The other day, I was at my home with my dad and my sister-in-law when a family friend came over to the house. He knew I had recently graduated with a degree in political science which prompted his question about my opinion on the 2016 election. After I answered his question he explained that he was a Donald Trump supporter and gave a few reasons why. Among the reasons he gave was that Trump is not a politician.
This is one of the most commonly given reasons a person might give for why they support Trump. Their explanation is likely accompanied by a claim that he is a not a tool of the establishment and is not a part of the Washington system. They will explain that the Washington machine does not care about or understand the concerns of everyday Americans and that individuals of the machine only care about themselves. I am always baffled by the claim that while Washington elites don’t understand the concerns of everyday Americans, somehow a New York billionaire who was born with a silver spoon is completely in touch with these concerns. But I digress.
I must confess I have always struggled to understand this line of thinking. The claim that a person’s complete lack of political experience somehow makes them more qualified for office than a two-term governor or a U.S. Senator does not resonate with me. One would think that an understanding of government would be a positive, however this election, 16 other Republican Presidential candidates were brought down by the albatross of their own qualifications.
And the more Trump speaks, the less I understand why the presidency is a “no experience” needed type of job. When questioned about what Supreme Court Justices he would consider nominating, he initially answered that he would seek someone who would "look at" Hillary Clinton's "email disaster". I assume after that statement his team gave him a quick civics lesson explaining that is not the job of the Court. When he gave a long awaited speech on his foreign policy views, foreign policy experts from all areas of the political spectrum lambasted his lack of understanding on world affairs. In fact, the only issue he seems to excel at is when he discusses trade policies such as NAFTA or the Trans Pacific Partnership. To his credit he is very impressive of those issues.
But in an election where voters had Senator Lindsey Graham a former JAG officer and three term Senator from South Carolina who is considered one of the strongest foreign policy senators, GOP voters chose Trump who seems to understand very little on the global stage. In an election with Senator Ted Cruz who has a long experience arguing before the Supreme Court and who has a strong resume on constitutional law, voters chose Trump and his lack of understanding on the Court. In an election when voters could choose Governor John Kasich who has spent his career balancing budgets, voters selected a man whose solution is to “be great.” When voters could choose Senator Marco Rubio or former Governor Jeb Bush who both understand in great detail the broken immigration system and have solutions to fix it, voters chose the man whose plan is expensive and offers little help to the problem. In an election with Senator Rand Paul who agrees with voters that the federal government has gotten too big and too powerful, voters chose a man who seems to know very little about the federal government. If the voter was a social conservative who is pro-life and opposes same-sex marriage, voters could choose either former Senator Rick Santorum or former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee but instead decided to support Trump who only recently flipped his position on both of those issues. And if a person wanted a business leader who has the temperament to be President, they could have chosen former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina but instead chose the man who had multiple bankruptcies and launched multiple failed companies. The only person who was less qualified than Trump was retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
No matter the issue someone might care about, there was a candidate in the original group of 17 that has experience on that issue specifically. Yet voters rejected all of them to support a man with no experience in any of those issues and has a history of flip flopping and almost all of them. And yet voters lined up to support Trump in record numbers in part because he is an outsider and is not a politician.
It baffles me. If I needed brain surgery, I would want Dr. Ben Carson to perform it. I would not ask Trump to do it because he’s not a surgeon. I feel very strongly that experience matters. I do not necessarily see the problem with a career politician so long as they are effective at the job at hand. And I actually would prefer someone who knows what they are doing. It particularly seems counter intuitive for voters to select a man with no experience after 2008 when the major attack from the GOP was that then-Senator Obama lacked the experience, foreign policy as well as domestic policy, to be president.
Some will try to argue that the Founding Fathers did not want to career politicians. However essentially all of the Founding Fathers were exactly that, career politicians. George Washington was a general, then president. John Adams was vice president and then became president. Thomas Jefferson was secretary of state, vice president, then president. And essentially all of the Founding Fathers wrote the laws that pertained to governing then went on to be the ones to govern. They were career politicians. And I shudder to think that GOP voters this election cycle would reject George Washington because he was a career politician and instead support Trump. And while someone might still argue the Founding Fathers were opposed to career politicians (despite being ones themselves) they more strongly opposed demagogues taking advantage of the American electorate which is why they established the electoral college. And while Trump may not be a career politician, he is certainly a demagogue and that would make the Founding Fathers role over in their graves.
I do understand why an outsider might be appealing. But like I said, I far prefer experience from the person who will be handling our nuclear launch codes. I do not see, as some voters might, a lack of experience as an asset. And in an election when GOP voters had no shortage of experienced and qualified candidates, they chose to second least qualified candidate in the field. I suppose I should be grateful, because they could have voted for the least qualified candidate and selected Dr. Ben Carson as the party nominee.
