That's equally important for non-politicians: only the most capable will get their lack of social skills ignored, and only sometimes.
Engineer-turning-politicians in non-democracies also do not need to make an impression on a wider public, but just on a restricted set of decision makers (or political mentors).
USA has had its own share of non-politician politicians (think Schwarzenegger and Trump, to name the few most prominent ones). And I am sure you can find many politicians throughout Europe who have an engineering background, it's just never highlighted.
In the USA, it's also that business accomplishments are valued more than problem solving skills, and in politics, you don't get the same freedom as in business: eg. late Steve Jobs would probably have an easy job of getting elected, but what would he have done afterwards? His mode of operation would not translate to democratic governance (even though, arguably, Trump attempted a similar style with less charisma), IMO.
Maybe Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg could run for the office? I'd honestly wonder what would the polls say about them (Zuckerberg is maybe not going to do so well with all the privacy-related negatives, but I wonder how much would people care about net worth vs that). But again, these are top-of-the-line businessmen, not top-of-the-line engineers, even if they've got engineering background.
Engineer-turning-politicians in non-democracies also do not need to make an impression on a wider public, but just on a restricted set of decision makers (or political mentors).
USA has had its own share of non-politician politicians (think Schwarzenegger and Trump, to name the few most prominent ones). And I am sure you can find many politicians throughout Europe who have an engineering background, it's just never highlighted.
In the USA, it's also that business accomplishments are valued more than problem solving skills, and in politics, you don't get the same freedom as in business: eg. late Steve Jobs would probably have an easy job of getting elected, but what would he have done afterwards? His mode of operation would not translate to democratic governance (even though, arguably, Trump attempted a similar style with less charisma), IMO.
Maybe Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg could run for the office? I'd honestly wonder what would the polls say about them (Zuckerberg is maybe not going to do so well with all the privacy-related negatives, but I wonder how much would people care about net worth vs that). But again, these are top-of-the-line businessmen, not top-of-the-line engineers, even if they've got engineering background.