It's a substitute for talent. I think that a certain attractive, sixtyish impulse has played out poorly. Not everybody can do everything and no amount of wanting is going to make it happen. Standards require judging and in a society with limited resources this happens more naturally.
People fail if they aren't good at something and find their niche somewhere else. But with enough money you can continue to fail forever and without repercussions, like George Bush living well after a catastrophic and consistent string of failures. Trump is a seasoned dilettante.
Who knows what he would and should have been.
It certainly isn't President but maybe El Presidente in a banana republic, kind of like his company. Anyway, it's impossible to know what talents he has because daddy bailed him out every time. Drive is an interesting attribute. Most of the driven losers I knew became lawyers.
I used to swim every day and once, when I worked at a university, there was a loathsome group of guys who swam about the time I did. I knew they were scumbags and jerks because of the way they talked about women in the locker room. Trust me, you would have been offended.
They were the law students.
They're all out there now doing something and they may have changed, especially if they had girl children. Who knows. Clearly Bush is still clueless. Trump is still a pig. "You can be whatever you want" is a catchphrase with our kids. "You can have a try at anything" doesn't sound as good.
But it's more true. Utopianism and perfectionism and exceptionalism take you to strange places. More than anything I think that these are the things playing out right now as the American Dream comes to an end. Democracy itself requires some talent or understanding and we don't have it.
We don't even have the sense to entrust and empower those who do.
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