Oprah Winfrey for president in 2020?

[Tommy]

https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8042889-oprah-winfrey-for-president-in-2020-award-show-restarts-a-buzz-/

Yea, because another celebrity with no political knowledge is exactly what America needs 

[Honey Honey]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. She still has to beat Tom Hanks in the primaries.

[Spike]

And you get a car! And you get a car!

[Danny]

I get it, they have a sexist, racist psycho celebrity currently in, they want the opposite to that now....but go for an actual politician 

[Danny]

I get it, they have a sexist, racist psycho celebrity currently in, they want the opposite to that now....but go for an actual politician 

[Honey Honey]

Echo chamber 

[Spike]

1 minute ago, Danny said:

I get it, they have a sexist, racist psycho celebrity currently in, they want the opposite to that now....but go for an actual politician 

Oprah told that sexist, racist psycho to run for president in the 80s!  Maybe we'd have more of the same.

[Dr. Gonzo]

I think if you want to run a super power, a little political experience should come first.

For instance, if we were all on a 747, and for some reason the entire flight crew dies... who do we all want as a pilot?

I could do it, if enough of you wanted. I've never flown a plane before, but I could give it a go. I've played GTA before, how hard could it be?

Or should we go a few aisles down where there's a guy going on holiday, but when he's working he flies planes over fields and dusts crops over farms. And he's never flown a plane this big. And he might have had a drink or four... But he knows how to fly a plane.

Now whoever the plane picks to land will have the headset on, talking with traffic control to work them through getting everyone home safe. Do we go with the tipsy pilot... or Dr. Gonzo.

And let's pretend that for some reason there were primaries or everything, so we're your only picks for the job. 

Who do we go for, the GTA playing moron who the entire time has been wondering "can a 747 do a barrel roll?"; or someone who's flown a fucking plane of some sort before even if they're not anywhere near the ideal pilot?

I mean, my heart says me because I am me. And my head is torn between the more qualified choice between the two... and also wanting to know whether a 747 can do a barrel roll.

[Happy Blue]

Oprah thinks being a mother is the hardest job in the world ffs!   ..women are constantly patting themselves on the back and nobody corrects them because we want to fuck um ..if you have a job you can do in your pajamas, your living the dream lol ..your off the grid doing what you want, what would you rather be doing? drilling to the centre of the earth shaking hands with the devil, every time there is a rumble in the ground you shit yourself  waiting for the whole thing to collapse in on you or would you rather be up in the sunshine with a couple of toddlers you can send to bed at anytime you like on some trumped up charges lol  ..these mothers are bending over at the waist putting dvd's into players, making popsicle  stick houses lol ...it's the most difficult job on the planet, Oprah is not even a mother so how the fuck would she know 

[Fairy In Boots]

 

Good luck America

[SirBalon]

Oprah for President?  Sounds great to me... God Bless America!

[Bluebird Hewitt]

1 hour ago, Cannabis said:

We're not laughing with you America, we're laughing with you. 

Backward lot.

That also reads a bit backwards. 

[Inverted]

Having elected the absolutely unabashed personfication of the extremes of capitalism, it would make sense to go for a woman whose role is to try and convince people that there is hope in their desolate economic condition.

If one woman can become a billionaire, having overcome such extreme economic and social hardships, then anyone can. You've just got to love yourself, and read self-help books, and grab your opportunities, and watch Oprah. Don't worry about the tax system, or the legal system, or corporate regulation, or workers' rights. Don't look to change the wider economic conditions in which you live, you've just got to adapt to longer work hours and a drop in real living standards instead.

Americans are fundamentally blinded when it comes to politics because they are obsessed with the indivdual - they can't grasp structural issues and instead vote on the basis of their egoism or hero-worship of another.

And that's how people like Oprah are seen as progressive heroes, when actually they are some of the most devastating tools for the status quo.

 

 

[Machado]

Tough competition, Kayne.

[Honey Honey]

 

1 hour ago, Inverted said:

Having elected the absolutely unabashed personfication of the extremes of capitalism, it would make sense to go for a woman whose role is to try and convince people that there is hope in their desolate economic condition.

If one woman can become a billionaire, having overcome such extreme economic and social hardships, then anyone can. You've just got to love yourself, and read self-help books, and grab your opportunities, and watch Oprah. Don't worry about the tax system, or the legal system, or corporate regulation, or workers' rights. Don't look to change the wider economic conditions in which you live, you've just got to adapt to longer work hours and a drop in real living standards instead.

Americans are fundamentally blinded when it comes to politics because they are obsessed with the indivdual - they can't grasp structural issues and instead vote on the basis of their egoism or hero-worship of another.

And that's how people like Oprah are seen as progressive heroes, when actually they are some of the most devastating tools for the status quo.

That's a harsh caricature of Americans. 

[Inverted]

8 hours ago, Kitchen Sales said:

 

That's a harsh caricature of Americans. 

It is a bit of an exaggeration, and there are cases in most countries where working people can be persuaded into voting against their own interests (like Brexit), but America is a particularly clear example of it. The American working class is, out of the major developed countries, the most easy to distract with identity politics and personality-driven campaigning. That extends both to getting them to vote explictly regressive candidates, and also to making them acceptant of their only real alternative being economic centre-right.

 

[The Artful Dodger]

On 10/01/2018 at 10:34, Fairy In Boots said:

 

Good luck America

Oprah Winfrey becoming President would be farcical but not sure what these photos are supposed to prove?

The current President has actually openly bragged of sexual assault ffs.

[Azeem]

She would 'Win' for 'Free'. Get it ! Ah Ah Ah  Funny right !

[Mel81x+]

I can see the election campaign now. Speeches that we're going to hate in a few minutes or maybe less. Truly mind-blowing that there aren't enough actual politicians to run for office.

[Honey Honey]

1 hour ago, Inverted said:

It is a bit of an exaggeration, and there are cases in most countries where working people can be persuaded into voting against their own interests (like Brexit), but America is a particularly clear example of it. The American working class is, out of the major developed countries, the most easy to distract with identity politics and personality-driven campaigning. That extends both to getting them to vote explictly regressive candidates, and also to making them acceptant of their only real alternative being economic centre-right.

 

Every political party blames the others brain washing for their own electoral failing, it helps them sleep at night. They can cling on to perceived correctness of their position and never consider the opponent to have had any legitimate concerns. 

The role of US President has been defunct for decades. It is a replica of 18th century English Kings, a puppet at home and military tyrant abroad. By design it encourages incumbents to be a celebrity first and a politician as an after thought. Oprah is a good fit for that. It doesn't make a great deal of difference if the person is already a celebrity in their own right. The demands for someone politically astute assumes that an individual can fix the system without changing the system, but individuals come and go, the system will stay on.

 

[Inverted]

14 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

Every political party blames the others brain washing for their own electoral failing, it helps them sleep at night. They can cling on to perceived correctness of their position and never consider the opponent to have had any legitimate concerns. 

The role of US President has been defunct for decades. It is a replica of 18th century English Kings, a puppet at home and military tyrant abroad. By design it encourages incumbents to be a celebrity first and a politician as an after thought. Oprah is a good fit for that. It doesn't make a great deal of difference if the person is already a celebrity in their own right. The demands for someone politically astute assumes that an individual can fix the system without changing the system, but individuals come and go, the system will stay on.

 

Well I'm not arguing in favour of either party, I'm making the point that American politics squeezes out true progressive politics by creating a two-sided obsession with culture politics - Trump on one side with religious conservatism, xenophobia, and anti-intellectualism; Clinton on the other with lip-service to environmentalism, faux feminism, and whatever other social causes win the youth/liberal vote.

The real fight was between Trump's vision of non-internationalist, domestically unfettered capitalism, and Clinton's support for the standard model of globalisation with some token regulation.

The fundamental anger of people voting these ways is valid - their living standards are falling and their chances are constricting. People are living stressful, unfulfilling lives. Leftists shouldn't be ignoring this fundemental reality. Reactionaries ingeniously manage to aggravate the situation by directing the blame for this from the wider economic model to more specific scapegoats, and liberals play right into their hands by wasting their energy in well-intentioned but massively counter-productive culture wars which ultimately end up with liberals also leading the discussion away from what makes the white working class so angry in the first place. Instead of analyses of how economic growth is being reflected less and less in real wages, or how the tax system is consistently defeated by entrenched wealth, so-called leftists waste their time with indecipherable screeds on gender, sexuality and race, or blindly defending every aspect of minority cultures and religions. The result is large numbers of voters being left with nothing but the right's rhetorically effective and easily digestable solutions to their problems. It's the fault of liberals and conservatives, and against their combined efforts it's an impossible effort for sincere progressive candidates.

Even if the office of President is becoming increasingly symbolic, that can change depending on the aptitude of the candidate. A candidate with the political capital to lean on executive orders, and effectively push through decisive USSC appointments and legislative proposals, still wields huge power. Trump, even in his disfunctional situation with his party, has been the impetus for huge tax reform, and the President for better or worse influences people's vote for legislators.

 

[Burning Gold]

16 hours ago, Inverted said:

Americans are fundamentally blinded when it comes to politics because they are obsessed with the indivdual - they can't grasp structural issues and instead vote on the basis of their egoism or hero-worship of another.

Weird statement from someone who had Jeremy Corbyn as his avatar for a while 

[Inverted]

3 minutes ago, Burning Gold said:

Weird statement from someone who had Jeremy Corbyn as his avatar for a while 

Comrade Jezza isn't a hero, he's a deity

[Honey Honey]

1 hour ago, Inverted said:

Well I'm not arguing in favour of either party, I'm making the point that American politics squeezes out true progressive politics by creating a two-sided obsession with culture politics - Trump on one side with religious conservatism, xenophobia, and anti-intellectualism; Clinton on the other with lip-service to environmentalism, faux feminism, and whatever other social causes win the youth/liberal vote.

The real fight was between Trump's vision of non-internationalist, domestically unfettered capitalism, and Clinton's support for the standard model of globalisation with some token regulation.

The fundamental anger of people voting these ways is valid - their living standards are falling and their chances are constricting. People are living stressful, unfulfilling lives. Leftists shouldn't be ignoring this fundemental reality. Reactionaries ingeniously manage to aggravate the situation by directing the blame for this from the wider economic model to more specific scapegoats, and liberals play right into their hands by wasting their energy in well-intentioned but massively counter-productive culture wars which ultimately end up with liberals also leading the discussion away from what makes the white working class so angry in the first place. Instead of analyses of how economic growth is being reflected less and less in real wages, or how the tax system is consistently defeated by entrenched wealth, so-called leftists waste their time with indecipherable screeds on gender, sexuality and race, or blindly defending every aspect of minority cultures and religions. The result is large numbers of voters being left with nothing but the right's rhetorically effective and easily digestable solutions to their problems. It's the fault of liberals and conservatives, and against their combined efforts it's an impossible effort for sincere progressive candidates.

Even if the office of President is becoming increasingly symbolic, that can change depending on the aptitude of the candidate. A candidate with the political capital to lean on executive orders, and effectively push through decisive USSC appointments and legislative proposals, still wields huge power. Trump, even in his disfunctional situation with his party, has been the impetus for huge tax reform, and the President for better or worse influences people's vote for legislators.

Practically all the political parties across the spectrum, the intelligentsia and the commentariat who were at the wheel when their little world was shattered have rushed to use that very same economic argument. How else are they to reconcile that they are the self entitled champions of the poorer than thou, the hard workers, the working class, the JAMs or whatever they want to invent to appear moral, with the reality that some people are that modern unsavoury group no one wants to be anymore called social conservatives.

[Inverted]

34 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

Practically all the political parties across the spectrum, the intelligentsia and the commentariat who were at the wheel when their little world was shattered have rushed to use that very same economic argument. How else are they to reconcile that they are the self entitled champions of the poorer than thou, the hard workers, the working class, the JAMs or whatever they want to invent to appear moral, with the reality that some people are that modern unsavoury group no one wants to be anymore called social conservatives.

Theres no need to be in denial that many people in tough economic situations are socially conservative. The issue is avoiding the situation whereby those social beliefs are used to achieve economically conservative aims which end up pushing people further into poverty, and then even more intense resentment and isolation. 

What I'm saying is that the left needs to be willing to reach out, or at least make itself not totally unpalatable to these demographics and ditch any connection to liberal, self-indulgent social justice nonsense. 

When you look around the world, it seems that prejudice and bigotry is intensified by poverty. Im not saying that every non-poor person is socially super sensitive, but I'm saying that maybe people would be less susceptible to divisive rhetoric if they weren't so economically insecure.