# Can you name a single "qualified" candidate that would be worse than Trump? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 7, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289 "2016-07-07T05:11:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289/41 "2016-07-09T14:50:50Z")
If we don’t care about ideology, but only competence and the country not going to pot because a candidate is so divisive, then no one is worse than Trump. If you’re a concerned liberal and are scared of an effective Republican Presidency a la Reagan, then stop worrying about Cruz. He’s too unlikeable and has no executive experience. Smart, but smarts don’t move the federal government. Knowing the levers to push does and Cruz has no freakin’ clue how even the Senate moves, much less the executive branch. LBJ he’s not. Rubio, at least right now, is an empty suit. IMO, the guy you’d want to worry most about would be Mike Huckabee. Huck’s very likeable, a very good talker, and has governing experience. He also has some fringe conservative plans like the Fairtax which given his experience and the force of his personality, he’d actually have a chance to get through Congress, at least a Republican one. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289/42 "2016-07-09T14:54:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think it depends on how one assesses risks. A Cruz, Walker, or the like would be far more likely to do serious harm to the country. However, the sort of harm they would be likely to inflict, while severe, would still be of a sort that could be reversed by the next President, or (in the case of the Supreme Court) by the next few. Trump is less likely than them to do serious harm, but if he does, the harm he’s likely to do would be far worse, of a sort that might well take a century to repair, and what eventually emerges from the ruins even then would in no way be recognizable as the same nation. What on earth do you think he could do? He’s not going to be king, just a president. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289/43 "2016-07-09T15:03:50Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > What on earth do you think he could do? He’s not going to be king, just a president. Seriously, you think he (Trump) realizes that? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289/44 "2016-07-09T15:12:07Z")
There is a serious problem here though. Executive power is such that Presidents can do pretty much whatever they want and the only remedy is impeachment. A President Trump might encourage us to find other means of reining in lawless Presidents, such as recall elections or constitutional amendments more rigidly defining Presidential power. Or Congress should just pass a resolution encouraging the Supreme Court to be more aggressive in litigating legislative/executive disputes, as well as giving the Supreme Court power to order the arrest and imprisonment of Presidents for contempt who disregard court orders. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289/45 "2016-07-09T15:43:32Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But what is Trump skilled at? Persuading people to invest in him, then screwing them over, pocketing the money himself, and letting his investors and creditors go broke. Self promotion. Look, you don’t have to be a genius to get rich in Manhattan real estate if you are already starting with tens of millions of dollars. For all the gaudy skyscrapers with his name on the front, I don’t think Trump is considered one of the major players in NY real estate. And the Trump company isn’t really known as a hotbed of talent or incubator for future executives who don’t have “Trump” as a last name. Compared to, say, Mitt Romney who started his career at BCG, was a partner at Bain (which along with McKinsey are considered the most prestigious management consulting firms in the world) and spun off a successful private equity firm Bain Capital. I don’t know if he’d make a better or worse president, but Romney is certainly a better businessman than Trump IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289/46 "2016-07-09T16:32:05Z")
C\*\*an you name a single “qualified” candidate that would be worse than Trump? \*\*Ted Cruz ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289/47 "2016-07-09T17:33:44Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’d agree to call GWB a merely mediocre President if it weren’t for one specific blunder. > > Attacking Iraq, which was in a stable box, and then following with extremely bad decisions in the aftermath, was one of the worst single mistakes any President ever made. It cost trillions of dollars, millions of lives, degraded America’s goodwill and directly provoked the ongoing bloodshot in the Middle East. > > The motives for this tragedy make it all the more despicable. While Bush himself may have been a dupe with little imagination, the war effort was run as a playground to profiteer, to run ideological experiments, and to practice warfare. And it was all started with treasonous perjuries. > > The [Siena College Research Institute survey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Siena_College_Research_Institute_survey) ranks GWB as follows That chart is impressive. Thanks for linking to it. …and to answer the OP’s question: Cruz. It ain’t even close. We dodged a bullet there, folks. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289/48 "2016-07-09T20:41:34Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > What on earth do you think he could do? He’s not going to be king, just a president. The President has huge discretion in foreign policy. He could telephone Putin and make a threat or promise regarding a war. Trump bluster could lead to renewed hostilities in parts of Eastern Europe or a turn for the worse in the Middle East, for example, or even nuclear brinksmanship. Trump wouldn’t have to be acting out of malice to provoke a bad outcome, just stupidity or over-confidence. Despite this risk, I’d prefer a Trump Presidency over Cruz, who might decimate the entire federal regulatory structure, or over Rubio, who might pursue a Tea Party agenda. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-qualified-candidate-that-would-be-worse-than-trump/759289.md?page=2)