The Stupidity of Nominating A Businessman Like Trump

Notice the qualifier in the title. Ordinarily having a president with business experience would be of great benefit to the country; it’s one of the qualities that would have made Mitt Romney such a good president (of course, the Democrats managed to turn one of his greatest strengths against him). But Donald Trump, though he appeals to many people who generally call for “running government like a business”, is not a businessman in the same league as Romney.

Simply put, Romney was successful at business. Trump was not. Though the Clinton camp is making much of the fact that Trump’s leaked 1995 tax returns suggest that he may have paid no income tax for up to eighteen years, the greater emphasis should actually be on the phenomenon that would have made that possible in the first place—namely, his billion-dollar loss.

Trump in the 1990’s was on the brink of financial ruin, as detailed in The Choice 2016 and summarized by John Fund at National Review. Trump survived, Fund says, only by “shifting from real-estate deals to licensing his well-known name.” Not exactly the mark of a successful businessman, or a promising sign for those eager for business acumen in the Oval Office.

The fact is that Trump is just not a good businessman, as has been adequately documented throughout 2016—from his massive business gambles and losses in the 90’s to his four bankruptcies. Not only does he have absolutely no experience in government—there’s a reason every single president has either been a general or had previous political experience—but he’s been monumentally bad at his signature enterprise.

The only thing he’s really been good at has been reality TV and branding. And it’s really not an option for America to escape debt and budget deficits through licensing deals.