Dictionary.com defines commons sense as “sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training,or the like; normalnative intelligence.”
Engineer and theologian, Harry Conn, used to accuse college students as being “educated away from their common sense.”
Common sense is not usually valued in academia. Students and faculty are fixed on data and the opinion of the experts. To qualify as an expert, one has to have a PhD in a specialized field of knowledge.
In politics you have your “policy wonks,” who never get too far politically as they tend to be boring, like Al Gore and Hillary.
Pundits like to refer to President Trump as a populist. Trump does not call himself a populist. He does describe himself as a believer in and advocate of common sense.
The pundits are often lacking in practical knowledge, which is why they could never imagine a Trump presidency. Trump did not rely on the experts with their endless polling data. He trusted in his instincts.
Alas, even after Trump’s many victories, there are still the “Never Trumpers,” which are mostly the policy wonk types or the ones who think they went to “the best schools.” When will they ever learn?
In appealing to common sense, President Trump is attracting the common man, who responds enthusiastically, because Trump articulates what they intuitive know. But they lack the platform to spread their political beliefs.
Fred Trump used to take his son to his building sights, where the boy learned from his father to value the advice of the working man on sight more than the educated experts in the high office buildings with their abundance of statistics. In learning to value the opinion of the working man over the experts, he saved himself millions of dollars as he built the Trump enterprises.
Prior to my conversion to Christianity, my desire was to be a good liberal. I read John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society and The Industrial State. I remember that his Keynesian economics never made sense to me. I concluded I must not be intelligent enough to understand so I just accepted his views since he was the expert and one of the leading spokesmen for liberalism of the 1960’s.
The Bible, especially the Proverbs, appeals to old fashion virtues like initiative and industry, faith and frugality as the way to affluence. After reading the Bible and studying economists such as Milton Friedman, who pleaded for common sense, I decided that my problem was not lack of intelligence or education. In fact, it was not my problem at all. The problem with liberalism is that it does not make sense. It doesn’t promote prosperity. Capitalism is practical in that it has made Americans the most prosperous people with the most economic freedom in the history of mankind.