03-03-2020, 08:55 PM
Reagan and Trump both scare me about superannuated leaders. I've seen them elsewhere, as in most of eastern Europe before the 1989 revolutions (Honecker, Jakes, Kadar, Ceausescu, Zhivkov) with the added peril of ideological rigidity. See also such types as Hosni Mubarak and Robert Mugabe toward the ends of their rule.
Qaddafi wasn't that old, but I have heard rumors of cocaine... drugs can make one senile before one's time.
The best situation is that involving Reagan -- at the least he had good people around him who could turn the Presidency into a largely ceremonial role in which someone else tells him something compatible with his beliefs that is the best choice under the circumstances. People around Reagan could say no to him and convince him.
With the effective departure of Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren from relevance in the 2020 election we will be certain to have a President long past prime. To be sure, Trump has been amoral, egoistic, and rigid-thinking for his entire adult life. The VP will be an essential selection due simply to actuarial concerns about the life and mental well-being of the President. Reagan is the best result under the circumstances if one ignores the ideology. Then again, Reagan didn't get his ideas as much from shock jocks as Trump did.
The most likely VP to become President is of course Mike Pence because there are just too many possible nominees for VP in 2020. (That will be settled in the Democratic National Convention!) and because no Democrat is going to be succeeded as President until at least January of next year.
Qaddafi wasn't that old, but I have heard rumors of cocaine... drugs can make one senile before one's time.
The best situation is that involving Reagan -- at the least he had good people around him who could turn the Presidency into a largely ceremonial role in which someone else tells him something compatible with his beliefs that is the best choice under the circumstances. People around Reagan could say no to him and convince him.
With the effective departure of Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren from relevance in the 2020 election we will be certain to have a President long past prime. To be sure, Trump has been amoral, egoistic, and rigid-thinking for his entire adult life. The VP will be an essential selection due simply to actuarial concerns about the life and mental well-being of the President. Reagan is the best result under the circumstances if one ignores the ideology. Then again, Reagan didn't get his ideas as much from shock jocks as Trump did.
The most likely VP to become President is of course Mike Pence because there are just too many possible nominees for VP in 2020. (That will be settled in the Democratic National Convention!) and because no Democrat is going to be succeeded as President until at least January of next year.
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.