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All the media have to do is cover Trump relatively honestly and he will do the rest to sink his presidential campaign.
In 2016 the media were so gaga over his norm breaking and other wackiness and everyone assumed Hillary was a sure thing compared to him, they didn't actually cover him honestly.
Plus he could let people just project whatever hopes and dreams they had on him. He had no governmental experience at any level to investigate and draw conclusions from. He convinced a lot of people that he would fight for them, and Hillary had no really solid counter to all that. Plus the DOJ threw the in-person voting to Trump.
This time we know basically all there is to know about what a second Trump term would be like. Chaos, petty revenge, and burning the Constitution. If Democrats can take that clear and the media can look past all the dollar signs for a second, any half decent candidate on the Democratic ticket will win. Any candidate who can legitimately claim to be for working people and against the elites.
So like a Sherrod Brown, Sheldon Whitehouse, John Fetterman, or Elizabeth Warren. I'd say Bernie but he's probably too old. Brown and Fetterman would do really well bringing large so called "purple" states in.
Trump is still polling within reach of a win, and that's after 4 years of President Trump, an attempted coup, and three more years of the criminal prosecutions that followed.
You forgot Trump's civil case where the judge clarified it was in fact rape.
Apparently, 40% of American voters would prefer to live in Russia.
"look past all the dollar signs for a second"
We're doomed.
I love John Fetterman, but he did have a mild stroke and spent a month in treatment for depression while in office. He's great, but I don't think he is President material. I don't hold either of those things against him, and mental health is important, but no way do you convince the public that all is fine
That's some ableist shit right there. The other representatives just hide their problems.
Yeah, the general public is ableist, and racist, and sexist, and several other -ists.
Genuinely serious where you draw the line when it comes to the health of a candidate.
Someone with three previous heart attacks? Someone with anxiety?
I ask that last one as someone with anxiety and a trigger being stress. To me those are not ableist concerns. Though the previous commenter could have used a better phrase than "presidential material."
I’m responding as a hiring manager for a big tech company.
I am not allowed, by law as well as very strict company policy, to ask any questions relating to the candidate’s health. I can’t know whether they’ve had four heart attacks, plan to get pregnant in the next six months, had a history of psychological issues, or anything like that. I think that most people would generally agree that’s a very good thing.
There are certainly roles where physical performance is key to the job, and so they’re able to take that kind of thing into account.
I guess what I’m saying is that, while your concern is of course valid, it feels different because we tend to see the president as someone with more of a job than, say, a senior software engineer. Okay, that’s fair in a very real sense. But I think that it’s different between the president and a prime minister, and that’s where it gets interesting. I think there’s an idealization of the role of president. And, bizarrely, that’s one reason Trump was so wrong but so beloved by so many.
The US doesn't have a Prime Minister, so what the hell are you talking about? And the president is not hired, they are elected, so everything you mentioned around employee protections is irrelevant
That’s the entire point, you walnut.
The US deifies its presidents, making them the temporary personality of the country. Since Bush II, there’s been a massive push to implement unitary executive theory. Other countries tend view their prime ministers as, at best, managers of the country who can and will be replaced. For fucks sake, the US can’t even decide whether the president should be subject to the same laws as “regular” citizens, but they’re always leaning towards “if the president did it, it’s not illegal.”
What that means, walnut, is that the US sees the president as having something approaching the divine right of kings (very literally in the view of many republicans, as long as the president is Republican). The “will of the people,” by which we mean they won an election by winning 49.1% instead of 48.3%, is considered to Trump (pun intended) anything the courts can say, or that has been historically established or really just about anything else.
So putting any limitations around who can be president is seen as interfering with the will of the people, unless it was already written down in the constitution for things like being a natural citizen and having a minimum age. Those are legitimate restrictions because the constitution cannot be wrong.
"I guess what I’m saying is that, while your concern is of course valid, it feels different because we tend to see the president as someone with more of a job than, say, a senior software engineer. Okay, that’s fair in a very real sense. But I think that it’s different between the president and a prime minister, and that’s where it gets interesting. I think there’s an idealization of the role of president. And, bizarrely, that’s one reason Trump was so wrong but so beloved by so many."
This is what I responded to. This is what you said. You made a bizarre comment about a PM with no context, and I'm a walnut because I didn't follow your insane logic without context?
You provided nothing to suggest you thought having a PM would be useful and I'm sure what you say is a huge push is nearly nonexistent. The most public article cited on that wiki page was from years ago in The Atlantic. I'm sure it has some merit, but the huge push is just a fantasy.
Why would I use a different phrase? Being the president of the United States is one of the hardest, most stressful jobs in the world. You make decisions every day that change the course of history. There are very few people suited to that.
Ableism is ok as long as the target is a progressive.
I hope you're right. I was definitely one of those people who thought Hillary was a slam dunk and thought Trump would never win.
I've not been confident in an election cycle since. I want to be optimistic and say Trump will sink himself and that we will all have the satifaction of seeing his ass in prison. But, he has weasled his way out of every negative consequence in his life and survived political scandals that would have sunk any other politician.
The dude is a cult.