4 ms·

Nothing really new here, much of what the government has been doing for at least the last 25 years is unpopular with not only a majority of people, but a majori

Nothing really new here, much of what the government has been doing for at least the last 25 years is unpopular with not only a majority of people, but a majority of both democrats and republicans. What is s surprising is that, in many ways, the last 4 presidents all ran on a "change" message and have been unsuccessful at changing many of the things that both sides agree needs changing. Why is a deeper discussion, with plenty of blame, but the best way to summarize it, might just be to call it a bad marriage, where two people can no longer give the other side the benefit of the doubt in conversation, so everything being said sounds like personal attacks.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> What is s surprising is that, in many ways, the last 4 presidents all ran on a "change" message and have been unsuccessful at changing many of the things that both sides agree needs changing. Not really surprising: the President is the most powerful single individual in the US system, but the legislative branch as a whole is more powerful than the executive branch.
sidlls 9y ago
Running a change message campaign, and having the intent to behave as a maker of change are two different things. The simplest explanation is that these "change message" candidates were paying lip service to the electorate. It's not a charitable explanation, of course, but I'm not convinced being charitable ought to be a given when it comes to politicians' motives. So in my view it's not surprising at all.
- 3131s 9y ago
  > The simplest explanation is that these "change message" candidates were paying lip service to the electorate. It's not a charitable explanation, of course, but I'm not convinced being charitable ought to be a given when it comes to politicians' motives. They don't deserve the charitable interpretation. These are people that facilitate the sale of weapons to extremists all over the world. You shouldn't have to tip-toe and be polite about it, the recent American presidents are corrupt, murderous authoritarians whose primary function is to act as a talking head for the banks and the war industry.
panic 9y ago
Many Americans don't understand how their government works -- you can't expect a president to be able to change things on their own. I agree with former Supreme Court Justice Souter's criticism here of civic education in this country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0. Schools and the media ought to focus less on the office of the president and more on the actual operation of the government, including the behavior of our representatives in Congress.
- 3131s 9y ago
  > you can't expect a president to be able to change things on their own. But you should expect them to at least talk about the really important issues, and to use their media spotlight to put pressure on whoever is keeping these sort of bipartisan changes from happening. I don't see any recent American presidents doing that though.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> What is s surprising is that, in many ways, the last 4 presidents all ran on a "change" message and have been unsuccessful at changing many of the things that both sides agree needs changing. Not really surprising: the President is the most powerful single individual in the US system, but the legislative branch as a whole is more powerful than the executive branch.

sidlls 9y ago

Running a change message campaign, and having the intent to behave as a maker of change are two different things. The simplest explanation is that these "change message" candidates were paying lip service to the electorate. It's not a charitable explanation, of course, but I'm not convinced being charitable ought to be a given when it comes to politicians' motives. So in my view it's not surprising at all.

3131s 9y ago
> The simplest explanation is that these "change message" candidates were paying lip service to the electorate. It's not a charitable explanation, of course, but I'm not convinced being charitable ought to be a given when it comes to politicians' motives. They don't deserve the charitable interpretation. These are people that facilitate the sale of weapons to extremists all over the world. You shouldn't have to tip-toe and be polite about it, the recent American presidents are corrupt, murderous authoritarians whose primary function is to act as a talking head for the banks and the war industry.

panic 9y ago

Many Americans don't understand how their government works -- you can't expect a president to be able to change things on their own. I agree with former Supreme Court Justice Souter's criticism here of civic education in this country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0. Schools and the media ought to focus less on the office of the president and more on the actual operation of the government, including the behavior of our representatives in Congress.

3131s 9y ago
> you can't expect a president to be able to change things on their own. But you should expect them to at least talk about the really important issues, and to use their media spotlight to put pressure on whoever is keeping these sort of bipartisan changes from happening. I don't see any recent American presidents doing that though.