Oprah for President?

[Valjean]

We could do worse, but I think I'd prefer someone a little better versed in history, foreign policy and economics.

 

[columbus]

We could do worse, but I think I'd prefer someone a little better versed in history, foreign policy and economics.

Do you have any idea how well versed she is? I don't.
I do know that she's brilliant and informed, at least as capable as Trump. Who will probably be the other choice.
Tom

 

[Revoltingest]

We could do worse, but I think I'd prefer someone a little better versed in history, foreign policy and economics.

And she's never played the President before.
If the Dems are set on a female, then how about Robin Wright?
But I recommend Dennis Haysbert.

 

[sayak83]

Well, the idea of an Oprah Winfrey run for President is a little closer to reality now. Personally , I think she is a much more likable individual than either candidate we ended up with last time. Don't know a great deal about her politics, so I'm just speaking of her on a personality level. So ,what do you think? Realistic candidate or not?

Sources: Oprah Winfrey 'actively thinking' about running for president

I want Bill Gates to run for president.

 

[sun rise]

Ya know, had the election been between Sanders and Kasich, I would probably have voted for Kasich.
Not because I liked his platform better, I really liked Sanders' better than any of the others. But I thought Kasich the most competently right/center option, and competence is top of my list as well. Sanders reminded me too much of Obama.
Tom

In the past I might have agreed with you. Now there is no way I'm going to vote for any Republican. If in the future there's a sane and sensible new party with other ideas than the Democrats who are not out to destroy my environment and retirement, I'll consider that new party. But the current Republican party? I have no interest in committing political suicide.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Why?
Do you hate billionaire game show hosts with no experience?
Or is it because she's a black woman who could out play Trump in the media?
Tom

None of that. But you want somebody with a bigger, huger than huge, more boisterous, and more bloated, self-aggrandizing ego than Trump ever was, or ever could be, then .....

Vote for the MEGALOMANIA Queen!

I can see now the special minted series of the Oprah Winfrey presidential fine china dinnerware promotion already in queue.

With Oprah Winfrey's specially crafted portrait add signature lovingly embossed on every single plate, glass, and individual pieces of silverware. All with the sign letter of authenticity with Oprah Winfrey's own special signature.

Also a free one-year subscription to Oprah Winfrey magazine.

Air Force One will have a huge picture of her face on the tail wing as she flies over the country looking at all the little people.

The presidential address will now henceforth be called the Oprah Winfrey address, exclusive only on the Oprah Winfrey channel!!!

 

[David1967]

I want Bill Gates to run for president.

Well, He would definitely be smart enough.

 

[columbus]

I can see now the special minted series of the Oprah Winfrey presidential fine china dinnerware promotion already in queue.

Ah, so it's hawking signature brands of luxury goods that you despise.

I bet she'd be smart enough to sell "Made in the USA" products, before launching a bring back the jobs campaign platform plank.
Tom

 

[sayak83]

Well, He would definitely be smart enough.

Recommend his blog.
Home | Bill Gates

 

[osgart]

She's honest, so that would change things drastically.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I lost so much respect for Oprah. Out one side of her mouth she goes on as she did at the Golden Globes, and on the other she was all buddy-buddy with Weinstein. Why wasn't she speaking out then?

But even before that, no. I would not vote for her or any other celebrity (except for one) that thinks they'd do a good job at president. It's ridiculous. The only "celebrity" that I'd vote for would be Stephen Colbert. He knows politics extremely well, isn't overly party-loyal, and has the capacity to speak respectfully and amicably to foreign diplomats and people in ideological opposition to him.

I used to like Oprah actually in the beginning. I thought for once here was somebody who actually started out life and made an effort to achieve the epitome of the American dream.

Until I found that her family members were quoted as saying she actually wasn't as poor or bad off as she made herself out to be in the beginning, and that she told people that because it's what they wanted to hear. Paraphrasing of course.

If anything the woman we see today is nothing like the woman that began at the start. I think when you hit that kind of success and now a one percenter, you tend to easily forget after a while and put it all behind.

Oprah's philanthropy is notable and of course appreciated by recipients, but then again, a lot of one-percenters tend to donate to charity or similar acts of humanity quite often, and in amounts that are impressive to people who are middle class and lower.

I'm happy for her success actually, but at the same time I just don't want to hear about it either.

Oprah's kind of terrifying to think about, but I'll say this much that I would rather have her than another freaking lawyer in office ever again.

I just don't know if I can handle her megalomania and ego 24/7 through the media. But I suppose I can always shut off the TV and radio......

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Today I heard on NPR why people want Oprah for Prez....
She's likeable, & makes impassioned speeches.


Does it even matter what policies she favors?
Or just that she can win with likeability?

If Opera did run and win, it makes me wonder what America's international image would look like, with it seeming the nation has been given over to inexperienced celebrities.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Ah, so it's hawking signature brands of luxury goods that you despise.

I bet she'd be smart enough to sell "Made in the USA" products, before launching a bring back the jobs campaign platform plank.
Tom

I think that all started with the Carter years for me.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If Opera did run and win, it makes me wonder what America's international image would look like, with it seeming the nation has been given over to inexperienced celebrities.

Like Trump, she's a world known name. At least she's got that going for her.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If Opera did run and win, it makes me wonder what America's international image would look like, with it seeming the nation has been given over to inexperienced celebrities.

Well that would show that anybody can become president. However the only stipulation or prerequisite is that you have to become a billionaire first.
Eh.

 

[columbus]

I think that all started with the Carter years for me.

Typical, uninformed conservative , that was Billy Beer and definitely not Jimmy Beer.
I was in college with a minor in beer, I am an expert on this.
Tom

 

[BSM1]

Typical, uninformed conservative , that was Billy Beer and definitely not Jimmy Beer.
I was in college with a minor in beer, I am an expert on this.
Tom

BTW Red Skelton once said that Billy almost broke his neck in the White House. He forgot how long his chain was.

 

[Valjean]

Interesting -- and worrisome -- article in today's Guardian about Oprah's underlying politics:
Oprah Winfrey: one of the world's best neoliberal capitalist thinkers

....You have choices in life. External conditions don’t determine your life. You do. It ’s all inside you, in your head, in your wishes and desires. Thoughts are destiny, so thinking positive thoughts will enable positive things to happen.

When bad things happen to us, it’s because we’re drawing them toward us with unhealthy thinking and behaviors. “Don’t complain about what you don’t have. Use what you’ve got. To do less than your best is a sin. Every single one of us has the power for greatness because greatness is determined by service—to yourself and others.”

Janice Peck, in her work as professor of journalism and communication studies, has studied Oprah for years. She argues that to understand the Oprah phenomenon we must return to the ideas swirling around in the Gilded Age. Peck sees strong parallels in the mind-cure movement of the Gilded Age and Oprah’s evolving enterprise in the New Gilded Age, the era of neoliberalism. She argues that Oprah’s enterprise reinforces the neoliberal focus on the self: Oprah’s “enterprise [is] an ensemble of ideological practices that help legitimize a world of growing inequality and shrinking possibilities by promoting and embodying a configuration of self compatible with that world.”

The American dream is premised on the assumption that if you work hard, economic opportunity will present itself, and financial stability will follow, but the role of cultural and social capital in paving the road to wealth and fulfilment, or blocking it, may be just as important as economic capital. Some people are able to translate their skills, knowledge, and connections into economic opportunity and financial stability, and some are not—either because their skills, knowledge, and connections don’t seem to work as well, or they can’t acquire them in the first place because they’re too poor.

This strikes me as a reiteration of the Neoliberal doctrine that prosperity is a personal decision; that we're all capable of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps; that poverty is, thus, a personal failing. Ergo: the poor deserve their poverty and merit no help from the prosperous.

 

[columbus]

Well.
I like her more now.

I could all too easily have imagined her a limousine liberal, all too much about promoting the culture of victimhood and entitlement and little about personal responsibility.

Tell me more.
Tom

 

[Kuzcotopia]

Ya know, had the election been between Sanders and Kasich, I would probably have voted for Kasich.
Not because I liked his platform better, I really liked Sanders' better than any of the others. But I thought Kasich the most competently right/center option, and competence is top of my list as well. Sanders reminded me too much of Obama.
Tom

Maybe a little. Obama's problem for me what that he always saw everything as small steps toward the real goals. . . Sanders just went there.

Socialized medicine for instance. The ACA was always designed to be a first step towards socialized medicine. Sanders just begins his arguments with the actual goal of helping people. . . And all be darned if the future of America, the young, don't respond well to it.

To me, that's the difference between them. . . That and he doesn't take corporate money to win an election. He "welcomes their contempt."

Imagine. . . Big Goverment, Big Labor, and Big Business. . . All three with sufficient power to check each other for the good of the working class and social progress. I'll always vote for such balance. . . I thought Sanders had a chance to bring it back to that again. Obama, the Clinton's. . . Too much faith (and campaign contributions) with Big Business alone. What a wasted opportunity.