This would be one advantage of a monarchy, of course it would also have to include a capable monarch and a democratic leader who was interested in listening to them.
Which reminds me of an episode of Head of the Class in the 80s where there was an impromptu debate between the class and some British students about the advantages of a republic versus monarchy, and on the pro-monarchy side, they said that the Trumps would be a good suggestion for royals should American choose to go that route. Yeah, no. He would neither listen to learned advice as President nor be able and willing to give it. (And these days he would be deposed within a year for trying to actually exercise his theoretical “powers”.)
Do you mean a monarchy like Great Britain’s, in which the democratic leader holds nearly all the power? and you mean that the advantage would be in the probable longevity in the office?
Better to underpromise and overperform than otherwise. It’s refreshing to see a leader who isn’t all about his own ego who blames then blames everyone when his grandiose pledges fall short of reality.
…
On Thursday morning, the White House confirmed that the president had canceled the national emergency at the southwest border that Mr. Trump had declared in order to divert money for construction of his border wall.
In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi dated Wednesday, Mr. Biden dismissed the emergency as an attempt by his predecessor to get around congressional refusal to provide funds for the wall’s construction.
“I have determined that the declaration of a national emergency at our southern border was unwarranted,” he wrote. “I have also announced that it shall be the policy of my administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall, and that I am directing a careful review of all resources appropriated or redirected to that end.”
…
At this point, Biden’s net approval rate, as calculated by 538, is more than 22 points higher than Individual-ONE’s was at this point in his term. Individual-ONE was already in negative territory, from which he would never escape.
So far Biden has shown that he’s a much, much more skilled politician than I thought he was through the primary. I don’t think it’s just luck - seems like all the major decisions he’s made so far have been politically savvy.
Well, stupid we know he is not. At 78.23, his brain cells may have a touch of fray around the edges, but he is smart enough to be aware that he is not smart enough, which means that if he is doing as well as he is doing, he knows how to have a good support team. One that is good enough to even figure out how to turn the lights on in the West Wing.
At 22 days into the Presidency, Biden has not golfed at all. He’s taken a couple of days to spend with his family in Delaware, in order to watch the Super Bowl with them. Otherwise, he’s been working as President.
At 22 days into Trump’s presidency, Trump had golfed twice, possibly three times:
That’s an essential qualification. Nobody’s actually smart enough to be POTUS. People who are aware of this problem are able to at least partly compensate for it
Let’s not kid ourselves that we’d all PREFER that Trump spend all that time golfing instead of presidenting, since his idea of presidenting is…pretty bad. If he were buckling down on actually accomplishing the “work” that he thought would make America better, instead of golfing, we’d probably be even worse off.
It’s amazing how good it feels, just to have some sense of decency and competence in the White House.
So far I’m not sure if Biden has made a wrong move, which amazes me considering how down I was on him during the primary (he was close to my last choice!). I’m sure he has, but what has it been? Waiting a couple of days too long to fire Ducklo? I have to be careful not to be too easy on him, considering how low the bar is that was left for him.
So I’ll ask the question to the broader audience – what are Biden’s missteps so far? Any bad cabinet nominees? Any foreign policy missteps?
The primaries really focused on the difference between the main Democratic candidates, but the truth is there were few differences in the policies they could actually enact given the current political landscape.
He has been relatively diverse (in terms of the political spectrum, and incidentally or not in terms of ethnic and gender composition) for his cabinet. Of course, the far-left progressives are screaming that he didn’t nominate Bernie Sanders as his Treasury Secretary (really?), and Republicans are grousing that he hasn’t picked any GOP nominees, although he is clearly looking at moderate Republicans for key ambassadorships (which will probably get them censured by their respective state GOP orgs, or in Cindy McCain’s case, re-censured, so their is no winning with those shit-fuckers). I suspect there was more going on in the Ducklo incident than was let on (it seems likely the Politico reporter was goading for a response, and the relationship that was the conflict was previously disclosed to both the Biden administration and the reporter-in-question’s employer so their was no impropriety) but encouraging him to resign was probably the smart move.
Certainly, the previous administration evidenced more fraud and corruption in the first day than Biden and Harris have in a month, with the biggest “scandal” Fox News et al could point to was the law firm employing Biden’s brother using his name for advertising. Really, I feel like Biden should start deliberately trolling by wearing a plaid suit (“So unpresidential”) and eating hot dogs with ketchup just to give them something to chew on.
We’ll see what comes, and of course Biden is limited to what he can do by executive order so he Democrats in the Senate need to wind up and start pitching in the remaining 23 months they can expect to hold it, but so far it’s been better than I’ve expected. Biden has made the keystone of his agenda responding to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and providing states better guidance and access to more vaccines, which exactly what needs to happen in order to cope with everything else, and he’s clearly made transparency, economic stimulus, re-engaging with key strategic allies, and responding to cybersecurity threats primary goals in his first few months. The Bernie boosters can bitch all they want about banks and Wall Street, but it isn’t as if there is any way he could have accomplished more or exercised the kind of relationships in Congress that Biden has nurtured for decades.
