2024 Presidential Power Rankings - #1
It's barely one year away... let's start the train wreck!
With a little over a year until the 2024 Presidential election, it only seems right to start ranking the contenders, pretenders, and anything else that might be a President.
Now, some may say I’m jaded, but I think this exchange on my Facebook Wall captures the last fifteen years pretty well:
Without a doubt, 2024 is shaping up to be the dumbest election cycle yet. I mean, honestly… we as a country can’t do better than two mentally unstable geriatrics who both have approval ratings hovering at 40%?
So damn it, we’re going to rank all these candidates, real and fake, to at least have some fun and imagine a world without an old incompetent loser at the helm of the greatest country on Earth. And for those wondering if I am talking about Trump or Biden? Yes.
Some notes on the methodology here:
We’ll go from worst candidate up to best, in order to build some suspense.
This is purely based on my own beliefs in who, or what, would make a better President.
This list will include real and fake candidates, and a mix of real analysis of actual candidates and comedic tropes around the fake ones. If you can’t handle that, you are reading the wrong blog.
These are subject to change of course and nothing said here should be taken as an endorsement of actual policies or positions held by any of the candidates.
With that, here we are at #25:
The Downright Evil Division
#25 Adolf Hitler - with at least several candidates getting compared to, well, Hitler, it bears noting that Hitler is at the bottom of our power rankings and would literally make the worst President. He’d gain some support amongst Democrats for his anti-Russia stance, but that’s not enough to rescue him from the bottom of the barrel since genocide is still quite unpopular in the U.S. Thankfully, he is dead, and thus unlikely to be elected in 2024.
#24 Justin Trudeau - even before he recently honored a Nazi SS soldier, Trudeau had embraced Nazi-like tactics in shutting down the Candian Trucker protests against his Nazi-like vaccination policies. Needless to say, this man needs to stay north of the border.
#23 Klaus Schwab - there’s a reason that I’ve named my fantasy football team after this creepy-and-disgusting head of the World Economic Forum (I always name my team after dictators or wannabe dictators). Klaus wants us all to “eat ze bugs!” and would love to start in the U.S. making sure we all own nothing and are “happy”. Rumors that Klaus’s dad is was a Nazi may be false, but, like Trudeau, Klaus loves using authoritarian ideology in the name of “ze greater gut.”
#22 Gavin Newsom - rumor has it that our boy Gavin from California is eyeing the Presidency as Biden struggles. If not now, he’s certain to be on the stage in 2028. But let’s remember that Gavin also enjoyed employing Nazi-like lockdowns and mandates through California for the better part of two years and runs the most dysfunctional and highly taxed state in the country. Putting a homeless man on every street corner may be popular in California, but it shouldn’t fly with the rest of us.
#21 Joe Biden - I mean, we’ve seen almost 3 years of him, need I say more? Maybe downright evil is a bit harsh, but he’s an empty suit being used by nefarious forces in his administration and within the Government to do evil things. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad, which brings us to…
The Laugh-As-We-Fall Division
#20 One of those Homeless Drug Addicts in San Francisco - I’m not sure how we’d vote for this person, but I think this homeless drug addict would edge out Biden for me. What happens when he gets to the White House? Who knows! Maybe he cleans up his life and starts to turn things around. Or maybe he’ll just stumble and slur word salads on the national stage… just like Biden does anyway. Either way, it’ll make compelling television for four years.
#19 Hunter Biden - I had trouble figuring out where to place Hunter, but ultimately, Joe did say that Hunter is “the smartest person he knows,” which is… something I guess? In any case, a President Hunter would also make for incredibly compelling national television. Who’s going to be the first lady this week? How many kids does the President have? Seems fun!
#18 Kamala Harris & Selina Meyer - this was another tough one to rank, but Kamala’s relatively high position among Democratic insiders comes again from entertainment value. Honestly, I’m still not convinced Kamala isn’t just Julia Louis-Dreyfus putting on some makeup and doing a “Veep Reality Tour” that’ll air on Netflix in 2025.
It’d be the perfect indictment of the Democratic Party if the first female President isn’t someone who is actually accomplished, but rather, a diversity token who used blow jobs to rise to power. Nice work, Democrats!
#17 Taylor Swift - look, honestly, I don’t know anything about Taylor’s politics, but having recently been forcibly exposed to her and her fans thanks to her relationship with Travis Kelce, I’ve gotta say this: Taylor’s fans are a pain in the ass. No way I could take four years of that. Still, would the State of the Union just become a concert? A lot of fun options for how this could go!
The Unlikeable Division
#16 Cenk Ungyr - Cenk is a midwit Democratic commentator for the Young Turks who recently said he’s considering running for President. And honestly? He should!
#15 Chris Christie - the first Republican on the list, Christie is well-known for leaving New Jersey with a 17% approval rating. Considering that’s worse than Trump or Biden or pretty much anyone else, we’re probably better off without him being President.
#14 Mike Pence - just edging out Christie is our former Vice President. I recently heard Steve Deace cover Pence well, which I’ll paraphrase, “Look, I’m religious, I probably agree with Pence on most of what he says, but when he starts talking about religion, my skin crawls. I can’t imagine how people who don’t agree with us on that feel.” And he’s right. No one likes Mike, no one has thought he’s done well in the debates, and no one has any idea why he’s running.
#13 Ron Burgundy - despite being a fictional news anchor, Burgundy would be entertaining in the White House, but also bring some good natured genuine care about other humans to the White House, which thus far has been absent from our list. He’d be wildly incompetent, sure, but it’s not like we haven’t tried that before!
#12 Donald J. Trump - just edging out Burgundy and his former VP is the Orange Man himself, older and angrier than ever! Jokes aside, he should be angry as the lawfare being waged by Democrats is disgraceful. And look, as I’ve written about a plethora of times: I am no fan of the Orange Man. He’s a horrible role model to be President and far too impulsive, narcissistic, and ineffective as a result. But he’s also not Orange Hitler and we were a safer and more prosperous nation under him than we’ve been under Biden. And yet - his failure to corral spending and his significant Covid missteps w.r.t. keeping Fauci around and pimping the vaccines keep him below most of the Republican field.
The “Not All There” Division
#11 An Empty Chair - having no President seems like an issue, but it’d be a peaceful four years and at the least we could just freeze all federal policy where it is to make sure things don’t keep getting worse. Good enough to just miss out on the top 10!
#10 Tim Scott - similar to a chair, no one has really even noticed Tim Scott during the debates, and he’d probably act like a chair for much of his Presidency. But a slight conservative bias means he may make things moderately better, which gets him up to #10.
#9 Marianne Williamson - you may be surprised to see Marianne so high up on this list. Honestly, this is the ultimate humor play: President Marianne would be hilarious! I can’t wait to see who she’d hire, or who she’d put in charge of some “department of psychic energy” that she tries to spin up.
#8 President Camacho - played by Terry Crews, Camacho was the President in Idiocracy, which was a documentary comedy about a U.S. in the distant future where IQs had dropped to abysmally low levels. Camacho may have fired off a machine gun during his state of the union (at least that means he’s in favor of the 2nd Amendment). And he may have thought that energy drinks would help plants grow. And he may have swore every fourth word. But he meant well, and his presidential experience edges him into the #8.
The Yeah, Okay, I’ll Take It Division
#7 Nikki Haley - in at #7, Nikki was recently referred to as “Birdbrain” by Donald Trump on Truth Social. As she said, his attack must mean she’s doing something right. I’m not a Nikki fan, but I could support her in 2024 and not hate myself for it. Aside from a short stint as UN Ambassador at Trump’s behest, Haley has been outside of D.C. and may actually push for meaningful change. Whether she’d accomplish it, who knows, but it’s far from the worst outcome.
#6 Vivek Ramaswamy - Vivek has been a lightening rod in the debates as he attacks everyone on stage. Honestly though, his appearances on several long form podcasts show that he is someone with a great command of the issues facing this country and he presents a positive vision for how we can make meaningful change. His history is a bit short and has some points for skepticism, but it’s a chance I am willing to take.
#5 [Doesn’t Matter] Burgum - I think Burgum’s first name is Doug, but honestly, it doesn’t matter. Though “President Doug” does sound cool. Doug is a small town guy from Montana who looks like a deer in the headlights on stage and somehow has been in both Republican debates thus far. There is no way he wins, but a President Doug would be a peaceful four years that I think we could all use at this point.
#4 Random Person From The Phonebook - It’s the age old question: what if we just chose a random person to run this, what’d happen? Why not do it with the President of the United States? The fact is, everyday Americans tend to be overwhelmingly kind and decent people with a fair amount of common sense… unlike the monsters we usually send to Washington.
The Real Leadership Division
#3 Elon Musk - Yes, I know, Elon can’t run as he wasn’t born in the U.S. But at the rate we are spending money, the U.S. could become an attractive target for a leveraged buyout by private funds, and Elon is just the kind of guy who would try something that crazy! And I’ll be honest, it’d be a chaotic years living under our new owner/dictator Elon, but honestly that sounds more appealing than anything listed so far!
#2 Robert F Kennedy Jr. - just a couple days ago, RFK Jr. took to Twitter to imply a new effort to launch a campaign as an independent. Given the Democratic Party’s decidedly undemocratic efforts to railroad him at every turn, this isn’t too surprising. Conventional wisdom and hundreds of years of history tell us a third party candidate can’t win. But we don’t have to be slaves to historical president. RFK Jr. is hitting the right messages at the right time as many of us are obviously and rightfully disillusioned and disgusted by what we see in Washington. At the very least, we should all hope that he is able to run a safe and peaceful campaign free from CIA assassinations.
#1 Ron DeSantis - Captain Ron has been subject to disgusting attacks from the left and the Orange Man Admittedly, that has dragged him down in the polls as well as the semi-robotic nature he tends to adopt on stage. Nevertheless, Ron is a stone cold machine, and a bold and brilliant tactician. Along with Kennedy, these two are far-and-away the most likely to bring about meaningful positive change to Washington and the country. The left will paint him as the next Trump/Hitler, but unlike Trump, DeSantis is mature enough to handle that without alienating the middle 20% of the country.
