Would you want to be the President or Prime Minister of your country?

Would you be the President/PM of your country?

  • Yes

    Votes: 8 28.6%

  • No

    Votes: 20 71.4%
  • Total voters
    28
Tolina said:
This depends. Do I have a loyal, ideologically-motivated party, ready to live and die for the rule of the country that we're considering, or is it just another party of hanger-ons who want cushy jobs in the government?
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This is the point, influence is the thing that matter the most. I'm not seeing president as the top influencer, it's the King Maker that put the pressure and pull the strings.
 
Samson said:
The question posed in the title and that in the poll are different, and have different answers for me:
  • Would you want to be the President or Prime Minister of your country?
    • No. It is too much responsibility, the problems are too hard, and the rewards are too small unless you are willing to sell out to big money of some type, and I would not be willing to do so.
  • Would you be the President/PM of your country?
    • Yes. If that is what it took to get rid of BoJo and company then it would be a cost I would be willing to bare for the good of the country. I think I could shift priorities towards things that will keep people alive and productive in ways that the current administration are not willing / able to do.
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You're the hero we never knew we needed. someone really needs to give Bojangles a wedgie. And a haircut.

civvver said:
No. Automatically half the country hates you right off the bat.
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In the US, yeah. Elsewhere, not so much. In fact I can think of some presidents that were universally adored. For example in Germany, pretty much anyone who wasn't an outright communist/socialist (wrongly) held both Adenauer and Erhard in very, very high regard. And a lot of conservatives had a thing for Schmitt and Brandt, though in their later years popularity faded. Now that I think about it, it's only Gerhard "Fat Toad" Schröder who was pretty much universally disliked, and for good reason. In other countries, Allende for example was popular with most people who weren't explicitly nazis or hardcore American bootlickers, Nkrumah in Ghana was also beloved until he succumbed to corruption.

Commodore said:
I would probably be more of a Lavrentiy Beria, minus the pedophilia and rape.
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I can totally see that. And understand it, too. Being a Stalin is hard work and constant terror. Being Beria is like being the Wizard of Oz.

One politician I admire very much in this regard is Bush Senior. That MFer was incredibly influential, made some vast changes, had a similiarly destructive vision as Reagan did, but somehow always managed to be suave and clean enough to not get his teeth kicked in. And today, he is not nearly remember as much, or as badly, as either Reagan or Nixon. His own son is remember either as an imbecile or as a puppet. But Bush Sr. was a major puppeteer. i think he had major ties to intelligence services as well, but my knowledge is super limited.

haroon said:
This is the point, influence is the thing that matter the most. I'm not seeing president as the top influencer, it's the King Maker that put the pressure and pull the strings.
Click to expand...

Good point. Presidents/PMs/Chancellors today are probably at their least powerful in all of history. Which is not a big thing per se, it's only bad because the most powerful people in the world aren't moral/political/spiritual leaders, but rather sociopathic techno-capitalists. One could make a very valid argument for Jeff Bezos being the most powerful man in the world. I mean Amazon doesn't even pay taxes and gets reimbursed (aka paid) by the American govt. The government is bootlicking a corporation, isn't it supposed to be the other way around?
 
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Kyriakos said:
Obviously not.

Maybe Byzantine Emperor, though.
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But many of them ended up murdered by their family members or other political rivals, not to mention killed in wars.

haroon said:
This is the point, influence is the thing that matter the most. I'm not seeing president as the top influencer, it's the King Maker that put the pressure and pull the strings.
Click to expand...
Yep. This is one of the points I'm addressing in my ongoing novel project. The original title of the game it's based on was Kingmaker: Rise to the Throne (the title had to be changed for legal reasons). The pov character was considered the kingmaker by the game developers, but given how they presented the other characters, I think they should have paid attention to their own storyline.

Historically, a kingmaker is someone who could plausibly take power for him/herself but chooses not to, as it's more profitable to be the power behind the throne. The "kingmaker" in the game was actually a different character than the one we're supposed to think.

On the topic of this thread... while the Prime Minister enjoys perks and a certain amount of prestige and general good will around the world (except in the U.S. and China, both due to actions taken by Trump), the person who does have the authority to topple a government is the Governor-General (the Queen's representative).

Most GGs go along with what the Prime Minister wants, as is customary. Their appointments come from the Queen, on the advice of the Prime Minister, and I don't know of any time that the Queen would have refused to appoint whoever the PM chose.

But once in office, the Governor-General does have the power to withhold Royal Assent from bills, or to sort out election-related chaos that can happen when a minority government is elected but the party with the next highest number of seats claims to have enough backing to form a coalition government with more seats.

The GG can prorogue Parliament if the PM requests it; this is what happened some years ago when Stephen Harper didn't have the integrity to deal with a contempt of Parliament charge, so he asked the GG to prorogue Parliament. This made the contempt charge go away without having to call an election.

The Governor-General's position is largely ceremonial - lots of speeches, diplomatic events, and so on, as the GG is the Queen's representative. Many GGs just coast on through the term of their appointment, but some do make an effort to go above and beyond. I have tremendous respect for our current GG, Julie Payette. She's a former astronaut with two shuttle missions and a trip to the International Space Station under her belt, and she's using her GG appointment to promote science as career options for girls and women, and for better science curricula in schools.

So in this whole hypothetical scenario, forget being PM. It's a daily grind of speeches, travel, and being criticized no matter what you do. Justin Trudeau could figure out a cure for cancer (or COVID) and his political opponents would still find reasons to gripe about him. I'd rather be the Governor-General. It still means speeches and diplomacy toward people I'd probably rather kick off the planet, but it does carry some ability to hold governments to account and prevent egregiously bad legislation from passing (if the House and Senate have failed to do their jobs properly).
 
yung.carl.jung said:
One politician I admire very much in this regard is Bush Senior. That MFer was incredibly influential, made some vast changes, had a similiarly destructive vision as Reagan did, but somehow always managed to be suave and clean enough to not get his teeth kicked in. And today, he is not nearly remember as much, or as badly, as either Reagan or Nixon. His own son is remember either as an imbecile or as a puppet. But Bush Sr. was a major puppeteer. i think he had major ties to intelligence services as well, but my knowledge is super limited.
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He was the director of the CIA for a year before becoming Reagan's VP. He probably had knowledge of he iran contra cover up but it was never proven. He pardoned a bunch of those convicted during his presidency. He was a pretty bad president, but what ultimately got him was the economy. He promised no new taxes and then raised taxes, and the economy was in a mini recession.
 
Sure. I’d make things better.
 
Hygro said:
Sure. I’d make things better.
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See, kids? This is president Hygro opening the ceremonial annual nationwide Rave!
 
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Whilst I could no doubt do a better job than the current incumbent, I wouldn't want the stress that comes with the position.
 
yes but not before i've laid the groundwork to make my time in office easier

at the moment any leader of this country to the left of Reagan has to work with a media landscape entirely dictated by Rupert Murdoch, the coal and gas industry, and their allies. That's gotta be fixed first. And I might find that I have enough power as an owner of media that actually going into electoral politics is more trouble than it's worth.

in any case it's unlikely i'll even be electable unless people become really comfortable with furries but i mean who knows
 
If I am the President of my country (America), would it give me the right to step down at any time, but chose who my successor will be? In that case, I would do it. Because I would make Bernie Sanders become the President. But if the option is not possible, I would not want to be the president.
 
caketastydelish said:
If I am the President of my country (America), would it give me the right to step down at any time, but chose who my successor will be? In that case, I would do it. Because I would make Bernie Sanders become the President. But if the option is not possible, I would not want to be the president.
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No, since you tried to cheat I get to pick the Vice President.

Your Vice President is Sarah Palin.
 
Then I don’t want to be elected.
 
amadeus said:
No, since you tried to cheat I get to pick the Vice President.
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I think that would be news to every other candidate who picked their own vice-president.
 
True, but you never actually established that you were investing us with the power directly. ;)
 
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