Well, so people who will “still be mad” about mass murder of civilians are a “small group” of the “recreationally offended”?
(Checks forum)
Well, bless your heart.
I think Democrats could run Jesus Christ with Ronald Reagan as his veep and Republicans would call them woke commie trans libtards.
Look, I don’t like it any more than you do but the fact of the matter is that the opinions of anyone and everyone in the US has zero percent impact on the outcome of the conflict. Biden was advised that it was starting to look like genocide over there and his response was essentially “but on the receipts for the weapons we sold them, it specifically said ‘not for use in a genocide!’” The Democratic nominee in 2028 isn’t going to have any more flexibility to do anything about it. If they make demands, they will be ignored (just as Trump’s demands regarding Lebanon are being ignored right now) and if they ask politely they will also be ignored and then accused of being anti-Semitic. The opinion of the US or Canada or any other nation on earth is not taken into account when Israel is deciding what to do in Gaza/The West Bank/Lebanon/etc. and that means that unfortunately, all attendant outrage falls into the recreational category. If it pleases the gods, perhaps Israel will have new political leadership by 2028 and that leadership might be more receptive to giving Palestinians something to live for instead of something to die for. But again, if a shift in attitudes happens, it won’t be because angry American voters remind Israel that mass murder is wrong.
As for people in the States who are upset about this situation, I mean they are a small group when measured against the group of squishy people in the political middle who couldn’t point to Gaza on a map and have no interest in hearing about it. If a candidate is trying to appeal to the “justice for Gaza” crowd, they need to fix an impossible situation in another country where their input is fully unwelcome. But if a candidate is trying to appeal to people who don’t normally care about much of anything, they can always find something. Squishes are a target-rich environment. Single-issue voters aren’t. Kamala Harris wouldn’t have won by pretending there was something she could do about the situation. Trump campaigned on ethnic cleansing (so he could build hotels on the Gaza beachfront!) and he won. So while I agree people should be upset by what is going on there, they don’t seem to be. They somehow manage to put it out of their minds and if someone yells at them for it, they tune out even harder.
They might. But it wouldn’t have much impact, at for either of them.
Nixon could go to China. A member of the American Jewish mainstream can take on blind support of Israel. Very seriously the message is much likely not conflated with antisemitism and much more likely taken to heart coming from someone identified and identifying as part of the Jewish mainstream, like either of them, than a non-Jew or a Jew not identified as part of the Jewish community (thinking Sanders here).
There are Jews who criticize other Jews for being critical of Israel. I have a Jewish friend whose own mother called him antisemitic for that reason. And there are liberal Jews who are very pro-Israel. I agree that a Jewish candidate could suggest putting conditions on American support of Israel, but it wouldn’t be without controversy.
There’s a lot of religious bigotry in the U.S., and not just on the right. Many Americans wouldn’t vote for a non-Christian, and even more wouldn’t vote for an all-Jewish ticket.
The most expensive thing the USA gave Israel are the missile defense systems.
Correct.
And you see- one group will consider the “mass murder of civilians” to be what Hamas did to Israel, and another group will consider it what Netanyahu is doing to retaliate.
So, there is no agreement.
I don’t think anyone is expecting the next President to “solve the situation” so much as “stop actively making things worse by sending military aid to and providing diplomatic cover for Israel”. Which is a much more realistic expectation to meet.
Which is political suicide for any Democratic candidate, since that angers the Jewish voters and their contributions. Even the GOP realizes this.
Not to mention, most of that support goes to missile defense systems. Israel makes a LOT of it’s own military equipment, stopping that aid wont stop what is going on in Gaza.
And, then there’s the question of should that be done anyway? Being as all this restarted with the Hamas attack and atrocities on Israel. There’s no good guys here, just victims.
Have they? My top five include George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and in a slightly lower tier Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Yes, some of them were wealthy, but IMHO none of them qualify as douchebags. As far as how to avoid a nominee that falls into that category, I’d go with JB Pritzker. I’m open to changing my mind, but as of right now, I think he’s our best shot. Yes, he’s wealthy, but I don’t think he qualifies as a douchebag.
ETA: And in the next tier below them, from 6-10, I’d add John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, and Barack Obama. IMHO only one of those (Thomas Jefferson) qualifies as an entitled rich douchebag.
I came in to say basically the same thing. Pritzker is my top choice right now.
NYT has another piece pumping up Ossoff.
This Senator Is an Internet Sensation. Is He Running for President?
The 39-year-old senator has become an internet sensation for Democrats seeking a 2028 contender.
It is enough to make me knee jerk push away!
(Not gift linking this time. The point isn’t what the article says, nothing new, just how hard they are beating his drum.)
Considering their recent endorsements, I extend my congratulations to everyone else in the race.
So much for him. Oh well.
I would agree with your list of top presidents, with the possible exception of Johnson (I like most of what he did, but I have to ding him for Vietnam). But I think four of the names you listed can pretty easily be argued to fit into the “rich entitled douchebag” category.
George Washington was a landed aristocrat with a volcanic temper who radiated social dominance. People were afraid to touch him — literally. Hamilton once bet Gouverneur Morris that he wouldn’t dare slap Washington on the back when greeting him. Morris did it, and Washington’s glare was so severe that Morris staggered backward and later said he’d never try anything like that again.
Theodore Roosevelt built his entire persona around being a loud, swaggering bully. Brilliant, yes. Humble, no. Even his friends described him as exhausting.
Franklin D. Roosevelt wasn’t just privileged — he was patrician to the bone. The affair with Lucy Mercer is the obvious example of personal entitlement, but there’s more. He routinely manipulated allies and rivals with charm, telling different people different things to keep control, and he could be surprisingly cold when someone outlived their usefulness. Admirable president, complicated man.
Lyndon Johnson might be the gold standard for “rich entitled jerk.” He bragged about cheating, demeaned staff, held meetings while using the toilet, and treated crude dominance displays as a management style. He loved to brag about — and occasionally show off — his “Jumbo” to underlings. He was a force of nature and also a walking HR lawsuit.
You can admire their accomplishments and still acknowledge that several of them behaved like aristocratic jerks in their personal lives. American history is full of that kind of contradiction.
LBJ wasn’t rich, though. He grew up poor and actually did manual labor at times as a young adult. Arrogant jerk, sure, but not rich.
He grew up poor, but the Johnson’s were millionaires by the 1950s thanks to Lady Bird Johnson’s shrewd investments. By the time she died in 2007, she had a net worth of around $150 million.
Thinking about this more overnight, I realized the more interesting point isn’t just that some of our best presidents were rich entitled jerks — it’s that sometimes the country actually needed someone with that kind of force‑of‑personality to get anything done.
Take George Washington. The early American political class was basically a herd of brilliant but stubborn stray cats. There were no established norms, no shared expectations, and no reason for anyone to defer to anyone else. Washington’s intimidating social dominance wasn’t a character flaw so much as a stabilizing force. Without someone who radiated authority, the whole experiment might have spun apart before it started. We desperately needed someone like Washington in that moment.
You can make similar arguments for Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Their abrasive or entitled traits weren’t admirable, but they were often effective in moments that required political muscle, not gentle consensus‑building.
And just to be clear — none of this is a back‑door defense of Trump.
Historical examples of domineering personalities succeeding don’t automatically translate to the present, and pointing out that Washington or LBJ had rough edges doesn’t excuse anyone else’s behavior today. The point is simply that American history is full of leaders who were both deeply flawed and highly effective, and sometimes their flaws were part of what made them effective.
I guess the real question is: what kind of leadership does the country need now? A fighter? A consensus‑builder? Something else entirely? The hell if I know — I suck at predicting the future. I thought Trump was going to lose all of his elections.
I don’t think that there’s any way to become the non-heriditary leader of a nation without having an “intimidating social dominance”.
I agree with you that anyone who becomes the non‑hereditary leader of a nation has to project a certain amount of confidence and authority. That’s the baseline.
But there’s a big difference between the backbone it takes to run a country and the kind of overwhelming social dominance Washington projected — the kind where a grown man who knew him personally was dared to give him a friendly slap on the back and ended up practically recoiling in terror when Washington turned and looked at him.
That’s not just “leadership presence.”
That’s a whole different category of intimidating.
And yes, Washington is probably the weakest case of the four, because he wasn’t a jerk in the TR/LBJ sense. He wasn’t crude, bullying, or abusive. But he was an aristocratic, socially dominant figure who expected deference and projected an intimidating presence that shut down dissent without him ever having to raise his voice. And as I said before, I think we really needed that in our first president.