this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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He's a weak candidate because he's a tepid aged rich guy who only loosely reflects what his base wants and is incapable of delivering the level of change the historic moment requires.
He's uninspiring. The US desperately needs large scale institutional change. With how broken those institutions are, that's going to require a groundswell of public support, something that can only be done by an inspiring reform candidate, not an establishment figure.
I'm still voting for him, but I'm (eternally) disappointed in the short sighted cowardice of the democratic party.
I mean, green energy, student loans, proper actual judges, high-speed rail, decriminalized weed, support for Ukraine, prosecuting trump for at least one of his many many crimes, increased school funding, etc etc and that was with half his term under a batshit republiQan House that can barely not hold up revenge porn in public hearings.
Goddamn, whatever.
Such a weird statement to me. Why would anyone expect to be 'inspired' by a politician? They're tools to represent your interests in government. If there's someone running that does that better- vote for them. Really wish people could be more boring and practical about politics. All this emotional sentiment does no one any good.
Because he’s the leader of the nation. An essential component of good leadership is the ability to inspire others.
The fact remains that there is no other option which is shameful.
A US president is the elected executive and commander-in-chief of a democracy. I get that simple people need to follow 'leaders' but I thank goodness the US was built on the idea that we devote ourselves to institutions and offices, not the people we choose to temporarily occupy them. Inspire yourself to participate in democracy, don't depend on 'leaders' for anything.
Hitler was inspiring. So that makes him a good leader right? Truth is I'd heard that he was largely lucky and highly incompetent overall.
Quite frankly plenty of people Inspire others to commit atrocities. I don't view that as a good leadership skill. Good leadership skills are the ones who get things done for people who need it done. Even if it's not perfect or 100% adequate.
The ability to inspire others isn't necessarily A negative. But I wouldn't hold that it is a vital or necessary quality of leadership either. More a weakness of people needing someone to lie to them and lead them along more often than not.
Do you think the Maga crowd is not inspired by Trump? Getting people excited is basically the entire purpose of candidates. Obama was amazing at it, Trump is pretty good, and Biden isn't.
Biden definitely isn't as good of a cult leader as Trump.
If you're looking to join a democratic cult of personality you're probably out of luck. That's not really their shtick. Try being an active participant in democracy if\whenever you get tired of looking for someone to lead you.
EDIT: You inspired me to meme! https://lemmy.world/post/15807707
One of the biggest things that the president, and really anyone in a high or noteworthy level of office can wield, is the bully pulpit. Their ability to speak to people and basically be guaranteed that people will listen to what they're saying, even if they get clip-chimped by fox news or the nyt or cnn or whatever. "Inspiration" is something that can drive people to the polls, too. Having a candidate that the majority of the population trusts and can believe in, i.e. is inspiring, is better than having a candidate that isn't those things, broadly. Well, if you agree with their goals, anyways.
What you're describing is 'charisma' and I agree- hard to get any group of humans to listen to you if you literally have none at all. But 'some' should be plenty for anyone that cares about being an active participant in a democracy.
There's the rub. Sociopaths have as much if not more charisma than decent, sincere people and the people that need to be 'inspired' by charismatic leaders are as easily led to do good or evil, and work for or against their own interests.
The US was founded on 'checks and balances' specifically designed to prevent people that get too 'inspired' by a charismatic leader from recreating the autocracy we fought a revolution to free ourselves from. The whole point of the US constitution is that even unchecked democracy can quickly devolve into mob rule which quickly leads right back to autocracy.
People that need to be led are sheep. They'll follow a shepherd, or a wolf that looks vaguely like a shepherd, and never know the difference until it's too late. The US constitution relies on the voting citizen to explicitly resist being 'led', and themselves lead by selection of representatives.
The fact that so many people's beef with the only bulwark to impending fascism is essentially "The president should be better at leading sheep" to me indicates this democratic experiment is ultimately going to fail. We probably should have put some kind of educational or personal stake requirement into voting but the 'white land owner' requirement and racist poll taxes set a backwards precedent for that that I can't see a way out of it for the US. Hopefully someone will figure out how to create sustainable democratic institutions at some point in the future but I won't live to see it.
EDIT: You inspired me to meme! https://lemmy.world/post/15807707
Isn't that how Trump happened? People seem to get inspired by some pretty fucked up shit.
A creaking disfunctional democracy slides into fascism because the moderate liberals fail to build a coalition with left. This is literally how democracys fall apart. Are you really trying to say that is the fault of people calling for reform?
Well, a lot of trump supporters are anti establishment, and he has had a groundswell of public support by people who see all the old institutions as broken and are looking for real change. So yes, I'm blaming the slide into fascism on those people.
And these people: https://lemmy.world/post/15781650