By JUSTIN RIMPI
Staff Writer
In the 2020 Presidential election, another celebrity with no prior political experience may throw her hat into the ring to become the next President of the United States.
After Oprah Winfrey’s speech at the 2018 Golden Globes on Jan. 7, there seemed to be a concerted effort on social media to convince Winfrey to run for president in 2020.
Winfrey was accepting the Cecil B. de Mille Award for her “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment” when she gave her speech.
Winfrey’s Golden Globes speech was less than 10 minutes but will reverberate for years to come, even if Winfrey does not run for office. Her speech was very uplifting, as she encouraged young girls to persevere despite adverse circumstances.
Winfrey was the first African-American woman to win a prestigious award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA).
Winfrey’s message to young girls is one of the main reasons why people on social media started calling for her to run for President. After Winfrey’s speech, #Oprah2020 was a trending topic on Twitter with celebrities including actor John Stamos, comedian Larry Wilmore and Tony Award winner Leslie Odom Jr. sharing the sentiment that Winfrey should run for president.
It cannot be denied that Winfrey delivered a speech that was excellent for a variety of reasons, and that is why Winfrey had such a successful career in the television industry. She is a tremendous storyteller, intelligent and inspirational.
The most discussed line from Winfrey’s speech was: “A new day is on the horizon.”
Some even went as far as to say that who would be an apt campaign slogan if Winfrey were to run for president.
Winfrey is certainly an individual who should be admired due to her tireless philanthropic work.
However, Winfrey should not run for president. The election of President Donald J. Trump in 2017 set a precedent for future leaders. That precedent is that prior political experience, or acumen for that matter, is no longer needed to be elected president of the United States.
Before President Trump was president, he was just a real estate mogul and a television star. He announced his candidacy, and the rest is history.
The precedent that President Trump set with his election is dangerous and should not be repeated. It should be a prerequisite for world leaders to have some semblance of political experience before they run for such demanding political positions.
President Trump has been in office for just over a year now, and during that time frame he has struggled to have much of his legislative agenda passed. This is due to the fact that he did not come into office with a grasp on how bills actually become law through the United States Congress.
He seems to be under the impression that he could utter something and it would become law not long after his decree. That is clearly not how governing works in the United States, as the crafting of legislation is left to politicians elected by the American people.
If Winfrey ultimately does decide to run for political office, it would be a mistake if the American people were to vote once again for an individual with no prior political experience. President Trump has changed the office of the presidency by tearing down governmental norms and eroding America’s level of trust and prestige in relation to those in other places of the world.
The goal of learning history is to know about what happened in the past in an effort to learn from it, and not to repeat the same mistakes. If Oprah Winfrey were to be elected president, the same exact mistake of electing an “outsider” would be done once again.
The American people and the world both deserve a president of the United States that has what it takes to get the job done and has the necessary political experience.
Being rich and philanthropic does not qualify one to be the “Leader of the Free World.” That rationale worked once and now the United States is in peril because of it.
