magnumpi

The USA gets crazier every minute

https://www.google.ca/amp/www.indepe...441.html%3Famp

Just think of all the free stuff people would get to take home after they voted

dave_j

He's getting a bit long in the tooth now, but Homer Simpson is looking like quite a sane choice these days when compared to some others..

not2old

and why not - all it takes is money & popularity, political experience is no longer a prerequisite

Only in America

The future America's 'commander in chief' is in the hands of reality stars, actors, news personalities & sports people.

For any future potential US President, with the money, it's all about the people they stroke, bully or who is indebted

.

BristolUK

Vote for Oink

vikingsail

As the average voter begins to look more and more like this then Oprah as President seems feasible even 'Kim' god forbid! It really is sad nowadays as 'not2old' says. Then you have this lot - House of Lords which appears to be more and more a tax payer funded geriatric home. When I watched this last night I thought I had entered a alternate universe back to the 80's and 90's as all the old favourites were trotted out on TV - Tebbit, Lawson etc etc...

No wonder people like suckerberg or Kanye are beginning to 'gear up' for a political run. The goal is now with reach money and popularity trump all! (pun intended).

dbd33

Was it ever? Ronald Reagan wasn't elected on the strength of his negotiation of foreign trade treaties.

It seems to me that there is merit in a politician having experience of an industry, even if it is the entertainment industry. Lack of experience of the world can hurt. David Cameron, for example, had no experience of anything and so he was out of touch with the mood of the country and made a catastrophic blunder. There's no risk of Oprah failing to know her audience.

not2old

vikingsail @ post #5

+1

In the not so distant past, even present day, politicians were/are there for themselves & their friends, the businesses they ran, the contracts they could benefit from, the board of directors they could cuddle up into & after it was all done (political career over) they get to write a book, do speaking engagements (Blair, Clinton) as well as start a foundation in their name for their own wealthy pockets to fill.

The new breed may just be what is needed.

Shake up & shake out Westminster & the House of Lords

Imagine a zuckerberg, Winfrey, Sean Combs, Kayne West, Richard Branson, James Dyson even Elton John types - if not, why not?

not2old

The right person with zero political experience could be the best President or Prime Minister as long as they have a good ear, listen well to their handlers without all the 'nudge nudge, wink wink ' you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' that doesn't have their hand in someone's pocket or up their arse.... might work

cheeky_monkey

Reagan had a good 20 years of political experience before becoming President..unlike Trump or Winfrey

magnumpi

She would easy win it ehh, coz she famous huh !

Ebonhawke

You get a health plan! You get a health plan! Everyone gets a health plan!

not2old

The first person running an election promise to say that & implement it would get most of the votes to become President.

In fact that would need to be their only platform promise

As to how its paid for or what gets taken away is another issue.

dbd33

I don't think that holds, someone has just become President (admittedly not with most of the votes) on a platform of taking healthcare away.

Ebonhawke

Would disagree that a candidate who was running primarily on a platform of 'single-payer' type health care would get most of the votes to become President. The American populace has been fed enough anti-big-government propaganda to resist the idea of the federal government controlling their healthcare, especially if payment for the system was through payroll taxes etc (less transparency about where money is going etc). I think the ACA has given Americans a sense of how their health care system differs from the rest of the Western world, but I don't think they're ready to embrace a 'single-payer' system as yet.

I also disagree that Trump won on a platform of taking healthcare away from people. He won on a platform of change - only one of those changes was to address the issues with the ACA, but people may not be cognizant of what those changes entailed. There's been a few stories published since the election about people who loathed Obamacare, but liked the ACA, not realizing they were one and the same. Some have hypothesized that some of the animosity was because of the 'Obamacare' name, and the association with Democrats (and for some, along racial lines), rather than how ACA impacted their lives (although there are some issues with current costs etc of the ACA, which are bigger issues to resolve).

It doesn't help that Trump is providing pie-in-the-sky promises of what the new health care reform will be - which doesn't align with what the Republican Party wants to do

dbd33

Trump's platform wasn't primarily about healthcare but, where it dealt with healthcare, it was about repeal of the Obamacare provisions. Few people can have been naïve enough to think that Obamacare would be replaced by an improved healthcare arrangement; everyone but Trump knows that's complicated and everyone knows it's not what Trump stands for. Inasmuch as healthcare figured into the thinking of Trump voters they voted against having it. Perhaps that was foolish, when they're all coal miners they may need their lungs looking after.