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Tim Walz says he and Harris were too ‘safe’ during 2024 presidential campaign
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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politics
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The old guard (both literal and figurative) need to get the fuck out of the way for the AOC's and Crockett's who will actually speak to power instead of cowering in the corners.
The other big problem is that politics have become such a negative impact on people's lives in the US that regular people don't want to run for office anymore, which is what we really need.
They sure as eff do!
Pelosi hated the left long before the left hated her.
It's to the point that I might prefer either a direct democracy with no representatives at all or electing reps via a lottery system. Most of the people with the desire to run for office, and all but a handful of those with the characteristics necessary to wade through the muck of special interests and campaign finance to actually get in office, are the kind of people you want as far away from power as possible.
The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke has government by lottery.
Test potential politicians for mental illnesses and make sure they have empathy etc. Make them do mandatory counselling. I mean, counsellors and mental health workers have to do this because they're working with vulnerable people, but politicians don't??? Their decisions affect everyone, including vulnerable people.
Impossible. You can't have tests like that for candidates or voters. You just end up reinventing literacy tests.
People working in psychiatry are judged in this way, but not politicians? Politicians have way more responsibility over people's lives. They should be under maximum scrutiny and we should be as sure as we can be that they're the best of us, including morally. We already make them have health checks.
Not to mention the eugenicism this would ignite.
How so? Bad eggs would be simply rejected.
The eugenicism is because of the tests; not the politicians.
https://www.tumblr.com/dovewithscales/714693265828478976/very-much-so-the-early-comics-were-written-during
You think this would work because you assume we could write such tests with such accuracy as to evade bias (or that such requirement for testing wouldn't be exploited by opportunists to place metrics much more aligned with whom said opportunists would like to eradicate).
I'd point out that you say the tests should test for empathy but Empathy Deficit Disorder exists and, as EDD people often point out, the lack of being able to feel empathy doesn't stop them from wanting to help people and making choices based off that desire. They just don't feel empathy when they do it.
Of course, you're not using that word to mean literally understanding and relating to others' feelings; sympathy would certainly qualify.
But how do you ensure that? Who gets to implement these tests? And what stops it from being someone who just sees Empathy Deficit Disorder and goes, "Eew…keeping them away from this…."
I always feel to like I sound like I'm being condescending but (and I mean this as genuinely as possible) you should try selling out writing and theory by disabled authors. Because of the way disabled people are erased from both culture and society as practically a matter of function, it can be really hard to even realize the ways in which our assumptions don't factor them in. Stuff covering ability and autonomy are incredibly interesting in the ways they think about concepts due different lived experiences.
i don't love the implication here that politicians are corrupt due to mental illness. they can be perfectly average mentally and still be corrupt because corruption is an innate and ever-present exploit of human psychology. empathetic people can be mistaken of where to place their empathy. mentally ill people can be a better option for a public office than someone else who is neurotypical, it all comes down to their platform and record of reliability. disability should not be mutually exclusive with ability to govern.
Power corrupts, yes, but you must see it in your life, and certainly if you've ever had dealings with the police or been mistreated by a teacher at school... Not all but some people in those roles are doing it precisely because they get a kick out of misusing their power, often when people are vulnerable and so can't defend themselves.
This is a character flaw at a minimum but can be part of a mental illness. I don't think the line is so definite between mental illness or health. People can have traits of illness without enough dysfunction to be diagnosed with the illness.
Disability which is incompatible with kindness, understanding, decency etc should not be allowed power over people, especially vulnerable people. Most people who were ill and were decent would not want to be in a position where they could harm people. Cluster B's and such wouldn't care. If they don't care (consistently), then they shouldn't be in a position of power over people. There are plenty of other jobs.
Looking at trump in particular the reliance on voters being good judges of character has to end, which means there must be a mechanism in place to prevent people like trump ever getting near power.
Yep. Every time I hear Jeffries talk I am thinking "shut the fuck up and go fetch AOC".