A few years ago I decided that it would be best if I avoided talking about politics unless people asked me to. I'm a nobody from nowhere and nobody fucking cares what I think about politics. But I'm going to make a political post here because we're entering a stretch where we'll all be surrounded by politics, and such talk is inevitable.
Our presidential candidates want us to believe in them. Our presidential candidates want to inspire us. Our presidential candidates want to be symbols of hope, freedom, prosperity.
That's idiotic. It's a terrible idea to believe in someone you've never met before, and it's an even worse idea to go to a ballot box for an idea. Ideas don't hold offices. People hold offices. And even when those people have ideas you like, they value them differently. Asking a president to be a symbol is a recipe for failure.
That's why I want presidential candidates who don't need me to believe in them. I want presidential candidates who have no illusion of being leaders or symbols of progress or inspirations to poor schmucks like me. I want an invisible President.
My President would focus on the real job of the modern presidency: Administrator-in-Chief. My President would spend most of his/her time in the Oval Office reviewing reports from Cabinet members and send memos back and forth over proposed regulations and appointments to administrative offices. My President would respond to most questions from the press with "Go talk to Congress." My President wouldn't pretend to have the solutions to war or poverty or sex offenders or shark attacks or any other crisis of the week.
My President would get maybe one-half of one percent of the popular vote, because people want to believe. Just cast a vote for Hillaritt McEdwarbama and the magic scepter of the Presidency will grant us all we desire!
There's an electorate born every minute.
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