Politesse
Lux Aeterna
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2018
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- Chochenyo Territory, US
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- nb; all pronouns fine
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- Jedi Wayseeker
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.