Just for the record, I understand why people dislike dynastic politics and there are some fair intellectual arguments against them. I’m particularly sympathetic to the argument that we ought to attract a broader field of more qualified people and that dynastic politics tends to discourage that.
And to be clear, it’s not that people “like” dynasties, but I think we can accept that dynasties are inevitable in politics, including democracies. They exist in the democracies that immediately come to mind: the UK, Japan, and of course the USA. Perhaps not with the sons or daughters of Prime Ministers necessarily growing up to be Prime Ministers but certainly rising to high levels of stature nevertheless. People like familiarity and dynasties offer that to voters, however false that sense of security may be. Moreover, those who grow up in politics simply understand what it takes to succeed in that line of work, just as, say Peyton and Eli Manning learned from their father Archie what it takes to succeed as a professional athlete in the NFL.
They’re also not “good” because you say they are. And if you call it “mindless” one more time I’m going to be tempted to get in trouble with the moderators. It’s pernicious, creeping oligarchism which is bad for any democratic system. You are correct that it is also somewhat inevitable given human nature, but that doesn’t mean we should be any more fond of it.
I voted for Hillary Clinton as well because the alternative was dire. And I believe I would have voted for her over any of the Republican candidates running against her, because I found their politics unacceptable. AND though I am not a registered Democrat I probably would have even voted for her over Sanders in the primaries, despite Sanders being a little closer to me politically, because at the time I considered Clinton the more pragmatic choice( frankly I still have zero confidence that a self-avowed socialist can get elected president in this country ). Pragmatism, sadly more than principal at times, is my guiding light when voting. When I look at Hillary, the candidate, I was bothered more by her bland corporatism and hawkishness than her family name.
But I still didn’t like seeing her family name. And really think no one should. It may be a pretty minor evil on the scale of things, but it is still an evil.
I never said that dynasties were good – I am saying that they could be either good or bad, just like a dark horse or an unconventional candidate. I’m saying that we need to start evaluating candidates using the appropriate criteria, such as whether their values match those of the country, whether they have knowledge of the issues, whether they have the right character, what their voting record is – take that criteria and compare it with other candidates. Make a decision based on that criteria, not whether someone’s a fresh face or whether someone’s family name has been in politics for decades.
No it’s not; it’s what happens in democracies when people are comfortable voting for someone whom they know and whose values match their own. I don’t see what’s so hard about making the choice in a democracy: you yourself said that you voted for Hillary Clinton despite her name. I don’t know whether you preferred Sanders over Clinton - I might have missed it, sorry – but you also indicated that you doubted that a democratic socialist could get anything done in this country. So it seems like you voted for a family name despite a lot of other competitors in the field because in the end you decided that she was the more qualified candidate. There’s nothing evil about it. If you want more choices, I don’t know…run for office yourself maybe.
Agreed. Of all of the natural born citizens over age 35, who have lived the past 14 years in the United States, what are the odds that the most qualified of all of them would happen to be named Bush or Clinton?
If you accept that such a thing is so statistically unlikely as to be effectively impossible, then we are not selecting top candidate based upon merit, but upon their last names. I would personally rather have the best candidates that the ones from a handful of families.
I hate political dynasties. But the hatred is broad, not deep.
It’s just like I hate McDonald’s. Sure, I’ll eat it, if I’m hungry and there are really no other choices. Because I know what I’m getting, no surprises. But, if I really had a choice, I would go for something else, because I know it’s still junk. Maybe the convenience is a factor, doesn’t require much thought.
So, my first filter is that I would really really prefer someone who is not part of a dynasty (diversity is a good thing!) But, once I have no other choice (Primary --> Final Candidate) then I drop the objection and move on. That’s what I mean by the hatred being broad, not deep.
So, I guess I’m saying dynastic candidates are like McDonald’s, they’re convenient, and don’t require much thought (which makes them perfect for the USA).
“Elites” aren’t really elite, but they do want a “global governance” though, because only they are smart enough to administer it. The idea of sovereign states has to be expunged in their mind, and ceding authority to a passle of unelected and unaccountable bureacratic twatwaffles proves to be a tough sell. So it’s no mystery why they would just assume that nobody was able to vote.
Oh! Then, you’re basically disrupting the answer to the OP’s question. This thread is about why people despise dynasties, and you’re insisting that we shouldn’t, and that we should consider everything else. Which is not the question here.
I don’t have a very high opinion of Justin Trudeau. I don’t mind him that much, but he’s far from great. He’s presumably better than Harper, in the sense that (I am exaggerating their sins for comic effect) someone who merely lies to your face and embezzles from you is better than someone who burned your entire neighborhood down twice. He looks good next to Steve Harper, because Harper was a very bad PM.