# Trump vs Regular Joe **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 6, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629 "2019-07-06T16:42:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/21 "2019-07-07T21:53:23Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Electing an average joe would be the equivalent of handing over the government to the most conniving bureaucrats and operatives, so there is no surprise the authoritarian statists of the SDMB would choose this option. Even Trump’s hard-headedness is no match for his advisors who have basically convinced him to do a 180 on things like defunding NATO, furthering detente with Russia, and withdrawing from the wars. This is fair notice to you. I’m done with you interjecting your pet topic of statism or authoritarianism or the combination in unrelated threads, as well as passive aggressive denigrating the board. This goes for this thread, and all other threads in GD and Elections. I am bookmarking this post and If you do this again, you will be warned. I have also sent you this via PM. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/22 "2019-07-07T21:58:56Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > … if you roll the dice you could get someone who makes Trump look like Abraham Lincoln. I’m skeptical that there’s anyone on the _ **planet** _ who would, by comparison, make Donald Trump look like Abraham Lincoln. And, yes, I’m including those residing in prisons and in mental hospitals. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/23 "2019-07-08T00:31:41Z")
Roll the dice. I doubt we’d get anyone as despicable as Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/24 "2019-07-08T21:53:45Z")
Random Joe. We might get someone worse, but the odds are against it, and they couldn’t be _much_ worse. And even if they were just as bad as Trump, there’s a good chance that they’d at least realize how bad they are, and thus make some effort to pick and listen to good advisors. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/25 "2019-07-16T16:34:54Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Bear in mind also that there’s a roughly 1 in 3 chance that the average American you pick from the lottery draw will be a Trump supporter… So what? Per the OP we still get to choose. If we manage to beat the odds and end up with someone worse on the ballot we can still do rolleyes choose Trump. OTOH there’s a 66% chance we could do a zillion times better than the subhuman motherfucker currently occupying The White House. > [@Velocity](#): > > At least, at this point, Trump has 2.5 years of experience as a president, has knowledge of world affairs, and so forth. Not to pick on you, but are you fucking high? Can you point to _anything_ to suggest Trump is able to convert exposure to experience, let alone harness experience to guide him toward wiser choices? At best he’s just been a corrosive placeholder while the USA takes its time deciding what it wants to be when it grows up. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/26 "2019-07-16T16:47:18Z")
In light of recent tweets, I’m changing my answer. We might as well have Richard fucking Spencer at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/27 "2019-07-17T21:55:55Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > Maybe I confused things by saying ‘Regular Joe’ instead of ‘Random citizen’. You could end up with President Richard Spencer or President Wannabe Jihadi. It’s very unlikely, but if you roll the dice you could get someone who makes Trump look like Abraham Lincoln. I’m on Team Anyone. With no political party support and no loyalists stocked in government, Congress would shed its reluctance to use the full measure of its checks and balances to hold the president accountable. The most likely scenario is that we wind up with someone better than Trump. Another likely scenario is that we wind up with a right-wing Trump supporter who is no smarter or better on policy than Trump but who lacks even Trump’s limited ability to accomplish his objectives, which is a form of a win. We may wind up with someone so demonstrably bad and unsupportable that Democrats and Republicans are united in the need to hold him or her accountable. Greater unity would be a plus. Odds are, we won’t pick someone like Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, or Lyndsey Graham who manages to be both a horrifying human being and have greater political ability than Trump to effect destructive public policy. ETA: Turns out DSeid said much the same thing, so I agree with him. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/28 "2019-07-17T22:18:57Z")
I would go with random Joe / Josephine as well. I think the odds are pretty low that we would get someone worse than Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/29 "2019-07-17T22:28:18Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The odds of getting someone worse than Trump don’t come up on a roll of the dice or even one card out of a deck. Odds are way overwhelming that random Joe/Josephine would be better and just as good that they be the best ever as being worse than what we’ve got. Worse than Trump is a very small population in this country. This may be true, but I’m not as sure about it as you seem to be. I still think I’d pick the random US citizen over Trump, but I’d be damn nervous about it. Question for the OP: Would everyone _know_ the president had been chosen completely at random? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629/30 "2019-07-18T01:19:25Z")
That’s how the Athenians did it. Every magistrate, judge or general was an average Joe picked at random. Well, not really - more like “random aristocratic Joseph”. But it worked for them. Until they stopped doing it, put one of the random aristocrats in power forever because he was _so good_ you guys, established a tyrannical & greedily oppressive regime over their every neighbouring allies, which pissed everyone off. As you do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-regular-joe/836629.md?page=1)