03-23-2020, 02:53 AM
(03-23-2020, 02:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Bernie Sanders would have handled it well. Put forth broad-minded solutions, take the best of what you can get, and act swiftly. That would have been his approach. He was the best candidate.
But the best of a rather poor lot. Generation X is cynical of government, so candidates from that generation are not very good candidates. They may be highly skilled at other things, but the people who stepped up to politics from that generation are not their best ("they're not sending their best"-- DJT ha ha). So we are left with Boomers, mostly, and some of them are good candidates, but so far they have not been very good presidents. And we have the old Silents from the war baby cusp. They had great potential, but their time is about up.
I have to agree with Warren about Pete. Millennials may produce some good leaders, but they have not yet emerged either. Americans still do prefer a John Wayne type or a rich man. They want someone who gives the impression of being relatable, yet a strong and confident leader. They could probably elect a woman. But now that Biden has decided to choose a woman veep candidate, and probably needs to avoid choosing a senator, the field of possibilities is quite narrow and unlikely to produce a potential successor to him.
I hope he doesn't choose Harris. It's an attractive choice since she's ethnically diverse and a senator from a safe blue state. But two nasal-talking candidates won't come across too well in the campaign. She has zero chance of ever being elected president, and even if she succeeds Biden before his term is up she will likely lose an election in 2024.
Mayor Pete did not present well in the beginning. He had to learn how to make love to the camera. It's a thing I guess that has to be done now. I remember him in 2019 and the difference is startling.
I talk about Pete because he is relatable. He had to learn how to be that. He was (maybe is in private) a kind of stale personality. Not someone flashy. But Reagan the actor and a reality tv person? That's what america trusts?
Cynical, hell yes. I don't trust any of it. As you know in this archetype, I have never known a time when government worked. I may not know it before I'm gone. Why would I not be cynical? We get judged for a lot of things but that one seems obviously not our fault.
I would go so far as to say these books helped me out of cynicism. I campaigned for Pete. I couldn't have imagined that for myself a while back.
Now that he is not involved, I will not vote. I envisioned Pete as a person that could be, for me, a spark of a 1st Turning. I envisioned (maybe with blind faith) he could capture his party. The fact he did not capture it brings me full circle to my BELIEF that the current system cannot work and still is a game. I won't play it. I won't accept the best of the bad bunch.
They had a chance with Pete for victory. I want ppl to imagine Pete on a debate stage with this president.
A veteran alongside a dodger. Someone with a heart alongside a bully. Someone with real faith as opposed to someone courting believers. The difference would be SO stark, I believe ppl would have a real eye opener to what has been going on for the longest time. The only thing he had against him was being gay. I believe if he had a wife and a young child, it may have been a vision of camelot. America could use a healthy dose of that in 2020. I think the president would come out of something like that looking like a washed up fool. Not because the other would toast him in barbs, but precisely that he WOULDN'T.
Our politics has a swamp to crawl out of. It's a filthy process and Pete was a dose of wholesome. Yeah, someone is gonna say gay is not wholesome, but that's the perspective I wished to avoid if he weren't. Some ppl still can't get past that.