General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: No Amateurs as Democratic Presidential Candidates, Please! [View all]The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,719 posts)DU was all OPRAH FOR PRESIDENT!! and I was all - again.
No. Oprah is a wealthy TV celebrity. She should not be president. She seems to be a good, decent person; she has given generously to many worthy causes, she holds acceptable liberal views, and she is not insane. Also, she gave an inspiring speech at a show biz awards ceremony. These are not adequate qualifications for the presidency. I said this last night and I'll say it again: The presidency is a real job that requires extensive knowledge and experience concerning the mechanisms and functions of government and international diplomacy. When you are president you have to know these things. Right now we have a president who doesn't know these things and look what's happening.
It's not enough to say, well, Oprah (or any other such shiny-object person) has the correct politics and she's famous and doesn't seem stupid, so people will vote for her, yay! Then when she's elected she'll just pick some good people to work with her and she can get a crash course in Constitutional Law 101, and she can watch a filmstrip about How A Bill Becomes A Law, and it will be all good. Nope, it won't. She wouldn't suck as bad at it as Trump, but "not as bad as Trump" is about as low as the bar can get.
This regular clamor for Liberal Celebrity X For President seems to arise from the idea that anybody can be president (maybe they can, but they shouldn't) combined with Americans' disheartening worship of celebrities. It seems like every time some popular liberal says something inspirational on the teevee, all of a sudden that person should run for president. Lately it's also been Rachel Maddow, who is a cable news and opinion host. Every now and then DU goes nuts with "Rachel's so smart, she ought no run for president." Sigh. She is, of course, very smart, but she is a cable tv personality. She knows more about government operations than Oprah, but that's not the same as having done the actual work of government. Fortunately, I think she's smart enough to know that. If Oprah does run for president, that would prove she's not smart enough to be president - because if she was that smart, she'd know she isn't qualified.
There is a prevailing sentiment - and Trump is that sentiment made orange, blubbery flesh - that "professional politicians" are bad. Why? Yes, sometimes a numpty like Louie Gohmert is inexplicably elected to Congress (the House seems to be the main repository of dumb politicians in the federal system), and then gets re-elected every time because his constituents are also stupid. Louie Gohmert also should not be president. But there are people in government who do take their work seriously, who do become knowledgeable and skilled. We seem to have forgotten that Hillary Clinton was one of the most qualified and experienced people to run for the office and who, but for a perfect storm of circumstances that have been discussed ad nauseam here, should be in the White House now. We said Hillary should be president because of her extensive experience and knowledge, but now we're saying we should run a tv talk show host against her former opponent because - why - because our tv personality is better than theirs?
We can do better than that; we have to. By the time Trump leaves office, even if that's tomorrow, the federal government will be a smoking ruin. The next president will have a huge mess to clean up. Let's find someone who will understand what needs to be done and can hit the ground running. Oprah can help with her money and fame, and brava for her if she does that. But she should leave the actual work of governance to someone who knows what they're doing.