“The President in particular is very much a figurehead — he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had — he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
One of my favorite books, but depressing people were pointing shit out 50 years ago and society at large is still ignoring it today.
It’s obvious from this excerpt that Adams was mostly talking about British Prime Ministers, who are elected by the government and do not wield much (if any) power beyond that of being a figurehead. Of perhaps the Royalty, who aren’t elected but hold even less power and are even more of a distraction.
The US president, by contrast, is not elected by the government and has a shit-ton of power, and increasingly so as the US congress is less and less able to govern due to Republican infighting. The US president can start and win a foreign war in less time than it takes congress to even form an opinion on the matter.
Zaphod spent two years in prison for fraud, meanwhile the US president is protected by more military firepower than literal nukes and has a chain of succession longer than most Kings because the US government literally cannot function without a President.
Adams was mostly talking about British Prime Ministers, who are elected by the government and do not wield much (if any) power beyond that of being a figurehead
I’m not British so I might be off-base, but my understanding is that like other European parliamentary monarchies, the PM is the effective head-of-state but their title rests entirely on the good graces of the MPs who can (and often do) replace the PM.
Furthermore the Executive branch of government isn’t particularly powerful, unlike the US. Maybe I’m fundamentally misunderstanding things but I don’t often hear about a British PM spending billions or starting wars without parliamentary involvement, which US presidents regularly do even if they don’t enjoy a majority in Congress (which is not a situation that British PMs can find themselves in by definition).
Of course the UK has the problem of FPTP voting which leads to (quasi) bipartism which means the PM has a rather symbiotic relationship with over half of parliament, but it’s still a very different dynamic.
No, that’s the monarch (where it still exists) or the president in parliamentary democracies (not presidential democracies).
The PM is in fact the leader of government and relies on the good graces of the governing party or parties, not unlike the US president candidate effectively needs to unite his party behind him.
The difference is mostly the ability to get removed/replaced hy his party but usually no term limits, where presidents are term-limited and there are explicit regulations how the parliament can remove them (something that is already inhently given in parliamental systems where the government leader is selected via parliamental majority in the first place).
My favorite part about all this is both sides just kind of ignoring that their candidate can’t string together a coherent sentence, gets confused a lot, and mistakes people for others all the time as if those aren’t signs of cognitive decline.
Cheers. Thank you for doing your part to ensure this never changes.
Here’s an excerpt from the very beginning of Biden’s speech two weeks ago:
In the winter of 1777, it was harsh and cold as the Continental Army marched to Valley Forge. General George Washington knew he faced the most daunting of tasks: to fight and win a war against the most powerful empire that existed in the world at the time.
His mission was clear. Liberty, not conquest. Freedom, not domination. National independence, not individual glory.
America made a vow. Never again would we bow down to a king.
And here’s an except from Trump’s speech from his most recent rally just a few days ago:
By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley … did you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it? All of it, because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security, we offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, national guards, whatever they want. They turned it down.
Biden is old, just like Trump. Nobody denies that. But surely you aren’t trying to “both sides” this one by equating the two mentally or physically, right?
He was a favorite in the 1988 presidential primary because he was such a a great public speaker…
He got over his stutter when he was a child, and a stutter doesn’t make someone say something completely different than what they meant to. Hell, he wasn’t even doing it while Obama’s VP, and he was in his 70s then.
Stop pretending he just has a stutter, he’s 80 years old and he gets confused sometimes. It’ll happen to all of us if we’re lucky to live that long.
That doesn’t mean he’s still fit to be presidet, and he sure as shit isn’t the best option for a Dem candidate even if he is mentally fit for office.
He was a favorite in the 1988 presidential primary because he was such a a great public speaker
Were you alive back then? As I remember it, he was a perennial also-ran because he couldn’t help but stay stupid shit now and then. It’s as if the word “Gaffe” in politics was invented to describe stupid things Joe Biden said. And saying stuff like that stopped campaigns cold back then. (remember when Howard Dean’s campaign got killed over screaming the wrong way?)
But then Trump happened, and all of a sudden saying stupid shit all the time was no longer a liability.
I was alive and eligible to vote in 88 but I was a dumb kid that voted but didn’t pay attention to the primaries so I don’t remember him at all.
And he wasn’t a “great public speaker” in that he was known for saying dumb shit as you say. (If anything gaffe was a term that applied earlier to Dan Quayle, former VP).
I don’t recall for sure if the stutter was present then or to what degree.
I also don’t see a lot of evidence that he is mentally unfit (for his age) as far as I am aware.
I also don’t see a lot of evidence that he is mentally unfit (for his age) as far as I am aware.
Curious, have you even heard of his gaffes and other funny stuff (Corn Pop, pony soldier, trueananashabadapressure, falling, not knowing where to go after a speech)? There are so many funny moments from his speeches. People put together “best of” compilations on every video site. They don’t get reported on CNN and stuff, you do have to look for them.
The mental fitness stuff is exaggerated for the most part, but he does lose track of his line of thinking when speaking off the cuff, without a teleprompter. He will start reciting a story he’s told 1000x, then he just sighs and says, “anyways…”
I would say, as with Trump, to go to as original of a source as you can. Watch an hour long campaign really or whatever to hear the whole speech in context. Don’t just read a headline or synopsis from the media.
330 million people in the US and both parties are going to run a candidate who should, by rights, be considered medically unfit for office.
I hate it here.
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
One of my favorite books, but depressing people were pointing shit out 50 years ago and society at large is still ignoring it today.
It’s obvious from this excerpt that Adams was mostly talking about British Prime Ministers, who are elected by the government and do not wield much (if any) power beyond that of being a figurehead. Of perhaps the Royalty, who aren’t elected but hold even less power and are even more of a distraction.
The US president, by contrast, is not elected by the government and has a shit-ton of power, and increasingly so as the US congress is less and less able to govern due to Republican infighting. The US president can start and win a foreign war in less time than it takes congress to even form an opinion on the matter.
Zaphod spent two years in prison for fraud, meanwhile the US president is protected by more military firepower than literal nukes and has a chain of succession longer than most Kings because the US government literally cannot function without a President.
That’s not true though.
I’m not British so I might be off-base, but my understanding is that like other European parliamentary monarchies, the PM is the effective head-of-state but their title rests entirely on the good graces of the MPs who can (and often do) replace the PM.
Furthermore the Executive branch of government isn’t particularly powerful, unlike the US. Maybe I’m fundamentally misunderstanding things but I don’t often hear about a British PM spending billions or starting wars without parliamentary involvement, which US presidents regularly do even if they don’t enjoy a majority in Congress (which is not a situation that British PMs can find themselves in by definition).
Of course the UK has the problem of FPTP voting which leads to (quasi) bipartism which means the PM has a rather symbiotic relationship with over half of parliament, but it’s still a very different dynamic.
No, that’s the monarch (where it still exists) or the president in parliamentary democracies (not presidential democracies).
The PM is in fact the leader of government and relies on the good graces of the governing party or parties, not unlike the US president candidate effectively needs to unite his party behind him.
The difference is mostly the ability to get removed/replaced hy his party but usually no term limits, where presidents are term-limited and there are explicit regulations how the parliament can remove them (something that is already inhently given in parliamental systems where the government leader is selected via parliamental majority in the first place).
Do you have any proof at all that Biden is mentally unfit, or are you just repeating what TikTok says?
All I see is that he’s old, his stutter has gotten worse, and he tripped over a sandbag once.
My favorite part about all this is both sides just kind of ignoring that their candidate can’t string together a coherent sentence, gets confused a lot, and mistakes people for others all the time as if those aren’t signs of cognitive decline.
Cheers. Thank you for doing your part to ensure this never changes.
Here’s an excerpt from the very beginning of Biden’s speech two weeks ago:
And here’s an except from Trump’s speech from his most recent rally just a few days ago:
Biden is old, just like Trump. Nobody denies that. But surely you aren’t trying to “both sides” this one by equating the two mentally or physically, right?
Biden is playing the game and reading off a teleprompter, Trump is riffing
He was a favorite in the 1988 presidential primary because he was such a a great public speaker…
He got over his stutter when he was a child, and a stutter doesn’t make someone say something completely different than what they meant to. Hell, he wasn’t even doing it while Obama’s VP, and he was in his 70s then.
Stop pretending he just has a stutter, he’s 80 years old and he gets confused sometimes. It’ll happen to all of us if we’re lucky to live that long.
That doesn’t mean he’s still fit to be presidet, and he sure as shit isn’t the best option for a Dem candidate even if he is mentally fit for office.
Were you alive back then? As I remember it, he was a perennial also-ran because he couldn’t help but stay stupid shit now and then. It’s as if the word “Gaffe” in politics was invented to describe stupid things Joe Biden said. And saying stuff like that stopped campaigns cold back then. (remember when Howard Dean’s campaign got killed over screaming the wrong way?)
But then Trump happened, and all of a sudden saying stupid shit all the time was no longer a liability.
I was alive and eligible to vote in 88 but I was a dumb kid that voted but didn’t pay attention to the primaries so I don’t remember him at all.
And he wasn’t a “great public speaker” in that he was known for saying dumb shit as you say. (If anything gaffe was a term that applied earlier to Dan Quayle, former VP).
I don’t recall for sure if the stutter was present then or to what degree.
I also don’t see a lot of evidence that he is mentally unfit (for his age) as far as I am aware.
Curious, have you even heard of his gaffes and other funny stuff (Corn Pop, pony soldier, trueananashabadapressure, falling, not knowing where to go after a speech)? There are so many funny moments from his speeches. People put together “best of” compilations on every video site. They don’t get reported on CNN and stuff, you do have to look for them.
The mental fitness stuff is exaggerated for the most part, but he does lose track of his line of thinking when speaking off the cuff, without a teleprompter. He will start reciting a story he’s told 1000x, then he just sighs and says, “anyways…”
I would say, as with Trump, to go to as original of a source as you can. Watch an hour long campaign really or whatever to hear the whole speech in context. Don’t just read a headline or synopsis from the media.