I agree that asking if the country as a whole is better off after than before someone’s term is a good way to define it. I disagree that FDR (and Polk before that?) were the last presidents whose term worked. I think that several presidents since FDR left the country better off than when they came in. Of the ones since FDR the only ones that might even potentially be arguable as having not worked are Ford, Carter, and Bush the Younger. I fear Trump will top all of those for ineptitude. He’ll probably end up being compared to Buchanan as one of the worst ever.
Why? Because Trump can bull charge over Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan, and any other congressperson you care to name. But he can’t bull charge reality, and I think reality is going to teach Trump a cold hard lesson about what is and isn’t possible.
Keep in mind, to “work” all Trump has to do is not have the economy collapse, and not start any major wars. Then he’s just a jerky guy who was president for 4 (possibly 8) years.
Sure, the USA is not a branch of Starbucks…on the other hand at some point practical aspects need to be taken into effect and understanding that the money only goes so far.
The career politicians has been kicking the can down the road for a about 2 or 3 generations…because…hey, it’s easier to get voted back in when you don’t actually push answers nobody wants to hear.
Now that is NOT to say that T Rump didn’t also spewed bullshit “easy” answers…but he also gave the “vibe”…for lack of better description…that he would actually MAKE the hard decisions…
Even though that could be considered a self-verifying statement, I’m gonna have to play Devil’s advocate.
A business corporate structure has offices, each responsible for a single aspect of the business. Generally, these who get these offices are appointed - either from within or from outside, much like cabinet positions. The CEO/POTUS is going to have more of a say than anybody. The CEO/POTUS is the final authority on economic policy and the security and stability of the organization/country. The CEO/POTUS has access to a huge staff of advisers and support.
Of course, the POTUS has more magnitudes of responsibility than a CEO, but the POTUS is a huge step up for anybody, regardless of how capable they were before in the political or business sector.
Running a business and governing a country can be more alike than you think.
It’s difficult for me to envision that kind of scenario. Stalin and Mao didn’t kill millions out of concerns about overpopulation. Overpopulation to the point of worldwide peril is not a problem anybody has ever dealt with and is too extreme an example. Do I expect Trump to make noble decisions? Fuck no. I hope he doesn’t lose his shit and declare a war just because he can. But it’s not my intention to focus on that kind of situation.
His approach is making deals with companies to keep or bring jobs into the US. Anything else like diplomacy or social issues or anything else will either be part of bringing in jobs or barely thought of.
Let us assume at totally more reasonable scenario…that doesn’t involve T Rump ordering the death of half a few billion people…and the going underground and faking his identity and doing shitty Shakesperian plays while a Vulcan looks at him askance…
Let us assume the bean counters come to Trump…Potus Trump…the Social Security shit is hitting the fan…
Trump? How we gonna fix this shit…blah blah blah.
Trump…okay…we gotta reduce benifits by 20 percent and increase payment by 20 percent…will that fix it?
That’s beside the point. A business has a very clear objective, to increase value for its owners/shareholders. Even with such a clear goal, the means to achieve it can become very complicated. So what would you say is the goal of governing a country; defense of its borders and interests, health and welfare of it citizens, education, responsible stewardship of resources for future generations, or some balance of all those things and more?
Which is the problem I have with the OP. Will Trump’s approach work; well, work to do what? Will it responsibly balance the needs of all U.S. citizens and interests? I’d be amazed. Will it allow Trump to strut around the West Wing convinced of his own greatness? Probably.
You’re saying you want Americans to suffer and die? If the Prsident fails, that’s what happens. That’s extraordinarily cruel.
You don’t get what I was saying at all. Of course he will fail. But it would be better if we were totally wrong and he succeeded wildly in improving his country.
He’s a con artist; any “vibe” you got was just the con working on you. He cares about feeding his ego and bank account, nothing more; and cares absolutely nothing about the consequences to anyone else. He’s got a long history of ruining anything he is involved in, while making sure he walks away with the money while everyone else involved has to deal with the consequences.
So no; he won’t make any “hard decisions”. He’ll just use the federal government to enrich himself while bringing the nation and the world to ruin, then when he leaves office or is impeached he’ll gloat publicly over how he’s now the richest man in the world while everyone else deals with the wars and economic collapse he’s created in the process of enriching himself.
And yes, I expect his approach will “work” -* for him.* It’ll be disastrous for everyone else, but he won’t care in the slightest. Except to sneer at the people suffering and dead because of him as “losers”. He’s die of old age rich, happy and safe while the world suffers to make it so.
The problem with hoping that Trump “succeeds” is that a Trump presidency that can be even somewhat plausibly described as “successful” by more than the 27% crazification factor portion of the population will legitimize Trump-style candidacies from here on out.
It’s one thing to say
[ol]
[li]Trump has zero experience in politics or government.[/li][li]I don’t personally think President of the United States should be an entry-level position.[/li][li]If Trump (improbably, IMO) does a good job, more people with zero experience in politics or government will be tempted to run for POTUS.[/li][/ol]
Hey, if he does a good job, then I guess I was wrong about the importance of experience in politics or government. Bring on the total amateurs!
But I don’t approve of a candidate demonizing whole ethnic and religious groups, or lying more often than he tells the truth, or encouraging his supporters to chant “Lock her up!” about his opponent. I don’t approve of those things not just on pragmatic grounds; I disapprove of them on moral grounds. Even if Trump turns out to be a clever and competent demagogue who really does somehow make the trains run on time (or provides universal health care), I don’t want my country to become one in which politicians routinely lie more often than they tell the truth*, or demonize entire ethnic and religious groups, or call for their political opponents to be imprisoned.
*And no, Trump’s levels of lying are not “normal”. Traditionally, most politicians actually do at least try to keep most of their campaign promises.
There’s also a danger of a “crying wolf” issue with the demagoguery and the demonizing and the chants of “Lock her up!” When the next politician comes along saying that members of such-and-such group are rapists and terrorists, and the media are all liars, and his political opponents should be “locked up”, a hypothetical successful Trump presidency may cause the American people to say “Well, sure, some of what this fellow says sounds kind of scary, but he’s no worse than good old President Trump was, and look at all those great trade deals and universal health care plans and trains that run on time we got from him! And he didn’t actually have Hillary locked up or put all the Muslims in camps–that was just campaign talk. This new fellow’s just a little rough around the edges, that’s all, but that’s good–he’s not one of those old-fashioned Do-Nothing Politicians like from the bad old days! He’ll be another Trump!”
Then, when the new guy really does start rounding up his political opponents, and members of ethnic or religious groups he doesn’t like, and violently censors the free press, it will be too damned late.