Bryan Garner, renowned for his many books on legal writing, argued his first case at the United States Supreme Court. Here’s an excerpt from the article: “Supreme Court Justices Appeared Dazzled by Legal Celebrity at Oral Arguments in Robocall Case Against Facebook”:
In his authoritative baritone, which came through even in telephonic oral arguments, Garner walked the justices through his arguments on what statutory wording really meant and how it should be applied to Facebook’s wrongdoing. As Garner nimbly led the justices through a discussion of adverbial modifiers, “viperine” interpretation of statutes, and conjunctive versus disjunctive distinctions, the justices appeared content to assume the position as students in Garner’s classroom.
It appears that what our political system needs is vetting candidates to determine their qualifications beginning at the Precinct Committee level with the 2007 “AllCan” program that provided a free survey tied to free Internet exposure for all surveyed candidates.
All Civil Service employees must pass an exam to work for municipalities but… we elect our political leadership based upon their ability to bankroll a campaign! What are we thinking! And, more importantly,- What do you think?
In principle, I agree with you. The devil is in the details. You are absolutely correct (based on many sources) that a modern national politician’s main job is arguably to raise money. To put one’s hand out with a wink wink, nod nod, maintaining public appearances that huge amounts of money (without which they might not retain employment) have “nothing” to do with the way they vote. It is a terrible situation and it is exacerbated by your second issue: Many politicians don’t seem to have well rounded education, making them vulnerable to philistine impulses.
Of course, all this reminds me of Plato:
According to Plato, a philosopher king is a ruler who possesses both a love of wisdom, as well as intelligence, reliability, and a willingness to live a simple life. Such are the rulers of his utopian city Kallipolis. For such a community to ever come into being, “philosophers [must] become kings…or those now called kings [must]…genuinely and adequately philosophize” (Plato, The Republic, 5.473d).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher_king#:~:text=According%20to%20Plato%2C%20a%20philosopher,of%20his%20utopian%20city%20Kallipolis.&text=genuinely%20and%20adequately%20philosophize%22%20(Plato,The%20Republic%2C%205.473d).