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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.