CEO’s of large established companies and generals are politicians. You don’t rise in a hierarchy without being one. These CEO’s and generals don’t have the bad habits that longterm professional political operatives or elected officials have. They have completely different sets of bad habits.
Technicians regardless of specialization, academics, artists, and sports figures aren’t necessarily politicians because you don’t need to be a politician to rise in these fields. However, it’s possible that they are, too, since being a politician nearly always helps.
Even in a climate in which people are thoroughly disgusted with politicians it’s not prudent to avoid politicians in handling political situations. You just turn to a different set of politicians.
Many of our best politicians were politicians. There can be art and craft in what they do and I doubt that at higher levels of power that it is reasonable to expect novices to perform well, no matter how smart or reasonable their judgments.
One of the best Lincoln biographies written in the last decade is Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, by Richard Carwardine. The book’s premise is how Lincoln learned, developed and ultimated exercised power to become one of America’s most successful politicians. That involved developing, articulating and advocating ideas. Then working through and becoming influential and connected to a party, which he could then use to promote his politics and steer the state. And finally, using this power to develop support from outside the party, persuade the people and use the levers of government to further Lincoln’s ideals, the strength of the Party and the interests of the People.
I think this is a pretty good framework for what a successful politician does. It’s very difficult for me to see many people without a background in politics performing well on these three criteria. Not impossible, but I would levy a lot of complaints on the last two presidents as a result of a lack of political experience.
And it’s why guys like Earl Warren and Lyndon Johnson were so effective.
I can’t tell whether you’re being sarcastic. Two highly influential figures of the Cold War period, with reservations attached by history. Successful, but possibly guilty of overreach?
I’m not being sarcastic. Warren and Johnson were incredibly successful.
The current narratives on both are largely ideological based IMO. Johnson is viewed solely through the prism of the Vietnam War by superannuated peace protesters. A more balanced view would look at his legislative accomplishments which are startlingly broad.
When he was appointed to the Supreme Court, Earl Warren was arguably the most popular politician in America. As Chief Justice he was tremendously effective. There could be questions about whether some of the keystone decisions were good law but not IMO about how effective he was in getting them put together.
Politicians, in my mind, are like salesman and the good ones and bad ones share character traits.
I’m not sure whether to pity Johnson over the Vietnam War or excoriate his memory for being foolish over it. He walked into a situation that Kennedy had been stirring in South Vietnam, but ultimately he made the decision to escalate the situation into a heavily American war in which American troops were playing a major, on-site role in South Vietnam.
There’s a lesson there to be learned, I would imagine. Even the most politically skilled and capable politicians can be derailed by a bad situation and bad luck, and Johnson had his fair share of both (particularly in 1968).