It's nearly voting time! Has the American electorate carefully thought through their choice for president as it relates to experience and the job itself? We certainly hope so!
The Socratic Review is non partisan, in that it does not endorse (or disparage) any organized political party or candidate from any country, but rather - tries to endorse the classically liberal ideals of liberty; responsible debt and spending limits by governments; and limited centralized powers". Since neither U.S. Presidential candidate espouses these ideals, The Socratic Review wishes to state that the contents of this essay should not be construed as an endorsement of either candidate, their parties, or their platforms - The Socratic Review.
As editor and publisher of The Socratic Review, I try every day to be as fair-minded and critically-thinking as possible with regard to politics. Sometimes this upsets the left; sometimes this upsets the right. Such is the price one pays for pragmatism.
That said, on this my last column before the U.S. presidential election, I want to take a critical and pragmatic look at both candidates as it relates to the job of President of the United States; and that is an important distinction. As stated in the disclaimer above, neither of the candidates are agreeable to me personally (for any number of reasons) and if I could vote for either of them, I wouldn't vote for either of them. However, that does not remove the fact that they are the candidates, and that one of them is going to win eventually. So what do each of them bring to the job of President of the United States.
Unlike social democracies under the Westminster System, where the Head of State and the Head of Government are two different people - in our federal republic the President of the United States serves both roles; they are both the Head of State and the Head of Government. The Head of State is the ceremonial role; the ribbon-cutter and medal-hanger who epitomizes the nation in the eyes of the citizenry and the world. They are also the ones who give assent to legislation, thus making a bill into law.
For Head of State, Mr. Biden wins hands down. As a politician with five-decades of experience, eight as the perennial surrogate Head of State (the Vice Presidency) he has ribbon-cutting and medal-hanging down to an art form (let alone a science). Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is neither facile or aesthetic in this role. In fact, he's just plain cringe-worthy. In fairness to Mr. Trump though, I think that would be true of almost anyone coming from the private sector into the job of president without learning statecraft from the bottom up.
For Head of Government however, the story is very different. In social democracies, the Head of Government (the Prime Minister) doles out portfolios (or cabinet positions) by order of seniority, and thus dilutes and distributes the executive power among several of his party (or even coalition) in a primus inter pares (Latin for "first among equals") arrangement. Although tradition dictates that the Prime Minister primarily interacts with the Head of State, that is not always (or even constitutionally mandated) the case, since all ministers serve the Head of State equally.
In the United States this is not the case. Although the cabinet is mandated by the constitution, it is mandated as an advisory body only, that serves at the leisure of the president (with the consent of the senate) to oversee certain established departments. Executive power may be delegated by the president to the cabinet, but in that process, it is in no way diluted. Thus, the president of the United States must, by necessity, be an able executive. Since Mr. Trump has fifty years of executive experience and Mr. Biden has none, this is a serious problem for supporters of Mr. Biden. This deficiency is further exacerbated by what Mr. Biden did during those same fifty years; sitting in a legislature.
A successful executive makes decisions and executes them; thus the term"executive". The process is different for every executive, but style aside, there are three general components to executive action: Identifying a need or deficiency, assessing its urgency and claim to resources, and delegating the corrective action for execution or further study as the executive directs. Executives may think about the impact on a Board of Directors (a legislature) but since they are hired by the stockholders (via proxy by the Board of Directors) to execute, they don't make Board consensus a major factor in their decision-making for good or for ill. The old executive saw being: "it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission".
A successful legislator however, is quite different. They avoid making decisions for as long as humanly possible, and in some cases, even use party favors to get shielded from votes that might cause difficulty in re-election down-the-line. This is one of the main jobs of a party whip, to assess which votes are solid, which need help, and which are just too far gone for counting under any circumstances.
Being a successful legislator is all about consensus. Whereas the executive action described above is replicated when considering legislation, it is - by design, necessity, and prudence - a very long and collaborative affair. Take identifying a need or deficiency for example. If a legislator sees a need or deficiency and drafts a bill to address it, he has to first communicate this bill to the presiding officer of his legislature where it is steered to the appropriate committee for evaluation. The committee then takes it under advisement, hears testimony, and makes a recommendation. If the bill gets this far, the sponsor(s) try find like-minded members to support the bill, usually by pledging support for one of their bills. Most often, if the bill has any chance of passing, it gets dumped into an omnibus bill where everyone else's pet projects have been stowed. In a bicameral (two-house) legislature, an approved bill is now 1/3 of the way there; it still has to get past the other house of the legislature, and the executive (as Head of State).
Without spending another five-hundred words on a civics lesson (or an episode of School House Rock) I think we can agree that legislative experience is a poor precursor to executive power, which is probably why only three presidents came directly from the Senate: Warren Harding, Jack Kennedy, and Barrack Obama. Two of those three however, did have executive experience; one as a successful publisher (Harding); the other as a successful naval officer (Kennedy). The third, Barrack Obama, had no executive experience, and to be fair, was often criticized for his sluggishness in making decisions (even by his own party) no matter how methodically he arrived at them.
In 2020, I feel the executive experience factor should also be extended to the Vice Presidential candidates, considering the advanced ages of the two prime candidates. One (Mr. Pence) was a successful governor; the other (Ms. Harris) was a successful Attorney General. Whereas I would not normally consider a governor on par with an Attorney General, in California (where Ms. Harris served) the Attorney General is not a cabinet post, but an elected official. That said, I would rank them both equally well-suited in executive experience, with Ms. Harris having a slight edge due to the size, diversity, and complexities of law enforcement in California. I might add on a personal note,that both Vice Presidential candidates are significantly more qualified for the job than Mr. Biden, and more than marginally better qualified for the job than Mr. Trump, in light of their both having a combination of political and executive experience.
I am fully aware that people vote for their candidates for any number of reasons, and I hope whoever wins - wins with the office, the respect and admiration it deserves. The candidates have fought long and hard to get to this day. May the best men (or man and woman) win, and may we all celebrate the institutions of our republic that have brought us this far.
Comments