Keep in mind while reading my next remarks that I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016 and don’t anticipate voting for his re-election should he choose to run again in 2020.
Since when did having five years or less of relevant experience qualify one to be president of the United States? I understand the impulse: the status quo is a mess and whether it’s sustainable or not it’s not the direction in which many people want us to go regardless of whether they’re Democrats or Republicans.
Haven’t we suffered enough?
I’m really not sure of your point. Have we not suffered enough compared to………..LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, GWB, Obama???
At least in my business, bringing in great resume, polished sounding but set piece player, executives when change is needed is the kiss of death. Its the safe choice, the bank consultants choice, the corporate choice, but just shy of fiduciary breach of duty. Its superficial. Real change agents tend to be gruff and arrogant dicks. They make mistakes, but they take action. They make lots of enemies and piss off a lot of entrenched interests. They don’t care because they are going from point A to B and you can either help or get out of the way. When you look back you know they were there.
Twenty years ago I made that exact mistake of safe hiring. The new CEO was a can’t miss, successful guy. And as we look back the joke of course is “the house was on fire but so-and-so was out mowing the lawn.”
The country has many current and legacy domestic and foreign policy issues, and is financially unsound. Just how did LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, GWB or Obama advance things in a positive way?
I’m thinking more of Elizabeth Warren. At this point she hasn’t quite served one term as a senator and that is her entire experience holding elective office. Her prior job experience is irrelevant. She can only a) be a mouthpiece for the Borg or b) spend her entire term of office in a futile fight with the Borg.
Heck, Obama was too inexperienced. He’d’ve been a better president with another term as senator under his belt. So was GWB.
And then there’s the Children’s Hour going on with the newly elected Democrats in the House right now. The Party has an unenviable problem: they sacrificed a decade of elected officials as Republicans picked up state houses and seats in the House and Senate. Now the Democrats are divided between septuagenarians and people under 30.
She’s toast.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dv_7fjIVAAEV_f-.jpg
” Real change agents tend to be gruff and arrogant dicks. ”
Certainly not what I have seen, nor what the research on successful CEOs show. Some of the people you describe become successful, but most fail. Most people in charge of successful ventures are decent people. They need to be able to make tough decisions, not afraid of firing people or making changes, but truly arrogant people (who are dicks to boot) just dont attract and retain the people an organization needs to succeed long term. OTOH, if your business really does try to live up to the bad VC stereotypes, then maybe you have a case for that kind of person since you arent worried about the long term.
To Dave’s broader point, I said before that one of my fears was the Democrats would respond by nominating their own version of Trump. Hope it doesn’t happen.
Steve
We’d best hope that Illinois isn’t a harbinger. In Illinois we elected Rauner, a guy successful in the business world but without prior experience holding elective office, governor. In his favor he most decidedly isn’t the sort of overbearing jerk that Trump is. But he was absolutely incapable of getting the things accomplished in state government that needed to be accomplished. He wasn’t willing to do what needed doing.
What did the Democrats do in reaction to Rauner? They elected their own billionaire without previous experience holding elective office.
Since the end of the Cold War, the traditional measures of experience declined with each President elected: Clinton > Bush > Obama > Trump. I can’t help but connect this with the loss of an external threat. The good news is that the experience level can’t get any lower than none. Perhaps the next President will be a 21-year old Canadian.
Real change agents tend to be gruff and arrogant dicks.
In the world of monarchy I’m sure that’s a factor. You need a master to beat you into the proper submission, to be effectively dominated.
But then there’s Jesus, and the Buddha, and Socrates, and Confucius; the people who will always be remembered after all CEOs are a mouldering corpse and a name on a plaque nobody looks at.
Do you actually think a proven monster like Hillary Clinton or an empty suit and fraud like Elizabeth Warren is superior to Donald Trump? What kind of lunacy is that?
Trump was plainly the best of the Republican and Democrat candidates for the nominations of their parties. He is infinitely superior to Clinton
You don’t have to like him. He obviously offends your sensibilities. But you have to recognize that the two main parties are illegitimate and exhausted and none of their leaders are acceptable. Had anyone else been elected, we would be in a very large war against Iran, and possibly Russia and China, by now. And we would be losing.
“Certainly not what I have seen, nor what the research on successful CEOs show.â€
YMMV. We are talking about turnarounds – change agents – because that’s what we’ve got. There is no long term without successfully navigating the short term. This is not GEs caretakers model. Patrician gentlemen need not apply. Back to your research papers.
Concerning Dave’s comment about the Kiddie Corp. I wouldnt want to be NP. She will have to figure out a way to crack the whip or it will be a mess trying to get anything done other than watching The KC shriek about Trump and generating DOA legislation. This is when the media can harm the Dems as they put the AOCs of the world on display, and people get to witness first hand the absurdity.
“Trump was plainly the best of the Republican and Democrat candidates for the nominations of their parties. He is infinitely superior to Clinton”
Congratulations! You are a true cult member!
I am not familiar with CEO’s hired to turn around companies, but I am familiar with turning around projects that have gone to shit. In the main, I agree with @Drew, but I think he is leaving a few things out.
You have to be willing and able to be an arrogant dick, but the goal is to succeed or minimalize failure. In other words, the ends justify the means, but it is best to use the least worse means.
If possible, you do not fuck somebody. Instead, you make-love to them – same end, different means, but if necessary, you fuck them and claim it was making-love.
As to obscurity, Jack Welsh is as well known as Socrates, and to some, Steve Jobs is akin to Jesus.
This might help the more intransigent of you all:
Hillary Clinton is the most qualified candidate in the world.
Hillary Clinton is the most qualified candidate in the world.
Hillary Clinton is the most qualified candidate in the world.
I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.
Two years later, given everything we now know, I think Gary Johnson, for all his eccentricities, remains the objectively best candidate of the three and I do not regret my vote for him one bit.
TB- Not sure who you are referring to. What I said at the time of the election is that I thought Trump was the worst candidate I had ever seen, and Clinton was the second worst. I also said that I fully understood someone believing it was the other way around deciding to vote for Trump. What I dont understand is those who think Trump is the greatest thing ever or, as was stated, infinitely better than anyone else. There is a real cult of personality with Trump that i have never seen with any other politician.
Steve