Do business leaders have any business being president? Available evidence says noTrump isn't the

[applegrove]

Do business leaders have any business being president?

Available evidence says noTrump isn't the first corporate type to veer into politics — but in an ignoble history, he's definitely the worst

https://www.salon.com/2020/06/30/do-business-leaders-have-any-business-being-president-available-evidence-says-no/

"SNIP....

Conservatives often extol the tough, no-nonsense approach taken by leaders of corporate interests as a way to run government more efficiently. But do businessmen really have any business being president? 

Theologian and philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr, in his essay "Perils of American Power," published in The Atlantic Magazine in 1932, wrote of the uneasy combination in the United States of economic strength and political incompetence. We may be a preeminent world power because of our economic strength, he argued, but we are "politically the most ignorant of modern nations." 

Does anyone think that were he to see our politics today, Niebuhr's assessment of nearly a century ago would be materially different? No doubt he would note the stark divisiveness in today's politics, but is that not just another sign of our political ignorance? 

The problem, according to Niebuhr, resided in our easy reliance on military might, which worked to keep us from actually having to deal with the necessities of political thinking, of comprehending the world in which we live and finding a way to give as well as take. Even domestically, one sees that reliance on military force — with police often indistinguishable from a military unit — also causing our political leaders not to learn any lessons. So the people march in the streets again. A tear gas canister or a rubber bullet may answer, but that answer is shallow, teaching nothing useful and engendering further resentment. 

.....SNIP"

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Business leader? How can someone who has bankrupted every single thing he touches

be called that?

[Newest Reality]

4. Really.

Mobster's rule their syndicate, etc.

The real leading he may have done was leading money into laundering during his time as a real estate racketeer. If and when there is more investigation into that, the bankruptcies may have been an aside, anyway.

Trump is an image he made, a character, a facade that he spent years inserting into the American collective consciousness, (there are innumerable references to him in movies, books, etc.) and then floated to the top of his own fiction to ride it as a wave into our White House. In that sense, he is imposter.

If that's a "business leader" then we are really in deep trouble because that indicates levels of corruption that blow the top off this country's image.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. How Would We Know?

In our lifetime, (other than Carter) who was a successful business man, that didn't start out halfway between 3rd & home?
41 was moderately successful, but he was the "know people" guy. He didn't actually run anything. And he was born ric.
43 failed at business 3 times, but bailed, leaving others holding the bag. And, he didn't run anything. He "knew people". And, he was born rich.
PINO is a failure at business. His cumulative return on the $ he started with is abysmal. On the order of 1% per year, when major indices averaged 8.6%. He could have done nothing and done 16 times better, financially. And, he was born rich.
So, I'm not sure we have a frame of reference on which to judge this.
Illinois is doing ok, even with COVID, with a truly successful businessman as governor!

[kimbutgar]

3. The bankruptcies and not paying vendors should have been a big clue

If you work for a living as a contractor and finish your job and not get paid there is no reason you should have ever voted for MF45.

[Xolodno]

5. Successful business leaders. Sure.

They usually have significant dealings with government and understand the process, limits, restrictions, etc.

Failed ones who have more bankruptcies on their list rather than success. No. If fact, they should find another line of work.

[doc03]

6. Trump is not a business leader he is a con artist.

How can you go broke with a casino?

[C_U_L8R]

7. Bloomberg is a business leader. Trump is just a joke.

How many collapsed ventures and bankruptcies? He's failed upward his whole life. The fall will be great.

[Caliman73]

8. I say No.

Regardless, and without prejudice against business people, I say that the mentality of business leaders is very different from what makes a good organizational leader.

Not to say that it is impossible, but the business leader would have to adapt to the VERY VERY BIG differences within public administration.

The goal of business is to survive and grow by making a profit. Businesses do that in the most simplistic terms, but selling product and keeping costs low. It is obviously more complex than that, but it is about revenue, cost management, and profits.

The goal of public administration is to meet the needs of constituents, to safeguard the public trust and finances, and to run effective and efficient public services as well as setting a solid framework for businesses, safe guarding the environment, etc... Often times the goals of the various constituent groups are in opposition to one another. You have businesses wanting to cut environmental regulations that place more cost onto their products, and environmental groups trying to preserve clean water, air, etc...

There was an examination of the record of businessmen who became President, which showed mixed results at best. Coolidge, Hoover, and George W Bush were businessmen before being elected. So were Harry Truman (though it is said he failed at business so he had to go into politics) and Jimmy Carter (owned the peanut farm).

Like I said, it isn't impossible, but business and government are two very different creatures that require very different skill sets.