"Pretend" there are no required qualifications or legal and ethical restrictions to becoming the president of the US, who would you like to see in office?

Someone who has actually had an American experience. Someone who's been homeless, who's worked more than one job just to barely make rent. Someone who's viewed home ownership as a pipe dream. Someone who's waited tables. Someone that's done drugs just for an escape. Someone who's lost friends and family to those same drugs. Someone who's had a total stranger express hate for them just for being outside the in-power group.

No more of these disconnected rich pricks who don't really know how the average person lives.

Anyone that has managed a homeless shelter or soup kitchen for over a decade.

Jon Stewart.

Weird all Yankovic.

He's been around for ages, doing parodies of everything but hasn't managed to make a single enemy. He's smart, he's caring, he's never involved in any scandals, and I guarantee he'd only use this power to better everyone.

Justin Amash, Zohran Mamdani, JB Pritzker, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Greta Thunberg, my brother the historian, Chuy Garcia, Tammy Duckworth, Tom Daschle, Chance the Rapper, Dave from the movie Dave...

I could pick a random person off the street in my neighborhood and they'd be better than the current President. But if I had to pick just one I guess I'd pick Tammy Duckworth, since she's the most likely to win reëlection.

My second comment of the day with the same answer funnily enough....

Dolly Parton!

John Oliver (or alternatively other talkshow hosts like John Steward, Stephen Colbert, or Conan) could be another interesting choice.

I'd assume he is probably more intelligent than me and has already spent a lot of time presenting problems and thinking about solutions. He'd also have the right energy to get things done.

That said, I think without changes to the capabilities of the office, I actually don't think they'd get that much done. Despite what it sometimes may look like, Trump can only do most of the things because others support it. This isn't a one man show.

Given Trump's second term kinda proves there are no legal or ethical restrictions to becoming President, assuming that precedent sticks, then I'd like to see anyone who's not a wannabe dictator come back and oust Trump.

Shit, Louis Rossmann as President would be kinda awesome.

Harambe

Jesus. Not kidding. Let’s see how hypocritical the Right really is.

I would like to see a random person. Put the entire adult population in a lotto and draw a name. Congrats, that person is now president.

The knee-jerk reaction is to be horrified by this prospect, but I want you to stop and really think about this for a sec. I think we can all admit that most of our leaders/politicians are, to put it mildly, fucking monsters. Those positions attract personalities that fall firmly in the Dark Triad (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy). And those that are capable of getting themselves elected are pretty much guaranteed to have at least one or more of those traits.

But these traits are relatively rare in your average, everyday person. Although the media tries it's best to warp our view of the world, individual people are, for the most part, good, decent folks who want to help those around them. It's practically built into our DNA. The problem is it only takes a small handful of selfish jackasses to ruin things, and our society tends to listen to those that are being the loudest.

By this metric, if you take a random person off the street, you have a higher chance of them being a good person; rather than if you selected from a pool of politicians.

Another benefit to this is the person entering office has zero ties to any company or billionaire. Lobbyists spend billions to ensure that anyone elected is already in the pockets of whatever big industry wants to fund them. By the time someone is elected, it's already too late as they've already had their hands greased and have accepted gifts, officially or unofficially. That's just the way the game is currently played. But a random person? They can't bribe someone ahead of time if they don't know who that person is going to be. Oh sure, I suppose they could try to appease the public as a whole so that your average person already has a positive opinion of them; but would that be such a bad thing?

Is it a perfect system? Hell no. Leaving leadership up to the whims of chance is a dangerous move to make. But is it a better system than the one we have now? I say yes. I truly believe we would be better off with a random person as president than any known politician or talking head.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, or Greta Thunberg.

Lord Buckethead

Boaty McBoatface

Edit: I forgot Funny Valentine

Arnold Schwarzenegger. He would be already if he was allowed.

But honestly, at this point, anyone who wasn't entirely evil.

Kim Jong Un

Julia Louis-Dreyfus would have my vote

If we include dead people, Kropotkin.

Otherwise, Zohran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, AOC...

and if I'm wondering who would be the best able to fulfil that -- Bernie Sanders, with Zohran as VP. He already has quite some experience.

Bernie Sanders

Me!

Jim Gottstein, lawyer who won in the Alaska Supreme Court and exposed company documents proving zyprexa causes diabetes.

Zohran Mamdani

Knows politics, but is a person I'd trust to fix things.

Zach de la Rocha

Mr Beast.

not because he'd be particularly good or competent at running a country; i'd like to see if/how he would milk being the president for content.

Maduro easily, just taste really. I think everyone could get used to his addresses and get over their issues within time. His responsibilities to Venezuelans are far more important though, so I understand him not wanting to be our Fuhrer.

Bill Burr.

Andrew Yang

Sam Kinison

I like Mamdani -- he is well spoken and passionate about helping people. Jon Stewart would do a good job, but I don't know if we need more celebrities.

Colonel Sanders

Anyone throughout time?

Disraeli?

Abraham Lincoln again?

Muhatma Ghandi?