Donald Trump is ill-suited to run an ant farm, let alone this great nation. Despite having less political experience than Kermit the frog, and a moral compass that would route him through Phoenix, while traveling from Boston to New York, he, nonetheless, received enough support to win the 2016 presidential election. Upon his victory, America’s voting electorate left me puzzled and disturbed with their disastrous choice. Trump’s presidency has been far worse than even I imagined, and I recently reached a conclusion that I have yet to hear proposed by the media: presidential voting cannot be an unalienable right, but a privilege that must be earned.

A strong correlation between a state’s education level and said state’s voting preference in the 2016 presidential election would explain the occurrence of this horror. Establishing that those states with high education levels were not victims of Trump’s propaganda, while also establishing that those states with low education levels were vulnerable to such propaganda would substantiate my assertions that this catastrophic outcome was the result of unknowledgeable voters supporting Trump and that there existed a simple solution to prevent similar future calamities: the establishment of a “qualified” voting electorate. For a voter to be considered “qualified,” and allowed to take part in presidential elections, said voter must demonstrate a knowledge of the candidates and their platforms.

In a February 1, 2018 article by Karsten Strauss of Forbes.com entitled, “The Most — And Least — Educated States In The U.S. In 2018,” Strauss cited a study from WalletHub that ranked each state, 1 through 50, on educational attainment and quality of education based on 15 metrics.

The ten most educated states, according to this study, all voted against Trump, verifying my hypothesis that an educated electorate is far less likely to be victimized by propaganda than less educated voters. The most highly-educated states are listed from 1 through 10: Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Vermont, Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Washington, and New Jersey.

The six least educated states, according to this study, all supported Donald Trump, further proof that an inferiorly educated voting electorate is much more likely to be victimized by fake news and propaganda. The six least educated states in order from the least educated state in the nation to the sixth least educated state in the nation are as follows: Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, and Kentucky.

While restricting voting rights to knowledgeable citizens is a proposal that I have never heard expressed, the idea of allowing only qualified voters to select the president is not unprecedented. Our Founding Fathers deeply considered whether the “average” voter possessed sufficient knowledge to appropriately identify the candidate for whom to cast one’s presidential vote. Because of such concerns, the Constitution established The Electoral College, a system in which only the nation’s most educated individuals participated in the selection of our next president.

Furthering my argument simply requires a glance at the present state of our nation under a president elected by an “unqualified” electorate. We are on the brink of a trade war with China, and potential military engagements with Syria, Iran, and North Korea. President Trump is engaging in an unmitigated, pretentious Twitter war against our own intelligence agencies, the CIA and FBI, in an egregious attempt to trivialize his criminal activities.

Trump’s steadfast refusal to criticize Russian President Vladamir Putin provides enough evidence of some “corrupt bargain,” raising very serious national security concerns. Furthermore, our president is an incessant liar, a misogynist, and has enacted policies and engaged in activities that have helped him financially, a violation of the “Emoluments” clause of the Constitution.

The corruption, revolving door cabinet of convicts, Russian meddling, indicted former staffers, and revelations of new improprieties at a frequency and depravity previously unseen should concern everyone.

While acknowledging the controversial nature of my proposal, I hope that my dissenters concede the far greater threat in not enacting all necessary procedures to ensure that no unqualified individual ever ascends to our nation’s highest office.

My solution is bipartisan, nondiscriminatory, and necessary to ensure the protection of American Democracy. Given the enormous power of our president, and the equally enormous potential for abuse, is it too much to ask that those who take part in the selection of the president have a knowledge of the two major candidates and their stances on principal issues? If my proposal seems undemocratic, ask yourself one question: Are you satisfied with the current state of our nation?

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