May The Best Man Win...?

"Senior officials from the Biden administration, including he White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content including humour and satire."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

 

"[Social media companies are] speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation."

US Vice-President Kamala Harris 

"[She] would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared."

Former VP Harris staffers

"Trump isn't capable of philosophical thought. [His authoritarianism is a personality disorder]."

John Bolton, former Trump national security adviser

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump depart the stage at an election night watch party, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Evan Vucci/AP

They don't quite read like endorsements of Democratic or Republican candidates for the elite executive office of the most powerful man on the globe, president of the United States of America. With its population of 335 million people, among them people of sheer genius, great scientific minds, economists of the first order, enterprising business professionals, internationally renowned academics, one might assume that among them could arise a sound mind of great political potential devoted to the welfare of the nation and its citizens who could move the electorate to recognize a leader-in-waiting.

 

But reality appears to be that one would be waiting a long time for that to happen. Instead, mediocrities of one kind or another who visualize political life as the highest calling for anyone interested in being paid handsomely for creating a legend of themselves as a resourceful, intelligent, trustworthy leader capable of governing in an enduringly masterful manner to elevate respect both for the office and the capabilities of an selected cabinet, doing justice to the expectations of the nation manage to convince enough voters to allow them to stumble through four years of apprenticeship-to-power.

 

All too often candidates for the presidency are settled upon who appear to be the least problematic of poor choices, chosen for certain properties motivated by serving the party, not the people. Viewed objectively the leadership choices of each party represent the pathetic inadequacies of the average American, secure in their support of one party, hostile to the other. Leading the candidates to go all out in campaigns that impugn the patriotism of the other, much less fitness for the office by any indices.

 

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a concession speech after the 2024 presidential election, Nov. 6, 2024, on the campus of Howard University in Washington.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

In this election cycle just passed, current Vice-President Kamala Harris was seen by many as vacuous and woke-devoted, knowing little of economics, much less international affairs, fronting for those in real control of the party at the executive level that she represents. Even so, she was a palpable leg up from the president she served whose failing mental acuity could no longer be shielded from public scrutiny.

 

Prior to the election, an AP-NOR poll found that 57 percent of Democratic voters place "a lot" of blame on Israel "for the escalation of war in the Middle East", whereas 26 percent of Republicans agreed with that assessment. In her search for a presidential running mate, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was dropped as "too sympathetic to Israel", an action which "confirmed or inflamed simmering fears about antisemitism on the left", according to the NYT.  

The Biden-Harris administration strong-armed social media platforms into suppressing debates about pandemic policy and inconvenient political news for the administration. Facebook had acquiesced, suppressing reports on Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents due to FBI pressure.