A recurring theme for me has been how small and insignificant so many of our “leaders” have become. We are no longer led by men who have accomplished much and then moved into public service. Look at Dwight Eisenhower. He and his brother took turns attending college while the other one worked so they could afford it. He attended West Point. He served as an officer in the Army for over 35 years, culminating in becoming Supreme Allied Commander. He eschewed political ambitions believing it inappropriate for career military officers. He finally ran for President in 1952, not because he desired to be President but because he felt that it was his duty. He was re-elected in 1956. Whatever your opinion of his Presidency, he was an accomplished man long before reluctantly seeking office.
Fast forward to 1988. While George H.W. Bush was an accomplished man, he was an awful leader. The men who followed him were neither accomplished nor leaders. Barack Obama was the smallest man to ever hold the highest elected office in the world and he demonstrated how small and petty he was on a daily basis. As I wrote in my post A Parade Of Small Men In The Highest Office:
It seems odd, does it not, that the most powerful office in the world seems to mostly attract such mediocre leaders? I think many decent men and leaders just simply are not willing to do what it takes to become President. The endless holding out of your hand for money, sucking up to people you probably don’t like, the endless scrutiny and criticism. Why would someone put themselves through all of that for any motivation other than narcissism?
Then Trump came along and for all of his faults he is someone who has done stuff in his life, even as he gives Obama a run for his money when it comes to narcissism but at least Trump has some accomplishments to point to. Obama isn’t qualified to manage a CVS, much less be President. But even by the already rock-bottom standards of modern American politics, we are about to witness a dumpster fire of small, insignificant people contending for the chance to unseat Trump. Cory Booker, a closeted homosexual who thinks he is Spartacus. Kamala Harris who slept her way up the ladder in California politics. Faux Injun Elizabeth Warren, an garden variety liberal old white lady who missed her window of opportunity. Joe Biden, an over the hill creepy old white man that is notable mostly for pawing and sniffing little girls on camera. Bernie Sanders, a loony old Jewish “socialist” that has never been gainfully employed for any significant time and rails against the wealthy while owning three homes and making a million bucks a year. But none of them compare to Robert Francis Beta “Beto” O’Rourke. He is an Irish guy pretending to be Hispanic and his claims to fame are a couple of arrests (drunk driving and burglary) and losing an election to Ted Cruz. That is really it. He is perhaps the least distinguished man to ever serve in Congress, apparently running for the sole purpose of trying to legalize weed, but now his legion of adoring fans think he should be President. Trump will eat this guy alive if he gets the nomination. But The Zman really hit the nail on the head with his assessment of “Beto”:
Like most of this generation’s political class, Beto O’Rourke ran for office because he was unqualified to do anything useful in the private sector. Rather than go on welfare or resort to a life of crime, he rents himself out as a spokesmodel for whatever political interests will hire him.
That rings true in my ears. Robert Francis O’Rourke has a degree in English lit from Columbia, a vocationally useless degree. He worked for a couple of years at an internet company doing who knows what (other than getting high). He has no marketable skills other than rolling a blunt and skateboarding but he looks good on camera. That is enough. No one can name a single significant achievement in his life. He has been married for 13 years and has three kids, so I guess that is to his credit but he is about my age and I have been married more than twice as long and have more than double his number of kids. Again, he has no skills, no education, no experience, that would qualify him for any significant private sector job but people think he should be President. No one would hire “Beto” to be a front line customer service manager in a call center, but let’s give him the nuclear codes.
We are only a few years away from living in a literal Idiocracy.