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Comment by bigbob2 | Hacker News Reader

From the non-gatekeepers' perspective, the difficulty of policy implementation does not matter when the policies themselves are ineffective and only serve to maintain status quo financial structures, which benefit the wealthy often at the expense of the most vulnerable.

What specifically makes the president unpresidential as opposed to other presidents? Is it removals as a percentage of the estimated illegal immigrant population? The dramatic expansion of the power of the executive branch into the realm of national security? Number of U.S. citizens executed without trial? Those are all things which happened under previous presidencies.

> If the Republicans had done their job as well like usual

Is it really fair to argue that gatekeepers are effective if they failed to do what you view as their jobs? "If it wasn't for those meddling Republicans!"

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> What specifically makes the president unpresidential as opposed to other presidents?

I'd start with these:

* The scale of his well-documented aversion to the truth (18,000 lies + misleading statements, and counting)

* How he never rises above a situation and takes the high road

* The demonization of opponents, and the inability to engage meaningfully with opposition

* Removal of any oversight (even Nixon allowed oversight)

There are lots more.

My point was to illustrate that previous presidents have also done things which could be considered unpresidential depending on your opinion. Unless I'm missing some official definition of presidential, these are all things that you personally believe are unpresidential. I'm not saying I disagree with you, but things like "never takes the high road" sound a bit biased.

I agree that "presidential behavior" is a subjective term. Doesn't make it useless - just subjective.

Are you arguing the counter, that his personal behavior is in any way laudable? Do you think he's a good role model, and would want your children to emulate his behavior?

> Are you arguing the counter, that his personal behavior is in any way laudable? Do you think he's a good role model, and would want your children to emulate his behavior?

I don't have to think that he's a good role model to think that previous presidents have also violated human rights and eroded freedoms.

edmundsauto nailed it in the unpresidential comment.

I wasn't complaining about the gatekeepers failing, just trying to share their perspective for those who might not understand.

FWIW, I think the best outcome would have been to deny Trump at the gate, and instead find a candidate who could get those policies done without being a danger to democracy.

> FWIW, I think the best outcome would have been to deny Trump at the gate, and instead find a candidate who could get those policies done without being a danger to democracy.

The problem is that's anti-democratic because many of those gatekeepers are appointed rather than elected. At that point the gatekeepers may as well directly decide who the president is, because it has already been chosen regardless.

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