• Coreidan@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      No thanks. We don’t need more celebs as president.

      It takes a lot more then just being a personality on TV to be a good president.

      • SuckMyWang@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It’s supposed to take common sense, rationality and the ability to unite people. Things Jon Stewart celebrity or not, has.

        • Zorque@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          It also takes a hell of a lot more than that. You don’t just need to convince an audience of people who mostly agree with you, you also have to convince a room full of rich legislators who only want for themselves (and occasionally their constituents) that they should do what he wants instead of what they want. It takes compromising your ideals for the sake of accomplishing something, even if it’s not everything you wanted.

          Just because he’d better than Trump doesn’t mean he’d be good.

      • Tja@programming.dev
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        9 months ago

        Being a celebrity shouldn’t be disqualifying. Trump was a dumb, loud criminal before being president and stayed a dumb, loud crimnal as president.

        Stewart is in one of the most intelligent, articulate, charismatic and compassionate people in the public sphere and one can only hope he would be such as president. If he wanted to run, which he doesn’t.

        • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          intelligent, articulate, charismatic and compassionate people in the public sphere

          Great but it takes a lot more than that to be a GOOD president.

          You need to be more than just popular. I know it’s a common mistake to think celebrities will make good presidents because they have charisma.

          That is how we ended up with Trump.

          Have higher standards.

          • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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            9 months ago

            The most important qualification a leader can have is the trust of the population.

            Everything else is what advisors are for, and despite what you want to believe Stewart has seen how the kosher sausage is made, when he bullied Congress into taking care of the 9/11 first responders.

            There are many, many worse candidates out there, and quite frankly not many better.

            Is that a sad state of affairs?

            Sure. But it’s also reality.

            And, just fyi, Trump wasn’t a bad candidate because he was a TV celebrity.

            He was a bad candidate because he’s an idiotic fascist.

            • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              The most important qualification a leader can have is the trust of the population.

              Nope. Not at all. Again this is how we get people like Trump as president.

              He was a bad candidate because he’s an idiotic fascist.

              And yet half the population trusts the moron so we’re gonna agree to disagree.

          • Tja@programming.dev
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            9 months ago

            That’s why I didn’t even mention “popular”, and listed a bunch of other traits besides charisma.

            Comparing Stewart with Trump is lazy and simplistic, do better.

      • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It’s almost like a medieval peasant mentality, still regarding the presidency as some sort of faux-monarchy, with a certain aura, missing the point that an executive branch is not just a president who can work the cameras and microphones, that is just the tip of the iceberg, as there are a myriad employees chosen by the president and his top appointees.

        There’s an old chinese curse - “May your children live in interesting times”, and there is a saying that the best leaders are practically invisible, as the whole group works towards a common goal.
        We seem to always be living through interesting times, gravitating towards interesting characters, when what we really should want are boring government nerds who operate on reason and science, with no need nor inclination to make a loud splash.

    • Zorque@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      He’s a great commentator and humorist… but he’d make a fucking awful president.

      He holds a lot of opinions I agree with (and some I don’t), but that doesn’t mean he’d somehow be able to steer the American political system in a way that would benefit most Americans. He’d mostly be yet another demagogue, just for the left instead of the right.

          • Zorque@kbin.social
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            9 months ago

            Why he would make a good president? I mean aside from “I like and agree with him”.

            • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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              9 months ago

              I’m sorry, that’s not how this works. I never advocated for him once. You are the one who said he:

              “[would] make a fucking awful president.”

              “[Wouldn’t be] be able to steer the American political system in a way that would benefit most Americans.” As opposed to Trump, his likely opponent…??

              “He’d mostly be yet another demagogue, just for the left instead of the right.”

              Do you have any sources for those, or are they just baseless opinions, like mine and everyone else’s…?

            • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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              9 months ago

              “[Taxpayers] pay for that!” is a very misleading way to phrase it. State, Federal, sales, etc… You do realize they’re going to collect taxes no matter what, yes? I’m not getting them back! And if money already on-hand isn’t used to help literal hero firefighters in the form of the benefits they were promised for saving lives in the wake of the biggest terrorist attack against the country, then what the fuck should we spend it on!? Nothing?? It’s fine if you believe that, but it’s a totally different discussion…

        • Zorque@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          Man, people just love dismissing any argument against something with the most inane bullshit…