December 21, 2024

What Does It Mean To Be Presidential?

Someone recently asked me what criteria I would consider to objectively evaluate Trump as a good president. This is my answer.

What is a good president? One who seeks diplomatic solutions instead of immediately and repeatedly threatening nuclear war. Should I stop there or keep going?

Let’s add that it should be someone who knows the value of thoughtful evaluation and discretion rather than blasting every thoughtless misspelled idiotic outburst around the world on Twitter.

Someone who doesn’t lie so frequently and unabashedly, or at least someone who knows he’s not supposed to lie, and therefore won’t casually admit to that like there’s nothing wrong with it. Likewise it should be someone who doesn’t have a extensive history of regularly cheating people, especially his own employees or students at his fraudulent college. Oh and someone who doesn’t collude with foreign governments. Maybe someone who doesn’t praise terrorists and dictators as smart or fine people.

Someone who doesn’t want to undermine or undo everything we’ve ever accomplished and let everything else burn.

Someone who acts with a sense of selfless human compassion, and moves quickly and efficiently when an urgent response is required, especially in the desperate conditions of a disaster.

Someone with the wisdom to keep church-state separation.

Someone who doesn’t pretend to have read things he’s never read, and constantly contradicts what he already said. Someone who isn’t a total hypocrite, always being doubly guilty of everything he’s already accused of someone else.

Someone who doesn’t sell guns to mentally disabled people, and who wouldn’t strip regulations so that his own investments can pollute more, especially by allowing the dumping of toxic industrial waste into public water supplies.

Someone who hires competent advisors with expertise in their fields, and heeds their advice. Instead of hiring maladroit myopic goons and corrupted cronies with the intended purpose of destroying their own departments–and then firing most of them to hire someone else just as bad.

Someone who understands and doesn’t deny science! Because that’s what’s real. We need someone who realizes that some realities need be addressed and will only get worse if ignored.

Someone with integrity and accountability enough to admit mistakes and then correct them! Rather than someone who thinks he’s already too smart to attend intelligence briefings.

Someone who sets realistic beneficial goals to actually solve problems instead of always only exacerbating them. Someone who doesn’t promote hatred and violence and bigotry, trying to strip everyone’s rights away with the apparent plan of ruining everything for everyone as long as he sees a profit or a tax break.

Someone smarter than a 5th grader. Seriously! Is that too much to ask of a president? Someone who can read with comprehension, who communicates effectively and demonstrates competence to establish foreign and domestic relations–without instead clumsily and ignorantly pissing off all our former allies and taunting hostile warmongers. Such that we come to fear our bumbling president more than our enemies do?

Basically someone who isn’t an international embarrassment: who isn’t stupid, inept, and insane as well as callous, inconsiderate, contemptible and utterly incompetent at absolutely everything he’s ever done.

Someone who doesn’t continue the failed trickle-down tax plan that we all know doesn’t work and has already ruined much of our economy, that only divides the haves from the have-nots to eliminate the middle class like a 3rd world country. We need someone who doesn’t endorse that and every other planned positive feed-back loop to further cripple and diminish the middle class.

The American dream only works with a secular government dedicated to human rights equality, and not by overlooking such violations from special “allies” trading arms for oil.

We need someone who understands the Constitution–especially the first amendment–and actually defends the ±ü©&ing thing.

Our quality of life is what made America great, not our grossly over-bloated military or our envelopment in corporate oligarchy. So what we need is someone exactly opposite of Trump!

How about someone who at least doesn’t break every single campaign promise? Although that is the actually best thing Trump has ever done as president.

Finally, I’m reminded of the words of Tyrian Lannister.  

“We’ve had vicious kings and we’ve had idiot kings, but l don’t know if we’ve ever been cursed with a vicious idiot for a king.”

Well, that’s basically what we have now.

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