Joe Biden doing some heavy lifting in this narrative as a VP and one term president. If anything, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton actually prove this point that anyone can become president, both come from very modest means.

The Bushes, however, are a dysfunctional political dynasty stretching back to senator and investment banker Prescott Bush, George HW's father, and Samuel Prescott Bush, a steel executive and industrialist, who was HW's grandfather.

Also, you left out that this is the 3rd election in a row with Trump on the ballot.

kinda disingenuous since 1992, bill clinton was a relative unknown governor and 2000, george bush was a relative unknown governor, and 2008, was bidens first real presence on a ticket

Overall kind of a lot of turnover actually...only one Clinton became president, and he was never VP. The other Clinton got beat out by the first black president for the nomination in 08, and then she lost to some guy who had zero political experience.

If anything, we learned that being black doesn't exclude you from being president, being female doesn't exclude you from being a major party nominee, and you can still become president even running for office for the first time at age 70. The promise of the statement is more true than ever.

Honestly this is sort of ridiculous.

• Biden is a Washington insider now, but that's because he had a lifetime to make something of himself. He grew up in the middle class
• I think we can all agree Obama was an outsider without any sort of elaboration
• Bill Clinton grew up dirt poor in a state that basically only makes the news when something stupid happens.

All three had to climb the ladder in a huge way, that simply wouldn't have been possible in a lot of other countries.

I also feel like Trump embodies the whole "anyone can be president" in his own sort of fucked up way. Trump obviously was born into immense wealth and enjoyed tremendous status, but he was in no way ever considered leadership material by America's political elite. His election was a complete "wtf" moment and wouldn't have happened in most countries. In a more rigid system we'd probably have had something like a Hillary Clinton v Jeb Bush election, which strictly speaking would have been better than what we got but also let's be real we would have all hated it.

I'm not saying America is some pure meritocracy. Bush was a third generation political dynasty member. His opponents were also pretty well connected. It's just that he's only one of several presidents to get elected in the past 30 years.

"Anyone can become President."

Me, thinking about Abraham Lincoln or Bill Clinton: "Yeah!"

"Anyone can become President."

Me, aware of Donald Trump, with Tucker Carlson waiting in the wings: "Oh no!"

This isn't a shower thought, it's half baked both sides propaganda. It only works if you include VP slots and completely ignore the fact that Obama/Biden was an outsider ticket.

A couple thoughts...

It is talking about President, but counts years where those names appeared on the ballot as Vice President too.

It also ignores that a lot of other people have also been on the ballots over the years.

Also, some of this is natural. When a president has an 8 year run, the Vice President is a natural person to take a shot at the presidency, so it's perfectly normal to have 12 years where the same person is on the ballot as VP then P. It's natural for this to happen more than once in a row. Whether we've had this long of a streak or not, I don't know, but I suspect we might have.

This showerthought covers 44 years. The Bushs and Clintons double dipping is 12 years worth of ballots, but the other 32 years were natural. Hilary lost when she tried to double dip so I would argue the 8 years of Dubya are really the only anomaly in actual presidencies as far as "dynasties" are concerned.

They say “anyone can become president”,

Anyone that believes that probably also believes that a glass slipper can magically turn you into royalty.

I don't think it's really fair to include "Biden" alongside "Bush" and "Clinton" and NOT include "Harris", just to make a point. The point is the Bush and Clinton represent two people each, a dynasty as it were. Biden is just one person. You might as well add then Harris since she has served as VP just like Biden, or Trump but I get the feeling this is intended to somehow make the statement that Harris represents a new breed of politics, a break from the old. That may or may not be true, but it doesn't hinge on this meaningless metric.

"since 1981 there has never been an election without a Bush, Clinton, Biden, Trump or Harris."

That 11x election cycles with at least one of three last names on the ballot is only a record tie.

We had John Adams x4, George Clinton x2, DeWitt Clinton x1, James Monroe x2, John Quincy Adams x2 also a total of 11x.

Roosevelts were on the ballot 8x election cycles but the gap years screwed them. And they were close to uniting with the Nixon 5x streak also with some gaps. And then after one cycle right into the Bush Sr streak. If things shook out just a bit different there was a 19x streak in the cards.

It pays to have an electorate that can't think their way past a brand name.

Tbh I feel like trump counts in your list. The trumps may not be a wealthy political dynasty but trump managed to manipulate the media for decades and that works too.

It's not true that anyone can get elected president, but anyone with enough money and recognition has a good chance.

Anyone that can be funded endlessly by a corporate and capitalist elite can become president.

If billionaires and corporate leaders decided tomorrow that you should be president, they could dump millions of dollars and a few years worth of hired professional help and they'd make you president.

It's not the will of an individual person or a personality that makes a president ... it's whichever group of wealthy backers who decide to fund the campaign ... after that it is j just a matter of how much money they are willing to spend to make it happen.

Not a shower thought, we all saw the headline last month. And the Biden thing doesn't make any sense anyway, he's one person.

Didn't say anyone could be the president of the US. There's a whole world out there

Except that, in my several decades, literally no one ever said that. if someone did say that, they're ignorant or selling something.

Trump is going to steal it. He's going to do fraud in front of everyone.