Celebrities are unqualified for presidency
February 8, 2018
College students today recognize Donald Trump (and maybe Oprah Winfrey) as some of the first out-of-their-mind celebrities to consider running for office.
While the Trump administration is breaking new ground every day, the mind-boggling trend of Hollywood’s finest moving into national politics is nothing new.
Former Senator Al Franken was a bubbly writer and cast member on the funny, political Saturday Night Live in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s.
He shifted his career from the stage to the Senate floor.
After absorbing the national spotlight for decades, he fell from grace after a December 2017 New York Times article of sexual harassment allegations.
Suave movie star Ronald Reagan was elected president before many college students can remember, but his controversial economic policy is stamped into textbooks and still has a tremendous impact on today’s economy.
He even earned the unforgettable title of “America’s Greatest Union Buster,” according to a September 2017 Washington Post article.
Oprah may seem like just the powerful figurehead the U.S. needs in the White House, but this is also what many voters thought of Donald Trump.
While today’s college students may not have been alive for all of the celebrities who made massive mistakes in office, the potential for history to repeat itself and effect awful consequences is far too close and dangerous for Americans to forget.
History must not repeat itself.
While we have tried to permit celebrities to hold political office; their trials have failed.
It is counterproductive to let these mistakes happen again.
This is information we should know by now.
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Edward Smith • Feb 13, 2018 at 11:17 pm
This is unconvincing to say the least. Reagan had a controversial economic policy, Franken was accused of sexual harassment, Trump is everything that Trump is, and suddenly that means that no celebrities can ever hold public office? Why? All of these charges are entirely disparate. Where’s the comparison to be made between them, and how does that comparison relate to their status as celebrities? This is a thinly-stretched coincidence at best. You think that Oprah would also be accused of sexual harassment, implement controversial economic politics, and act with the lunacy of Trump simply because she happens to be a celebrity? That is what your article implies, especially with the penultimate line, “It is counterproductive to let these mistakes happen again.” None of these “mistakes” can be attributed to one single cause, they are attributed to three separate people, though, I suppose based on your logic, all mistakes are the fault of their celebrity status.
My other criticism concerns the writing itself. This is bland, boring writing, with uninspired (and in some cases downright incorrect) word choice. There’s a cute adjective in every paragraph or so that feels pulled straight from the pages (or webpages) of a thesaurus. Some words don’t work, as in the last sentence when you say, “This is information we should know by now.” By information I suppose you mean the lessons of history, but in any case, it is the wrong word in feels awkward in context — it would have worked much better had you simply said, “This we should know by now.” Additionally, you use a semicolon in your third to last line that is completely inappropriate — it must be a typo, because I can’t imagine anyone intentionally using one there — a comma is obviously the correct punctuation.
There is one last thing I must quibble about — your paragraph about Ronald Reagan. You said he had a “tremendous impact” on today’s economy. Tremendous how? Were the effects positive or negative? By the use of the term “controversial” earlier in the paragraph, and given the context of the rest of the article, I can assume you mean negative, but your should have made that more clear, and substantiated your claim with evidence.
I’m sorry to be harsh, but if you want to continue to write for The Vermont Cynic, and your article has been evidently deemed worthy of not only publication, but an illustration to accompany it, it is my humble opinion that your writing must improve.
I apologize for any typos I inevitably made.
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