Your point that "politics is more like show business than people want to recognize," makes me think of Mamdani's success at *publicizing* the policies he's implemented, like with potholes and scaffolding
He campaigned on nuts and bolts policies like that, and by reminding voters about it, he shows that he's keeping his promises and promotes himself for reelection later. I'm disappointed that Biden couldn't or wouldn't do that enough when he was President
Thank you for this. I kept wincing whenever HRC was described as “the most qualified” because the only real qualification is 270+ electoral votes, and describing her as “the most qualified” kept hitting me as telling people to eat their spinach. GW Bush vs Al Gore should have put the lie that qualifications matter to rest forever. The bottom line is this: people won’t vote for you if they don’t like you. We can explore the misogyny forever, but it’s there and it’s real — the Obama derangement in 2008/12 and HRC derangement in 1992 - 2026 make clear that national progress on race and sex discrimination was very uneven and in many places was swamped by the whitelash and male whining that is self-perpetuating in this era of microtargeted disinformation where each person inhabits a unique media environment totally unknown to others.
Part of the issue is people feel-what has an experienced candidate actually *done* for us? We're still deep in debt, overrun with opioids, paying for our healthcare is bankrupting us, our foreign policy is built on bombing some poor souls in the Middle East. For many, not much changed in their day to day lives whether the president was Clinton or Bush or Obama. Why NOT take a flyer on someone completely naive to the system? It's not just Trump-Ross Perot, Andrew Yang, Steve Forbes all threw their hat in the ring and got not negligible support for their efforts, so this desire for an outsider is not new. Even Eisenhower had never been a politician before he became president.
" For many, not much changed in their day to day lives whether the president was Clinton or Bush or Obama."
I'm going to quibble with this statement. Perhaps they didn't perceive the changes in their lives because they chose not to look? In fact, there were a great many changes which affected them, but because of their ideological blinders, or just plain laziness, they did not notice those changes.
Unfortunately, qualifications don’t matter to voters. What matters is the narrative the media sells them.
President Obama was infinitely more qualified than Donald Trump to be president. (President of the Harvard Law Review, Civil Rights attorney, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago, Senator, etc.)
But even with his stellar background, because of his limited time in the senate he was portrayed in the media as being too inexperienced for the presidency. This didn’t work, of course.
Now compare that with Donald Trump who had zero qualifications and zero government experience. Instead of being labeled inexperienced he was billed as a “Washington outsider”. A hero muckraker come to “drain the swamp”. This was all a lie of course but it worked because nobody bothered to examine him too closely.
We live in a narcissistic, nihilistic culture that feeds us inanity by the algorithm.
Our culture doesn't value intelligence, expertise, results, kindness, charity, mercy, empathy, compassion, and kindness. We don't value community as a whole.
So we get leaders who appeal to our basest desires. Morons. Fools. Thieves. Sadists.
I don't know how you change that.
I'm utterly convinced that if free elections are allowed to happen, Democrats will win Congress and the Presidency for, at best, two years before Americans are bored again and vote to burn it all down. Even if the next Democratic administration managed to provide Medicare to all, paid parental leave, housing for everyone, food for everyone, and made prosperity rain from the skies, enough American voters will sit there bored flicking lit matches at the curtains.
I agree with you that Americans are impatient with the progress of change, but it's also true that many of us are really suffering and can't wait for "incremental change" to occur. It's like turning a battleship going full steam ahead. The only way to stop it on a dime is to blow it up.
Americans fall prey to con men because they engage in magical thinking instead of critical thinking, at least when it comes to voting, especially when voting for president. trump is a con man, and has been one all of his life. Obama is a celebrity in that he is a great orator, and knows how to work a crowd, but he has substance behind his celebrity status. trump has no substance - he's an evil moron.
I always found it curious that anyone would think running a government like a business was a good idea. How did this rhetoric take hold? Business exists to make profit and publicly traded business are to make money for shareholders. Governments are suppose to help the people they govern. Support the common good, like public health, infrastructure and economic security. Basically the "protect the general welfare" part of the constitution.
This. Services are services, and cost money. Services should not be run like businesses.
Nor should government services be outsourced to businesses. People working to fulfill the work of government services should be recognized as government employees, as public servants.
The whole outsourcing of services to private business has always been a way to reward campaign contributors rather than to get a better deal for constituents. Its the old patronage system under a different name and is a grift for the politician who touts it.
Until we address the double standards and the rightwing media human centipede that give the permission structure for sadopopulism, we're going to continue to be beleaguered by demagogues for President.
One day America's Pilonidal Cyst will finally be removed. And there is a chance for a reprieve, until enough of them are motivated by their bigotries by a more effective, smarter demagogue. So to hopefully head that off, people probably need to share more social media posts that reference reality, and keep organized, and be present in every last election. Especially state and local.
And gotta do an end-around to get the message out without corporate media.
I quit social media because it was bad for me. I engage in all the other stuff, though.
It does leave me rather isolated, in the communication sense. Still, I feel better off. I have to rely on old fashioned communication methods, like texting to advertise gigs etc.
Hmmmm. Sounds like you are saying that expanding the franchise to the 90 million eligible voters that do not bother to cast a ballot, will only further enable the installation of charismatic autocrats by voters who do not care about anything beyond intangible "charisma" - i.e. who is media platformed to tell and amplify the best lies. I'm just suggesting here that gullibility of and lying to the electorate are not the only issues here - "maybe" there are also structural issues with Citizens United-driven "extreme funding" and the now clear dependence of the financial well-being of ultrawealthy individuals on both governmental largesse (privatization) and neglect (deregulation). Oh, and lest we forget the racist relic of the Electoral College - that needs to go, too.
By most standards Lincoln was unqualified to be president—he served a single House term and was otherwise a small time country lawyer with no real experience handling the issues of the day. He did have hiccups as president (mostly running through a lot of lousy generals but that may have been more due to what the Union had on hand) but was also a very successful leader in managing big egos in his Cabinet and Congress and ultimately directing a major war after starting with a tiny army. He also kept foreign nations from jumping in.
Herbert Hoover should have been a great president based on his abilities and experience yet the Depression completely overwhelmed him. You just never know.
Gullible voters believed this qualified him to run the country like a business — even though he had an established record of running his own businesses into bankruptcy.
This is the thing that gets me. The man bankrupted casinos! How bad at business do you have to be to bankrupt a fucking casino? I know, he pulled a mob move and sucked it dry and left it to rot but damn people, that's even worse. The electorate is not using their critical thinking skills, oh right, they don't have any thanks to education being chipped away at since the 80's. Thanks Reagan, you fucking ghoul.
Many Americans don't have critical thinking skills, so use magical thinking skills instead. That is how millions could vote for a con man who bankrupted casinos.
Your point that "politics is more like show business than people want to recognize," makes me think of Mamdani's success at *publicizing* the policies he's implemented, like with potholes and scaffolding
He campaigned on nuts and bolts policies like that, and by reminding voters about it, he shows that he's keeping his promises and promotes himself for reelection later. I'm disappointed that Biden couldn't or wouldn't do that enough when he was President
Thank you for this. I kept wincing whenever HRC was described as “the most qualified” because the only real qualification is 270+ electoral votes, and describing her as “the most qualified” kept hitting me as telling people to eat their spinach. GW Bush vs Al Gore should have put the lie that qualifications matter to rest forever. The bottom line is this: people won’t vote for you if they don’t like you. We can explore the misogyny forever, but it’s there and it’s real — the Obama derangement in 2008/12 and HRC derangement in 1992 - 2026 make clear that national progress on race and sex discrimination was very uneven and in many places was swamped by the whitelash and male whining that is self-perpetuating in this era of microtargeted disinformation where each person inhabits a unique media environment totally unknown to others.
Part of the issue is people feel-what has an experienced candidate actually *done* for us? We're still deep in debt, overrun with opioids, paying for our healthcare is bankrupting us, our foreign policy is built on bombing some poor souls in the Middle East. For many, not much changed in their day to day lives whether the president was Clinton or Bush or Obama. Why NOT take a flyer on someone completely naive to the system? It's not just Trump-Ross Perot, Andrew Yang, Steve Forbes all threw their hat in the ring and got not negligible support for their efforts, so this desire for an outsider is not new. Even Eisenhower had never been a politician before he became president.
" For many, not much changed in their day to day lives whether the president was Clinton or Bush or Obama."
I'm going to quibble with this statement. Perhaps they didn't perceive the changes in their lives because they chose not to look? In fact, there were a great many changes which affected them, but because of their ideological blinders, or just plain laziness, they did not notice those changes.
I don't think that's especially true across the board, but probably for some.
Unfortunately, qualifications don’t matter to voters. What matters is the narrative the media sells them.
President Obama was infinitely more qualified than Donald Trump to be president. (President of the Harvard Law Review, Civil Rights attorney, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago, Senator, etc.)
But even with his stellar background, because of his limited time in the senate he was portrayed in the media as being too inexperienced for the presidency. This didn’t work, of course.
Now compare that with Donald Trump who had zero qualifications and zero government experience. Instead of being labeled inexperienced he was billed as a “Washington outsider”. A hero muckraker come to “drain the swamp”. This was all a lie of course but it worked because nobody bothered to examine him too closely.
In my opinion, if Trump can win the presidency then anybody can win the presidency. You just need to have great publicists and great cheerleaders.
And great charisma.
Nothing matters but the lulz.
We live in a narcissistic, nihilistic culture that feeds us inanity by the algorithm.
Our culture doesn't value intelligence, expertise, results, kindness, charity, mercy, empathy, compassion, and kindness. We don't value community as a whole.
So we get leaders who appeal to our basest desires. Morons. Fools. Thieves. Sadists.
I don't know how you change that.
I'm utterly convinced that if free elections are allowed to happen, Democrats will win Congress and the Presidency for, at best, two years before Americans are bored again and vote to burn it all down. Even if the next Democratic administration managed to provide Medicare to all, paid parental leave, housing for everyone, food for everyone, and made prosperity rain from the skies, enough American voters will sit there bored flicking lit matches at the curtains.
I agree with you that Americans are impatient with the progress of change, but it's also true that many of us are really suffering and can't wait for "incremental change" to occur. It's like turning a battleship going full steam ahead. The only way to stop it on a dime is to blow it up.
Americans fall prey to con men because they engage in magical thinking instead of critical thinking, at least when it comes to voting, especially when voting for president. trump is a con man, and has been one all of his life. Obama is a celebrity in that he is a great orator, and knows how to work a crowd, but he has substance behind his celebrity status. trump has no substance - he's an evil moron.
I always found it curious that anyone would think running a government like a business was a good idea. How did this rhetoric take hold? Business exists to make profit and publicly traded business are to make money for shareholders. Governments are suppose to help the people they govern. Support the common good, like public health, infrastructure and economic security. Basically the "protect the general welfare" part of the constitution.
This. Services are services, and cost money. Services should not be run like businesses.
Nor should government services be outsourced to businesses. People working to fulfill the work of government services should be recognized as government employees, as public servants.
The whole outsourcing of services to private business has always been a way to reward campaign contributors rather than to get a better deal for constituents. Its the old patronage system under a different name and is a grift for the politician who touts it.
Well said, I’ll borrow your words in conversation.
I love a good script; )
Until we address the double standards and the rightwing media human centipede that give the permission structure for sadopopulism, we're going to continue to be beleaguered by demagogues for President.
One day America's Pilonidal Cyst will finally be removed. And there is a chance for a reprieve, until enough of them are motivated by their bigotries by a more effective, smarter demagogue. So to hopefully head that off, people probably need to share more social media posts that reference reality, and keep organized, and be present in every last election. Especially state and local.
And gotta do an end-around to get the message out without corporate media.
I quit social media because it was bad for me. I engage in all the other stuff, though.
It does leave me rather isolated, in the communication sense. Still, I feel better off. I have to rely on old fashioned communication methods, like texting to advertise gigs etc.
Hmmmm. Sounds like you are saying that expanding the franchise to the 90 million eligible voters that do not bother to cast a ballot, will only further enable the installation of charismatic autocrats by voters who do not care about anything beyond intangible "charisma" - i.e. who is media platformed to tell and amplify the best lies. I'm just suggesting here that gullibility of and lying to the electorate are not the only issues here - "maybe" there are also structural issues with Citizens United-driven "extreme funding" and the now clear dependence of the financial well-being of ultrawealthy individuals on both governmental largesse (privatization) and neglect (deregulation). Oh, and lest we forget the racist relic of the Electoral College - that needs to go, too.
By most standards Lincoln was unqualified to be president—he served a single House term and was otherwise a small time country lawyer with no real experience handling the issues of the day. He did have hiccups as president (mostly running through a lot of lousy generals but that may have been more due to what the Union had on hand) but was also a very successful leader in managing big egos in his Cabinet and Congress and ultimately directing a major war after starting with a tiny army. He also kept foreign nations from jumping in.
Herbert Hoover should have been a great president based on his abilities and experience yet the Depression completely overwhelmed him. You just never know.
Gullible voters believed this qualified him to run the country like a business — even though he had an established record of running his own businesses into bankruptcy.
This is the thing that gets me. The man bankrupted casinos! How bad at business do you have to be to bankrupt a fucking casino? I know, he pulled a mob move and sucked it dry and left it to rot but damn people, that's even worse. The electorate is not using their critical thinking skills, oh right, they don't have any thanks to education being chipped away at since the 80's. Thanks Reagan, you fucking ghoul.
Many Americans don't have critical thinking skills, so use magical thinking skills instead. That is how millions could vote for a con man who bankrupted casinos.
The defunding of education is the gas poured on the fire.