kalm wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12, 2024 8:05 am
We have two presidents right now, both setting policy on things like funding for UKR, the border, abortion. I don’t think this what the founders envisioned.
Eh, it's not that crazy nor unprecedented, even for the Founders. The whole Quasi-War with France, with the XYZ Affair leading up to, was an example of both parties, through their leaders, trying to dictate policy in opposite directions. And that included Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and a host of other Founders. We got through that without losing the country. We've probably had more mediocre Presidents than good ones, so we'll survive this Trump/Biden dip in Presidential quality. They're both clearly on limited time.
Adding on to this, the more I thought of it, we've been in a weird era of ex-Presidents standing apart from current politics, at least as compared to prior times. People have made a stink of someone like Obama still being involved in politics at a pretty active level, as opposed to the examples of other Presidents recently, like both Bush's, Clinton, etc, who backed away from an active role in politics when they left office. But there have been plenty of examples of Presidents in the past who still had considerable political influence after they left office - Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind as one.
