We like to think about the U.S. as a meritocracy compared to Third World countries and Old World countries. Achievement is how you get to the top. But what would young people see when they look at recent Presidents and Presidential candidates?
- George W. Bush: son of former president
- Barack Obama: supported by many voters on the basis of his skin color
- Hillary Clinton: wife of former president; supported by many voters on the basis of her current gender identification (but will Hillary still identify as a woman in January 2017?)
- Donald Trump: child of rich parents
We would have to go back 24 years, to the 1992 election of Bill Clinton, to find an example of meritocracy in action at the Presidential level. How will parents be able to tell their children “You could grow up to be President” if there are hereditary, marital, skin color, or gender requirements?
Is this new? Prior to 2008, the requirements were white skin, male genitalia, and usually wealth and/or being the son or relatives of former president (Adams, Harrison, Roosevelt).
Why assume that “the top” prize of a meritocracy is standing in front of a political firing squad for 18 months just to win a temp job and live in govt housing?
In every other country, the President is the Prime Minister, and he cannot get elected without the support of the party insiders. Trump and Sanders have a chance, even with the opposition of all the party insiders.
When I was living in Germany, someone asked me what the election of Barack Obama meant to me. I told him, “it means a descendant of Plymouth Plantation source can transfer to Harvard and become president.” Reagan in particular as well as Carter, LBJ, and Eisenhower kind of symbolized the time where anyone, albeit white, could become president. Since then it’s become kind of like Argentina around here. I hope we don’t default on our debt.
Don’t forget Sanders. If accounts (http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/bernie-sanders-the-bum-who-wants-your-money/) of his life path are to be believed, living on public welfare for the first forty-ish years of your life should also be considered to be a qualifier for Presidential-candidate status. The charitable lesson from Sanders’ life may be that yes, indeed, anyone can grow up to be President (or at least can grow up and run for President).
Sorry, but identity politics is not the same as advantage/privilege. At that point you could extend it to Clinton too (lots of poor and/or white people supported him because he was poor/white). So it can’t count against Obama that black people supported him, nor that Hillary is a woman (although of course as a wife of a sitting President, she had an advantage in the Senate race in 1999, etc…)
I wouldn’t be concerned about such things. They don’t affect how the country works. As others have stated, skin color, gender and so forth have always played a role. If Bill Clinton had been an openly bisexual Hindu, he probably would not have been elected.
And Lynn, that article about Sanders is absurd. He once had a job signing people up for food stamps and lived in a messy apartment? The horror! Let’s ignore everything that he says!
Are you suggesting that somehow rich or advantaged people have no merit?
Vince, keep defending losers who think they know how everyone else should live. That always ends well.
The system really hasn’t changed that much.
In the past, the main way for a person who was not born into wealth and connections, and/ or was something of a maverick, to become President has been to become Vice President and then to reach the higher office due to it becoming vacant. The system doesn’t take who is nominated for Vice President nearly as seriously as it does for the top job. Of the nine Vice Presidents who became President due to the latter office being vacant, only arguably Ford had any real chance of getting to the White House without the vacancy. Without Watergate, the Republicans might have nominated Ford in 1976 as Nixon’s successor. Maybe Coolidge would have been nominated in 1928 to succeed Harding if he had somehow avoided the mental health problems that he developed after his son died. Lyndon Johnson tried for the Democratic nomination in 1960, but I think he was surrounded by enough scandals that they would have always found an alternative. The nine include a disproportionate share of the Presidents from humble backgrounds.
Another way for someone not born into wealth and connections to become president was though being a successful general in a war. This is how Jackson, WH Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Garfield, and Eisenhower reached the White House, though grant it Jackson and Garfield had civilian political careers and Harrison was born into wealth. This path is pretty much gone, however.
There is a category of Presidents from humble backgrounds who made it without going through military service or the vice presidency, but it is pretty limited. It includes Lincoln (the party system was collapsing during his election), Nixon, Carter and Reagan.
The second half of the twentieth century, with Truman (via VP), Eisenhower (general), Johnson (via VP), Nixon, Ford (via VP), Carter, and Reagan was highly anomalous and gave people a false idea of how open the presidency really is. Keep in mind that ten of the first fifteen owned slave plantations. There is some evidence of Clinton being “groomed” by local power-brokers and the CIA, so I don’t count him as reaching the White House without early connections.
I suspect in Obama’s case at least as many people voted for his opponents based on skin color.
And what’s with the fixation on gender reassignment? It’s not all that common and I’ve yet to see a case where it was performed for any purpose other fixing the disconnect between the brain and body.
Yeah, the men who suddenly decide they’re women rarely get the surgery at all, and increasingly don’t even take estrogen.
@ Larry G: it’s not a fixation, it’s Phil’s recurring gentle way of preparing us for the day, deflecting the future shock when he comes out—and not a moment too soon!—as female helicopter pilot Pippa.
How well do China and Singapore work from a merit-based standpoint?
Ted Cruz is probably the best example of republican front runners right now of the lawyer-debater-iq merit.
There’s enough examples of people of high merit making the highest reigns of politics that its not too useful to give examples.
A more interesting question is…what presidents in recent times, and what large state senators, are/were the most *unqualified*.
“…what presidents in recent times, and what large state senators, are/were the most *unqualified*.”
Now that’s leading with your chin. Obama for the win in both categories!
Oh shoot. I totally forgot Obama was once a senator.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20150306-column.html
Unrelated but I thought you might this interesting Phil…