse Named Stranger]

There's distinctively way too much bedwetting/doom and gloom going on in these US Politics threads.

There's still quite a bit of time until the GE. To put it in sufficiently offensive US speak. You could force a woman to bring a pregnancy to term before she has the chance to vote.

This will all be about turnout in a few swing states, with Swifties saving the day.

Dayum, DMC should have his full posting priviliges restored to tell you lot to calm the eff down.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

2 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Pretty sure many of us have had jobs where you're always expected to be available. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to POTUS. 

I've had extremely stressful jobs with odd and undefined hours that usually ran to 80 hour work weeks. My current job is more humane, but still filled with stressful and depressing content, sometimes involving suicide cases.

Yet at no point would I put any of my work stress anywhere near that of any world leader, as the decisions I make do not directly result in other people's deaths, potentially in the thousands or even millions with one wrong move. Or displacements, unemployment, unrest, you name it.

It's pointless arguing what is the most demanding job, but most reasonable will agree that it's extremely demanding, and extremely stressful, with extremely important consequences.

[Larry of the Lawn]

14 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

They did it very poorly and we're all suffering for it. 

Yeah, but it wasn't because the job was too difficult, it was because of how they used the power they had.  It was because Bush wanted any pretext to go to war, both wanted to cut taxes and cut regulations on corporations.  We'd be suffering more if Trump had a better relationship with GOP congressional leadership.  

Edited February 14 by Larry of the Lawn

[Zorral]

The job is difficult.  More than difficult. Which is why lazy, not-up-to-it people who hate the USA shouldn't be in the office.  Nor should people like you, for instance, who think it's a nothing job.

POTUS is not a figurehead job like monarchs are these days.  The late Queen may have believed she could never stop being queen but that was for the family institution of being figureheads.  They don't make the life-and-death decisions.  Or even economic ones -- except for those that might cut into their own obscene collectivity of wealth, then they work tirelessly at prevention.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

The job is difficult.  More than difficult. Which is why lazy, not-up-to-it people who hate the USA shouldn't be in the office.  Nor should people like you, for instance, who think it's a nothing job.

POTUS is not a figurehead job like monarchs are these days.  The late Queen may have believed she could never stop being queen but that was for the family institution of being figureheads.  They don't make the life-and-death decisions.  Or even economic ones -- except for those that might cut into their own obscene collectivity of wealth, then they work tirelessly at prevention.

I don't think it's "nothing" job.  The tough part isn't finding someone who can perform the functions of office, the tough part is finding someone in there with a shred of humanity.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Pretty sure many of us have had jobs where you're always expected to be available. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to POTUS. 

So far, only Ty has offered up a reason why POTUS is extra demanding. The Cuban Missile Crisis. And, tbf, that's a pretty good one. 

Needing to be available without the fate of the entire world hanging in the balance seems qualitatively different from needing to be available while the fate of the world hangs on the decisions you make.

As @Zorral said above… sociopaths are a different cup of tea as we saw from 2017-2021. 

[horangi]

24 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The job is difficult.  More than difficult. Which is why lazy, not-up-to-it people who hate the USA shouldn't be in the office.  Nor should people like you, for instance, who think it's a nothing job.

POTUS is not a figurehead job like monarchs are these days.  The late Queen may have believed she could never stop being queen but that was for the family institution of being figureheads.  They don't make the life-and-death decisions.  Or even economic ones -- except for those that might cut into their own obscene collectivity of wealth, then they work tirelessly at prevention.

Right! And its not just life-and-death decisions but daily Sophie's Choice decisions which you are going to be blamed for no-matter which way you go.  Folks with even a shred of human empathy are going to be heavily impacted.  Being a world leader means making decisions to kill people or let them die and make many more suffer.  Not just the bad'uns but also good people, relatively innocent people.  To not do so would be a dereliction of duty and you'd be just as responsible for inaction.  Like in War Games, for a person that truly wants to live a virtuous life, the only choice is not to play (not be president).  Honestly, to be a good leader at that level probably does require a certain level of sociopathic tendencies, what we want is someone who is also programed to min/max policy decisions to the benefit of the nation rather than to their own personal gains or even more nefarious goals. 

Edited February 14 by horangi
minor typos

[TrackerNeil]

56 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

I think that's a bit of an old way of thinking about things. Incumbents have advantages in name recognition, fund raising, political infrastructure, etc., but those are all things that are way easier to overcome these days. 

Maybe, but what we know, right now, is that incumbency absolutely matters. Most presidents are reelected; in my 54 years on this planet, only three have been defeated in a reelection bid. I think it's only 9 or 10 in all of US history. Before Carter, when the hell was the last president to lose? So you might be right, but I think, at this point, you are speculating. 

[maarsen]

28 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Maybe, but what we know, right now, is that incumbency absolutely matters. Most presidents are reelected; in my 54 years on this planet, only three have been defeated in a reelection bid. I think it's only 9 or 10 in all of US history. Before Carter, when the hell was the last president to lose? So you might be right, but I think, at this point, you are speculating. 

Herbert Hoover?

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

Pretty sure many of us have had jobs where you're always expected to be available. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to POTUS. 

So far, only Ty has offered up a reason why POTUS is extra demanding. The Cuban Missile Crisis. And, tbf, that's a pretty good one. 

I think that this downplays soft skills tremendously to a point that is pretty ludicrous. Yeah, the POTUS is not something that has a specific engineering skill and expertise, nor should it be; because the job is incredibly broad you need someone who has broad intelligence and ability to do things across all sorts of areas, can learn and understand this quickly, and can act. Or, at least, you need someone who can put people into place who are capable of doing that in their area and be willing to listen to them. 

But beyond that you also need to be the literal representative of the entire country to the rest of the world. You need to be able to spontaneously answer questions, explain issues, convince others, convince your party, convince the other party and convince other nations. Public speaking at that level is a skill and a pretty valued one. 

You are making decisions that will potentially shape the fate of your country for years. Now are these actually hard to do? Only as much as you want to put into it, I suppose. For a lot of people that weighs very heavily and requires a ton of thought, work, discussion and behavior. 

Now, are all of these unique to being POTUS? Not directly. All of them individually could be done by one or a few people in theory. But having all of them together is a pretty large list of qualifications. 

As others said above being POTUS if you don't give a shit is probably a pretty easy position, but if you do give a shit it is going to be a very big deal and be very emotionally demanding. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

I don't think it's "nothing" job.  The tough part isn't finding someone who can perform the functions of office, the tough part is finding someone in there with a shred of humanity.

Yes, but that's not what you said.  You said it wasn't difficult because some bimbos did -- while leaveing Reagan off the bimbo list, who suffered from Alzheimer's and lordessa did that show.  I mean actual Alzheimer's not the lying sort pushed by the fascists about our current POTUS.  Who is clearly capable -- see, for instance, how he's gotten the message that he was wrong about Israel and has changed his pronouncing a great deal.

[Kalbear]

45 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Maybe, but what we know, right now, is that incumbency absolutely matters. Most presidents are reelected; in my 54 years on this planet, only three have been defeated in a reelection bid. I think it's only 9 or 10 in all of US history. Before Carter, when the hell was the last president to lose? So you might be right, but I think, at this point, you are speculating. 

Alternately, of the last 7 POTUSes 3 have lost re-election. That's not a great track record! I think anything that uses the entire POTUS history to justify viewpoints on recent events is ignoring a lot of the more recent changes in our politics. We are not living in environments that compare to elections even 40 years ago. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Alternately, of the last 7 POTUSes 3 have lost re-election. That's not a great track record! I think anything that uses the entire POTUS history to justify viewpoints on recent events is ignoring a lot of the more recent changes in our politics. We are not living in environments that compare to elections even 40 years ago. 

True, but it's worth noting that the current incumbent's rival this year will be one of those 3 who lost re-election.

[Zorral]

That persnickety more-expensive-than-useful polling biz!

Share/gift link --

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/ny3-post-game-its-all-over-but-deciding-why-the-dem-win-doesnt-matter/sharetoken/ne2pyCd43Qsw

The concluding paragraph --

Quote

.... Let’s be clear: In reality, while we’re not in the wild Dems-Are-Doomed world we’d be in if Suozzi had lost, a single special election doesn’t tell us a lot. At one level, for Dems, it’s just nice to have won rather than lost. But this small but notable polling differential is what strikes me as the most significant takeaway. Mostly because it’s been a fairly consistent pattern.