Trump is a "newbie". Its regularly used as an excuse for his mess-ups.
I'm ok with that. I expect a newbie to make some mistakes and not do things the way people expect them to be done. It's a feature, not a bug.
No, its a huge bug.
Trump has been in office roughly half a year, and in that time he has thrashed around, proposing things that were possibly unconstitutional , alienating allies, and showing an ignorance about how congress works. Even if he manages to learn from his mistakes (something that we see no evidence for), it will take time to fix the problems he's already made. Given the fact that a presidential term is only 4 years (and part of that is when they are in "lame duck" mode), he's basically wasted almost a quarter of the time he could have been implementing his agenda.
The only bright side is that his agenda is idiotic and harmful to the U.S., so its good that it gets delayed. But if he were actually competent, then wasting a quarter of his time in office would be considered a problem.
- Law degree and experience as a civil rights lawyer (not necessarily "inside the government", but at least provided familiarity with the constitution, something useful to the job of being president.)
You can say that many fields would be "something useful to the job of being president."
Yes, but in this case its actually true.
Should seem rather obvious... knowledge of the law is useful in drafting new laws.
Knowledge of how to market the Trump brand is less useful in examining health care and migration patterns in Africa.
Yes, he had some political experience. But most latter-day Presidents have had much more high-level political experience, having been governors, Vice Presidents, long-term congressmen, etc. Obama was a relative newbie.
A decade+ of legislative experience, combined with years of legal studies and community organizations does not make someone a "newbie".
Re: Ivanka being "smart"...
Is she? Or did she just happen to get lucky being born into the right family?
The two are not mutually exclusive.[/quote]
No they aren't. But being born into a wealthy family can easily hide the fact that a person is incompetent. Just look at Trump. If he wasn't born into a wealthy family he would be flipping burgers at McDonalds.
No, she's not. And regardless of the number of times you claim it, it will not make it true.
(Have you seen her speak? Do you know anything about her?)
Yes, I have seen her speak. She doesn't exactly instill a lot of confidence in her abilities.
Here's a woman who didn't know what the word 'complicit' meant, and while yes, perhaps she's not a language expert, she was given plenty of context to know what was meant. Here's a woman who suggested she "influenced her father's policies" but couldn't pick one area where she actually did so. (If she were smarter, she would have at least had canned answers to the question.)
The Trump Organization has had some great success along with the failures.
No, it hasn't.
There have been studies done with point out that, had Trump simply taken money he inherited from his father and dumped it in an index fund, he would be much wealthier than he is now. But thanks to all his wheeling and dealing, he ended up having less money than he could have had. That's not the sign of a successful business person or successful company.
And Ivanka is part of that.
Sure. I do also agree that the "civil servants" who actually run the various government agencies need experience in their relevant fields. But the President and his/her advisors? I think many fields of endeavor would qualify a person to be President, Congressperson, etc. These kinds of elected offices are what I would like to see have more turnover.
But not business? Business is an important part of the American economy and business people also have a background in how the law/government intersects with business. Especially someone who has been part of a major organization that regular interacts with the government.
Simply being "part of" a major organization that interacts with the government does not make a person an expert.
And, need I remind you that the discussions Ivanka was sitting in on had nothing to do with American business. It was about social issues in Africa, in which case experience with American business practices is pretty well useless.
There are benefits and drawbacks to the "non-politician leader".
There are certain rules (protocols, constitutional power limits, etc.) within government. Your non-politician coming from a non-politics background may have trouble navigating in that environment. They may either propose things that can't be done, or run the risk of falling victim to manipulation.
True, but I don't think those are disqualifying factors.
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They may not totally disqualify a non-politician from becoming a government leader, but in order to overcome those drawbacks they better have some really great skills/abilities that would allow us to overlook those problems.
Trump does not have those great abilities. He doesn't bring a lot of business skill (his companies have done worse than stock indexes on average), knowledge of other countries, negotiating skill (he's more of a bully than a negotiator), science knowledge, or integrity. He's a mediocre business man with multiple bankruptcies who's only skill seems to be conning people and marketing himself. Those are skills more in tune with being a barker at a carnival sideshow than a political leader. And it appears that Ivanka falls into the same mold, with perhaps the only main difference being a modicum of self-control (which doesn't so much make her special in any way, just closer to average.)
