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[Strife26]

Nations electing celebrity buffoons isn't a direct result of 9/11, I'd argue.

[Frumple]

Eh... the whole fear and willingness to accept dis/misinformation that grew (faster) in its wake definitely contributed. If folks weren't as willing to accept the bullshit spread around over the last while, trump probably couldn't have managed the EC vote. Bonus points that to a fair extent the events after 9/11 led to more distrust of the gov't but not more of groups that were feeding off that to spread their own shit around.

[misko27]

Nations electing celebrity buffoons isn't a direct result of 9/11, I'd argue.

Oh certainly. Arnold and Reagan show celebrities can win based on nothing at all. But that's not my point: I didn't say celebrities, I said Donald Trump.

Donald Trump could not win before 9/11, and not just because he was younger and stuff. He relies heavily on Twitter (which is distinctly modern( and mistrust of the government which is unique to the post-9/11 era (not that mistrust itself is new, but the type is qualitatively different). He could conceivably go up after Carter using the Reaganite economics and Anti-USSR strategy, but then he'd have to go up against Ronald Reagan, and he ain't winning that one.

[Reelya]

Turmp would be too young to run against Reagan (Trump was born in 1946), but he could conceivably have run as a Democrat vs Bush Senior in 1988. That could have been an interesting race.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

He was going to run with the Reform Party when that whole thin was happening, but they had some sort of policy disagreement.

[Dostoevsky]

I railed against him fiercely while he was in office, and I felt very little respect for him or his decisions, but this letter was the first time I actually felt like I saw the man beyond the politics. He was, for better or worse, trying to do a good job, what he thought was right. For the first time I got a taste of the idea that you can disagree with someone without hating them. His cooperation and willingness to work with Obama on the transition of power pushed me to see him as something other than the enemy. He was a man with great power and influence and made decisions I didn't agree with. But he was just a man, prone to the same mistakes and follies as any of us. Capable of the same good and kindness as any of us. It was unfair to him and it was unfair to the half the country that voted for him to view them as this faceless "other" enemy. To consider them something so far removed from myself that I could never see eye to eye.

His opinions might have been different. I might have disagreed with his methods. But wiping away all the details, he just wanted what was best for the country. That shows in the way he calmly passed the mantle on to the next president, a man offered up by his opposition and in some ways as much of his opposite as I felt I was.

I'm not saying that my opinion of him changed in an instant on that day. But that was the turning point for me. When I began to realize it was dumb to feel that much hate for anyone.

I'll just pop in for a moment here to say "hear, hear."

For all the strong words out there, it's a wide gulf between someone trying to do what they think is the right thing and mucking up (just about every President has been guilty of this to varying degrees) and actively attempting to accomplish evil things. I'd argue that Trump, too, is attempting to do good, just in what I feel is a very misguided fashion.

Furthermore, remember that the President is just one person. They have substantial power, but they heavily rely on staff, friends, and others who themselves have differing views on methods and/or interests (for good or ill). The President may ultimately be responsible, but that doesn't always mean he literally ordered it.

[PTTG??]

Also does Donald Trump have anything to gain from tanking the economy?

Fear and poverty got him elected, by god it'll keep him elected.

[Neonivek]

I railed against him fiercely while he was in office, and I felt very little respect for him or his decisions, but this letter was the first time I actually felt like I saw the man beyond the politics. He was, for better or worse, trying to do a good job, what he thought was right. For the first time I got a taste of the idea that you can disagree with someone without hating them. His cooperation and willingness to work with Obama on the transition of power pushed me to see him as something other than the enemy. He was a man with great power and influence and made decisions I didn't agree with. But he was just a man, prone to the same mistakes and follies as any of us. Capable of the same good and kindness as any of us. It was unfair to him and it was unfair to the half the country that voted for him to view them as this faceless "other" enemy. To consider them something so far removed from myself that I could never see eye to eye.

His opinions might have been different. I might have disagreed with his methods. But wiping away all the details, he just wanted what was best for the country. That shows in the way he calmly passed the mantle on to the next president, a man offered up by his opposition and in some ways as much of his opposite as I felt I was.

I'm not saying that my opinion of him changed in an instant on that day. But that was the turning point for me. When I began to realize it was dumb to feel that much hate for anyone.

I'll just pop in for a moment here to say "hear, hear."

For all the strong words out there, it's a wide gulf between someone trying to do what they think is the right thing and mucking up (just about every President has been guilty of this to varying degrees) and actively attempting to accomplish evil things. I'd argue that Trump, too, is attempting to do good, just in what I feel is a very misguided fashion.

Furthermore, remember that the President is just one person. They have substantial power, but they heavily rely on staff, friends, and others who themselves have differing views on methods and/or interests (for good or ill). The President may ultimately be responsible, but that doesn't always mean he literally ordered it.

You know... you couldn't damn him anymore with that praise if you tried.

He is the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES! he isn't going for class president.

Actually that is as far as I really neeeed to go. Even if he wasn't trying to leech off his position like he currently does, he actively sought an important position that controls the lives of hundreds of millions with little idea of how to achieve it AND didn't do his due diligence for said position.

He actually is a much worse person in your version... then he is as the evil version of Trump.

At least the Evil person can run the dang country.

---

So which is worse?

1) I become a surgeon not knowing how to do surgery but do it anyway.
or
2) I become a surgeon and charge people extra by taking out their appendixes while I am at it.

[uber pye]

Gender swapped presidential debate
They only switched the genders, but this just caused trump (or in this case fem-trump) to feel like the better person.

[Neonivek]

Gender swapped presidential debate
They only switched the genders, but this just caused trump (or in this case fem-trump) to feel like the better person.

Well you aren't really meant to cut people off and rant at them like that in presidential debates regardless of gender...

[ChairmanPoo]

So which is worse?

1) I become a surgeon not knowing how to do surgery but do it anyway.
or
2) I become a surgeon and charge people extra by taking out their appendixes while I am at it.

The CS Lewis option:

Someone asks you on the street: "Hey, are you a surgeon?"
You reply that you aren't, and that you don't feel you're prepared to start doing surgery
The man replies "That proves you're worthy of being a surgeon. To the operating room!"

[Max™]

@Neo: 3. Become a brain surgeon due to very steady hands, before going into politics and proving that it ain't brain surgery?

Bush came out and said "we need the media to keep people like me in check" which seems to indicate awareness of his fuckups, and should serve as a warning about Trump, much like me being able to detect assholes due to being one, Bush can smell fuckups and if he says one stinks worse than he did, I'm holding my nose and going the other way.

[smjjames]

lolwut the last bunch of posts.....

goodnight anyway.

[Sergarr]

Ohhhhh shit it's happening: Disgraced Trump adviser Mike Flynn admits he worked as a “foreign agent” for the Turkish government

First traitor from the Trump's gang revealed! I'm sure he won't be the last one...

[Starver]

Oh certainly. Arnold and Reagan show celebrities can win based on nothing at all. But that's not my point: I didn't say celebrities, I said Donald Trump.

Reagan, whilst decried as "celebrity candidate" to some extent in '80, had been a union leader alongside his acting life, shown political (although Democratic) tendencies, gained eight years of Governorship (R) experience and then challenged Ford for the right to challenge Carter four years previously, both challenges losing. (Would a 'raw' Reagan, defeating Ford for the ticket, have done better against Carter? He had been espousing his 'Reaganesque' political attitudes already, but it's interesting to consider if his time had come, even in '76, just GOP hadn't been convinced enough of it.)

Whilst there are parallels (and could have been more, in an alternate run of history), there were also numerous differences between RR and Trump.


Arnie, OTOH, has a number of similarities. Although a Republican from his earliest days in the US (or so the tale goes, but sounds believable; the alternative (to him) sounding too much like the socialism he had recently left), it is arguable that his celebrity name recognition and public dissatisfaction with the incumbent/fellow challengers in the Total Recall¹ state elections led to his appointment. But then it wasn't as President. Demolition Man's predictions aside, we never tested whether non-Californians were as susceptible, and (with a not unsuccessful 'Guvernator'ship behind him) it'd be hard to assess a post-61st Amendment presidential campaign (very much with the more traditional GOP foundation to him, and an accented but otherwise superior articulacy) as anywhere as similar to the "holy smokes, he came from nowhere!" rise of Trump.


¹ As per Trump, the media could be 'blamed' for his profile. They coined him as The Running Man, and the other film references, probably boosting his image. He didn't even do that many debates, just rode on his rep.