The Presidency of the US is not the type of job that you want to hand to someone who is a complete amateur at politics and statecraft. We’ve all seen how the current occupant of the White House is fumbling, and now there is talk of others (Oprah Winfrey, Dwayne Johnson) throwing their hats in the ring.
I wonder if we might not benefit from a constitutional amendment that states something along the following lines:
No person shall be eligible for the Presidency of the United States of America unless he or he has a minimum of four years service combined from among the following positions:
[ul]
[li]President[/li][li]Vice President [/li][li]Member of Congress[/li][li]Cabinet Member[/li][li]State Governor[/li][li]Mayor of major metropolitan city (1,000,000 population minimum)[/li][li]Flag Officer in US military[/li][/ul]
I don’t want to focus debate too much on the details. We can argue about the minimum size for the city, or whether or not a specific position should be added to or deleted from the list or the number of years. My main focus is on whether or not we should formally codify that you have to have some significant government experience before being allowed to become president.
Isn’t that what the whole primary system is supposed to weed out?
What the proportion of the US who still think the birther argument was valid I think having constitutional constraints best avoided.
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Perhaps, but he would have had four years by the time he took office.
Similarly, a candidate who is 34 on Election Day can run if he’s 35 by Inauguration Day.
But again, the number four was just picked because it sounded right. I’m not opposed to five or three years either. It’s the concept, not the details, that I want to focus on.
Well, that failed this time and it looks like there is a chance that it could happen again next election. The cult of celebrity is far stronger now than it was in the past when such a requirement would not have been necessary.
Zev Steinhardt
I disagree with the general principle. We shouldn’t need a law to stop us from electing an unqualified person to the Presidency; our intelligence should do that.
Yes, the current occupant of the Oval Office demonstrates that American voters can fail in their role. But if we can’t be trusted to elect our own leaders then we might as well abandon the central principle of democracy rather than tinkering with the details.
“Flag Officer in the US military” is not government experience. Or, if it is, then there are many senior offices on the civil side of public administration which give a commensurate degree of executive, management, budgetary, etc experience. It would seem odd that they don’t qualify, when service as a legislator, which doesn’t involve any executive responsibility or experience at all, does.
On the whole, I’m with Little Nemo. If the voters are prone to elect someone obviously and monstrously unqualified, the Republic has a fundamental problem. Rules like this won’t solve the problem; they’ll just mask it while it festers.
Add Teddy Roosevelt to the list. He had two years as Governor of New York and only nine months as Vice President. Although he held lower offices and was Asst. Secretary of the Navy, he wouldn’t make the cut.
And Grover Cleveland, who also served just two years as Governor of New York.
Also, since the Constitution requires “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States,” that would also exclude someone being elected as Vice President. I’m sure there were more VP’s than just Teddy Roosevelt who couldn’t qualify.
The problem is not unqualified candidates for President. The problem is unreasonable expectations for the President. In order to be well-qualified for the Presidency, a person would need to be an expert in:
[ul]
[li]All branches of the military.[/li][li]Warfare[/li][li]Veteran’s issues[/li][li]Foreign policy[/li][li]Diplomacy[/li][li]World trade[/li][li]Manufacturing[/li][li]Education[/li][li]The environment[/li][li]Economics[/li][li]Business[/li][li]Constitutional law[/li][li]Business law[/li][li]International law[/li][li]etc…[/li][/ul]
Frankly there is no way that any human could be an expert in all those areas. Foreign policy alone could easily take up a lifetime of learning for someone with an Einstein-level intellect. On top of that, the President needs to be a good speaker, fulfill symbolic duties like attending foreign funerals, and so forth. No one is well qualified for the job, so trying to screen out unqualified people is hopeless.
What we should be doing is shrinking the executive branch, and shrinking the power of the presidency along with. When the President has fewer people working under him, there will be less to worry about even if he’s a fool.
I think that’s too extreme. The President doesn’t need to be an expert in every subject; he isn’t supposed to run the entire administration by himself.
The President needs to be intelligent; enough so that he can understand what experts in a particular field are telling him. And he needs to be wise enough to listen to experts, including those who hold opposing views on a topic.
The OP would not weed out someone like Trump; it’s not his lack of experience so much as his lack of understanding or even intellectual curiosity, and appalling personality traits. 4 years of high-level public service is not going to weed that out.
After all, I dont see any signs of him improving after a year of being President.
I think a better way to frame it is this: Imagine there’s a candidate for president that you think is perfect. Understands all the issues well, takes the right line, is good at diplomacy etc etc.
What would it take for you to agree to exclude that candidate from further consideration?
Because it’s this kind of thing that actually stands any chance of getting agreement.
For example I’d be fine with excluding a candidate who has made many provably false statements in high-profile settings in the last few years. Yes, obviously it would be hard to firm this up into something that could go into an amendment, but I’m just speaking from principle at the moment.
Hahahaha. Yes, the problem is we’re expecting the president to follow basic standards of decency and have an understanding of world politics, economics and science at a high school level. Boy are we picky!
Is there some reason Senator isn’t on your list of qualified people? Was that just an oversight?
And count me in with the people who think it’s a bad idea in principle. The problem with Trump is not his lack of experience. I see no problem with electing a President with a proven success record in an unrelated field ,a vision for America and some good policy ideas to back it up.
But I would want them to have a plan for delegating to people that know how to execute that vision. And working with people that know how government works. And being able to admit what they don’t know and being able to learn. And I’d want them to be a fundamentally good and moral person.
I was always taught the beauty of the American justice system was that it was based on the idea that it was better to let 10 guilty people go free than 1 innocent person go to jail.
And I believe that even though I can get awfully angry when someone gets away with a crime. But it’s easy to stand on your principles if they always line up with your feelings . It’s challenging when they don’t.
Because even though a majority of voters were whacked out enough on hatred and black tar heroin to elect a viciously nasty and notoriously corrupt real estate tycoon with funny looking hair and a junk food habit who is as preposterously and absurdly horrible as the vilest comic book villain - I still believe that anyone who can make their way onto the ballot needs to be allowed to run.
Otherwise you open the door to a fake democracy where election choices are limited to a slate of pre-approved politically correct candidates. And that would suck.
Not really, not any more than anybody expects a chemical company’s CEO to be an expert in:
[ul]
[li] purchasing[/li][li] warehouse management[/li][li] international logistics[/li][li] analytical chemistry[/li][li] synthetic chemistry[/li][li] theoretical chemistry[/li][li] writing research proposals[/li][li] actually doing research[/li][li] engineering[/li][li] accounting[/li][li] controlling[/li][li] international finance[/li][li] cashflow management[/li]…
[/ul]
Both need to be good at some of that stuff and have enough general knowledge of other areas that subordinates can’t sell them white elephants, ideally they will be very good at choosing people who compensate for their own weak points. And neither they nor their subordinates are required to fill every single position in the executive branch or the company: even personnel in positions which, being appointed/high-ranking, are often replaced when a government changes or a company changes hands, can be kept for either the short or long term.
Many people are not intelligent, as demonstrated by electing an orangutan (orangutans can’t be citizens and no one caught this!) Your argument suggests that requirements should apply to voters rather than politicians.
Trump himself is a very bad president, but I see no reason why a successful business(wo)man should not be able to throw his/her hat in the ring, if that person is likely to take advice and listen in areas where their business experience doesn’t help.