Biden is old and not given credit for doing stuff. McCarthy was not elected Speaker without delay. Trump may prove to be a spoilsport if not given his bottle.
What would it take for a politician to have broad appeal? We must move forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!!
I don’t see any way a politician today could, we’re in one of our more divisive periods as a country. This will hopefully slowly get better, but I’m not sure how.
No real path for a commanding General War Hero these days. (think Ike or Washington)
However Reagan did it in 1984, would be impossible in the current environment. I know surviving the assassin helped him.
The current state of News and Social Media would seem to work to keep the country sharply divided.
The literal second coming of Jesus Christ? I mean, it feels like it would take an actual miracle.
Realistically? It will take the Republican Party getting near full control of the US, and then shitting the bed even worse than they did in the 2020 pandemic response*. The limiting factor on bipartisanship today is the utter unwillingness of anyone in the GOP, elected officials, candidates, and voters, to do anything that even looks like compromising with the Democrats. Until enough of this group finally wakes up and smells the coffee, nothing will happen.
*I have no idea how much worse it will have to be. I really thought 2020 would do it, but we all saw how that went down.
I’m afraid it will take a massive, prolonged conflict with a universally hate-able enemy.
For a couple of years after 9/11, GWB had lukewarm support from Democrats in foreign affairs – including several who incomprehensibly backed his Iraq invasion. But the 9/11 attacks proved to be more or less isolated incidents. Imagine a day like that, followed by another and another, launched by a power we couldn’t overwhelm with conventional forces within a few weeks. A president who visibly and successfully led us through such a conflict would likely have enduring bipartisan support.
Prior to Newt Gingrich, most Presidents had a degree of bipartisan support. Since the US suffers from asymmetric polarization (bipartisanship has wider appeal among Democratic voters), a politician like Mitt Romney could give us a relapse. Fox News would support him automatically, but opposition from OAN et al could provide him with wider support. Heck, far-right opposition might not even be necessary.
A large portion of the Democratic base thinks in misty West Wing terms: there’s no reason why a deal-cutting Republican couldn’t secure their approval for a spell. The hard part would be getting through the GOP primary.
Akaj makes a good historical comparison. If eg Chris Christie was President during eg the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he could drum up bipartisan flag waving support, backed by Fox News, CNN and to some extent MSNBC.
Tom Hanks A nation turns its lonely eyes to you…woo woo woo
It needs name recognition, talent for acting sincere, and an ability to tolerate fools without joining them. The rest of qualifications you can hire people for.
Measure for Measure gave a good summary , I was willing to listen to some Republicans until I remember I don’t like their friends .
Maybe we need a baseball coach with no party affiliation. A coordinator with long term goals.
Pretty sure they tagged him in that whole “Qanon” pedophile thing.
Adrian Veidt was right all along.
Bush could have had it after 9/11 if he hadn’t decided to invade Iraq instead, and if he hadn’t gone after social security.
Trump could have had it if he had some kind of empathy and didn’t fuck up the pandemic response so badly.
All it would take is some sort of national emergency (big terrorist attack, COVID) with an intelligent, non-psycho, president who happens to be in the seat when it happens. Probably better if it’s a Republican, because I don’t see Fox ever not trying to undermine a Dem president. I mean, they’ve been boosting Russia in order to make Biden look bad. Jeez.
So, a Republican president who isn’t an idiot puppet (Bush) and isn’t a psychopathic idiot (Trump) who happens to be in the seat when some major national emergency happens.
I’d argue it would be a fiscally liberal but socially conservative Republican.
The (R) is necessary to get the R votes, but the fiscally liberal part - things like high minimum wage, universal healthcare, high taxing of the rich, cleaning up the environment - might win over a lot of young liberals who are disenchanted with D’s who aren’t doing enough on it.
Basically, a younger, better-looking, cleaner version of Trump, who actually wants to get problems fixed, without the baggage of Trump.
There is no reason why conservatism should necessarily be at odds with liberal fiscal policy. You can continue to rage on about issues like transgenderism, abortion, gay marriage, religion, etc. while promoting a very liberal Bernie-Sanders-ish fiscal platform. If I’m not mistaken, many right-wingers in Europe promote, or uphold, financial policies that are to the left of even Democrats in America.
I think this would require a cessation of hostilities of the culture war.
The Republican would need to outwardly support a woman’s right to choose, acknowledge “trickle-down” economic theory is a failure, climate change is real, Black people are having a problem with policing, we need nationwide uniform voting processes and laws, support for secular government, SS and Medicare should be left alone, and every person who is an American citizen should be protected the same way by the same laws as everyone else. They’d also need to call-out people in their party that are liars, cheats, and idiots.
The Democrat would need to outwardly support the right to bear arms, and acknowledge there is a problem at the border, some tax policies may be hurting businesses, the government cannot solve every problem by throwing more money at it, there needs to be more accountability for where tax revenue goes, fly-over states really do exist, and dial-back the whole diversity, equity, and inclusion stuff (but still support it). They’d also need to call-out people in their party that are liars, cheats, and idiots.
This will definitely not get bipartisan support.
Drop politics entirely laser focus on consumer rights and protections. Stop shady banking/loan practises. Dodgy car sales and insurance scams, etc, etc. All of it, no more hidden fees, add on costs, unreasonable penalties, scummy sales techniques, useless service contracts, and so on. 6 rolls does not equal 18! And advertising has to show an actual Big Mac, actual size etc. No more self regulating for industry etc.
I think people would love to go a cycle without politics only on the menu. A nice reprieve it would be.
I’d argue you have that backwards.
I could go along with this, adding a dissolution of the credit score industry as we now know it. We should not exist in a world where paying bills on time means nearly nothing, and the secret, ‘you don’t really get to know how we do it score’, mostly goes up by taking on debt.
Then again, that is a political position, isn’t it?
Well, I’ve always said I would seriously consider voting for a Republican who isn’t crazy. By which I mean, acknowledges reality based on evidence. That would change their position on many medical, education and law enforcement issues. Which is to say, probably won’t happen in my lifetime.
It wouldn’t make liberals happy but I would argue that a substantial number of liberals would be willing to overlook it if they are in a very tight financial pinch (say you have a Republican who’s arguing for $15/hr minimum wage vs a Democrat who won’t do a thing about minimum wage, or a Republican who’d forgive huge amounts of student debt vs a Democrat who wouldn’t at all.) Many liberals who are in that situation may be willing to overlook the gay-bashing if it bumps up their income from $7 to $15 an hour or wipes out $60,000 in loans.
I’d argue 1) you could do it either way and
2) that makes it more likely to be achievable.
My preference would be for the fiscal conservative outlook.
If liberals are willing to sacrifice their principles for money’s sake, in your opinion, why don’t conservatives do that right now? Conservatives in WV, for example, consistently vote against their own financial interests.
Anyway, this thread is becoming “what would it take for me to vote across the aisle”. But, that’s not really what this thread is about. There really isn’t a constituency in the US for “fiscal liberal/social conservative” or the reverse. That’s not what it would take to get bipartisan support.
Yeah, a Republican who actually wanted to fix real problems, and could convince non-GOP voters that this really is what they want, would probably have the best shot. We know the GOP base will likely vote for them, and getting something real done might pull in enough Democrats. Hell, even if the problems they wanted to fix aren’t the ones the Democrats would prioritize, just the novelty of making any kind of positive progress might swing a few voters.
The problem with this plan is, the GOP is so fully invested in making up fake problems, someone interested in cutting the crap and dealing with reality will have a very hard time making any headway in being nominated for any office, let alone the Presidency.
I dunno, I think fiscal conservative/social liberal is a thing. You could argue Obama largely fell under that description. It describes a lot of Democrats. But who are the fiscal liberal/social conservatives? Libertarians?