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Comment by taytus | Hacker News Reader

The fact that probably millions of people would vote for him to be president is terrifying to me.

Trump may have doomed us to an endless flood of celebrity politicians. I despise Zuckerberg but other celebrity candidates scare me more. If we must have a tech mogul I would prefer Gates or Cook.

> "Trump may have doomed us to an endless flood of celebrity politicians..."

We've had numerous celebrity politicians before Trump. Franken, Reagan, Arnold, Ventura, Springer, etc... The list continues[1] and it definitely wasn't Trump that was the first (although he holds the highest position of any of the other celebrity-actor-politicians, without having first held another political position).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_actor-politicians#USA

EDIT: Clarified my comment on Trump being the "first" celebrity-president

fwiw, Springer's political life was before he became a nationally known celebrity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Springer

Reagan was president too though.

Fair point. I edited my comment to make clear that I meant first celebrity-president without having had any other political position.

Other celebrity presidents would merely be dumb. Society has managed to survive bumbling politicians, mocking them all along the way.

Zuckerberg strikes me as hell-bent on global domination, but doing it with the most plastic smile possible. Given any sort of real authority, I doubt even humor at his expense would go unchecked.

Gates would actually be pretty good IMO.

Gates as a candidate would work as well as McAfee

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