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Comment by zarkenfrood | Hacker News Reader

Accomplished politician wouldnt be a compliment though would it. One of the recent issues is bureaucratic bloat caused by career politicians. In that sense she would be less appealing.

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I understand that this appears to make sense for a lot of people but to me a president should... actually be qualified to be a president.

Otherwise, it's as if you had a string of bad CTOs and then decide to hire a gardener with no tech skills as your new CTO.

In a democratic system everyone should be fair game to hold office, that’s the whole point. What you’re advocating for is aristocracy and leading to phenomena such as career politicians existing, who are leeches to productive societies.

It would be aristocracy if you had to be born into it.

Now, I'll admit that the US system of mostly only very rich people getting access to top universities is not exactly fair - but you can in principle become a politician no matter your background.

I don't think it's crazy to assume that qualifications matter. And most of the US's best presidents (such as Lincoln, both Roosevelts etc.) were highly educated and had had political careers before.

Err no. Let me educate you a bit. The word aristocracy is an ancient Greek word that means “Rule of the most capable/best”.

I'm aware, having taken Ancient Greek in high school, thank you very much. Meanings shift. An aristocracy is not a meritocracy and is mostly distinguished by its reliance on social status instead of actual merit.

See e.g.: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/aristocr...

I’m Greek so I’m using the actual meaning of the word, not the one produced by Western hegemony.

We're speaking English here and not Greek.

I’m not asking you to speak Greek, just to respect it.

Aristocracy is not a Greek word. You're confusing it with the Greek word aristocracy. Hope that helps.

But we're speaking English.

I know what you mean, we've come a long way from "Honest Abe" to "Dishonest Don" :\

I don't see a connection between "career politicians" and non-"productive societies". Corrupt societies can be corrupted by career politicians or a revolving door of temporary politicians.

I never said that there is a link between career politicians and unproductive societies. I said that whenever there is a productive society, there will be career politicians leeching on it.

When you can't be productive yourself, you leech off the biggest thing you can, in the hope you can go un-noticed until the parasitism has been forgotten and you can convince people you are a symbiotic life form :)

There is a difference in qualifying for having prior experience and for being born into a certain family. Trump inheriting around half a billion dollars is Aristocratic, Kamala Harris having a successful career in politics is not.

Trump's success in only partly due to his inheritance though. I'd liked it more to a charismatic religious and authoritarian leader.

Everyone is fair game but most often experienced leadership is what is preferred and gets elected because overall, people who have a choice don't want "just anyone" to end up as president even if it is technically open to all.

One of the worst travesties in any organization is when there are non-leaders occupying leadership positions for any reason. And that is already too common in areas where people don't have a choice.

Experience as a politician is not a qualification for US President

Legally, no. But prior to Trump, every single US president had served either in a political office or in the military.

It just seems unreasonable to assume that knowing how to govern isn't an important qualification for the job of actually... governing.

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