IF YOU’RE TOO OLD TO LEARN, YOU’RE TOO OLD TO BE PRESIDENT.
I’ve been wondering about this for a while now: Do American presidents grow and learn during their presidency? If they do, then shouldn’t we expect those who are re-elected to do an even better job of governing in their second term? And if they do learn to be better presidents, wouldn’t that become obvious to the electorate? Even before being re-elected, shouldn’t we witness the INCREASED COMPETENCY of a sitting president in his or her third and fourth years in the White House?
It’s not clear to me that recent presidents have improved their performance in office from one year to the next. Is Joe Biden a more competent and effective leader in this, his third year as president, than he was in his first two years in office? Was Donald Trump a better president in the last two years of his presidency than he was in the first two years? Did Obama improve his presidential performance in his second term? None of those questions can be answered with a resounding, unequivocal “Yes!” – at least not the way I see it.
Of course, a president’s success or lack thereof is greatly affected by circumstances, both domestic and foreign. If the House and Senate are held by the President’s party, then the prez has much greater odds of governing powerfully, consistent with his own priorities. On the other hand, if there’s a major crisis abroad – stemming from Russian or Chinese belligerence, for example – then the president’s latitude for effective governance may be severely circumscribed.
I’ve been doing corporate training and management consulting for several decades now, and it’s not my experience of adults in the workplace that they necessarily become more effective over time or that they can automatically be relied upon to make better decisions the longer they are on the job. Some workers, managers, and executives will become more effective and make better decisions, and some won’t.
I voted for Donald Trump, twice, but I have no confidence that, as President of the United States, he was a committed learner. And, since the time he lost his bid for re-election, I doubt that he has spent a single day reflecting on his own shortcomings that may have cost him a second consecutive term in the White House. He doesn’t seem like a very self-reflective guy. But then again, Joe Biden hardly seems like a reflective guy either.
Perhaps we, the voters, as well as the media, ought to pay more attention to the growth, development, and learning demonstrated by politicians over the course of their years in office. Joe Biden was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. That’s a long, long time ago! And he continued to serve in the Senate until he was elected to the vice-presidency in 2008. He then served as our nation’s VP for eight years. What did he learn during close to half a century in public office, before he was elected President? Do we know? Does he remember? Do those decades of political experience help him to be a better president? I certainly hope so! And yet, I fear that Biden might now be on the downward slope of the learning curve, where you forget what you’ve already learned and start making rookie mistakes again!