Is there any candidate who (just) wants to be president?

[Politesse]

The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency, explained - Vox

What is the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency?

According to Brendan Nyhan, the Dartmouth political scientist who coined the term, the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency is "the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics." In other words, the American president is functionally all-powerful, and whenever he can't get something done, it's because he's not trying hard enough, or not trying smart enough.

Nyhan further separates it into two variants: "the Reagan version of the Green Lantern Theory and the LBJ version of the Green Lantern Theory." The Reagan version, he says, holds that "if you only communicate well enough the public will rally to your side." The LBJ version says that "if the president only tried harder to win over congress they would vote through his legislative agenda." In both cases, Nyhan argues, "we've been sold a false bill of goods."

Wait, how did the Green Lantern get involved in all this?

The Green Lantern Corps is a fictional, intergalactic peacekeeping entity that exists in DC comics. Members of the Corps get a power ring that capable of creating green energy projections of almost unlimited power. The only constraint is the willpower and imagination of the ring's wearer. There was a long period of time when the ring was ineffective against the color yellow but in more recent comics that's just "the Parallax fear anomaly" at work and with enough courage and willpower, the ring works just fine against the color yellow.

Interesting! I note that this, like all superhero narratives, over-emphasizes the individual as an autonomous hero. If the source of your power is a magic ring which is simply given to you with no rules or constraints, that makes sense. But in the real world, positions of power are not based on magic rings, swords, epaulets, etc, but are rather based on the concentration of capital, a form of power that always has entailments.

 

[Toni]

The POTUS does not legislate. But when sane and effective, the POTUS is a leader and has a great deal of influence and can help direct a legislative agenda

 

[Politesse]

The POTUS does not legislate. But when sane and effective, the POTUS is a leader and has a great deal of influence and can help direct a legislative agenda

Then sane and effective leaders are more of a threat to democracy than incompetent ones. I don't have or want a "strong leader" to tell me what I want to do, and never have.

 

[Toni]

The POTUS does not legislate. But when sane and effective, the POTUS is a leader and has a great deal of influence and can help direct a legislative agenda

Then sane and effective leaders are more of a threat to democracy than incompetent ones. I don't have or want a "strong leader" to tell me what I want to do, and never have.

Oh, I don’t agree. Trump is neither sane or competent and he is certainly the biggest threat to the United States and among the greatest threat worldwide.

Hitler was effective but also insane, and amoral as is Trump, IMO. He did start a world war but he had more time than Trump has had. Trump has been pretty quick to establish concentration camps for children. I’m actually quite nervous about the reports of lice infecting the children because: lice! But also I fear how Trumpites will decide to delude the children. I wish I were exaggerating.

I don’t see the government or any elected (or appointed) official as having the ability to tell me or convince me of what I want. In the US, we have given them the authority to set policies and to make laws—and retain the power to remove them from office.