Term Limits

Often when I impose my favorite topic (“we are NOT a democracy and what are we going to do about it?”) on other people, someone suggests Term Limits as his solution. “Term Limits will keep our elected officials from spending half their time dialing for dollars, especially with the donor class; it will keep lobbyists off their backs.” When I ask, “limited to how many terms?,” they invariably say two, "as they will need some time to learn their new jobs.” When I object that they will be dialing for dollars through that first term, the discussion ends of its own weight as this solution is not a perfect fix of the problem. And arguing over a detail is never much fun.

While I was talking to myself about this issue (all my ideas begin with a conversation that I have with myself that is always out loud, barely rational, and certainly not scripted; and I am damn sure that I am not unique in this respect!), the following notion found its way out of my mouth: if the argument over one term or two is based on preparedness to do a job right, maybe we ought to require an “apprenticeship” for all our elected officials (not a post-modern Donald Trump Apprenticeship, more like a medieval apprenticeship, where a budding artisan quietly learns from his masters). The first year of his job will be devoted to learning the job and he will be paid as much as other government apprentices – AKA interns – are paid: $nothing. Learning the job will be satisfaction enough. This idea is a nod to the Greek philosopher Plato, who distrusted democracies because democratic leaders choose themselves out of personal ambition, surely not the best quality for a benevolent leader (see the end of Julius Caesar’s ambition: assassination). Indeed, an unpaid apprenticeship, where the apprentice is seen but not heard (for a year), must have the additional desirable effect of discouraging many overly ambitious men from pursuing a path that will benefit themselves but not us. 

More than anyone else, a President needs time to learn the job before he takes the chair at the Resolute desk. And never has the need for apprenticing the Presidency been clearer than it is today.