It pays to have an electorate that can't think their way past a brand name.
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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Showerthoughts
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That 11x election cycles with at least one of three last names on the ballot is only a record tie.
We had John Adams x4, George Clinton x2, DeWitt Clinton x1, James Monroe x2, John Quincy Adams x2 also a total of 11x.
Roosevelts were on the ballot 8x election cycles but the gap years screwed them. And they were close to uniting with the Nixon 5x streak also with some gaps. And then after one cycle right into the Bush Sr streak. If things shook out just a bit different there was a 19x streak in the cards.
A couple thoughts...
It is talking about President, but counts years where those names appeared on the ballot as Vice President too.
It also ignores that a lot of other people have also been on the ballots over the years.
Also, some of this is natural. When a president has an 8 year run, the Vice President is a natural person to take a shot at the presidency, so it's perfectly normal to have 12 years where the same person is on the ballot as VP then P. It's natural for this to happen more than once in a row. Whether we've had this long of a streak or not, I don't know, but I suspect we might have.
This showerthought covers 44 years. The Bushs and Clintons double dipping is 12 years worth of ballots, but the other 32 years were natural. Hilary lost when she tried to double dip so I would argue the 8 years of Dubya are really the only anomaly in actual presidencies as far as "dynasties" are concerned.
Also this "shower thought" is word for word one of the popular posts on lemmy from a few weeks ago.
OP is obviously very eco-concious.. Instead of using an LLM to generate crap (and burn half the Amazon while doing it) they just recycled
And Hillary is a Clinton through marriage so technically it shouldn't count.
I'm sure that's how it works at the ballot box too.
Joe Biden doing some heavy lifting in this narrative as a VP and one term president. If anything, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton actually prove this point that anyone can become president, both come from very modest means.
The Bushes, however, are a dysfunctional political dynasty stretching back to senator and investment banker Prescott Bush, George HW's father, and Samuel Prescott Bush, a steel executive and industrialist, who was HW's grandfather.
Also, you left out that this is the 3rd election in a row with Trump on the ballot.
"I will have you know I'm a self made man, just like my father and his father before him"
"I will have you know I'm a self made man, just like my millionaire father and his millionaire father before him"
FTFY
That's the joke, but worse.
You suck, McBain!
It is also just one man. No parents, siblings, children, spouses like the Bushs or Clintons. No one is getting all uppity about politicians like Glitch McConnell having decades in the senate.
I think a lot of us are actually uppity about that
Honestly this is sort of ridiculous.
- Biden is a Washington insider now, but that's because he had a lifetime to make something of himself. He grew up in the middle class
- I think we can all agree Obama was an outsider without any sort of elaboration
- Bill Clinton grew up dirt poor in a state that basically only makes the news when something stupid happens.
All three had to climb the ladder in a huge way, that simply wouldn't have been possible in a lot of other countries.
I also feel like Trump embodies the whole "anyone can be president" in his own sort of fucked up way. Trump obviously was born into immense wealth and enjoyed tremendous status, but he was in no way ever considered leadership material by America's political elite. His election was a complete "wtf" moment and wouldn't have happened in most countries. In a more rigid system we'd probably have had something like a Hillary Clinton v Jeb Bush election, which strictly speaking would have been better than what we got but also let's be real we would have all hated it.
I'm not saying America is some pure meritocracy. Bush was a third generation political dynasty member. His opponents were also pretty well connected. It's just that he's only one of several presidents to get elected in the past 30 years.
Something about him still winning despite losing the popular vote should've been an eye opening moment, but I guess they didn't care when it happened with Al Gore either
I don't think it's really fair to include "Biden" alongside "Bush" and "Clinton" and NOT include "Harris", just to make a point. The point is the Bush and Clinton represent two people each, a dynasty as it were. Biden is just one person. You might as well add then Harris since she has served as VP just like Biden, or Trump but I get the feeling this is intended to somehow make the statement that Harris represents a new breed of politics, a break from the old. That may or may not be true, but it doesn't hinge on this meaningless metric.
"since 1981 there has never been an election without a Bush, Clinton, Biden, Trump or Harris."
I think the point of the post is merely to point out that in four decades, at least one of three families has been in each election. Statistically, if candidates were freely chosen at random from the top 0.01% of Americans, that would be insanely improbable. It's pointing out that presidential elections aren't the American people picking the best person in the country for the job. There are influential factors other than who-would-be-best at face value. In other words, the people aren't given a list of American citizens with their characteristics and asked to chose the one they would prefer. The people are told to pick one from a very select few that have already been approved. Whether those candidates have climbed a ladder or been given a silver spoon is irrelevant to that point. The matter is that elections aren't entirely free in spirit.
It also serves as an argument against social mobility and merit in the USA. Dynasties are government systems in which the ultimate power stays within a family. We're told that it's because of whatever bs reason with the family being divine or superior, but the reality is that when the ultimate power rests within the same family, the people that benefit from that also stay in power. It's a system that maintains those on top on top. Having presidential dynasties shows that social mobility in the USA isn't as fluid as commonly thought.
I know what the point was, but Biden is included as if he is part of some political dynasty. He was VP. A very normal situation, 19 out of 49 have run for president. It's like being promoted through the ranks until you get to the top. Isn't that kinda normal in most careers?
So why is it "insanely improbable" for Biden, someone who qualified for the job over decades, to be "chosen" as opposed to anyone else.
We aren't talking here about how much cash it requires to become president which raises the bar above most people's head.we are taking about political dynasties.
So I say again, including Biden as if it is some statistical anomaly or stranglehold on politics is disingenuous, especially if you exclude Harris.
Her situation of running for president after serving as vice president is EXACTLY the same as Biden unless you want to split hairs and say he served 2 terms and her only 1. So if you want to say Biden was given a silver spoon, so was she.
Biden is not a dynasty. But if you insist he is, so is Harris, and that makes the original premise flawed.
Not really.
The only reason there is one fewer name than expected is because of Bush, which had the father appear on the ballot four times and the son appear twice. The Bush family was a very old school political dynastic family.
The only outlier on the Democratic side is Hillary Clinton in 2016. She used her husband's political career to help her, but they were a self made political family. You also have the case where Biden could have been on the 2016 ballot and there would be no change in the number of names.
Not a shower thought, we all saw the headline last month. And the Biden thing doesn't make any sense anyway, he's one person.
Everyone is anyone, but some are anyoner. Or something, idk
Anyone that can be funded endlessly by a corporate and capitalist elite can become president.
If billionaires and corporate leaders decided tomorrow that you should be president, they could dump millions of dollars and a few years worth of hired professional help and they'd make you president.
It's not the will of an individual person or a personality that makes a president ... it's whichever group of wealthy backers who decide to fund the campaign ... after that it is j just a matter of how much money they are willing to spend to make it happen.
Tell that to Hilary Clinton.
I gotchu, boo 😉👌
Dear @HilaryRClinton@clinton.dynasty,
Anyone that can be funded endlessly by a corporate and capitalist elite can become president.
If billionaires and corporate leaders decided tomorrow that you should be president, they could dump millions of dollars and a few years worth of hired professional help and they'd make you president.
It's not the will of an individual person or a personality that makes a president ... it's whichever group of wealthy backers who decide to fund the campaign ... after that it is j just a matter of how much money they are willing to spend to make it happen.
That's cute, but the point is that despite Hilary's very broad appeal to the big dollar doners, she was beaten by Obama in 2008 due to his, at the time very novel, online small dollar fundraising campaign. She was again defeated in 2016, despite having far more money given to her campaign than Trump.
https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16 https://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/02/campaign.money.schneider/index.html?iref=nextin
So the idea that the big doners actually dictate election results does not match our recent historical realities at all.
I think that someone who actually reached the top, being president, should not be allowed anymore. They suceeded, and can brage about, be happy. There is no need for a second turn. You did your best right? This avoids corruption.
We already have a presidential term limit.
Trump is going to steal it. He's going to do fraud in front of everyone.
Or he might just all out win as Harris isn't popular and the last election was almost 50/50
Didn't say anyone could be the president of the US. There's a whole world out there
And soon, I shall be President of the World
Try a bath.
More time to cogitate
That's just depressing.
Try a bath.
More time to cogitate