draxen
1748
My mistake. Candidates get a great deal of scrutiny though?
I assume Trump was grilled on his views of military actions before being elected?
vyshka
1749
Normally, yes and by tradition they have done certain things to help that, but Trump refused.
Nesrie
1751
By whom exactly? I mean aside from the voting public.
vyshka
1752
They could do a separated at birth segment with them.
canttellifserious.gif
Trump says so much confusing shit that no one could really be sure what he’s thinking right now let alone what he would do in 2 years.
The problem with assuming that elections solve all is that a president is one single election that turns on a single binary decision affecting a ton of different policy positions. This is why Congress, which is elected more frequently and in greater quantity, was given the power to make war.
Yeah. To clarify, I could name myself a Democratic candidate for President right now, and I would be one but of course my name wouldn’t be anywhere (hence my consideration of changing my name to “Generic Democrat”). To get on the primary ballot varies a bit for each state, requiring various hoops to jump through including filing fees and signatures.
Each party traditionally has their candidates lay out platforms and answer a small battery of questions for the electorate to peruse (these questions are sent well ahead of time, and the responses are prepared by staff so it’s not exactly pop-quiz time). They also ask for tax returns and medical health reports. As vyshka noted above, Trump refused to partake in any of that, but none of it was actually required to be a candidate.
He made a complete ass of himself on a daily basis and 62,984,828 people voted for him anyway.
draxen
1756
Apologies I only have a passing knowledge of the presidential candidate selection process.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is. I assume candidates are scrutinized. The details of their life picked through with a fine tooth comb. If they’ve displayed… unstable tendencies then these are likely to become apparent?
Thrag
1757
Other than the over 35 and natural born citizen rules there are no other restrictions on who can be elected president. If the people vote for someone who is overtly stark raving mad there’s nothing to stop them from taking the oath of office and assuming the powers of president.
Nesrie
1758
There’s a residency requirement but yeah nothing even close to what most would call… scrutiny.
Timex
1759
This is what the electorate is supposed to do.
Yes. And they did. And he was elected despite that. Or even because of it. That does t means his instability should be given free reign.
Did BoJo have to pass a psych exam?
draxen
1762
Actually, that was the first thing I Googled after posting my question about Trump.
I’d always assumed ministers would have to be security vetted by MI5 (as anyone within the civil service who handles sensitive information is required to do so) but apparently this is waived for ministers and judges.
So, worryingly the answer is no.
Of course it is. You can’t have a system where civil servants can arbitrarily overrule elections. I don’t know any democracy that even tries to do that.
draxen
1764
You say that as if it’s a given but I don’t think the answer is as simple as that. Yes you cannot impede democracy but I assume there must also be some checks and balances in place (on top of scrutiny by the electorate)…
From what I can gather the UK performs security vetting depending on the level of information. So vetting is waived for ministers in general but they are vetted depending on their responsibilities in government and any committees or councils that they join.
The Prime Minister is also given reports on the members of his cabinet (and the leader of the opposition reports on the members of their shadow cabinet).
Oversight is an interesting quandary.
We pretty much know at this point that the Iranians gave advance notice that there was going to be a strike. There are multiple confirmations of this, from both the Iraqis and NATO coalition forces in the area (a Danish general basically said up front that they knew there was going to be a strike way ahead of time). They struck at hard targets (something which surprised most experts), which pretty much guaranteed that the US+allies would be on high alert and minimize any chance of casualties.
Iran literally couldn’t have done more to minimize the chance of US casualties than they did, other than not fire the missiles (which was - for various reasons - not an option). They telegraphed their punches and intentions so clearly that even he toddler in the White House got the message.
Teiman
1766
Security Theater is not that bad. Prostitution is bad, but the prostitute want to provide the service and the customer want the service, and it fills one of the basic needs of human life, like eat, breath and sleep. With Security Theater politicians sell the “feel of safety” to the public, and the public buy it. Who I Am to be between these two parties? I am nobody. The public want to buy that, and the politicians want to sell it. I may be against it, but is a fair trade.
I am only against Security Theater when it actually against security. That make me angry. But if you have smart people designing these things, they can achieve both, or at least not weight it down real security.
In a perfect world ST would not exist, but we don’t live there.
Late to the party - there’s a reason but her emails are a thing:
Coverage of Clinton’s emails eclipsed her policy proposals and ended up being the only story about Clinton that stuck with voters. While 79 percent of registered voters had heard “a lot” about Clinton’s emails, only 23 percent heard “a lot” about Trump’s housing discrimination, 27 percent heard “a lot” about the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s illegal political contribution to the Florida attorney general, and, surprisingly, only 59 percent had heard a “a lot” about the Hollywood Access tape. The word clouds below show, in graphical form, that emails were the central way that most voters understood Clinton
edit:
It should also be noted that “Donald the dove, Hillary the hawk” (from a Maureen Down NYT op-ed) also became part of the zeitgeist as trump was viewed as to the left of Clinton on foreign policy.
