A dialogue arose from my December 20 post about “Balance.” Trump, being ex officio commander in chief of the armed forces, had just issued (by Twitter!) an abrupt decree that all American troops be withdrawn from Syria, thus abandoning allies such as Britain, France, and especially the Kurds, and ceding influence in the region to Iran and Russia and power to Turkey, President Assad, and the Islamic State terrorists. I remarked that, as the only U.S. president who had had no military experience, he ought to have heeded the advice of others, such as his Secretary of Defense (who had immediately resigned).
Anthony Barreiro pointed out that Clinton and Obama had not served in the military (“although neither claimed to understand military strategy better than his Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff”). I said that I stood corrected, and that Wikipedia also needed correction:
“He became the oldest and wealthiest person ever to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or government service, and the fifth to have won the election while losing the popular vote.”
As Anthony further pointed out, this Wikipedia statement was ambiguous, and should be clarified: Trump is the only president “with neither prior military nor government service… A Venn diagram would show most presidents with both prior military service and elected office, some with only one or the other, and Trump in a cell by himself.”
I thought it would be interesting to show that Venn diagram, and asked Anthony whether he could draw one for us. He used an online Venn diagram generator, but the result was poor and he passed the task back to me.
As noted by Anthony, the data can be found in two Wikipedia articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_military_service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_previous_experien
And he remarks that: “Trump is counted as the 45th President, but only 44 people have held the office. Grover Cleveland served non-consecutive terms, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897. Of the 44 people who have served as US President, 31 have been military veterans. Thirty-nine previously held elected office. Of the five who had not held previous elected office, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight Eisenhower had been the highest-ranking generals in the Army and had won wars. While Herbert Hoover had never won an election prior to the Presidency, he led the US Food Administration during World War I, helped to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles, led the post-war American Relief Administration, and served as Warren G. Harding’s Secretary of Commerce.” It might also be mentioned that G.W. Bush served only in the National Guard.
Logically it may not be essential that a president should have served in the military or in previous governmental office. What matters is how good, wise, and successful they turn out to be, and both experience and election can fail to predict those things. Rulers elected can be malign, such as Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil who promotes torture, death squads, and the clearcutting of the world’s largest remaining rainforest; some rulers unelected have been benign, such as Asoka of India and Karim Khan Zand of Iran.
You may imagine what I, as a long-time Amnesty International activist, feel about today’s news that the United States has ceased to admit U.N. rapporteurs on human rights. A fine signal is sent to North Korea, China, saudi Arabia, Nicaragua…
I apologize for an experiment that went wrong. I tried to upload this post as a “private” one to Anthony Barreiro, so that he could approve my quotation of his words. It produced only an error message, so I tried what seemed the only other option, “password-protected.” I didn’t realize it would go to everybody. It is now not password-protected.
I agree with your observation that prior military or government experience doesn’t necessarily count in making a wise leader, nor does lack of military or government experience guarantee that someone will be an unwise one. Two of Eisenhower’s comments / actions stand out for me: the first is that he was very clear in his condemnation of the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan as totally unnecessary, and the second was his warning to the nation, in his last TV address as President, about the dangers of the military industrial complex (MIC). The real reason that the establishment (with its almost complete control of government, top levels in the military, and the mainstream news media, as well as almost all of the “think tanks”) have criticized Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan is that it represents a threat to their influence and livelihood. For all their “experience,” the Bushes and Obama, and Carter / Reagan before them, as well as a slew of other politicians including McCain, the Clintons, Cheney, etc. are the ones who successfully turned numerous countries that have long-standing societal issues into human rights catastrophes (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia come to mind). Although I am sure Trump will back-pedal on getting out of Syria, he at least has the correct instinct (unlike all of his so-called “adult in the room” advisors, including Generals Mattis, McMaster, and Kelly) that the U.S. has no interest in continuing to interfere in the affairs of these countries and people. For all his character faults, Trump’s instinct clearly is to reduce the degree to which we have an adversarial relationship with the rest of the world, hence his desire to negotiate with North Korea and Russia, and pull out of Syria and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he’s too tied to Sheldon Adelson’s money to let go of Iran.
The first dozen or so presidents on your list, including Washington, Jefferson, Madison, John Quincy Adams, Monroe, as well as probably U.S. Grant, would be appalled by our foreign policy today if they could learn of it. The only president of modern times that has spoken some truth to power since he left office is Jimmy Carter.
Ew! I hate to respond politically, but only since you brought it up…I still support Trump. I cried my eyes out today during the funeral of Ronin Singh and have yet to hear a word from Nancy or Chuck. They won’t support a ‘wall’ or whatever else you might want to call it. Support sanctuary cities? Abolish ICE? And now this new Muslim elect calling out to impeach this M***F*****?!
But how ’bout that close approach of New Horizons to Ultima Thule. Best New Years event ever.