What does it mean in today's USA to "do a good job as President"?

Politics & Elections
1

This question was prompted in my mind by this one post in the KBJ Supreme Court thread (but this thread is not a launch from that thread):

“Romney would do a good job as President were he elected.”

This got me thinking: in today’s pathologically divisive political climate, found both in Washington and across the country, how would YOU define, “doing a good job as President”?

How do you answer this while the person is President… and how do you answer it, looking back after 5, 10, 20, etc., years? Is it even possible to answer the question while the person is President?

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I’d like to hear some discussion first before I get carried away in my own thread.

2

My standards are considerably lower than they used to be. I have no illusions that a president is in control of things like the economy. A “good job” would be competent, moral, efficient administrator who generally conforms to the established norms in foreign and domestic policy. Be nice to our friends, firm with our adversaries, appoint competent cabinet officials, and try to get Congress to do some good. Using the Romney example, in the post-Trump world I am much more accepting of someone with different political views in the White House, if they possess some decency and are not willing to destroy our country. We can handle conservative and liberal swings, although I very much prefer the liberal agenda.

Maybe it’s as simple as our prime directive here: Don’t be a jerk.

3

Good job these days = just be competent. I didn’t vote for Biden in 2020, but he’s doing a competent job.

Now, a truly good president = strong economy, reduce debt, strengthen US allies and weaken US enemies, get some good legislation reform passed, reduce US carbon output, stay relatively scandal-free, basically leave America a better place off when he leaves than before he came.

4

“Try” being the operative word here. But does the President get any credit (now or later) for “trying” when s/he doesn’t have an ice cube’s prayer in Hell of getting past a hostile Congress’s promise to block everything s/he sends over?

Again, does trying count? Does the inability to get past a roadblock like Mitch McConnell tarnish the President’s reputation for effectiveness, both in the present and in retrospect? Sadly, I believe it does.

Full disclosure: I don’t believe it’s possible to “do a good job as President” today in this hostile climate. I think it’s entirely possible to have the best intentions in the world, but not to accomplish anything. I would love to be convinced otherwise.

5

IMHO there is Trump, and then every other President. He lowered the bar so much and on so many levels it makes everyone else look good, or at least decent. Doing a good job as President to me means:

  1. Do No Harm (don’t screw it up, whatever the issue is),
  2. Be Competent, or at least have a 5th-grader’s ability to string together cogent sentences and thoughts,
  3. Compromise, which is now a filthy word, in order to get things done for the general public (do the most good for the most people),
  4. Seek Input - get guidance from experts in fields you are not an expert, which is essentially all fields outside of politics,
  5. Be Flexible - do what it takes to get stuff done, even if it means going back on something you previously said or did.

Essentially, just bring stability, and don’t be a jerk.

6

The President doesn’t really have any control over the economym (other than sinking it by making ill-considered statements that disrupt consumer confidence) and while the White House issues a budget proposal the President can only sign or refuse appropriation and authorization bills. The President also has little control over “carbon output”; while the EPA is an agency of the executive branch under ostensible control of the executive, it’s regulatory authority is controlled by Congress and more specifically the Clean Air Act and the President could not unilaterally apply limits to atmospheric carbon emissions by executive order. Getting legislation passed is a negotiation with Congress but one that largely depends on the willingness of both the President’s party and the opposition to support his or her agenda, which is really up to voters to elect Congresspeople who are in agreement with that agenda. Neither Joe Biden or any other Democratic president really stands a chance in the current hyperpartisan environment of making that happen regardless of compromises or ‘reaching across the aisle’.

It is in the area of foreign relations, and specifically strengthening alliances with strategic allies that the President has plenary authority (although Congress has to ratify any formal treaties), and the most notable presidents have paid attention to this, whereas those who have floundered have let foreign policy initiatives meander or have pursued quick news-bite solutions rather than formulating deeper policy goals and strategic initiatives.

Biden has been doing a pretty good job of foreign relations as much as the last guy actively torpredoed those relationships with long-held allies in favor of authoritarian ‘strongmen’ of autocratic regimes. The Biden administration has mostly been free of scandal, setting aside the Eric Lander debacle (waffling after promising a strict policy of promptly removing anyone from his advisors and Cabinet who were disrespectful or bullying), and of course Hunter Biden’s continual use of the Biden name to support his own ethically questionable business activities, a practice that Joe Biden has little legal control over. The country being in “a better place” is naturally subjective but it is hard to see how it could be worse now than it was on 06 January 2021. “Doing a good job” of being President is mostly about appearances and relationships (both with Congressional leaders and foreign heads of state), and Biden has at least made overtures to GOP minority leaders in Congress while having strong ties with his former Senate allies, and has renewed relationships with foreign allies, albeit there is still a lot of work to be done.

Stranger

7

Yeah, this.

But as you point out, some of the bigger issues that are factors in evaluating the President’s performance are outside his control. And yet s/he gets blamed when those issues go kerblooie or are assumed to have gone kerblooie (even when in reality, they’re doing pretty well). I think it’s human nature to blame the person in charge when something goes wrong, the buck stopping there, and all that.

But today, what is lacking is what I consider to be the essential element in harmonious interpersonal relations all the way from the micro to the macro level, namely, the assumption of good will on the part of the other party. Not only is there not an assumption of good will, there is concrete evidence of intentional ill will in the mix and that is the death of cooperation and compromise.

8

I guarantee that the part of the country that is loudly dismissing every word and action of Biden’s will be even more loudly screaming hosannas at the next Republican president, whoever that is and whatever they do.

That makes the title question meaningless today, even more than the OP is already acknowledging. A complete political revolution in the country will be necessary.

9

Agreed. This is why IMHO part of being a good president is calling out that ill will rather than making noises about wanting to do things with bipartisan cooperation. The Republican Party going fascist is, IMHO, one of the three biggest threats that humanity as a species is facing, mainly because it hinders us from addressing at least one of the other two, and possibly both. There’s not all that much the POTUS can do about the other two (global warming and the threat of Russia launching nukes) on his own. The issue of the Republican Party turning fascist is a different story. To the extent Biden hasn’t done anything about that, it’s because he probably still has some misguided notions about wanting to restore bipartisanship. It’s time for him to stop thinking like that and to lay into the Republican Party for the evil that they’ve become.

10

In light of the OPs quote regarding Romney, I find it useful to narrow the scope of this question to asking how one evaluates a president of the opposing party. My natural partisanship is vastly more forgiving of a president of my chosen party, and vastly more skeptical of a president from the opposing party. Consequently, what I would consider a “good job” by one would not be at all the same as for another.

That said, for a president of an opposing party, I would ask that they do not deliberately gore any of my oxen, or piss in my cheerios. If they honestly attempted to do what they thought was best for most/all Americans, then I would give them credit, even if I disagreed with their philosophy.

11

Since I was quoted in the OP (truly, I’m honored), please allow me to try to explain myself.

In ‘12, I was happy to vote for Obama’s reeelction. I was born in ‘78, and I believe that he is the best president of my lifetime.

But I would have been cautiously ok if Romney had won. My reasons:

  1. As Governor of Massachusetts, he seemed willing to compromise for the betterment of the people, making him a moderate. The state’s health insurance program in fact mirrored the Obamacare that later came nationally.

  2. He has, for lack of a better word, ‘gravitas’. It may sound superficial, but I think he looks and sounds like a president. I actually think it’s important that the president appear right for the job, since he sometimes needs to inspire and lead the nation. I can see Romney giving a serious and important speech if called upon.

Now, that may seem a little light on reasons, but he continues to come across as a mature individual who is actually open to positive legal reforms, and not just scoring points by insulting his opposition.

Of course, if Romney being elected means that GOP also has congress, all bets are off. Collectively, they’ve lost any semblance of reasonableness, and I don’t see a Republican agenda as being good for the country. So I’m not actually ever expecting to vote for Romney. But, I’d be hopeful that he’d do well if he won.

What does doing well mean? Well, the ship of state moves slowly and you can’t make wholesale changes overnight (in fact, I think that a president’s first year in office is largely a reflection of the policies and personnel of the last administration). So, good presidenting is about being a steady presence that nudges the country forward. Think of running the country like a relay race - did you leave us in a better position than when you started? If so, good job!

12

My bold.

→ Not disagreeing. ←

But what would that LOOK LIKE? What would the headlines be? What would press conferences consist of?

There seems to be an unspoken rule (applied to everyone except DJT) that Presidents have to be nice and talk nice – kind of like how girls are raised. :thinking: Look at the pushback and walkback that Biden got when he spoke the Truth about Putin-- and Putin is a declared enemy. The Republicans are the Enemy, too, but the President (as you point out) seems to have to pretend that they’re not. To pretend that he can still get them to come around. He can’t and they won’t and we all know it. It’s the big ol’ Republican elephant in the room! :elephant:

So if Joe starts “laying into” the Republicans, what would he have to say and do? And how would he handle the pushback (what if Manchin and Sinema don’t like it)?

13

The presidency is an impossible job for one person. Although we don’t know exactly what he said, Ben Franklin pushed, at the Constitutional Convention, for a small executive committee instead of a supremo. This foresaw what, in the nuclear age, we should see as a necessity.

As a never-Trump former moderate Republican, I might have said, six weeks ago, that Biden did a good enough job if Trump doesn’t regain the White House (by which measure Joe continues to underperform). Then, five weeks and six days ago, my idea, already a bit tattered, that the world was moving in the general right direction, fell apart. A good job now requires disciplined alliance management. A bad job means nuclear war — even though Biden’s ability to influence that outcome is smallish.

14

“Laying into” Republicans in general, or even just still-Trump supporters, is counterproductive and a distraction from everything else that needs to be done. Biden has quite rightly ignored the former occupant of the Oval Office, made overtures toward McConnell and Congressional GOP leaders even though he knew they would be rejected, and has gone on with the business of trying his best to repair relationships and propose an agenda that at least has room for negotiation; that notional members of the Democratic party have fought him has certainly retarded any real progress domestically and I do fear that come 2024 he’ll be facing a real challenge (if not from Donald Trump directly then his endorsed ally) but their isn’t much that can be done of that short of fixing the many long term structural problems in the economy, some of which Biden had a hand in creating in his long career as a senator, and none that can be fixed with an executive order and a prayer.

Stranger

15

I’d start by calling an official address to the nation. Make it a prime time address from the Oval Office. I’d let the press know that the speech is going to be about addressing the most pressing problems faced by the United States and the world. The speech itself would go something like this, which I’ll make brief. The actual address would have more details, but with the same overall tone.

“My fellow Americans, I’m giving this address to discuss with you two of the most urgent problems facing all of us. The first is global warming, which we must address in the next few years to prevent a catastrophe that is coming within the next several decades, and which in many ways is already here. (Lays out what needs to be done without getting into a bunch of gobbledygook). In order to accomplish these things, we need Congress to pass the Anti-Global Warming bill, which includes (brief list of things we need to do).

In order to accomplish this, we need Congressional majorities. The reason we don’t have them is because the Republican leadership has lied to you, the American people. They went so far as to attempt to overthrow a legitimate election in a failed insurrection. The following people (MTG, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz, etc. at the end of the list mention Trump) are responsible for this. I’ve instructed AG Garland to look into and to aggressively prosecute all these individuals who were involved in this attempt to overthrow the US government. The US was extremely close to becoming a fascist state. If not for the brave men and women of the US armed forces and fine leaders like General Milley (assuming the evidence shows that the military not throwing in with Trump is the only thing that kept the insurrection from succeeding, and my guess is that this is in fact the case) we would now be living in a fascist dictatorship. Given that the leaders of the Republican Party have betrayed their country and betrayed the American people, I ask that you vote them out of office this next election, and keep voting against them until their leadership is replaced with loyal Americans rather than fascists who only seek to enrich American oligarchs and avoid addressing the real problems that face us all.”

Joe Biden

16

Yeah, that is just preaching to the choir and alienating everyone else, particularly the 74 million people who still voted for Trump after four years of him failing forward and spewing racist nonsense that even the Fox & Friends crew couldn’t handle, and the ~40% of the American public who do not think that climate change represents a serious problem. Literally more Americans believe in guardian angels than think we should make any plans to avert what 99% of climatologists agree is an existential threat to industrial civilization if we don’t commit to some kind of serious reduction in atmospheric carbon emissions. Tom Hanks couldn’t give a speech that would put a dent in that kind of ignorance even if he were offered double fisted Oscars for it.

Stranger

17

Right. No speech is going to turn this around. Even without the inflation scare, winning the midterms is an unreasonable measure of the President doing a good job.

Biden has the rest of this year to get Electoral Count Act reform passed. Without that, the GOP could easily steal 2024. If he could get that passed this year, he might not be doing a terrific job, but, domestically, he did what was, among what is reasonably possible, the most important.

18

I agree with this if we’re talking ‘name-calling’ or general ‘those bad people are bad’-types of potential Presidential messaging.

But I do think Biden and other Democrats need to be drawing a clearer line between the two major choices being presented to American voters right now:

RULE OF LAW

or

MIGHT MAKES RIGHT

In Europe, we’re seeing a very vivid example of the difference between these two governing philosophies: with “might makes right” you get a Russian dictator who presides over a failed economy (if they didn’t have oil they’d have nothing) and who lies to his people and tries to satisfy his ego by invading/destroying a neighboring nation, with all the death and destruction that implies.

And yet many on the American right, led by their thought-leaders such as Tucker Carlson, are drooling all over that dictator and his failed economy.

And some large proportion of American voters have no idea that the autocracy that Carlson, Murdoch, and much of the GOP congress are telling them is Wonderful, is not actually Wonderful. The voters are being told that with a Strong Man at the helm, life will be delightful, with Inferiors (females, people of color, LGBTQ people, and those of the Wrong religion) knowing their place and showing proper deference.

That’s not what destroying democracy and moving to perpetual Republican rule will do, despite the FoxNews promises. But the voters don’t realize that it’s not what it will do. They are buying the ‘white man’s paradise’ sales job that the Murdochs and their minions are promoting.

The Biden Administration needs to point out how the ‘might makes right’ governing philosophy is actually working out in Russia. No democracy, no freedom of speech, no freedom of conscience: what you get is a morbid, static economy dependent on the accident of oil being on their land, and wars of aggression.

Rule-of-law or might-makes-right: vote Democratic or vote Republican. It’s pretty close to being that stark a choice.

19

And a bit more on-target for the thread question: what constitutes a ‘good job as President’ will vary wildly according to the times.

Today the ‘good job’ must include making it clear to voters what they are choosing. Some who believe they are choosing ‘elevating Christianity’ or ‘doing God’s will’ or ‘keeping America white’ or whatever they think they’re accomplishing, need to be shown that the authoritarian-rule they’re actually voting for will not turn out to be what they imagine it will be.

If, in another year, voters are pretty clear that they don’t want to live under a Dear Leader, then the ‘good job’ will probably include an ability to sell science over superstition (for example) so that our safety, health, and productivity can advance. Not that that’s not an important issue now, too–it is. But it’s secondary to upholding rule of law (in my view).

20

There are clearly a lot of voters in this country who are just fine with the “MIGHT MAKES RIGHT” philosophy of governance, and apparently with the notion that Vladimir Putin is a great example of what we should look for in a leader. Pointing this out to them is not exactly a selling point for the opposition. They have participated in the blind adherence to Trump as a ‘great businessman’ even though the actual evidence incontrovertibly demonstrates the contrary, and they appear to enjoy being lied to and parroting back the same lies even when they make no sense or are self-contractory. The world in which Joe Biden, or even one of the very few rational Republicans still on the national stage, can make a speech that would persuade these people otherwise is long gone. These are people who support a party that eats its own for not hewing to the party line even when it is inconsequential, e.g. Liz Cheney or Cindy McCain. They won’t hear and don’t care unless the message is coming from Trump or one of his toadies.

Stranger