What do you mean, he's not president?

[andygates]

Obama's world tour is going great guns: they took him seriously in the Middle East and in Berlin two hundred thousand people turned out pretty much to anoint his feet with oil.  Two hundred thousand for a candidate they can't even elect.  Seems that he's pitching this as the Next Leader Of The Free World Tour and the rest of us out here in the world, we pretty much like that. 

Let's face it after eight years of Captain Catastrophe, Barney the frakking Dinosaur would be an improvement but I'm not seeing simple relief here, I'm seeing desperate relief and a thread of actual, genuine, Kennedy-flavoured optimism.  Crikey.

I wonder how much impact this will have on his electability in the US (you know, where his voters are)? 

Comments

[maythen-apple.livejournal.com]

lj ate my first attempt to post so this is my second.

I don't represent the average American voter but here's what I'm seeing.

I've spoken with and overheard numerouse citizens stating that they want to know who his VP is because they *also* assume he will be assasinated within the first two years. They don't want to vote for a vp they really hate. White, black, old, young they all think he's a dead man if elected.

I've been miserable about what my country has said and done in my name during this administration. But we're in it so thick and foul I have little hope that *anyone* is going to be able to pull us out. Not in the short run of four years, maybe not in ten or twenty either.

We've been picking leaders based on the "I don't like him, but I HATE/FEAR the other guy" principal for as long as I remember. The truth is... most of us are apathetic and ill informed. If we vote at all it's ususally because a church leader or media personality told us what to do.

Majority rule seems to just mean the large glut of stupid and fertile over ride educated and cautious. Ever damn time.

No matter who wins it will probably still get worse. Once you've allowed a government to take away your rights while granting itself special powers to be above it's own law, you can't really expect to ever get them back.

America. Good idea. Poor execution.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

That "who will be veep when the prez has a heart attack / is assassinated / chokes on a frakking peanut?" question is persistent across all elections - surely you're not suggesting that people were even more encouraged to vote Bush by the presence of Cheney?

The thinking you're displaying is based on fear. FDR has dibs on that ground: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." If every black candidate feared running in case of assassination, well... round here we call that 'institutional racism' and its quiet acceptance of an unacceptable status quo is to be abhorred.

As for execution, well, that's the dilemma of all democracy: By any standard, many of the populace are unacceptable buffoons (apply your standard of choice). The merit of the system is that people feel like they're having a say - whether that has any effect or is true, they at least feel like it's their choice.

And of course the flipside of that is that we out in the world blame every damn American for letting that peanut-gargling gibbon into power. Twice.

[maythen-apple.livejournal.com]

hey hey hey! I didn't say *I* choose to cast my vote because Oprah told me to.

And no, I don't think the VP was the thing they worried about. I was trying to explain that I've never seen such a large glut of the public so deeply convinced that assasination isn't a possibility but an inevitability.

I had nothing to do with electing that moron or allowing him to run rough shod over everyone, including us. I vote. I write. I call. I've even picketed and marched. It didn't stop him/them from proceeding in my name.
I'm not sure anything would, short of a bloody revolution, and it takes more than one person to have a revolution. If I'm the only one who shows up they just whisk me off to never be seen again. I would be a Terrorist, and that's not a good label to end up with over here.

Please don't make the mistake that "American" means beer swilling, pork rind eating, trailer living, half wit. There's plenty of us who wanted something better, and have been rather fruitlessly trying to make a difference some where some how.

This is not the administration I wanted. This is not the governement I
voted for. These are not the wars I wanted people to die for.

I DIDN'T DO IT I swear.

I was just trying to tell you what's going through the grapevine over here. I never meant to imply I was swinging with them.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Easy, tiger.

I think the glum convictions are wrong. But we'll see, eh?

As for the rest, I ain't accusing you. But I am accusing the nation. I accuse the UK much the same way, and I've beaten myself up until I'm numb over not doing enough to stop the damn mess.

Bah. Tacitus was grumpy about this in umpty-ump BCE. It's hardly news. Maybe we're just wrong, and the idiocracy is the One Right And True Way. Fancy a can of Brawndo? It's got electrolytes!