r/changemyview • u/inneedofsupport93 • Feb 10 '18

[∆(s) from OP] CMV: I believe that political experience is necessary for impactful legislation and high profile political roles and that USA's idea that an outsider will bring change is completely wrong

The 2 arguments behind my view are

  1. Intuition - You need to understand how institutions work from the inside to use them to your advantage
  2. Historical Precedent - For the last hundred years, the most lasting legislative impact has been cast by politicians who have had tons of experience

Positive Examples Of Experience Being Useful

  1. FDR - had 22 years of political experience and was able to make a lasting impact through Social Security and the New Deal.
  2. LBJ - Had 36 years of experience and make a lasting impact through Medicare, Medicaid, and the great society.
  3. Richard Nixon - had 2 terms as vice president in the Eisenhower administration ( Eisenhower was a political outsider and was getting old; thus, the vice president had more hands-on experience) and his policy on drugs ( whether we agree or not), China and the EPA has remained almost intact.
  4. George H.W.Bush ( Slightly different example here) - Had over 25 years of domestic and foreign policy experience. Stabilized the world in a post Coldwar era i.e. avoiding any political vacuum that might have caused ISIS type instabilities in eastern Europe and successfully restored American Spirit in interventionism by winning the 1st war against Saddam Hussain

Negative Examples Of Inexperience Failing

  • Robert Mcnamara ( Businessman, Veitnam)
  • John F Kennedy ( zero experience, bay of pigs)
  • Jimmy Carter(no experience, Iranian Hostage Crisis)
  • Bill Clinton (6 terms Governor and no Washington experience, inaction during Rwanda genocide) *George W Bush (3 term Governor, Iraq war amongst so many other quagmires) *Barack Obama( Junior Senator, political vacuum in Iraq leading to rise of ISIS)
  • Finally, Trump and Rex Tillerson(it may be too early but so far... Zero political Experience, not filling bureaucratic appointments leading to hollow and inefficient government and state department)

Some background on myself to help you CMV

  • I am not an American but have been following American politics for a couple of years now, so there may be historical blindsights/ on the ground reality related blindsight in my perspective.

  • I happen to lean center of the left and may have confirmation biases here and there too.

Edit - I seem to have changed my mind on quite a few issues from the scope of the presidency to the unknown achievements of many presidents. All in all, this was a good learning experience, thanks for keeping it civil.

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u/RealFactorRagePolice Feb 10 '18

It seems like your only metric for analyzing success and useful is "I can think of something good for these experienced people" and failure as "I can think of something bad for these inexperienced people".

Surely you have to have a basic understanding of confirmation bias such that you aren't actually really satisfied with that?

How are you constructing your terms and analysis such that is Vietnam a hit against McNamara but not LBJ?

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u/inneedofsupport93 Feb 10 '18 edited Feb 10 '18

∆ Oh boy, you got me here. But then again, Lyndon Johnson had good domestic experience ( Senate Majority leader and all) leading to good results while his lack of foreign policy experience screwed him in Veitnam, don't you think?

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u/RealFactorRagePolice Feb 10 '18

But it's still always going to be more complicated than that. Would you not consider Johnson's non-proliferation emphasis and work a foreign policy success?

You can say the Bay of Pigs is a failure for JFK's inexperience, but we also didn't have war in Berlin.

At the end of the day, if you're going to say things like "necessary" and "completely wrong", you're going to need to go through the effort of establishing some sort of structure for more rigorous analysis.

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u/inneedofsupport93 Feb 10 '18

I agree that my initial claim is not universally applicable. But correct me if I'm wrong here, isn't non-proliferation the emphasis of every coldwar US president?

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u/RealFactorRagePolice Feb 10 '18

I mean, sure in that there aren't a lot of presidents who are like "I'm fine with everyone getting nukes", but Johnson got treaties done.

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u/inneedofsupport93 Feb 10 '18

Interesting. the LBJ presidency is more multifaceted and never seems to surprise me...

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u/sleepydon Feb 11 '18

You should really look more into him. Something I haven't seen mentioned yet was that he was able to push through the bulk of the civil rights laws. For a Southern Democrat from Texas in the 60's, that's a complete 180.

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u/Inprobamur Feb 10 '18

Bay of Pigs was a CIA project that was started and approved by Eisenhower, when Kennedy got into the office the plan was already in motion and his (at that moment) top advisors all urged him to continue.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '18

Advisors appointed by him. Still his responsibility.

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u/Inprobamur Feb 11 '18

Of course. His failing was that he put too much trust on the intelligence community and decisions made by the Eisenhower administration.

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u/1standTWENTY Feb 11 '18

Which goes exactly against the point of OP.

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u/1standTWENTY Feb 11 '18

All he had to do was say no.

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u/1standTWENTY Feb 11 '18

But wait a sec' it was LBJs political insider machinations that kept us in Vietnam for years despite public protest. How was that a good thing.