Can a successful businessman actually succeed as head of state and government with no prior experience in political office? The first four weeks of the Donald Trump administration has produced decidedly mixed results, but at the same time offered some glimpses of hope for populist voters.
For the last few decades, voters and activists have openly argued that the biggest problem with government is that it’s run by politicians. Frustration with government inaction – or in some cases too much action – have fueled efforts to impose term limits on legislatures in order to turn out the lifers. The founding fathers never meant for political office to be a career, the argument went, but for citizens to serve their country for a short period of time and then return to the private sector.
That includes the presidency. Constant stories of waste, fraud, and abuse anger voters, prompting an almost constant refrain: If I ran my business this way, I’d be out of business. What this country needs, they argue, is an outsider who knows how to run a private-sector organization – someone without the political ties and big-donor relationships that inevitably bring back to the same old failures and frustrations. That would lead America back to greatness – or at least reverse decades of stagnation and bureaucratic bungling.
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