What makes a good President?

[á´…eparted]

One of the keys is the ability to assess talent and appoint. Being president is about building a team to do a very multifaceted job, and a president will only be as successful as the individuals they delegate tasks to. In order to do this education and ethics must be core values held in extremely high regard.

Sady, with the way the world is I don't think we'll ever see a truly exceptional president (in the US or most world countries for that matter) in our lifetime. A truly good president would be thrown out or thwarted pretty quickly due to a stupid public. Too much of the world has poor psychologies and the broad sociological condition is sick. As sad as it is the opinions of the public matter - regardless of if they are right or working - and there has to be a certain level of appealing that in order to keep a coalition of politicans working, and that appealing at times can require doing very illogical or damaging things. They could do everything right, but if the public doesn't like it for entirely irrational reasons it will be unstable and not last.

As such a truly "good" president insofar as working a functional stable government rather necessitates that they be mediocre and generally play to the lowest common denominator, which typically will result in less the ideal outcomes for the general public.

Countries are too big. We did not evolve to co-exist on such a grand scale and multi-generational long campaign to adapt ourselves and our governments to what our psychologies require will be required to have truly good leaders.

 

[ceecee]

Just to make sure of: It doesnt need to be an US president, but rather any country´s president, right?

That's how I took it but there aren't going to be too many Americans on this forum able to see beyond - to other countries, much older societies and cultures that have invented, created or influenced the west. I've never understood this very small world view.

I found the Finnish presidents were and still are very pragmatic in dealing with the Soviet Union/Russia post WWII. Same with places like Estonia or other Baltic nations that have not just survived but flourished post war. I think those lessons can be used by any country - soft power and effective diplomacy is always going to work better and be more long lasting than any other action.

 

[Tomb1]

Several things come to mind from Trump's mishandling of the Coronavirus crisis which he exacerbated through his incompetence.

A good president is, at the least, mentally and intellectually competent (having high intelligence goes along with that). He or she doesn't need to be Einstein, they don't have to be egg-headish, but they do need to have some monumental intellectual powers, an ability for grasping and solving complex problems and a more than superficial understanding for policy. Bill Clinton, JFK, and Obama were all highly competent in this area. Low intelligence leaders like Trump, Reagan and GWBush whose backgrounds were either fickle or ready-made handed to them are the epitome of presidential incompetence. They run a very simple-minded approach to foreign policy and serious domestic problems...they lack vision and imaginative sweep for the modern forces at work..they just kind of react to events. As events have revealed, these aren't guys you want in charge when Crisis hits.

A good president is, at the least, somebody who stays informed about matters which affect the public health. With Trump, the February 9th study informed that COVID-19 carried a rapid transmission rate and that asymptomatic patients are "super-spreaders." Trump failed to warn the American public about the degree of risk, he failed in his duty to keep himself informed about COVID-19 and he misled the public into believing that the risk of infection was very low. Now the USA leads the world in number of infections, and Trump is on his way to bankrupting the economy just like he bankrupted his businesses several times. George W. Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was in cahoots with Al Qaeda...of course that was all a lie. Basically, he lied to get the USA into a stupid occupation of Iraq which ultimately opened the door for both ISIS and Iran.

A good president shows a combination of energy and political savvy during a crisis. In contrast, Trump's combination of low energy do-nothing but keyboard warrior on Twitter is but the exact opposite. For example, Trump has been inept in cleaning up his mess -- was still shrugging the whole thing off by late February and leaving it to his VP....basically did nothing for two months to strengthen our infrastructure and showed excessive hesitancy in utilizing the defense production act...in contrast, FDR who was a fusion of high energy and a political virtuoso had mass production in the Country moving right away when he took over during the great depression and later the War after Pearl Harbor. Right now, America's infrastructure for handling pandemics is inferior to the infrastructure in countries that trump reportedly calls "Third World".

A good president shows strength when it comes time to take off the velvet glove and drop the iron-fist. Trump failed to do that in his weakness for shutting down the borders at the beginning of this thing. Although he claims that he shut down travel from China, flights were coming in and going out regularly to Hong Kong and mainland China. If he had kept himself informed, he would have understood how this thing could spread and taken drastic measures in the beginning so it didn't get out of control. Perhaps it was his vulnerability for the "great economy" that did not want to tamper with, but a good president would play for the long-run on that. Trump also failed to do that in his delay for activating the defense production act and not declaring Martial Law early on in high risk areas where 50 percent of the residents were not following the social distancing guidelines.

A good president shows steadiness during a crisis. Trump has been excessively erratic and keeps changing course for reasons that lack any merit. Trump first downplayed the coronavirus crisis. Then, he started to take it more seriously. Then he broke from the experts and idiotically started calling for the economy to start moving again the day after Easter. Now he's backpedaled on that once again and wants to extend social distancing to April 30th. That's good but all of this wishy-washy back and forth delays action. Although flexibility is good when newly discovered evidence renders a course of action idiotic, the data on COVID-19 has never changed and has always been out there for Trupm to inform himself with...he had a duty to know about COVID-19's rapid transmission rate back on February 9th when the landmark study was published. Trump's erraticism and about-faces are due to a misplaced effort on his part to prioritize the economy over public health.

That leads into the last point. A good president prioritizes public health over economic prosperity. If another country invades the USA or a virus like COVID-19 invades the USA, defeating those enemies must take precedent over running a strong economy, in the event one of those has to be expendable. If you can do both at the same time, great, but if not, economic prosperity has to be put on the backburner until the situation is under control.

 

[Jonny]

My criteria:

1. Knows his Constitutional role and accepts it. This is a Constitutional Republic, not some socialist dictatorship. FDR failed miserably with this one.
2. Loves the people and the nation. This is why Hillary sucked as a candidate; she labeled 40% of the electorate as "deplorable". This is why Reagan was so beloved.
3. Strong leadership. In times of crises, we need a strong leader to inspire and calm the people. Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump are examples of strong leaders. Obama, Ford, LBJ, Bush Sr, and Carter were all mediocre to weak leaders.

I don't understand why you didn't say the following instead:

1. Knows his Constitutional role and accepts it. This is a Constitutional Republic, not some crony-capitalist dictatorship. Trump has failed miserably with this one.
2. Loves the people and the nation. This is why Hillary sucked as a candidate; she labeled 40% of the electorate as "deplorable". This is why Obama was so beloved.
3. Strong leadership. In times of crises, we need a strong leader to inspire and calm the people. Reagan, George W. Bush, and FDR are examples of strong leaders. Obama, Ford, LBJ, Bush Sr, and Carter were all mediocre to weak leaders.

Your bias is showing.

 

[á´…eparted]

Your bias is showing.

He just described core tenants of authoratarianism.

1. Blind following of an ideology.
2. Nationalism.
3. King-like leader.

Not that he'd understand that or anything. Few followers of authoratarianism are even aware of what they are doing.

It's a one way trip to fascism and naziism.

 

[ceecee]

I don't understand why you didn't say the following instead:

1. Knows his Constitutional role and accepts it. This is a Constitutional Republic, not some crony-capitalist dictatorship. Trump has failed miserably with this one.
2. Loves the people and the nation. This is why Hillary sucked as a candidate; she labeled 40% of the electorate as "deplorable". This is why Obama was so beloved.
3. Strong leadership. In times of crises, we need a strong leader to inspire and calm the people. Reagan, George W. Bush, and FDR are examples of strong leaders. Obama, Ford, LBJ, Bush Sr, and Carter were all mediocre to weak leaders.

Your bias is showing.

lol

FDR was such a weak president he was elected to 4 terms. Total failure. People like Walter Ruther and his socialist organizing buddies built Detroit and much of the industrial Midwest. Failure. This is the brain damage that is libertarianism.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I never said Dubya was a great president; I said he was a strong leader.

Check the thread title, bro. The assumption is that you were at least calling him a "good" President. I don't think the difference between a "good" and "great" president is significant enough for the purposes of this discussion to quibble about.

[There is a difference. Given what we know about Democrats, nation building of any kind is a mistake. You can't have a Republican administration take out a strongman like Saddam and then have Obama quit and leave behind a defenseless Iraqi population. ISIS ran over Iraq and killed/raped lots of people because Obama took out American security forces.

The war was a mistake and Hillary and Biden also suck ass for supporting it to begin with. It's probably the single biggest reason I'm not a Republican, and also the single biggest reason I'm a socialist.

 

[Red Memories]

Just to make sure of: It doesnt need to be an US president, but rather any country´s president, right?

I would like some foreign opinions on this as well, yes, so if someone foreign fits within this you can mention them and educate us Americans on it.

 

[Red Memories]

One of the keys is the ability to assess talent and appoint. Being president is about building a team to do a very multifaceted job, and a president will only be as successful as the individuals they delegate tasks to. In order to do this education and ethics must be core values held in extremely high regard.

Sady, with the way the world is I don't think we'll ever see a truly exceptional president (in the US or most world countries for that matter) in our lifetime. A truly good president would be thrown out or thwarted pretty quickly due to a stupid public. Too much of the world has poor psychologies and the broad sociological condition is sick. As sad as it is the opinions of the public matter - regardless of if they are right or working - and there has to be a certain level of appealing that in order to keep a coalition of politicans working, and that appealing at times can require doing very illogical or damaging things. They could do everything right, but if the public doesn't like it for entirely irrational reasons it will be unstable and not last.

As such a truly "good" president insofar as working a functional stable government rather necessitates that they be mediocre and generally play to the lowest common denominator, which typically will result in less the ideal outcomes for the general public.

Countries are too big. We did not evolve to co-exist on such a grand scale and multi-generational long campaign to adapt ourselves and our governments to what our psychologies require will be required to have truly good leaders.

Is there a way you would reduce country sizing to better handle this situation? Is there other ways to manage this sort of issue?

 

[Red Memories]

That's how I took it but there aren't going to be too many Americans on this forum able to see beyond - to other countries, much older societies and cultures that have invented, created or influenced the west. I've never understood this very small world view.

I found the Finnish presidents were and still are very pragmatic in dealing with the Soviet Union/Russia post WWII. Same with places like Estonia or other Baltic nations that have not just survived but flourished post war. I think those lessons can be used by any country - soft power and effective diplomacy is always going to work better and be more long lasting than any other action.

I hear people mention soft power, what would you describe as "soft power"? I see many Americans commend having a "big stick" and my general area usually commends those who use heavier power.

 

[Red Memories]

I never said Dubya was a great president; I said he was a strong leader. There is a difference. Given what we know about Democrats, nation building of any kind is a mistake. You can't have a Republican administration take out a strongman like Saddam and then have Obama quit and leave behind a defenseless Iraqi population. ISIS ran over Iraq and killed/raped lots of people because Obama took out American security forces.

But considering how many people voted for Obama, desiring him to in fact remove those troops, can we exactly blame him for doing what the people wanted? I remember his rallying for the troops to come home being a huge part of why many people voted for him - they wanted a useless war to be over.

 

[Red Memories]

Several things come to mind from Trump's mishandling of the Coronavirus crisis which he exacerbated through his incompetence.

A good president is, at the least, mentally and intellectually competent (having high intelligence goes along with that). He or she doesn't need to be Einstein, they don't have to be egg-headish, but they do need to have some monumental intellectual powers, an ability for grasping and solving complex problems and a more than superficial understanding for policy. Bill Clinton, JFK, and Obama were all highly competent in this area. Low intelligence leaders like Trump, Reagan and GWBush whose backgrounds were either fickle or ready-made handed to them are the epitome of presidential incompetence. They run a very simple-minded approach to foreign policy and serious domestic problems...they lack vision and imaginative sweep for the modern forces at work..they just kind of react to events. As events have revealed, these aren't guys you want in charge when Crisis hits.

A good president is, at the least, somebody who stays informed about matters which affect the public health. With Trump, the February 9th study informed that COVID-19 carried a rapid transmission rate and that asymptomatic patients are "super-spreaders." Trump failed to warn the American public about the degree of risk, he failed in his duty to keep himself informed about COVID-19 and he misled the public into believing that the risk of infection was very low. Now the USA leads the world in number of infections, and Trump is on his way to bankrupting the economy just like he bankrupted his businesses several times. George W. Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was in cahoots with Al Qaeda...of course that was all a lie. Basically, he lied to get the USA into a stupid occupation of Iraq which ultimately opened the door for both ISIS and Iraq.

A good president shows a combination of energy and political savvy during a crisis. In contrast, Trump's combination of low energy do-nothing but keyboard warrior on Twitter is but the exact opposite. For example, Trump has been inept in cleaning up his mess -- was still shrugging the whole thing off by late February and leaving it to his VP....basically did nothing for two months to strengthen our infrastructure and showed excessive hesitancy in utilizing the defense production act...in contrast, FDR who was a fusion of high energy and a political virtuoso had mass production in the Country moving right away when he took over during the great depression and later the War after Pearl Harbor. Right now, America's infrastructure for handling pandemics is inferior to the infrastructure in countries that trump reportedly calls "Third World".

A good president shows strength when it comes time to take off the velvet glove and drop the iron-fist. Trump failed to do that in his weakness for shutting down the borders at the beginning of this thing. Although he claims that he shut down travel from China, flights were coming in and going out regularly to Hong Kong and mainland China. If he had kept himself informed, he would have understood how this thing could spread and taken drastic measures in the beginning so it didn't get out of control. Perhaps it was his vulnerability for the "great economy" that did not want to tamper with, but a good president would play for the long-run on that. Trump also failed to do that in his delay for activating the defense production act and not declaring Martial Law early on in high risk areas where 50 percent of the residents were not following the social distancing guidelines.

A good president shows steadiness during a crisis. Trump has been excessively erratic and keeps changing course for reasons that lack any merit. Trump first downplayed the coronavirus crisis. Then, he started to take it more seriously. Then he broke from the experts and idiotically started calling for the economy to start moving again the day after Easter. Now he's backpedaled on that once again and wants to extend social distancing to April 30th. That's good but all of this wishy-washy back and forth delays action. Although flexibility is good when newly discovered evidence renders a course of action idiotic, the data on COVID-19 has never changed and has always been out there for Trupm to inform himself with...he had a duty to know about COVID-19's rapid transmission rate back on February 9th when the landmark study was published. Trump's erraticism and about-faces are due to a misplaced effort on his part to prioritize the economy over public health.

That leads into the last point. A good president prioritizes public health over economic prosperity. If another country invades the USA or a virus like COVID-19 invades the USA, defeating those enemies must take precedent over running a strong economy, in the event one of those has to be expendable. If you can do both at the same time, great, but if not, economic prosperity has to be put on the backburner until the situation is under control.

this is possibly a good listing of what you feel a leader should not do indeed. Do you have a descriptive example of someone you felt did a great job during a crisis to also compare with? Do you feel there has been an ideal leader?

 

[á´…eparted]

Is there a way you would reduce country sizing to better handle this situation? Is there other ways to manage this sort of issue?

Reducing country size unfortunately isn't an option. Doing so would eliminate a set problems, and introduce a new set of problems that I would argue are more risky. It would require fundementally terraforming the entire planet so that way populations could for the most part self-sustain and have access to enough natural resources to remain materially and financially solvent. The main example I look to is Iceland. The country is for the most part stable, and the population in general interfaces with the government on a more intense level. When some corruption occurs, the public is able to more or less come together and impart change. The reason Iceland is able to do this is due to a long list of reasons, but some of the key factors (that, if not present, would render it impossible) is a small population size of <400k, is geographically distant and materially separated from other entities, and remains in good contact with the local environment and its natural resources (some of which allow for great levels of self-sufficiency).

Sure, you could chop up the world into smaller regions, but there is no good way to do this. There are also so many people on this planet. It will create far more have and have-nots, hugely disrupt economic systems, open the door to rife corruption in regions that lack resources and have poor education values. It would lead to global wars and conflicts. Balkanization is a good illustration of what this does. The way I see it, the way our society has evolved seems like a very strong (if not direct) analogy to an evolutionary trap.

I, unfortunatey, don't see a good solution for our worlds problems. We might get there, but I think the earliest we can expect that is 500+ years from now - assuming climate change doesn't become too deadly, which is a very real possibility.

 

[Red Memories]

lol

FDR was such a weak president he was elected to 4 terms. Total failure. People like Walter Ruther and his socialist organizing buddies built Detroit and much of the industrial Midwest. Failure. This is the brain damage that is libertarianism.

I am curious because I know a good majority of people who actually liked FDR. In history he is treated almost like a presidential hero and is known considered a foundational father of what liberalism is today to a degree. What makes you feel he was in fact not a good leader? Do you have some examples of some of his worse decisions?

edit: forgive me because I am here desiring to keep the conversation rolling because we've got an awesome flow going but I think I missed the sarcasm in this. If it was not sarcastic you can answer, or maybe answer some of the awesome things you think he did.

 

[Red Memories]

Check the thread title, bro. The assumption is that you were at least calling him a "good" President. I don't think the difference between a "good" and "great" president is significant enough for the purposes of this discussion to quibble about.



The war was a mistake and Hillary and Biden also suck ass for supporting it to begin with. It's probably the single biggest reason I'm not a Republican, and also the single biggest reason I'm a socialist.

Why do you feel a socialist leader will be the answer to this quibble? What characteristics will they have the other leaders will not?

 

[ceecee]

I hear people mention soft power, what would you describe as "soft power"? I see many Americans commend having a "big stick" and my general area usually commends those who use heavier power.

Generally speaking, soft power is persuasive power vs hard power that is coercive power executed through military threats and economic inducements.

People are far more familiar with hard power. Power has never flowed solely from the barrel of a gun; even the most brutal dictators have relied on attraction as well as fear. Trump tries being charismatic and attractive. He's not very successful, mostly because he is a liar. For voters that don't care about lies, then he is much more successful.

Leadership is not just a matter of issuing commands, but also involves leading by example and attracting others to do what you want. It's not the carrot and the stick.
Soft power can be diplomacy, it can be policies that are seen as legitimate or having moral authority. The capacity to persuade others.

I always smh at the big stick line - considering it came out of the mouth of one of the greatest and in the end, most progressive US presidents ever.

 

[ceecee]

I am curious because I know a good majority of people who actually liked FDR. In history he is treated almost like a presidential hero and is known considered a foundational father of what liberalism is today to a degree. What makes you feel he was in fact not a good leader? Do you have some examples of some of his worse decisions?

edit: forgive me because I am here desiring to keep the conversation rolling because we've got an awesome flow going but I think I missed the sarcasm in this. If it was not sarcastic you can answer, or maybe answer some of the awesome things you think he did.

Sarcasm. He was an incredible leader and I seriously doubt there are many that could lead the US through anything like what FDR did.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Why do you feel a socialist leader will be the answer to this quibble? What characteristics will they have the other leaders will not?

It's more like I just have a feeling that a lot of the Democratic party sucks just as much as the Republican party, and we need something way better. I think there's not much to defend about our current system if something like that could happen in the first place. I certainly don't think "norms" have much value if those same "norms" allowed something like that to happen in the first place.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

But considering how many people voted for Obama, desiring him to in fact remove those troops, can we exactly blame him for doing what the people wanted? I remember his rallying for the troops to come home being a huge part of why many people voted for him - they wanted a useless war to be over.

Tellenbach thinks the war was a good idea because it was thought up by Republicans.

 

[Tellenbach]

Tellenbach thinks the war was a good idea because it was thought up by Republicans.

I believed the WMD threat and so did Hillary and Biden. Removing an asshole like Saddam is always a good idea, but the USA shouldn't bear the brunt of the cost and if the UN/NATO aren't helping then we shouldn't do it unless it's a threat to national security.

The assumption is that you were at least calling him a "good" President. I don't think the difference between a "good" and "great" president is significant enough for the purposes of this discussion to quibble about.

Incorrect assumption. I think George W. Bush is somewhere in the middle of the pack; he's certainly much better than Obama on the economy, but his M.E. adventures are costly.

My idea of a perfect president is Calvin Coolidge; he understood not only his Constitutional role, but actively sought to carry out the vision of the Founders.