On the surface it seems clear why Donald Trump’s campaign is effective. His fame, bluster, wit, and intuitive sense for one-liners can be easily converted into media currency and are symbiotic with the mechanisms and values of the digital era. But none of this would avail were it not for a disillusionment with the political class so deep and visceral that his supporters consent to the opposite of what is normally expected from right-leaning candidates: respect for traditional values; proven party loyalty; morals, manners, and maturity.
Nor would his appeal have been the same if Trump had garnered his fame from, say, the comedy circuit or the silver screen or the baseball diamond. It is his business credentials that ultimately make him a formidable candidate. And he knows it.
We see this in his observation that the “deal” with Iran is the worst he has ever seen (because he knows the art of the deal); that he will make Mexico pay for a border wall (because he knows how to drive a hard bargain), a wall that he will finish in record time and below budget (because he is a builder); that he will be capable of rounding up and deporting 11 million illegal aliens (because he runs a worldwide organization) in a humane way (because his employees like him); that he will stare down Vladimir Putin (because he has stared down union leaders and business competitors); that he won’t be pinned down on policy questions since he wants to be “unpredictable” (goal achieved), an effective strategy in business negotiations. In short, Trump without his business career would not have been a serious candidate.
We will know soon enough how persuasive Republican primary voters find all of this. Yet the idea that business experience is valuable for a politician is not only false, it is patently the opposite of truth. Indeed, business experience put to use in politics is more likely to be a liability than an asset. And, in any case, the promise to run a state with the efficiency of a successful business conglomerate is so distant from conservative values that it makes Bernie Sanders look like Barry Goldwater.
Conservatism regards politics as a craft similar to carpentry and farming. Skill and success depend on personal understanding of practices and traditions handed down from generation to generation. Effective statesmen absorb and act on the embedded knowledge and practices of the people they represent, in the nation they belong to, and in the daily flux of its political system. Political experience is specific to the moment and the place; it is not readily exported to nations other than where it was formed; it is not timeless (as countless “out of touch” politicians have discovered). In the setting of the here and now, political experience is invaluable and irreplaceable.
Liberals and socialists believe differently. To them, legislation and governing are universal practices, the application of theories that have been constructed by scholars far removed from the political arena. It follows that a novice can enter parliament or government and know what to do—it’s all in the textbooks. Indeed, a strong interpretation of the liberal or socialist view implies that this is the only way to be properly prepared for politics. Trump’s supporters share this delusion.
But Trump doesn’t simply lack political experience. The business experience he touts reveals a demonstrably left-wing view of the nature of politics.
Governing is not about winning. It is about allowing for the flourishing of a social ecosystem where people can form their lives according to their own values and aspirations. It is the sum of all these persons’ behavior and beliefs that forms a nation. It begins and ends with citizens, not with the administrators they hire to manage shared assets and assignments.
Consider Ronald Reagan’s famous “Morning in America” ad campaign. It showed people going to work, people buying homes, people getting married—images of people going about their lives. That campaign has been criticized for failing to communicate a message. But it did something better. It held up an illustration of the conservative idea of politics: to always strive towards the unattainable ideal of making itself redundant.
Trump is enamored of an entirely different concept: management from the top, where the state is the first entity, where the president is the CEO and citizens his employees. We depend on him. Such is Trump’s vision of politics, such is his idea of the state and citizenship, and it squarely draws on his experience as a businessman.
It is misleading to apply the rules and habits of the corporate world to politics. Do we want political leaders who design plans for successful competition in the same way that managers of McDonald’s design plans for taking market share from Burger King? Do you want your relation to America to be that of an employee to a company?
I will give an example from my home country of Sweden. The prime minister, Social Democratic party leader Stefan Löfven, was new to politics when he was awarded his position thanks to his background as a very successful union leader. He was indeed a capable, strong, and fair negotiator, who understood that every confrontation with the billionaires who employed his members would end well only if he recognized their positions and objectives. To win he needed, in a sense, to share the interests of the corporate leadership and the business owners. Such is the nature of negotiations: Success is achieved only if both parties walk away happy. It follows that the opposing sides enter into negotiations with the goal of reaching an agreement. Both sides want this agreement to favor their position, but it is ultimately not about defeating the opponent.
Every time Trump has made a successful deal—and there have been many—it has been because he has been able to make his opponent happy, and vice versa. Both parties walked in the room with the evident goal of reaching an agreement, getting things done.
But this is not politics. How did Löfven fare in office? Three small parties—the former Communists, the environmentalists, and the xenophobic populists—dominate the agenda. Across the board the same explanation is given for the former union leader’s failure: He is politically incompetent.
Does Donald Trump really believe that Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Ali Khamenei, and Kim Jong-un will enter into negotiations that are in any way similar to the ones he successfully conducted in his business career? Apparently a large share of voters are willing to bank America’s future on such an idea. Thoughts wander to an inexperienced community organizer who believed that his college brilliance and good will would impress dictators and strongmen around the world.
For seven long years America has suffered under an inexperienced president. Are Americans now willing to hand over the fate of the United States to a man with a gold-plated latrine? Nothing Donald Trump has ever done indicates that he would make a good president or, for that matter, a conservative president. One final difference between business and politics: There is no Chapter 11 for a country.
Roland Poirier Martinsson is a Swedish author.
