Possibilities of a AS?autistic candidate for/president

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Multiple places on this forum repeatedly point out that NTs are (in varying degrees) naturally socially manipulative.

By extension NT politicians

quite willing to bend the truth and/or ignore it in order to keep up approval ratings,

completely ignore campaign promises, and/or make campaign promises that they know are unrealistic,

or campaign almost soley on the basis of attack ads and slander instead of logic and debate. (looking at you republicans)

What about an AS/ spectrum president?

I've thought about that a lot. I think it would be a really good idea, but the Neurotypicals probably would'nt elect the autistic person because he/she/it would probably be too honest and tell EVERYONE about his/her/its policies, even the unpopular ones, and may accidentally say offensive things without realizing it. It would be a great idea, but we would have to get past the elections.

It probably would not happen, and if it did it would not make much difference.....unless society actually changed to match up with such an occurring. But as it stands now it does not really matter who's president because they aren't the one running things.

moved from News and Current Events to Autism Politics, Activism, and Media Representation

Interesting, I think we've already had presidents on the spectrum!

The following website claims Thomas Jefferson was aspie.
http://www.asperger-syndrome.me.uk/people.htm

And from the book The Reagans: Portrait of a Marriage by Anne Edwards, I got the idea that former President Reagan may have been on the spectrum. He definitely marched to his own drummer.

And Jimmy Carter, he has a stubborn streak, he can be tenacious. He definitely has an intellectual streak and can really dive into topics. Former President Carter may be on the spectrum, too. Or, he may merely march to his own drummer.

I very much agree with the first part! This is a movement from the ground up. Or at least that's the way it should be. That's the way we can really get things done.

And the second, if you mean corporations have too damn much power and unaccountable power, I agree with this too.

Does anyone know if any US Congress people are likely AS people?


One of my favourite Congressmen is Dennis Kucinich. He's a little quirky and he comes across very honest in my opinion. One of my other favs is Bernie Sanders - he's honest and not afraid to speak his mind. I don't know that either of these men may have AS. Dennis seems more likely than Bernie, but I don't know.

Yes that is a large part of it, but I would argue many politicians are perfectly ok with it because they more or less get paid by those running the major corporations.

I wouldn't care one way or the other. Qualifications are all that matters to me. Doesn't matter whether the person is Aspie. I'm sure there are Aspies out there who could do the job very well. I'm sure there are a lot who couldn't. Same with NT's. Doesn't matter.

Yes, people who benefit from the status quo often don't have that much motivation to change things.

Even a discussion such as, it seems as though there are fewer middle-class jobs today as measured by percentage of the population than there were in the 1970s. That seems like it would be a hugely important discussion. But we generally don't have it. Instead, we just blame people who are poor.

Yeah it's those lazy bastards bringing the system down, not the government officials giving into corruption just to make more money or keep their position of power secure. Seriously though I thought the government was supposed to govern as in try to do what's best for the citizens...but it seems all about giving in to corporate interests regardless of how it effects the citizens for more profit and to keep their position of power secure.

And since the "free enterprise" system is perfect by definition, ipso facto, it must be those poor, iresponsible, "lazy" people getting mortgages they can't afford. And the standard "conservative" talking point of blaming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so that it all makes sense according to their world view.

And then we have the charged rhetoric against illegal immigrants. Well, they weren't the ones making decisions for Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. This is just classic scapegoating. And on this one, I am pretty disappointed with my fellow citizens.

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Okay, there are a couple of openings . . .

I think we have the beginnings of a potentially good discussion about Mitt Romney's time at Bain Capital. And it's kind of gotten to the point where people acknowledge that capitalism involves creative destruction. Okay. And then we can take the discussion to the next level and ask, So, is this a genuinely competitive market with honest feedback and transparency, or is it more something like an oligopoly with a few firms who scratch each other's back?

Immediately after the finance collapse in Sept. 2008, I think people immediately saw that banks "too big to fail" was BS and that we needed to change it. In fact, I've heard people say this was the main take-home lesson. And yet, we haven't done it. What we have done is overlay the existing financial system with new regulation and reporting, complex, hard to understand, maybe on balance a positive thing. But we haven't used Sherman Anti-Trust or similar to break up the big boy banks. And that we surely need to do.

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 31 Jan 2012, 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Might be interesting to have a Candidate on the spectrum....

In the past we certainly had countless kings and emperors.

Jimmy Carter was an engineer before becoming president of the USA.

good luck getting elected by NTs who all hate you.