Once again Donald Trump is crying foul. As he does anytime he loses, the Republican frontrunner is claiming that the selection process used in Colorado is “a crooked deal.” Trump spent Monday ranting about the way he got skunked at the state’s Republican convention where Colorado’s convention delegates were selected. Last summer the state party chose not to have a primary or a caucus taking the decision out of the hands of grass-roots voters and leaving political activists in charge. But Trump’s campaign was as unprepared to compete in convention settings as they have been elsewhere so the billionaire wound up being beaten badly by the much more organized Ted Cruz campaign that would up securing all 34 delegates at stake in the contest.

Contrary to Trump’s claims, that tells us more about him and the competence gap inherent in his presidential quest than it does about the GOP establishment.

Trump responded to defeat in Colorado with his usual grace, damning the system and declaring the whole affair to be party of a “corrupt system.” Yet while he needs every delegate he can get in order to get closer to the 1,237 he needs to secure the nomination, the setback is still useful to Trump. It allows him to flay Cruz as the candidate of “insiders” and a tool of the dreaded “establishment” who wins only by dirty tricks. More than that, it feeds the basic conspiracy theory at the heart of his candidacy that politicians — and in particular, the Republican leadership — are thwarting the will of the people. The idea that politicians decide and the people get no vote is the sort of thing that has created the tide of voter anger that he has ridden to the top of the standings n the GOP race.

Let’s concede that the decision of the Colorado Republican Party to take the voters out of the delegate selection process doesn’t pass the smell test. The Colorado GOP went this route because rules instituted before this cycle would have required them to have their delegates be bound by the results of a caucus. Like the Democrats more ubiquitous and equally egregious practice of packing their convention with unelected superdelegates, having so many unbound delegates undermines faith in the party as a vehicle for voter activism as opposed to a private group more interested in protecting their power and leverage.

But until the day that the parties institute what would be, in effect, a national primary, the results of which will dictate the nomination process, we are stuck with different rules in each party in each state. Complaining about the system now is pointless since all these rules, in Colorado and in every other state where a caucus or convention delegate selection process has stymied Trump because of his lack of a ground game, were known in advance of the race.

Yet while Trump might have a point about the method employed by the Colorado GOP to select delegates being particularly undemocratic, the idea that he is the unique target of the rules falls flat. In most cases, he has benefited from the system designed by the Republican National Committee after 2012. Just as important, the flaws in his campaign undermine the basic argument put forward for his qualifications for the presidency.

The first point to be made about the complaint from Trump and his apologists and followers about the system being rigged against him is utter nonsense. In fact, the nomination process designed after Mitt Romney’s long and difficult fight fending off Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich during the 2012 primaries. The Republican National Committee’s response to that was to create a process that would be less onerous to a frontrunner that would enable the party’s leading candidate to maximize any advantage and avoid a long drawn out race.

Of course, they had someone like Jeb Bush in mind when they cooked up the schedule and included so many winner-take-all primary contests after the early states voted. But the beneficiary in 2016 has been Donald J. Trump and not any of the mainstream candidates the RNC might have been more comfortable with. For all of his whining about being cheated by the system and “we the people” being disenfranchised by the shenanigans of the #stopTrump movement, the opposite is the case. To date, Trump has won 37percent of the votes cast in Republican primaries and caucuses but has received 45 percent of the delegates. So while it’s true that, at least in Colorado, the desires of Trump supporters (who appear outnumbered by the Cruz backers there anyway) will be ignored by their convention delegates, how is that any more unfair than the fact that the votes of the majority in states, like Florida and Arizona, where Trump won winner-take-all primaries with pluralities, also wind up counting for nothing? Put in that perspective, Trump’s grievances are seen for what they are: pure bunk.

But there’s an even bigger point to be gleaned from all this talk about Trump being cheated by an arcane delegate selection process.

Trump’s main argument for the presidency is that he is a uniquely talented and successful businessman. He is the guy who tells audiences everywhere that American doesn’t win anymore but that if he is put in charge of things, the losing will stop. We are told he is an administrative genius who amassed a great fortune by his ability understand the game, plan and hire the best people to get great results. Leaving aside the fact that his narrative is undermined by some inconvenient facts like the fact that he started out with vast inherited wealth and that his businesses have had more than their share of reverses, it’s still a compelling argument to many Americans who are impressed by Trump’s wealth and believe it’s time to replace incompetent politicians with a successful businessman.

But think about it. The delegate selection process, including the states with the more complicated systems involving county and state conventions like Colorado was put in place before the race began leaving all the candidates with many months, if not years, to prepare. As arcane as multi-layered caucuses and conventions might be, is it really any more complicated than the negotiations over trade and nuclear weapons that his camp claims would be won easily by a President Trump? Not really. Politics is hard work and involves research and a particular skill set, but it’s not rocket science. Yet Trump the genius and his hired sycophants find it impenetrable.

Trump is a genius at marketing and media manipulation. But once you get into the weeds on anything else, let alone complicated policy questions, he’s at sea. His vow to hire the best people who will solve any problem rings hollow when you realize that he was unable to put together a staff that could figure out how to work Colorado or other states where delegates are selected by anything other than a primary process. Yet Ted Cruz, who, as Trump likes to point out, hasn’t run a business in his life, managed to create a fearsome ground game in virtually every state in the Union.

Seen in that light, maybe Trump isn’t such a whiz at running things after all.

That brings us to an obvious conclusion that contradicts a myth that is widely believed by the voters: running a business can prepare you to run a government.

If my critique of Trump’s problems in navigating the difficulties of the delegate selection system seems harsh, it’s because it is unfair to expect a novice to understand things that a pro would take for granted. And for all of his bravado, Trump is a rookie in politics who is making rookie mistakes even as he has demonstrated a rare talented for bullying and exploiting the fears of the voters.

But if Trump thinks running an election campaign is hard, I’ve got news for him. Running a government is a lot harder and nothing that he has learned in real estate, casinos or reality television is an adequate preparation for it. Nor is paying off politicians with contributions and favors — something he has done a lot of and which shows that he embodies government corruption more than anyone not named Clinton — the same thing as making a government work. A lot of being president is about knowing how to operate in Washington and it is not an entry-level position. Barack Obama’s thin resume was obvious in his many mistakes over the past eight years and compared to Trump, the former community organizer and freshman senator had a lot of experience in government.

All of which shows that Trump’s claims to be able to run the government successfully like the way he ran his businesses are false. Colorado isn’t proof of corruption. But it is evidence of Trump’s competence gap and that he is clearly unqualified for the presidency.