The role of “politician” in our society has been unnecessarily demonized to the point of recklessness, and we have dug ourselves a hole because of it.

Our Founding Fathers delegated landowners as our first political representatives for a very good reason. At the time, they were the only Americans who were educated, articulate and experienced. They could wisely represent the masses of people who had no idea what was going on.

The role played by our first political representatives morphed into the role played by the professional politician. Much like a lawyer in our courts, the learned and experienced politician exists for a very good reason. Everyday citizens cannot be expected to know all aspects of today’s geopolitical landscape, any more than they are expected to know the law well enough to defend themselves in court.

Instead of vilifying our local, state and federal representatives, we should be holding them to a higher standard and looking at voting like it is a job interview.

You want the best lawyer in court. We should want the best politicians to represent us. Hiring “businessmen” and popular TV personalities to represent us in politics is as asinine as hiring them as our lawyers. They do not know what they are doing, and it is completely illogical to vote for them to do a job they have never done before.

Look for those people who started local, worked their way up to state representation and then continued to higher office, just like you would when hiring anyone to do a job that is important to you.

You look for job experience, related training and education, ability and moral character. It is time we started looking for the same things in our politics and stop this nonsensical popularity-contest attitude toward voting.

Anthony Winslow

Gray