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Our system of selling ambassadorships has major 'empire in decline' energy. https://twitter.com/CarterRubin/status/1309187820003553281
I suppose I am a bit of a soulless technocrat but shouldn't the people who have dedicated their lives to the foreign service be representating us abroad rather than, uh, random soap opera actors...?
It's easy to dismiss these Western European positions as glorified vacations, but recall that the president was quite recently floating the idea 80% of Denmark's land area. Do you want a qualified professional in the middle of that or an unqualified political donor?
This is a bipartisan issue. Take Hungary, a young dictatorship and the site of a humanitarian immigrant crisis. Under Obama the ambassador was a soap opera producer (yes, really!) and Trump's ambassador is a guy who ran a telemarketing company. This makes us weak.
This isn't a new practice: since the 1950s about a third of ambassadorships have gone to donors and political connections. What *has* changed is that (a) Trump cranked that share up to 40% and (b) the appointees have grown much less qualified. https://www.lawfareblog.com/troubling-trends-ambassadorial-appointments-1980-present
In a distressing number of countriesānot only in Europe but also in crucial South and East Asiaāour ambassadors frequently don't even speak the local language.
