Could someone as unqualified as Trump get elected in any other modern, wealthy developed nation

Politics & Elections
41

I am pretty sure that comparative political scientists view the US’s party system as unusually weak among advanced democracies. (As others have described above, our major parties are de facto coalitions since multiparty coalitions are unworkable under our system; also, our federalist system makes it likely that a Democratic candidate in Boise will have significant policy differences from a Democratic candidate in San Francisco, and so forth.)

Leaving aside the question of whether strong party systems are desirable, it’s pretty predictable that they’ll tend to reject rogue elements more often. If the RNC could choose candidates at all levels of government, instead of those candidates being chosen by primaries, your average GOP candidate would fall into a tighter range, ideologically.

So while I can’t say that a Trump Mark II is inconceivable in other advanced democracies, that outcome seems much less likely in countries with stronger party systems.

42

Imagine, if you will, that the colon is a body part. What might one “hammer” a colon with?

Come to think of it, not a great insult. Perhaps something else was intended.

43

That is my view. That is why in the OP I was wondering about ‘modern, wealthy developed nations’. I could see someone like Trump winning an election in sub saharan Africa where people are more poor, the country isn’t industrialized, people have less education, civic institutions are not as strong or long lasting, etc.

Trevor Noah did some good bits about how Trump reminds him of African dictators.

But in a modern, wealthy developed nation? I really don't know if I can think of anything. I could see someone like Trump coming to power in Uganda, but not France or Japan.

I’m not sure what connection there is with the GINI coefficent. Interesting hypothesis.

44

Agreed, and IIRC, wasn’t Boris in line before Theresa May but he decided it wasn’t for him?

45

Not quite. He indicated that he would run for the position, but then withdrew when it became apparent that significant figures whose support he had expected - in particular, Michael Gove - would not, in fact, support him, and he had no hope of winning.

If anything, this episode illustrates his capacity for political misjudgment.

46

And regardless of his political positions, Johnson certainly has the traditional qualifications that Trump lacks: eight years as an MP; served as shadow critics for the Conservatives while in Opposition; eight years as Mayor of London which is an executive position with major responsibilities, almost akin to a governor in the US system, given the size and complexity of Greater London.

47

In Canada, I doubt that a Trump could take over an established party, because the selection process is quite different. In the major parties, leadership is not a popular vote, but an internal party vote. As well, the voting system is weighted nationally to ensure broad support from party members, and the voting system uses ranked ballots, so it’s not possible to win all of a riding’s votes by a bare plurality.

There is a leadership contest going on right now in the federal Conservative Party, so I’ll use that as an example.

Candidates have to pay a filing fee of $100,000, of which $50,000 is refundable. They have to be nominated by 300 party members, representing at least 30 constituencies from at least seven different provinces. And they have to be party members at least six months before the vote. And they have to file a 40 page disclosure statement with the party committee supervising the election. The party can disallow a person from running. I can’t imagine that power being used against a legitimate candidate; more likely to be used against a crank or someone with a long history with another party, would be my guess.

None of those requirements strike me as particularly difficult to meet. However, it’s the voting system that makes it more difficult for an outsider to be elected, in my opinion.

To vote in the election, an individual has to be a member of the party at least two months before the vote is held in May 2017. To be a party member, you have to sign up and pay a membership fee of $15, by cheque or credit card. These rules are designed to prevent “Insta-Tories”, people who suddenly sign up at the last minute, organised by supporters of a candidate who make a bulk payment in cash for the memberships of a bus load of people. (I’m not making that up; it’s happened.). The individual cheque or credit card/no cash requirement ensures that there is a paper trail and makes it much more difficult to have sudden bulk sign-ups. The goal is to have committed party members, not bulk Insta-Tories who may be a biddable voting bloc organised by supporters of a particular candidate.

Then the voting. There are 338 electoral districts, or “ridings” in the federal House of Commons. The party vote is conducted in each riding. Eligible party members cast a ranked ballot, voting for the candidates of their choice. If a candidate doesn’t get a certain threshold of votes in a riding after the first tabulation, the ballots for that candidate are re-counted with the second choice being added to the vote totals for another candidate. Anyone who gets over the minimum number of votes gets a portion of the riding’s points in the final tabulation.

This is another important point: it’s not the number of ballots cast that determine the leadership: it’s the ballots cast per riding. Each riding is assigned 100 points, and those points are allocated by the local ranked ballot vote in that riding. The reason for this requirement is that it’s designed to favour a candidate with broad party support nationally. The number of registered party members can vary tremendously by riding, often on a regional basis. For example, the Conservative Party is very strong in the western provinces, middling in Ontario and currently pretty weak in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. But you can’t win a national parliamentary election just by being strong in the west. You need a candidate with broad support. So each riding gets 100 points, regardless of the number of party members in that riding. A candidate who polls really high amongst voters in one region, and abysmally low with voters in another, will not get elected.

So overall, I think that the combination of the ranked ballot, which allows voters to have second and third choices, would count against an outsider like Trump. As well, the need to win in a lot of ridings also counts against an outsider. Party experience and connections counts a lot in this system.

One final point is that even if a person with little track record in the party does win the leadership, that doesn’t guarantee success as leader, if the party caucus is generally opposed to the new leader. Unlike the US presidential system, the leader of a party cannot survive in office without substantial support from the elected members of the party caucus. Consider the travails of Jeremy Corbin as Labour leader in the UK for instance: he has broad support from party members, but lots of opposition within his party caucus. That situation will eventually be resolved, but in the interim it makes Labour extremely ineffective in Opposition.

This point is also illustrated by the fate of Allison Redgrave, a recent Premier of Alberta. She was a Member of the Legislative Assembly but not very wel-known. When the party leadership came open, ran as sort of second tier candidate. There were strong first tier candidates locked in battle. Redgrave benefitted from the ranked ballot system because she was the second or third choices of supporters of the first tier candidates, and came up the middle. However, she did not have much support within the party caucus, whose members were supporting the various first tier candidates. For example, only one other MLA supported her during the leadership run. That meant that once she won the party leadership and became Premier, she didn’t have much support in caucus. When things started to go pear-shaped in the usual Hurley-burley of governing, she found herself with little real support in caucus. She ended up resigning before the conclusion of the normal term.

48

How is he not qualified?

Qualifications for the Office of President
Age and Citizenship requirements - US Constitution, Article II, Section 1
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.
Term limit amendment - US Constitution, Amendment XXII, Section 1 - ratified February 27, 1951
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

49

There are legal qualifications, which no one is challenging. And then there is “qualified to do the job,” which almost no one believes he is. We have dozens of threads outlining his deficiencies, so I won’t try to summarize them all here.

50

The Constitution says he is qualified. He won the electoral college votes needed by a large margin, (the race that mattered) those people who voted in our constitutional Republic’s election. Determined him qualified.

He’s qualified. Heck I am, I’m 41 and was born in the United States.

51

Remember this. Lets see if you feel the same way in one year.

52

I voted against Hillary in my mind, and voted for Trump in my heart.

And now, I see the genius of Trump. He inspires people to want to be great and he choses great people to surround him. His cabinet is all people who are best at the job that they’ve been chosen for. Who knows better how to rebuild the military than Mattis? Who knows better how to negotiate international deals than Tillerson? Who knows better how to fix the black community than Carson? Who knows better how to fix energy policy than Rick Perry? Trump doesn’t know how to do any of this stuff…but he doesn’t have to. He picked the best people for each job, and he will clear the way with popular support for them to work out the details of getting things done. And the people will get behind him.

53

That’s a joke, right?

54

Too right. Confirm 'em all I say. Sow the seeds. Reap the whirlwind. Judge the consequences.

55

No, it really isn’t. The anti-abortion faction and the anti-tax faction both see themselves as the Republican Party and the conservative movement. They’re not only wedded to the coalition, they* are *the coalition.

Now, maybe the Democrats are the way you describe, now.

56

…okay, I just want to understand your point here.

Is it your assertion that Carson knows better than anyone else how to “fix the black community” because he happens to be black? If that wasn’t your point: can what it is about Carson that uniquely qualifies him to “fix the black community?” Can you point out some statements/positions that he holds/work that he has done to back up your assertion?

57

Following up on my earlier post responding to the OP from the Canadian perspective, looks like we now have a Trump-lite outsider making noises about getting elected leader: Kevin O’Leary, from Shark Tank / Dragon’s Den.

He’s not officially put his name in, but the deadline is looming, so we’ll know soon.

58

It just occurred to me that I forgot to mention one other specific characteristic of Canadian federal politics that doesn’t favour external business types: the need for the national lease of a party to be bilingual.

For about three decades now, it’s been clear that if you want to have a future in federal politics, bilingualism is extremely important. If you have leadership aspirations, it’s a must. So for three decades, political wannabes have been putting effort into becoming bilingual, as a necessary skill for the job.

Steven Harper, our previous PM, is a good example. He was born in Toronto and moved to Calgary, from an anglophone family. But he always had political ambitions, so he worked hard at his French. By the time he was PM, he was fluently bilingual and usually used both languages routinely in major public speeches.

However, there’s no equivalent need for bilingualism in the private sector, unless you’re in an area of the country where both languages are commonly used. So someone who’s interested in business as a career, outside those areas of the country, will not see becoming bilingual as a necessary skill to have and is not likely to put effort into becoming bilingual.

But if a non-biligual person wants to jump into federal politics later in their career, the inability to speak both languages is a real disadvantage - not in getting elected at the local level, but in getting to the highest rungs in the party and onto the front bench in the Commons.

Mr O’Leary is apparently unilingual, so I don’t rate his chances high at getting elected leader.

Why would the 78 Conservative riding associations in Quebec vote for someone who can’t speak to them in their own language? And even though the Conservatives are thin on the ground in Quebec in terms of numbers, each of those 78 associations has exactly the same number of leadership votes as the riding associations where the party membership is higher.

It strikes me as a high hill to climb, if about one fifth of the riding associations in the country are unlikely to vote for you, because you’re unilingual.

59

Going right back to the OP, might we consider Arnold Schwarzenegger, an actor whose first political job was governor of California, as similarly unqualified?

60

Isn’t Arnie a self-made millionaire?