For many years, virtually since the beginning of this country, we have had a long list of totally unfit candidates run for the highest office in the land, guardian of the free world, President of The United States, and this year, heading into the 2024 presidential election cycle is no exception. In 1856, just prior to the Civil War, when the issues which led to the war were building in the country, Millard Filmore who had ascended to the White House on the death of Zachary Taylor and proved himself to be totally unfit ran on the American Party ticket. Filmore held office as a member of the Whig Party, their last leader, and then became the candidate of the American Party, known fondly as the Know Nothing Party, perhaps the most appropriately named political party in the history of the world, and pushed their anti-immigration platform. Thankfully, Filmore lost and it is likely the history of America regarding both slavery and the Civil War turned out in far better hands in the long run.
In 1924, Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin ran on the Progressive Party ticket and garned about 16 percent of the vote in an election which was won by Calvin Coolidge who never amounted to much himself. We will never know if the country could have been better off and, perhaps, have avoided the Great Depression which resulted because Herbert Hoover and the Republicans won the next election in 1928. It is likely that, if LaFollette had served two terms, the country might not have been worse off than having Hoover serve one with it's resultant economic collapse, Hoovervilles, Hoover Boxes, and starving citizens all across the country.
In 1948, South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond running on a segregationist platform received about 2% of the total vote and America chose to retain Harry S. Truman as president after he had finally ended World War II by dropping the atomic bombs on China after succeeding FDR. There is little doubt that Thurmond was far less qualified than Truman.
In 1968, Alabama Governor George Wallace took up the segregationist banner after the US Supreme Court forced the racial integration of public schools across the country with the Brown vs. Board of Education case which still today is one of the most important and necessary cases ever heard by the Supreme Court.
In 2000, it is highly likely that the candidacy of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader diverted enough votes from Vice President Al Gore to allow George Bush to win the White House. Nader, who might have been very good for the country and its conservation policies had absolutely no foreign policy experience and was a far less qualified candidate than either Gore or Bush. But his 2.8 million votes, which statistically seem to have come primarily from self-described Democrat voters allowed Bush to benefit from the highly suspect recount in Florida which set up the reprehensible Gore vs. Bush decision by the US Supreme Court which allowed Bush to ascend to the White House.
In 2008, the Radical Right Wing Repugnican Congressman Ron Paul ran for the White House on a platform which could have set social justice back a hundred years and lost soundly to President Barack Obama who led the country in eight of the most progressive years in the history of the country. Sadly, today, the poorly qualified son of Ron Paul, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul holds a seat in the US Senate and still espouses many of the asinine idea of his father and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican Party.
Since that election in 2008, nearly every presidential election has been loaded with Right Wing Radical Repugnican candidates who are grossly unfit to hold any position of public trust at any level including a second successful run by Ron Paul against Mitt Romney who can arguably be said to have been the last sane Republican to run for president.
The 2016 presidential election was a total disaster for the country due to the fact that the Right Wing Radical Repugnican TRAITOR Donald Trump was able to illegally occupy the White House after being strongly aided by his Russian Owner Vladimir Putin whose computer hackers were able to steal about 80,000 votes total in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan and literally steal a US election. Today, he is already under indictment for having stolen a treasure trove of classified documents from the US government and is facing much more serious indictments in his unsuccessful insurrection of January 6th 2021, after he soundly lost his second consecutive election against President Joe Biden. It appears higly likely that he will turn out to have been the worst TRAITOR in the history of the world.
And, yet, the perpetual flock of unqualified, misled, and often larcenously motivated candidates continues to crop up. The Right Wing Radical Repugnican Party has a long list of candidate headed toward 2024 who range from the mildly dangerous to absolute lunatics such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The only arguably qualifed among their long list of candidates is former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson whose politics is just as far to the right of center as any of the others. The only good thing that can be said about this list of volatile candidates is that none of them has been indicted for crimes against the US government as their front runner TRAITOR Trump has.
Yet, the Democratic Party is also sporting their own resident lunatic, Robert Kennedy, Jr. who is a rabid anti-vaccine ranter whose own relatives regularly speak out against his ignorance and insanity along with the great majority of Americans.
Someday, perhaps, the US will find a way to legally and appropriately prevent lunatics, Russian spies, common criminals, and even TRAITORS from being able to run for the highest office in the land. Until that day comes, all we can do is vote consistently for the party which has had the lowest number of unqualified candidates in history, the Democratic Party. But we must also realize that this year and Robert Kennedy, Jr. prove that even the Democratic Party is not immune from having a resident nut.
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