Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Zoe Gabel
There is a fine line between ignorance and inexperience. Unfortunately, Donald Trump,
our newfound president exudes all three of these characteristics. This, as someone who was
running for presidency and is now the president can be extremely dangerous. However, this is
something that the American people seem to have either ignored or been fooled into thinking it is
not as important as it is. I believe that there should be at least a two-year requirement in either
public service/office or military service if not both. Every former president before Donald Trump
has had either public service experience or military experience and most times both which gave
them the upper hand in knowing how government works, what proper discipline is, and knowing
how to be a good leader to more than just themselves and the upper-class. These former
presidents experiences make it more apparent that the racist and sadistic comments he makes are
not only because of his ignorance and arrogance but because of his lack of experience.
According to Zachary Crockett in his article in Vox, previous presidents (1789 to 2016)
came into the White House with an average of 13 years in public office and 5.6 years of military
present state of the entire country and other countries. The actions and behaviors Trump is
showing so far in his presidency and in his run for president are not only affecting Americans
but people world-wide. We have yet to see a policy change or even just a positive statement exit
Donald Trumps administration, let alone Donald Trump himself. In the run against Hillary
Clinton the WaPo poll finds that Americans say by 59-39 that Clinton is qualified to serve as
president, on the other half of things people say, by 60-37 that Trump is not qualified to serve
If this is the case, my question is how Donald Trump remains as our president, and how did he
get elected in the first place. On top of this a CNN poll found that 64-36 people has that Clinton
has the right experience to be a good president whereas 67-32 said that Trump does not have the
right experience to be an effective president. Are those statistics are alarming and confusing to
During Barack Obamas run for president Americans claimed that he was not experienced
enough to be a good president. They called him untested and inexperienced. However, Obama
was a senator for 12 years prior to running for office. It now seems as though Obama was not the
most unseasoned and unfit for the job of president. His experience as a senator not only gave him
important political background, but gave him the leadership knowledge necessary to become a
good president. One cannot expect someone with no experience in their field to not need
This policy change of a requirement of at least 2-years in public or military service will
help to decrease this lack of leadership skills and may have increased Trumps numbers in these
two polls if he had such experience. This change can be considered a training course just as any
server, construction worker, or any other American worker. A president is just thrown into the
ring and is expected to run the country from day one in the office. Without experience, as we can
see with Trump, it is as though the manager/boss is going in with no clue as to what the job
really entails and how to do it in a way that positively affects people. One cannot be a good
leader, or be expected to be a good leader when they do not have the skills they need to learn
prior to the job. In this instance however, it does not just affect the success of a business, it
affects the world. My policy change can help to avoid this inexperience, ignorance and arrogance
Works Cited
Crockett, Zachary. "Donald Trump Is the Only US President Ever with No Political or Military
Sargent, Greg. "Donald Trump Is Not Qualified to Be President. And the American People
Know It." Washington Post. The Plum Line, 18 July 2016. Web.