At the moment, national polls show Herman Cain leading or tied for the lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. This, despite the fact that he has never won an election, has never held public office (except on a regional Federal Reserve advisory panel), and has shown prodigious ignorance on some important foreign-policy and domestic issues.
We in the punditocracy have been attributing Cain’s lead to many conservatives’ resistance to frequent frontrunner Mitt Romney. Many have described Cain as the flavor of the month and have predicted his numbers will collapse, as Michele Bachmann’s and Rick Perry’s have.
Advertisement
Reasonable analysis, as far as it goes. But I think Cain’s current lead is evidence of a larger and longer-range trend that is both heartening and disturbing.
I call it the revolt against the experts.
It has been going on for a long time. In the years after World War II, when pollsters first started testing confidence in leaders and institutions, mid-century Americans expressed great confidence and respect for experts and those at the head of large organizations.
This was an unsurprising result, since the leaders of big government, big business, and big labor had produced a glorious victory in World War II and then seemed to produce postwar prosperity when almost everyone expected a return to depression.
Confidence in leaders and respect for expertise fell in the years that gave us the Vietnam War, Watergate, and stagflation. They’re at a low point now, after years in which experts seemed to fail in Iraq and at home.
Consider Iraq. The generals George W. Bush put in charge seemed superbly fitted for the job. John Abizaid had plentiful experience in the Middle East and was fluent in Arabic. George Casey had extensive experience and great talents.
But they failed to produce a winning strategy. And by the time David Petraeus, an expert on counterinsurgency, did, the media and the public weren’t much interested in Iraq anymore.
Or consider financial regulation. Bush appointed, and Barack Obama retained, Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. It is generally agreed that Bernanke knows more about the depression of the 1930s than anyone else on earth.
At Treasury, Bush and Obama also installed experts. Henry Paulson had been CEO of Goldman Sachs, the most successful investment bank. Timothy Geithner had headed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It’s hard to conceive of any other two other individuals who knew more about finance and Wall Street.
Yet it’s plain in retrospect that they made serious mistakes. They erred either in bailing out Bear Stearns in March 2008 (my view) or in declining to bail out Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
Amid the financial turmoil after Lehman collapsed, it was clear that even these experts didn’t know what to do. They oscillated from one policy to another, making it up as they went along. Not all their decisions were wrong, but the current economic recovery is agonizingly sluggish.
You can certainly argue that Iraq and the financial crisis posed unique and unprecedented challenges. It was probably impossible to get everything right. But the fact is that people we had every reason to regard as the greatest experts failed to get anything close to optimal results.
In that context, it’s easier to see why voters seem to have little respect for expertise.
In the 2008 electoral cycle, Democratic primary voters, caucus-goers, and super-delegates chose a candidate with minimal experience in either foreign or domestic policy and no executive experience at all. But Barack Obama seemed to have other strengths. In the financial crisis, he was no more than a helpful bystander. But he zoomed ahead of John McCain in the polls and was elected.
Now Republicans are zooming from one low-expertise candidate to another. Bachmann has never run anything but a small business. Cain ran a pizza company and lost an election for senator. Perry showed little interest in national issues in his first ten years as governor of Texas.
Romney’s years in private equity and one term as governor of Massachusetts give him an edge in expertise over the present field. But his experience is thin next to contenders in the past.
It’s off-putting to watch what a low value voters put on expertise. But that’s what happens when experts blow it time and again.
You miss the mark Mr. Barone. We don't value Washington DC experience, and for exactly the reasons you outlined. People are fed up with the hunky-dory status quo, where our elected officials don't have to live with the consequences of their actions, and keep doing the same things that got us into this mess.
Government is not the solution to our problems. It is the source of our problems. Knowing that is much more important than familiarity with technical details of government operations. Inexperience was not the problem with Obama. Principles are his problem. He has the wrong principles. LBJ was the most experienced President, and what a disaster he wrought! We need a guy with the right principles, hence the preference outside the Beltway for anybody but Mitt.
"You can certainly argue that Iraq and the financial crisis posed unique and unprecedented challenges." Sure. But those unique challenges were created over years by bad policies made by other "experts". We should also note that the experts of pre post WWII were schooled in vastly better universities than we now have, riddled as they are with silly-studies and Marxist thought.
The point that needs to be focused on here is 'Washington experience'. Most people do not see the benefit of governing from Washington. They don't see the experience of having served in Washington translating into solutions. Results of these folks are viewed as failures and exhibit a clueless understanding not only of the public but of how to solve problems. Government is viewed as inept.
Re: "David Petraeus, an expert on counterinsurgency."
He we go again, ascribing some kind of "expert" wisdom to David Petraeus. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are FAILS.
All Petraeus did in Iraq was move the dysfunctional food around the plate, postponing the inevitable. The vaunted "Surge" merely papered over the huge cracks of systemic Iraqi pathology. And as for Afghanistan, it goes without saying.
Fighting COIN "Wars" you can't win ain't that smart. Petraeus should be shelved with the rest of the Power Elite mediocrities that have wrecked America over the last 30 years.
Yes, along with all these experts on counterinsurgency perhaps we could also use some experts on astrology and phrenology or maybe even astrolophrenologists.
We must agree. Experience is the key. Since Governor Perry is so accomplished and adept at giving away tax layers funds to illegal immigrants, why not have him run for president of Mexico? In this way students from the United States who cannot afford a college education could move to Mexico illegally and get $100,000 a year in tuition breaks from Presidente Perry. They could also cancel their medical insurance polices, since the Mexican healthcare system would have to take care
of them. Perry would have a great campaign slogan
to hurl agains any Mexican opponents to this plan,
"You just don't have a heart."
I don't mind you don't like or support Perry but do you have to tell outright lies about his AND the Texas legislature position? It isn't $100,000 per year, it is the same tuition other Texas residents pay.
Even your beloved Ivy League schools don't have tuitions that high, yet.
I respect and admire your opinion and analysis. Yes, I think the American public are quite fed up with ruling class elitist and statist that have "shown prodigious ignorance on some important foreign-policy and domestic issues". The country class is paying attention as 2010 clearly demonstrates. However much Cain is denigrated in the media it seems his message is resonating with the people. This is shaping up to be the most interesting and lively Republican primary, the competitive conservative forces on display in this round are heartening to those of us that want substantive and meaningful changes in the control of our republic. America is business! IMHO, the best leader and steward of the American dream is Herman Cain.
Using Iraq as an illustration of a failure by experts is ridiculous; it is an example of an honorable and successful perseverance in the face of politically motivated opposition.
Career politicians are experts at one thing, self-aggrandizement. They use our money to stuff their pockets, to buy votes, and to prolong this process for as long as possible. This is why we are rebelling against them.
We have reached our national state thanks to their schemes and machinations, all of which they claimed were in our name and for our sake. It is time they reap what they've sowed and are relieved of the power which, once vested upon them, they have so willingly abused.
Politicians, because of their vested interest in retaining power, will always do that which will keep them in power, even if that means betraying their principles, RINO's, I'm talking about you. There are few who will actually do the people's bidding and adhere to our Constitution. To these I give the respect they have earned and deserve.
In closing, here are some choice observations about our vaunted "experts"
"An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing."
"To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most."
"If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done."
"An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy"
"Where facts are few, experts are many."
Last but not least, my own observation. Have you ever noticed how market data is always "unexpected" as predicted by the "experts?"
The problem with experts is that their expertise often afflicts them with myopia. In other words, to a hammer everything looks like a nail.
People are looking for common sense in their leaders. They're tired of wonky BS counter-intuitive tinkering by academic types who convince people they are experts but who have serious gaps of experience in the real world. That would include a whole lot of career politicians who know NOTHING about running a business or raising their own families. The real world is a chaotic place that stubbornly refuses to behave according to a set of parameters that our so-called experts limit themselves to. It's an issue of BREADTH.
Did you forget to mention perhaps one of the biggest cluster-flock of "experts" - the global warming community? Yet these were people with "experience".
Personally I'm not yet settled on who the right candidate might be. I'm not necessarily frightened by Cain though. A good CEO knows how to assemble a team and manage them - he doesn't do all the work himself.
Looking for a Messiah didn't work the last time we elected a president. Maybe this time we ought to being looking for a Manager.
There is a good reason for America's skepticism toward experts, and that is because we have a growing history of experts substituting ideology and opinion for data and hard facts; they are basically lying to us. Global cooling of the early 80's, global warming currently, the DDT ban, many of the early conclusions on foods that were supposedly unhealthy, demonizing opponents of evolution as ignorant, un- or anti-intellectual, etc., are only a few of the junk-science ideas the "experts" sought to foist upon a public formerly enamored with science.
It is becoming clearer that there are, among the experts, only certain narratives that are permitted a hearing. I think those of us who are the common, unwashed, "bitter-clingers" have simply stopped believing the experts, and are returning to common sense. It's a small matter of truth, and the experts have lost their credibility.
First, consider the what the presidency has become and the constant search for "expertise". See: Hayek, F.A.
Next: "Smartest" guys to be president: Wilson, Hoover, Nixon, Carter. Most successful president of the second half (or maybe all) of the 20th century? A 'C' student from Eureka College.
What are the weapons? Ok I'll bite: How about fraud and intellectual dishonesty? How about reasoning itself - the faulty kind? How about shutting down free speech - calling everything you disagree with as "Hate"?
This is nothing new, we've been seeing inexperienced Presidential candidates make a big splash since at least the late 80's - see, e.g. Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes.
While frustration with "experts" may have some impact, I think the bigger reason is that experience leaves a candidate with a record that can be attacked while a new face can present an unblemished image. For example, I doubt very much that Rick Perry would have said a word about Gardisil or in-state tuition policies if those issues hadn't come up during his long tenure as governor. Similarly, Mitt Romney's efforts to mold his current image would be much simplified if he was making his first run for office.
Michael, at this point I'd seriously consider voting for a president that would promise to use his executive power and veto pen to basically shut down the federal government for 4 years. The federal government is currently so destructive that doing nothing would be a huge improvement over doing too much of the wrong things.
