What is Basic Presidential Competence?

What is Basic Presidential Competence?

We have a presidential election coming up in a few weeks. Frequently when we vote for a president (or any candidate), it is easy to vote simply along party lines. If we are Republican, we vote Republican. If we are Democrat, we vote Democrat.

It certainly simplifies things, and this is not always a bad strategy to adopt.

However, I would suggest that one of the most important criteria for deciding on a presidential candidate is something I call Basic Presidential Competence.

Basic Presidential Competence is set of character and intellectual dispositions that make it more likely that the United States will emerge from the candidate’s tenure in office with greater political integrity.

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What Political Integrity Is

A country’s political integrity is a type of inner strength and stability that increases the more people believe their president has a clear intention to act fairly and justly.

And this integrity increases the more people believe their president intends to treat everyone with dignity, to encourage the well-being of citizens, and to put the good of the country above his own personal interests.

No president can do all these things perfectly at all times. But it is imperative that presidents regularly communicate these intentions, even when they make mistakes and even fail sometimes in the process.

When presidents do this, they strengthen a country’s political integrity. And the more likely the people in the nation are to continue to support the political process, even if they don’t agree with all of a president’s particular policies.

Photo by Parker Johnson, courtesy of Unsplash

On the Other Hand . . .

When people stop believing in the political process, they are more likely to resort to acts of domestic terrorism and violent revolution.[1]

Unfortunately, because the political climate in the U.S. is very polarized right now, people often believe that the most important thing is that they elect candidates who support their favored policies. These are usually issues like abortion, taxation, LGTBQ issues, religion, or war.

Most certainly these issues are important. But there is a range of views one could hold about these issues and still pursue political integrity. (You can read more a out this here and here.) Stated another way: All countries with strong political integrity express care for their citizens consistently. And there is a variety of ways a country can express this care.

On the other hand, it is possible for a candidate to support all the policies you hold dear but act in such a way that destroys political integrity.

If this is the case, it would be better for you to vote for a candidate from another party who preserves political integrity.

Voting for a candidate who favors your political policies but who weakens political integrity is a shortsighted move. Even if your candidate wins, the win is a Phyrric victory[2].  For example, you may inadvertently encourage destructive social unrest and political violence by voting for a candidate who weakens the country’s political integrity.

This brings us back to the ideas of Basic Presidential Competence.

The more consistently a candidate holds certain character and intellectual dispositions, the more likely he or she is to strengthen the political integrity of the country.

Because political integrity relates to a candidate’s intention to act consistently with fairness, justice, dignity, these are some of the characteristics connected to Basic Presidential Competence.

Criteria of Basic Presidential Competence

#1: The president (or candidate) consistently shows that he has a strong grasp of the US Constitution. He shows he is willing to work with the other branches of the government.

#2: The president (or candidate) shows a consistent effort to listen to experts in various political, social, and medical matters. He allows their expertise to inform his presidential policies.

#3: The president (or candidate) shows a consistent effort to work with people from other parties and to listen to the concerns of all U.S. citizens.

#4: The president (or candidate) listens to constructive criticism and shows a consistent desire to learn from his mistakes.

#5: The president (or candidate) is willing to be transparent with a variety of news outlets of different political persuasions.

#6: The president (or candidate) consistently shows respect for the dignity of all human beings.

#7: The president (or candidate) operates from a clear and apparent set of ethical principles.

#8: The president (or candidate) consistently communicates in a way that demonstrates clear, evidence-based, critical thinking.

#9: The president (or candidate) shows a willingness to consider other people’s points of view.

#10: The president (or candidate) refrains from speech that reflects prejudiced, racially- motivated views or derogatory views about women.

Photo by John Bakator, courtesy of Unsplash

But What about the Problem of Bias?

One possible concern people might express over the notion of Basic Presidential Competence is that people are naturally biased. And, therefore, everyone tends to believe that their candidate possesses Basic Presidential Competence.

Bias is certainly something to be aware of, and we all tend to possess it. It is important to note, however, that bias is not inevitable. There are thinking habits one can learn to overcome the natural biases we possess.

For the sake of this post, I would like to recommend an exercise that you can do to help you overcome bias and consider whether your preferred candidate possesses Basic Presidential Competence.

The Outside Consultant Exercise

Imagine that you are an outside political consultant from another country whom a bipartisan Think Tank hired to give an objective, non-biased view of U.S. political leaders. You have a high school education and two years of college education as well. You are neither Democrat nor Republican, and you are not aware of any of the hot U.S. political issues nor any U.S. political figures.[3]

The Think Tank has isolated you in a room by yourself for three weeks. There is no TV, radio, or computer in the room. But it is very comfortable, and you have plenty of good food. And you also have a lovely, comfortable bed for rest, and you receive excellent compensation for your time.

During your three weeks, you cannot read or listen to any news. And you cannot talk to anyone other than members of the Think Tank. You can read your candidate’s own Tweets or posts on social media and watch videos of him speaking at rallies of at White House conferences. You can also read transcripts of his speeches and interviews he conducts with various people.

The Think Tank also assigned you to read the U.S. Constitution and to read original primary documents from the original Continental Congresses.

If you need background information on your readings, the Think Tank can answer your questions with basic factual responses only.

Photo by Thought Catalog, courtesy of Unsplash

Lastly, you also have a dossier on the candidate’s life, compiled by the bipartisan Think Tank. It contains basic facts about the candidate’s early years, his education, his marriages, his political and business ventures, as well as several of his scandals and notable successes.

At the end of the three weeks, the Think Tank asks you to rate the candidate on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 low and 10 high) on the following ten criteria.

They also tell you that they have ten other people in ten other rooms just like you, and they ask you to write a written statement providing consistent evidence from the candidate’s own Tweets, social media posts, and speeches that clearly support your ratings. The Think Tank wants to gauge the overall impression of the consultants.

Here are the criteria again, for your convenience.

Criteria of Basic Presidential Competence

#1: The president (or candidate) consistently shows that he has a strong grasp of the US Constitution and that he is willing to work with other branches of the government.

#2: The president (or candidate) shows a consistent effort to listen to experts in various political, social, and medical matters. He allows their expertise to inform his presidential policies.

#3: The president (or candidate) shows a consistent effort to work with people from other parties and to listen to the concerns of all U.S. citizens.

#4: The president (or candidate) listens to constructive criticism and shows a consistent desire to learn from his mistakes.

#5: The president (or candidate) is willing to be transparent with a variety of news outlets of different political persuasions.

#6: The president (or candidate) consistently shows respect for the dignity of all human beings.

#7: The president (or candidate) operates from a clear and apparent set of ethical principles.

#8: The president (or candidate) consistently communicates in a way that demonstrates clear, evidence-based, critical thinking.

#9: The president (or candidate) shows a willingness to consider other people’s points of view.

#10: The president (or candidate) refrains from speech that could be construed as prejudiced, racially motivated, or influenced by derogatory views about women.

How Did Your Preferred Candidate Do?

How did your candidate rate? If you would like to keep working on overcoming your own bias, I recommend that you go back and to the same exercise with the other political candidate running for office.

A Parting Consideration

Sometimes it is easy to treat politics as a type of high-stakes game: we want our side to win no matter what.

Please consider that politics is indeed about you and your “team”. But it is about everyone else, as well. And, in fact, politics is not only about you and everyone else, it is about the game itself: the pursuit of political integrity.

You could play this game in a way in which you only think about yourself or your “team”, but if you do so, you may inadvertently undermine the game itself. And you can’t very well keep playing the game if it has been destroyed.

I would suggest that the best games are not the games in which everyone tries to win, no matter the cost. The best games are the ones in which the players respect themselves, each other, and the game. AND they play in such a way to preserve the game integrity, even if that means their side loses sometimes.

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[1] One of the clearest historical examples of this in history is the French Revolution. France had become dominated by a very wealthy minority aristocratic and clergy class. They organized French society in such a way that they had almost all the goods and power.

The majority of people in France were impoverished, sick and starving, and could be imprisoned indefinitely, with no trial, for little or no reason at all. Eventually the French people became so desperate, they initiated the French revolution. It (tragically) turned into a bloodbath in which some revolutionaries seized governmental power.

The revolutionaries initiated a Reign of Terror and began guillotining folks they decided were enemies of the people, many of whom turned out to be the poor and impoverished. These were the very folks on behalf of whom the revolutionaries were supposed to be fighting in the first place.

I am not suggesting, of course, that bloodbaths are the inevitable result of the loss of political integrity. I am suggesting that the more the political integrity of a country suffers, the more its citizens become convinced that they cannot protect and provide for themselves through the political process. This can cause them to act in desperate ways.

[2] A Phyrric victory is a victory that comes at such a heavy cost, it might as well be a defeat. This saying comes from Phyrrus, a Greek leader who suffered devastating victories against the Romans.

They were technically a win for him but were so ruinous, he said, “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.” I would suggest there are Phyrric political victories.

[3] If you are concerned that the objective observers in this scenario are too strongly influenced by the country they grew up in, especially if it is too different from the U.S., imagine that the objective observers are all the adult children of U.S. medical workers that worked in other countries.

The parents grew up in the U.S. and were educated in U.S. schools but were almost completely apolitical because they were so focused on their medical practice.

Their children (now the adult objective observers hired as consultants) grew up in a variety of countries—both European and non-European, first and third-world countries. The had a home education with a variety of home school materials used in both public and private U.S. schools.

They have lived in countries that were socialist, communist, and capitalist. For their history and government curriculum, they mainly read primary historical sources and the Constitution. They have had little to no exposure to television or news sources.