Let me use an analogy that I've used many times on the air in recent months to describe this "outsider" fetish way too many Republicans have: Let's say that you go for your annual physical and one of the tests discovers a heart condition. You're referred to a cardiologist who performs further tests, and s/he determines that you are perhaps weeks or even days away from a massive heart attack that will almost certainly be fatal and recommends immediate bypass surgery to save your life. In those circumstances, would you want the most capable, experienced heart surgeon you could find, or would you go out of your way to persuade the local Mr. Goodwrench to handle the "repair job"? Or imagine that you, through whatever set of circumstances, get framed on first degree murder charges that could get you the death penalty if convicted; in that scenario, would you want the best possible legal representation, an accomplished, experienced defense attorney with a sterling track record of courtroom success, or would you deliberately ask your cousin Vinnie to defend you because "he's a big fan of Law & Order"?
The presidency of the United States is, like it or not, the most important job in the country. It's the highest office in the land. It's "America's CEO". It is not an entry-level job. Not everybody is qualified to be president. In fact, almost nobody in the country is. It requires character, temperment, knowledge, and experience - not just life experience, but leadership experience, executive experience, and, yes, political and electoral experience as well. And no, "political experience" is NOT a dirty word/phrase, and does not ipso facto equate to "corruption," other than with Democrats.
So I defy anybody to coherently, substantively, and persuasively explain to me how it is that half of Republican voters deliberately want as president somebody who does not and will not know what the hell they're doing from day one in the Oval Office:
Nearly half of Republican voters say they'd rather cast their ballots for a candidate who's never held political office, a new poll shows.
The Rasmussen Reports survey released Monday, also finds only 10% of all voters think it's positive when a candidate is described as a "career politician."
I'm holding up my hand, in case you didn't notice. Or at least, it isn't an automatic disqualifier.
According to the new poll, 48% of Republicans would prefer voting for a political newcomer — up from the 41% the GOP voters who felt that way in 2011.
And that's fine - for the county sewage commission, or State representative, or even the House of Representatives. But not the bleeping presidency of the United States. There's a reason - a damned good one - why POTUSes have been exclusively career politicians or generals: because it is far, far too dangerous - especially in times like these - to take such a ruinously irresponsible chance on somebody who, again, by definition won't know what s/he is doing and cannot afford to waste months or years - and American lives - on all that "on-the-job training". Hell's bells, hasn't the past seven years been more than ample proof of that?
How Bizarro-bass-ackwards is this? Look whose feet are firmly attached in rational terra firma:
The poll found 73% of Democrats and 49% of independents, however, would be more likely to vote for someone with political experience.
You want to talk about one's own party betraying them? Or, as Ronald Reagan once said about the Democrats, "leaving them," going to a land of insanity to which I will not be riding shotgun? That's a journey I refuse to take, because it is the path to even worse disasters than the ones through which we've already suffered.
Don't believe me? I give you the punchline:
64% of those who see Trump as "very likely" to win the GOP presidential nomination say they prefer a candidate who has never held office; 80% of those who consider his nomination unlikely prefer a candidate with political experience.
Ben Carson is as completely unqualified as Trump, but at least Dr. C is actually a conservative Republican. And after the Paris and San Bernardino jihadist attacks, experience seemed to start reentering voters' thought processes, and Gentle Ben faded. So why didn't Trump fade as well? How has "strength" and "leadership" degenerated into being a vain, grandstanding, turd-in-every-pocket asshole?
"Populism" is not, in reality, an "ism" at all; it's emotionally unstable mass psychosis. Such is the rightwing lust for "outsiders" in general, and Trumpmania in particular.
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