As college students, we have all experienced applying for a job, which, in the end, requires a certain amount of experience to apply. It is frustrating, and quite frankly, seems unfair considering we are just now leaving 12 years of school.
However, in recent years, the assumed requirement of political experience has become obsolete. In an article by the New York Post, John Podhoretz explains there is voter revolt. This voter revolt is not a revolt against bad policies, it is “a revolt against the very idea of the politician as a professional who has to master his trade like any other professional,” Podhoretz said.
Why should we, as college students, be required to have years of experience when our own president is not required to have any?
This question of inexperience in politics has been brought up once more with Cynthia Nixon, one of the stars of “Sex and the City,” running for governor of New York. She has received a lot of backlash, especially from The New York Times, with one of the articles titled, “Cynthia Nixon and the Age of Inexperience.” In this article, writer Frank Bruni criticizes her decision. “Missing from those two slickly produced minutes [of Nixon’s announcement video] was even a syllable about her experience, and that’s no accident. Little on her résumé is directly relevant to the big, difficult job that she nonetheless wants,” Bruni stated.
In fields such as finances, psychology, pharmacy and teaching, training can take weeks, and lots of information is provided to the trainees to memorize and comprehend in order to begin working for their respective companies.
Going through this painstaking training is a sign of professionalism and helps coworkers develop trust. Most doctor offices have framed documentation of the place they graduated and received fellowships from, as a sign to patients they are trained experts in their field, and you can trust them.
Politics should require the same amount of expertise and experience as any other job.
After her speech during the Oscars, there was a rumor on how Oprah should run for president. Again, like Nixon, she received a lot of backlash.
AOL reported in an interview appearance on Good Morning Britain, Sean Spicer implied Oprah’s running may not be a good idea because she lacks political experience.
“She has no political infrastructure. And we have seen this before in our history — where people who have tried to pop in that are not in politics, and have had a difficult time adjusting,” Spicer argued.
Sean Spicer, former press secretary, had no right to say this because the current president has zero experience. As long as the president is not required to have experience in his field, there is no standard to say otherwise.
Inexperience may seem appealing because it has a quality of being the underdog. The trend has become more and more apparent, and it needs to stop. Soon, being an expert and running for political office will make you the underdog in the race. The standard needs to be set so if you run for political office, you should have a certain amount of experience.
Being in office is not a joke, people’s livelihoods are at stake. It seems ridiculous undergraduates must have experience in their fields to apply to jobs after graduation, when the president of the U.S. does not need any. The standard needs to change.
