Author: Shaun Deverson
Aristotle once said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”, and he maintained that the best rulers would be “philosopher-kings”, individuals shaped by wisdom, virtue, and a deep understanding of the polis (the city-state). In ‘Politics’, Aristotle also warned of the perils of democracy when the masses elect leaders without wisdom or experience, the multitude is more incorruptible than the few… but only if they are properly educated. His emphasis on education, moral character, and civic virtue remains powerfully relevant today, especially as democratic systems are tested by waves of populism, misinformation, and spectacle-driven politics.
In modern liberal democracies, political leadership is no longer tethered to philosophical depth, civic virtue, or the social experience required to navigate complex institutional ecosystems. Instead, the political stage is increasingly populated by individuals who are inexperienced, unreflective, and, at times, fundamentally unfit for the serious obligations of governance. The rise of such figures to high office – whether through celebrity, demagoguery, nepotism, vested interest or populist fervor – poses a serious risk not just to competent administration, but to the very stability of democratic institutions.
Why Qualifications, Morals and Social Experience Matter
Government is not entertainment. It is not business. It is not warfare by other means. Governing involves balancing competing interests, interpreting law, administering large bureaucracies, and upholding ethical standards while navigating crises – often all at once. To do this effectively, leaders require a mix of technical knowledge and social consciousness (what might be considered “qualifications” for such a service), as well as interpersonal skill and moral judgement.
Unqualified leaders tend to lack a grasp of the constitutional principles, legal frameworks, and socio-economic dynamics they are tasked with managing. Socially inexperienced politicians, meanwhile, often fail to understand the consequences of their rhetoric or how their decisions reverberate through communities unlike their own. Leadership at the national level demands the ability to listen, to compromise, to defer to expertise, and to model behaviour that promotes civic trust. When leaders are incapable of doing so, polarisation deepens, institutions degrade, and civil discourse collapses.
John Stuart Mill, writing in ‘Considerations on Representative Government’ , emphasised that “the worth of a state in the long run is the worth of the individuals composing it.” A citizenry that elevates unworthy individuals to high office diminishes its own prospects for collective flourishing. Leadership reflects the values of a society, and when style is rewarded over substance, and outrage over deliberation, the political culture begins to corrode.
What has certainly been the case in Australia, and many parts of the globe recently, is the emergence of politicians who have been elected into responsibilities they are simply not qualified and personally equipped to manage, especially when their role primarily includes the design and implementation of future policy decisions. Put simply, they are out of their depth, especially when many construct policies based on nothing more than personal biases and whims, without any input and sensemaking from a broad and diverse selection of sources. In the end, a failure to ‘read the room’ becomes their regular trip up. It’s one thing to not be qualified, but by not engaging in an ongoing course of open-minded dialogue across a spectrum of stakeholders, proves to be the ultimate disservice to them and the constituents they represent. In short, the appointment of ‘pontificating-clowns’, rather than philosopher-kings is increasingly becoming the trend, with a policy debt that the populace will eventually pay for in time. The loss of intergenerational opportunity is the cost for such misjudgement.
How the Unqualified Rise
The path to high office is no longer paved with public service or policy expertise. It is often a performance – driven by media spectacle, polarising soundbites, and the manipulation of algorithmic attention. In this new political economy, experience and wisdom are liabilities. Soundbites travel farther than Senate bills. Tweets matter more than town halls. The line between entertainment and governance blurs, and charisma becomes a substitute for competence.
This dynamic has allowed individuals with no political experience, and little demonstrated understanding of governance, to assume positions of immense power. In the absence of a philosophical or civic foundation, such individuals often substitute ideology for thought, loyalty for deliberation, and spectacle for seriousness. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in ‘Democracy in America’, democracy is vulnerable to mediocrity if it fails to foster a culture of civic education: “The people who govern in the American democracy are less prepared for the exercise of power than in any other country in the world.”
The electorate, too, bears responsibility. In societies where civic education has eroded, institutions are mistrusted, and economic anxieties are rampant, voters may be drawn to “outsider” candidates promising disruption. Yet disruption without direction, and anger without competence, rarely results in progress. Instead, it often produces chaos, tribalism, and governance driven by impulse.
The Consequences
The consequences of electing unqualified and socially inexperienced individuals to high office are both immediate and long-term.
First, the quality of governance declines. Agencies are mismanaged, appointments become politically motivated rather than merit-based, and policy becomes reactive rather than strategic. Public trust in government, already fragile in many democracies, further erodes as leaders engage in self-serving behaviour, defy norms, or provoke unnecessary conflict.
Second, institutional resilience weakens. When leaders disregard legal precedent, undermine the judiciary, or attack the press, the checks and balances vital to democratic health deteriorate. As Niccolò Machiavelli warned, republics are destroyed when citizens cease to believe in the integrity of their institutions.
Third, the social fabric frays. A leader who lacks social experience, who has never navigated diverse communities or sought consensus, is more likely to sow division, scapegoat minorities, and inflame cultural grievances. The result is heightened polarisation and political violence, rather than the unity and shared purpose needed in a diverse society.
Fourth, international credibility suffers. The global order depends on stable, principled leadership from major powers. When those powers are led by individuals who are impulsive, unprepared, or unserious, alliances weaken and adversaries are emboldened.
The Case of Donald Trump, other Authoritarians and Biology
Few modern political figures have embodied the tensions described here more than Donald J. Trump. A businessman with no political, military, or civic experience prior to assuming the presidency, Trump’s rise to power has marked a turning point in American political culture. His leadership style has emphasised loyalty over law, spectacle over substance, and grievance over governance. Critics have argued that his administrations have disregarded constitutional norms, undermined public institutions, and inflamed racial and cultural divisions. Trump has threatened to pull billions of dollars of funding to universities, across the globe, unless they abide by certain ideological, politically motivated viewpoints – namely Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and has instituted regulatory rollbacks and appointments of officials hostile to environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards. Many corporations, fearing short-term economic reprisals but ignoring the immediate and longer term environmental and social consequences, have aligned with this consequential rhetoric.
Once the second Trump administration comes to an end, the U.S. may face not just a political transition, but a reckoning. The consequences of having twice empowered a leader widely seen as unqualified and socially combative will be deep and enduring, and provide lessons for other nations and their citizenry into the future:
- The judiciary may remain shaped by ideological appointments that reflect a narrow worldview.
- The civil service may continue to be politicised, with career officials sidelined in favour of partisan loyalists.
- Trust in electoral processes, already battered by baseless claims of fraud, may be further degraded.
- America’s allies may struggle to trust its commitments, knowing they are subject to the whims of whoever holds the presidency.
- Perhaps most gravely, future candidates will study Trump’s playbook and see that it is possible to win high office not by building coalitions, but by dividing the electorate and exploiting outrage.
In essence, it becomes a corrosive process that becomes increasingly difficult to repair, if even recover from. From a biological, complexity science and relational perspective, the above threats and consequences represent a decreasing lack of openness, loss of energy and adaptive capacity – that inversely increases entropy (infighting and lawlessness), spiralling the system (the nation) into necrosis (civil war) and potentially death. In 1945, Friedrich Hayek penned his seminal article titled ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’, where he asserted these very things – that any centralised planning system, siloed and closed off, would suffer inefficiencies and scarcity as opposed to the local, diverse tacit knowledge richness of a decentralised system. In that vein, history and biology agree on this: organisms, systems, and societies thrive when they are governed by principles of feedback, adaptation, competence, and integrity. When unqualified and socially disconnected individuals ascend to power, they disrupt these essential systems. The body politic then begins to decay from within – slowly at first, then suddenly. The USSR, Nazi Germany, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and the Philippines offer good historical reflections for this.
Conclusion: A Republic, If You Can Keep It
Benjamin Franklin famously quipped, upon the signing of the U.S. Constitution, that America would be “a republic, if you can keep it.” The survival of any republic depends not just on institutions, but on the character of its leaders, and the discernment of its citizens. To elect leaders without the social maturity, philosophical grounding, or civic competence to govern is to gamble with the very foundations of democracy.
If the Trump era teaches anything, it is that qualifications matter. Experience matters. Character matters. And the failure to value them invites consequences that no constitution, however wise, can indefinitely withstand.