I understand some of you are not getting email notices when I publish a blog. Well, neither am I any longer. Until I figure that out, just check http://www.toms-musings.com on occasion. BTW … I am cutting back on blogging to get some balance back in my life.

H. L. Mencken was one of the most astute observers of American life and politics in the early 20th century, perhaps only rivaled by Will Rogers. Still, it took almost a century for him to get the above prediction totally right, though he came close with Chief Executive Officers such as Coolidge, Reagan, and George W. Bush. I recall the chatter after Reagan visited the U.K. during Margaret Thatcher’s run as P.M. Apparently, she shared the opinion within her circle that, while she loved Ronnie’s values and perspectives, he surely wasn’t smart enough to even hold a portfolio in her cabinet. Calvin Coolidge was a total nonentity who felt that the best government was none at all. He preferred long daily naps to, you know, managing the affairs of the ship of state. Business leaders could do that in his stead. And W. was the perfect class dunce that could easily be manipulated by Rove, Cheney, and others from the ‘dark side.’

What is it about our political apparatus that we can spend so much money and effort in selecting our top national leaders and yet come up with such losers, as least intellectually. Sure, we also have elected leaders of highly questionable moral turpitude on occasion. Still, my questions about a candidates values would not necessarily preclude him or her from the position. Nixon comes to mund here. No one, however, ever questioned his intelligence. I’m not talking about electing Nobel prize candidates but about people whom you would walk away from at a cocktail party because they simply were way too dumb to be interesting. I’m not talking about a high bar here.

In most democratic nations, the Presidency (sometimes the Monarchy), is a symbolic office with limited powers at best. The members of Parliament (or whatever the governing body is called) choose the Chief Executive Officer from among the elected party in power at the time. You may not like the person or agree with their values but, as far as I can see, those chosen are always bright. Just compare Germany’s Angela Merkel (a scientist before going into politics) with Donald Trump (a moronic conman). Argument over. Just think about the British Prime Minister getting up in Parliament and anwering the withering questions from the opposition, which they do on a regular basis. Doing that effectively takes an amazingly quick wit and excellent debating skills. Here, the closest thing we have to this is the occasional White House press conference which are highly stage managed, if they occur at all.

Obviously, even our so-called Founding Fathers had doubts about whom might be elected to high office. That’s why they established all these checks and balances in our system and definitely why they instituted the electoral college. It is also why they limited voting rights to propertied males for the most part. While they wanted a democracy, they feared a mature democracy with more or less universal suffrage. The men who developed our constitution were the elite of the time and were quite suspicious of the ‘rabble.’ They were especially fearful that a broad voting public would drift toward a different form of tyranny, one based on passion and self-interest and not on reason and the long view. Horrors, if the rabble rose to power, they might vote to cancel their debts to the propertied classes.

For the first several administrations, the elite ran things. There was Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, a second Adams, etc. These were men the founding fathers envisioned running the show, highly educated and urbane and with patrician qualities. That turned around with Andrew Jackson, a racist populist from the backwoods who really should not adorn our $20 bill. His campaign of genocide against Native Americans was unconsionable. After that, we had a series of forgettable Presidents with a few, like Lincoln and Garfield and Teddy Roosevelt and a flawed Wilson, who were principled and saw a higher duty for the office.

Arguably, FDR was the onset of the modern Presidency. The Global Depression and World War II demanded that the powers of the Chief Executive be expanded and that a larger bureacracy be created for the enhanced role of the federal government. The U.S. was now a global power and had taken responsibility for ensuring the welfare of more and more Americans. An active administrator and administration was required. No longer could a President fritter away his days taking naps or playing poker with his friends. He had to run things and in a big way.

Thus, the President had to have a skill set that would enable him to run the biggest coporation in the world. Wow! Yet, with a 24/7 and 365 day year round campaign for high office, we more often than not get highly suspect candidates. Worse, even when presented with one decent person, chances are the populace will chose the loser among those offered. When FDR first ran, he gave so little thought to his running mate that he chose John Nance Garner for the spot, the man who would have risen to the top spot if something happened to Roosevelt. Garner was a racist, southern conservative with an approach to economics that rivaled the Republicans at the time … totally wrong for the times.

So what, you say? Roosevelt probably felt the same way. But even before being sworn in, an assassin took several shots at FDR from close range during a rally in Miami. Fortunately, the shooter’s arm was jostled as he shot, resulting in FDR being spared while at least one bullet struck the Mayor of Chicago who was leaning in to congratulate the President-elect at that very moment. Mayor Cermak died soon after. Garner would have been an absolute disaster in the White House at the very moment we needed a person of exceptional qualities. History might have been very different.

Since then, only Harry Truman served in the presidency without at least a college degree but he made up for that with uncommon common sense, decent cognitive abilities, and a strong moral center. Others, like Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan had college degrees but from lesser institutions. Still, looking at many who have held our highest offices recently, few might be considered exceptional from a credential point of view. And while Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Clinton, Eisenhower, and Obama were above average in intelligence, Reagan, Bush Jr., and Trump (to name a few) were almost too dumb to tie their own shoes.

I’ve thought on this many times over the years. Were the Founding Fathers right. Do we need to put a check on our ability to elect any old moron who excites the base? They thought the electoral college might perform this role if someone unfit won an election. The Electors would be the last line of defense against an idiot taking charge. Now, it is merely a formal function, not a substantive one.

At the same time, I wish we had some way of ensuring that candidates met some minimal level of competence. After all, most job seekers for professional positions must first pass one or more hurdles before even being considered by hiring supervisors. They must meet minimal educational and experience qualifications or be vetted by a civil service panel before getting to their actual hiring interviews. I was for my first government position (and I made it through somehow) which demonstrates that the system is not perfect.

Now, a President must have several qualities with intellegence being only one of them. Still, I do wish we had some way of screening out the dullards and the cognitively deficient before they secured the highest office in the land. We see the State or U.S. Bar Association often putting out statements or assessments of the candidates fitness for the Courts before an election. These are advisory only but a way of (not always successfully) weeding out those with no business being on the Bench. In Parliamentary systems, the candidate’s Peers do the vetting and are unlikely to select a total loser. If they do, the governing party is likely to fall from a ‘no-confidence’ vote. In a full democracy, we have no such assurances or ‘fail safe’ mechanism.

The election of Trump proved that anyone, and I mean anyone, can be President. Think about that. Would you want a plumber doing open heart surgery on you? Would you choose someone who failed arithmatic to be your accountant. How about your butcher being in the cockpit of a jumbo-jet that was taking you to Europe or Asia. Even your barber must be licensed. We expect minimal levels of competence for ordinary jobs, should we expect more from the person chosen to lead the most powerful (for now) nation on earth? I believe so.

In my dream world, I would like to see some process for vetting candidates before they are permitted to run. Do they psooses the minimal skills to do the freaking job? Do they know jack-shit about government and governing (Trump did not). Can they connect the basic dots in policy matters to pass one of my Policy courses (Trump would not). I desperately wish we had some form of screening system by a non-partisan body to at least guarantee that a person had the minimal qualifications and skills for the position. I had to go through such a vetting process for a low-level public service position. Can’t we be ingenious enough to do the same for the position on which our futures depend?

Just a thought!