• cia@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    36
    arrow-down
    17
    ·
    8 months ago

    The presidential race has never been a meritocracy

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      8 months ago

      Underdogs used to sneak in.

      Bet Dems tightened upafter 08, and haven’t stopped taking steps to normalizing that primaries are performative and regardless of votes, they can do what they want.

      Even a decade ago people would have lost their minds if Republicans canceled a states primary.

      Dems did it and everyone keeps saying it’s nothing to worry about.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          8 months ago

          If you’re going to ask that question, you usually only get a good answer if you’re specific.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              8 months ago

              Tldr: DNC told New Hampshire to break a state law or they’d take their delegates, they didn’t break the law, so no delegates

              The DNC told New Hampshire State Dem party they had to hold their primary later.

              NH state law says they have to be first.

              Republicans control NH state government.

              The DNC order the NH state Dem party to break state law, when they didnt they removed delegates from the state making it literally pointless. And Biden also claimed he wouldn’t run it because of the date.

              To make it more fucked up, Bidens campaign then spent a lot of donior money on a write in campaign for the primary he was supposed to be not running.

              All so the media could try to spin this as a positive for Biden instead of a progressive winning NH again.

    • tootoughtoremember@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      This sort of fatalistic, take what you are given, attitude is astounding to me.

      Calling for anyone better than who is being offered is hugely different than asking for the most qualified or capable individual to do the job. On some metric I’m sure there’s a “best” candidate out of all Americans, but my complaint is about the ocean of potential candidates between “best” and what we’ve got.

      And I get the “have a beer with” factor, I’m not even saying it’s a bad thing. Being likeable as a head of state can be a significant advantage when dealing with foreign leaders, international press, or promoting domestic policy.

      But these men are dinosaurs. If Trump is sworn in, he’ll be older than Reagan was when he left office. And Biden is already three years older than that. How many altered diary entries are we going to hear about after they leave office, because they’ll have been dealing with alzheimer’s or dementia while in office too?