During the Golden Globes, Oprah Winfrey received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for
Outstanding Contributions to Entertainment, and deservingly so. After receiving the award,
Oprah gave a rousing and inspiring speech about female empowerment and the #MeToo
movement. Shorty after her speech, Twitter was flooded with #Oprah2020 and
#OprahforPresident. While I believe the Oprah is an intelligent and capable woman, I do not believe she should be president.. The American public should not view the Presidency as an entry level job, for reasons that should be painfully obvious at this moment in history.

Up until Donald Trump, every president in American history had prior government
experience, whether that was holding political office or serving in high ranks of the military. This time in government builds leadership ability, enhances policy knowledge, and gives a person experience being accountable to the people of the U.S. This accountability is something that a private businessman never experiences, and it shows now. Oprah isn’t the only celebrity that the public has urged to run. Others, such as Dwayne Johnson and Mark Cuban, have played with the possibility of running in 2020. This would be a grave mistake, and the American electorate should be very careful with who it elevates to the highest office in the land. We should encourage stars who inspire us to run for other offices instead, like Congress or local government.

I’ll make a brief controversial argument: should government experience be a prerequisite
to becoming president? Experience could be considered anything from career politician to
former military, giving candidates many options. Our current experiment with a total outsider is going exactly as poor as many thought it might, and the greatest presidents in history were all prior public servants. The two prerequisites for the presidency are odd to begin with: natural birth in the US and an arbitrary age requirement of 35. Neither of them have much logic behind them, and this one does. Most jobs require a certain amount of experience to even apply for them, much less get an offer. So why don’t we apply the same standard to the most important job in America?

SOURCEPhoto: Time
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Lilly Donahue
Lilly is an undergrad at Indiana University studying law and public policy. Politically, she considers herself to be a centrist Democrat who tries to engage in consistent bipartisanship. She's also a big college football fan, dog lover, and presidential history buff. Lilly also writes occasionally for Student Union Sports about college football and basketball, particularly the Indiana Hoosiers. In the future, she hopes to run for office and currently runs a student group at IU to encourage more young women to get involved in politics.