03-24-2020, 06:51 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.
X did give us Barack Obama, who would crush Trump in an electoral match-up were it not for the 22nd Amendment if he so desired. His style of government might be more appropriate (as shown by someone of similar temperament such as Eisenhower). We could use his virtues again. Integrity, caution, and overall decency are traits worthy of seeking in a political leader. Is anyone not sickened by the arrogance, cruelty, abrasiveness, dishonesty, corruption, and demagoguery of Donald Trump?
Quote: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 wish that we would consider big-city mayors with the caveat that they should not be machine hacks incapable of thinking outside the box. There is suburbia and there is rural America. Rural America produces the food, and whether one is a city-slicker like Donald Trump or such a farmer-turned-politician such as Joni Ernst or Devin Nunes (Yuck on those three!) one had better have a good farm policy lest food shortages bedevil at the least our export numbers if not cause food shortages here. One is anti-agriculture if one fails to take global warming seriously.
Quote: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.
After Trump, we are going to need to have some shrewd legal minds to undo the legal mess that we are in as a nation.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.