Serious Politicians Who Could’ve Become Jokes

TRH

SpookyBoy said:
Emmanuel Macron if he didn't win, seeing as he's just such a weird, self-absorbed person

Trump is an obvious one
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At the risk of sending this to Chat, the two have a lot in common. They ran outside the usual norms of their countries' party systems, were elected to shake things up, but wound up following the same exceptionally business-friendly policies. Also, both rather authoritarian by inclination.
 

Archibald

Banned
Eeerh. No. Trump is alt-right, far-right, he would make Marine le Pen (or even his father) blush and looks like moderates. On the French political landscape, Trump would be at the right of the FN, somewhere amid fringe nutjobs like Jacques Cheminade, Robert Menard, or François Asselineau.
Think what you want of Macron he is NOT a populist far-right nutjob.
 

TRH

Archibald said:
Eeerh. No. Trump is alt-right, far-right, he would make Marine le Pen (or even his father) blush and looks like moderates. On the French political landscape, Trump would be at the right of the FN, somewhere amid fringe nutjobs like Jacques Cheminade, Robert Menard, or François Asselineau.
Think what you want of Macron he is NOT a populist far-right nutjob.
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Alt-right is primarily a measurement of social issues, and the main point of comparison I made (that wasn't branding, which doesn't mean much) was their tax policies, which both favor the extremely wealthy. You seem to be putting all policy issues on the same left-right spectrum, which is flawed, to say the least.
 

Deleted member 16736

terrellk said:
Obvious one, perhaps, but Bill Clinton. His convention speech in 1988 was a snoozer - a real dud that stands out given his later reputation as Mr. Charisma. So if Cuomo or some other more serious contender decides that he's going to challenge Bush in 1992 and Clinton's indiscretions come out more or less on schedule and wreck his campaign that year I can see a much, much different career trajectory for OTL's 42nd President. Consider: Clinton won't end up in Cuomo's cabinet or on his ticket because of the baggage he carries with him from his personal life, so he stays in Arkansas. Meanwhile, details about the Whitewater Controversy still bubble up, brought to the FBI's attention by Clinton's presidential run. By the mid-1990's Governor Clinton, along with his wife Hillary, Lieutenant Governor Jim Guy Tucker, and associate David Hale, are neck-deep in a federal investigation. Whatever the outcome of that investigation, Clinton will forever be remembered (to the extent he's remembered at all) as a skirt-chasing, corrupt, southern good old boy politician who couldn't hack it on the national scene.
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From a similar period, George W. Bush never gets sober. (Is he a serious politician for the purpose of this thread? I'll say yes, though others might disagree.) Anyhow, Bush never confronts his alcoholism, never gets born-again, never finds Jesus and compassionate conservatism. Laura is going to leave him, for sure, since it was her ultimatum that made him quit drinking in the first place, removing one of the anchors of his life. Bush is now as untethered as the son of a President can be. He's still a Bush, so he's still in business or baseball. But he's more of a liability to his family's political fortunes than he is IOTL when he helped his father in his two presidential runs that took place AFTER he got sober. So there's always the possibility of him embarrassing H.W. Bush during his presidency or (and this is potentially more amusing) Jeb during his presidential runs in the early 2000s. So Dubya may end up being something of a Billy Carter character instead of the 43rd president of the United States.
 

Archibald

Banned
TRH said:
Alt-right is primarily a measurement of social issues, and the main point of comparison I made (that wasn't branding, which doesn't mean much) was their tax policies, which both favor the extremely wealthy. You seem to be putting all policy issues on the same left-right spectrum, which is flawed, to say the least.
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I have little patience for extremism, be it from the left or the right, social or political. Extremists are nuts and a poison to any human society since the days of cavemen. This belongs to chat, as you said.
 
Oppo

Oppo

Michael Howard: He was unsuccessful as a cabinet minister, had a disastrous leadership campaign in 1997 (after Anne Widdecome's attack), and stepped down as a member of the Shadow Cabinet in 1999. He got the Shadow Chancellorship in 2001 under IDS and took power unopposed after the leadership defeat, which could easily be avoided.
 

clem attlee

Archibald said:
François Hollande, obviously. He was president, and one of the least corrupt (he is really a Gandhi in comparison to Chirac, Mitterrand or even Sarkozy)
Yet in 2017 he managed to sink the PS to a lower bottom than Mitterrand did in 1993 (30 deputies vs 70 over 577)
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Well, he ran as a leftist and governed as a centrist. In ordinary times, that might have washed, but in the austere teens, it was bound to infuriate, hence the rise of Melenchon.
 

TRH

clem attlee said:
Well, he ran as a leftist and governed as a centrist. In ordinary times, that might have washed, but in the austere teens, it was bound to infuriate, hence the rise of Melenchon.
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Depressing irony that one of his flunkies managed to get elected to replace him, with the same policy direction pursued more vigorously.
 

clem attlee

No one has yet mentioned the current example of Theresa May who has imploded.Are there any Tory cabinet ministers who aren't disasters at the moment? Blair will become a joke if he tries the third party scheme. He doesn't seem to know when to leave the stage.
 

clem attlee

TRH said:
Depressing irony that one of his flunkies managed to get elected to replace him, with the same policy direction pursued more vigorously.
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Yes, that's true. I hadn't considered it. Hollande made the PS toxic so that even a genuine leftist, Benoit Hamon, was absolutely drubbed. That has its irony too.
 

TRH

clem attlee said:
No one has yet mentioned the current example of Theresa May who has imploded.Are there any Tory cabinet ministers who aren't disasters at the moment? Blair will become a joke if he tries the third party scheme. He doesn't seem to know when to leave the stage.
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Well, again, I feel like Blair is already a joke, and May is doomed to such as well. The question is what non-doomed politicians could have become laughingstocks. Lloyd-George or Poincare if WWI had been lost, say.
 

Don Draper

TRH said:
Depressing irony that one of his flunkies managed to get elected to replace him, with the same policy direction pursued more vigorously.
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Macron just got lucky more than anything. Before the Fillon scandal the most he was going to get were the five percent of people (lol) who still approved of Hollande plus the ex-Bayrouists. The Fillon scandal made enough center-rightists jump ship to Macron, and it was pretty easy for them since Macron basically is a center-rightist as well. He also got lucky that the left bloc was split between Hamon and Melenchon.
 

clem attlee

TRH said:
Well, again, I feel like Blair is already a joke, and May is doomed to such as well. The question is what non-doomed politicians could have become laughingstocks. Lloyd-George or Poincare if WWI had been lost, say.
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Yes, quite so. Perhaps if LG had tried a new party in the 30s with his large fund from selling peerages. He often alluded to it, but never went forward.
 

UCB79

Jerry Brown, for his always, ALWAYS running
for office. Yet I can't help but notice that he
is now IOTL Governor of California- a serious
position indeed!
 
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