Whenever I see Trump display his ignorance, particularly regarding how foreign trade and trade deficits work, I can’t help but imagine how a knowledge test about economics, civics, policy issues, international affairs, would weed out unqualified people for the benefit of all. Economics in particular seems to be the area in which many politicians are particularly ignorant.
The test could be bipartisan, perhaps with both parties contributing questions, so that pet theories on both sides would need to be understood. Some might say this isnt democratic (perhaps unconstitutional?) because it favors election of the educated. Would that be so bad? We have required exams for sanitation workers, why not the most powerful person in the world (for now)?
Also, once Trump is out of office, do you believe one party would be more likely to vote against such a proposal?
For voters? Isn’t this akin to the “voter literacy tests” used to stymie black voters back in the day? Also, I quite frankly am not sure this would yield the anti-Trump outcome that you hope for - there are a whole lot of D voters who are also low-information voters.
I think you might be able to get away with making them take the test. But the results couldn’t be binding. It’d be up to the voters to decide what to do about a candidate who got the answers wrong, or even what the right answers are.
The Constitution is specific about what the requirements are on the President, and it’s not a very long or extensive list.
Republicans like to say this. But the reality is that Trump didn’t get nominated when he tried to run as a Democrat. It wasn’t until he joined the Republicans that he found his base.
The Democrats may have low information voters. But they don’t control the party like low information voters control the Republicans.
It would be infinitely preferable during a debate for a moderator to ask “How many candidates here are familiar with the phrase ‘Standard Model’ in physics?” instead of “How many candidates here have doubts about evolution?”
Raise your hands.
If you’re saying economics is so opaque and inscrutable that there is no point in trying to understand it, then I can’t help ya. When a survey of economists, both liberal and conservative, Keynesian and monetarist, overwhelmingly conclude that Trump’s trade policies are seriously detrimental to the economy, id say there is a consensus on some the basics.
You don’t seem to recognize how difficult the test you suggest would be. Who is going to score this thing? What are the right answers to these issues? If that was something people could readily agree on they wouldn’t be campaign issues.
And then even if this is done how will it be implemented? Will all the questions be kept secret up to some specific day when all candidates must take it together? If not what is to stop them from looking up the official answers?
Why couldn’t you start with this rather than have me pull teeth for two replies?
I was really asking about the theoretical idea of the policy rather than the practical implementation but since you ask -
Create a bipartisan candidate qualification committee. The questions all have factual answers. Each party chooses a professor specializing in each area (economics, civics, international issues, etc) to form the questions, and each party’s professors contribute an equal number of questions and can maybe veto X number of questions. 100 questions from both parties are randomly selected from a pool, and everyone takes the same test at the same place and time.
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are problems but somehow I think they could be figured out. We’ve worked through much tougher issues in the past.
Christ on a freaking crutch … take the average US high school social studies text book and get the questions out of that. I think Schoolhouse Rock gave tweens a better grasp of American government processes than Trump posesses …
The questions all have factual answers? So you think we should qualify presidents with a trivia quiz?
We have never worked out any issue as tough as the ones that just came off the top of your head. If you don’t like who gets to run for president you have to find a way to defeat them democratically, not with some elitist academic bullshit test.