I'm still saying Dems should take a lesson from Reagan/Trump and run something like Tom Hanks. Foreign policy? He's fought in WWII ten times. Science? He was on Apollo 13. Environment? He was stranded on a desert island. If we want the first black woman president, run Oprah. She's a celebrity, a self-made billionaire, and a mononym.
What have you got to lose other than an election (because that's going so well already)?
The average American isn't a nerd, and doesn't read legislation or Supreme Court decisions for fun. Many people vote on what feels comfortable and familiar. At the very least, I don't expect that Hanks or Oprah would assume they're the smartest person in the room...all the time...in every room.
Interesting perspectives, and validating in regards to the attitude found in the decadent and depraved piece. Validating in the sense that it demonstrates what I’ve been seeing in the immediate aftermath of this election from MAGA friends and progressive friends, in terms of their perceptions. Because indeed there seems to be a trend among at least some Democratic voters to have a fundamental distrust (and now outright disdain) for half the electorate as human beings. Conversely, the celebrating MAGA types—who seem to have no problem with the outlandish and cringe developments leading into 2025, much less the objectively stupid/insane tariff ideas that Pregmo mentioned—have demonstrated and acted upon their knee-jerk distrust of our institutions and any who they see as carrying water for them. Some people see the former condemnation as somehow being worse than the latter (and thus see me as a “MAGA/fascism apologist”, whatever), but the truth is I see them as equally bad in the broader context of democracy being in peril. Because it is. Not because of a specific person—Trump or Harris—but because the fundamental pillars of democracy (that is, the institutions of it and the people who participate in it) are hated by a not-insignificant portion of the electorate. Obviously plenty of Republican voters just hate mass immigration, inflation, etc, and plenty of Democrats just see Trump as a divisive dealbreaker and bad leader, and both don’t care about the abstract notions of democracy and freedom and so on. But the people who do think about these things seem to only operate on distrust and disdain. It’s done from healthy skepticism to outright cynicism. Trump may be bad, but if the populist backlash doesn’t diminish on its own or its concerns aren’t mollified, these dual disdains will produce something far worse down the line. If history has done me any good, it has been to remind me that, as Mr. Wood put it so well here, things could get a LOT worse.
I'm still saying Dems should take a lesson from Reagan/Trump and run something like Tom Hanks. Foreign policy? He's fought in WWII ten times. Science? He was on Apollo 13. Environment? He was stranded on a desert island. If we want the first black woman president, run Oprah. She's a celebrity, a self-made billionaire, and a mononym.
What have you got to lose other than an election (because that's going so well already)?
The average American isn't a nerd, and doesn't read legislation or Supreme Court decisions for fun. Many people vote on what feels comfortable and familiar. At the very least, I don't expect that Hanks or Oprah would assume they're the smartest person in the room...all the time...in every room.
If nothing else it would be great entertainment.
Interesting perspectives, and validating in regards to the attitude found in the decadent and depraved piece. Validating in the sense that it demonstrates what I’ve been seeing in the immediate aftermath of this election from MAGA friends and progressive friends, in terms of their perceptions. Because indeed there seems to be a trend among at least some Democratic voters to have a fundamental distrust (and now outright disdain) for half the electorate as human beings. Conversely, the celebrating MAGA types—who seem to have no problem with the outlandish and cringe developments leading into 2025, much less the objectively stupid/insane tariff ideas that Pregmo mentioned—have demonstrated and acted upon their knee-jerk distrust of our institutions and any who they see as carrying water for them. Some people see the former condemnation as somehow being worse than the latter (and thus see me as a “MAGA/fascism apologist”, whatever), but the truth is I see them as equally bad in the broader context of democracy being in peril. Because it is. Not because of a specific person—Trump or Harris—but because the fundamental pillars of democracy (that is, the institutions of it and the people who participate in it) are hated by a not-insignificant portion of the electorate. Obviously plenty of Republican voters just hate mass immigration, inflation, etc, and plenty of Democrats just see Trump as a divisive dealbreaker and bad leader, and both don’t care about the abstract notions of democracy and freedom and so on. But the people who do think about these things seem to only operate on distrust and disdain. It’s done from healthy skepticism to outright cynicism. Trump may be bad, but if the populist backlash doesn’t diminish on its own or its concerns aren’t mollified, these dual disdains will produce something far worse down the line. If history has done me any good, it has been to remind me that, as Mr. Wood put it so well here, things could get a LOT worse.
Just remind yourself, Elon Musk is only 53.