HERE’S HOW YOU DOIT, DONALD
As Trump’s campaign slips further into acrimony and away from victory, a sparkling lesson on how to lose gracefully
Victory parties and inaugurations are easy to deal with. What reveals any leader’s character — in any realm, in any time — is the grace with which they handle adversity and loss. Donald Trump’s refusal during Wednesday’s debate with Hillary Clinton to say he would accept the Nov. 8 presidential election results was startling.
Trump defied a fundamental principle of his country’s democracy and risked courting unrest in the vote’s aftermath. Just as appallingly, he ignored epic examples from America’s history on how loss should be dealt with.
When Bill Clinton took office as the 42nd president, he found in the Oval Office a letter from predecessor George H.W. Bush.
The practice of an outgoing president leaving a message to his successor began with Ronald Reagan’s own note to Bush in 1989. But of those letters made public, Bush’s “Dear Bill” letter dated Jan. 20, 1993, set the high-water mark.
Bush told Clinton the post brought enduring wonder. He wished him great happiness. He alluded to the potential for loneliness. He said there would be tough times. “Just don’t let the critics discourage you.
“You will be our President when you read this note . . . . Your success now is our country’s success.”
The handwritten paragraphs revealed more about Bush than all the speeches he ever gave.
As bitter losses go, American history has nothing to match its Civil War. When Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee decided to surrender he told his staff “I would rather die a thousand deaths” than personally deliver that news to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. But leadership and honour required it.
On April 9, 1865, Lee rode to the courthouse in Appomattox, Va., and signed the terms of surrender in a ceremony of astonishing magnanimity.
As American leaders have understood down the generations, their greatest legacy would be their example.
And the examples that speak most enduringly — if Trump would but heed them — are moments of grace in times of trial.