The Wrong stuff: Reflections on President Trump’s leadership
The recent passing of Chuck Yeager puts in mind matters of courage, heroism, and leadership. In the phrase Tom Wolfe made popular, Yeager had “the right stuff.” In this current patch of history’s ground, as one presidency ends and another is set to begin, reflections on the subject of leadership are becoming familiar.
History will not be kind to Donald Trump. The irony is that America’s 45th president had chances to show uncommon leadership that most presidents never had, opportunities might have launched him into the top tier of world leaders of all time.
There’s the old idea that people are not innately heroic, that they become heroes when thrust, by circumstance, onto the stage of history and they take action.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was that person in the dark days of the Depression and world war. Winston Churchill was, too. As were Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks at dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and George W. Bush on the heels of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
On a more local scale, Lowell’s own Ed Davis became that person. Amidst the confusion and fear in the aftermath of the Marathon Bombing, Davis, then serving as Boston Police Commissioner, projected a calm strength that reassured citizens that things were going to be OK.
President Trump’s opportunities to be this kind of leader were several and much larger. They were on an Independence Day scale. This is not hyperbole. In a real sense, the world faced threats — not imaginary, not from outer space — that were very terrestrial, here among us. Both, in a sense, burning down the planet as we know it. As president, Trump could have helped save the world.
Early on, at the very dawn of his presidency, he had a giantsized opportunity. He could have taken the lead on addressing the menace of global climate change. The chance to do so was teed up for him. Almost 200 nations were ready for his leadership. Newly elected, he had global goodwill. With his background he had the ear of business and industry leaders. And most importantly, he had his hands on the levers of power that could make things happen.
But he didn’t.
Late in year three of his term, a second opportunity to step up came in the form of COVID-19. It was an opening for bringing together a deeply divided nation, and more. The virus wasn’t only a national threat. Like the climate crisis, it was global. Here was a chance to knit up a sense of human purpose. A chance to press reset and to get divergent nations to unite in common cause against an enemy that threatened us all. Before the scourge reached pandemic proportion, the president might have acknowledged that what his sources were telling him wasn’t good. He might have overcome his fears, set aside ego and old grievances. He might have decided that humankind was worth his best efforts.
Again, he didn’t. He generated no plan, no containment strategy, gave no inspiring, unifying message. He downplayed. Dissembled. Pointed fingers. Passed the buck. Operation Warp Speed was a clever name,
but it is proving disorganized and anything but speedy.
Again, alas, he just didn’t have the bandwidth, lacked the mental horsepower, was missing intestinal fortitude (choose your metaphor). He never showed any inclination to rise to the level of heroic. Quite the opposite: he has ducked and run from every opportunity to lead. And now the chances have run out.
The particulars of his legacy will be left to more objective observers, but it’s difficult to conceive that leadership will top anyone’s list. Or humility. It has been noted that even late in the presidency of Richard M. Nixon (the failed leader Trump is most often compared with) — there was still a moment when Nixon might have turned the tide of history. In the wake of Watergate, if he had simply said, “Yes, I did this. It was wrong. I was wrong. I’m sorry.” Human beings have an enormous capacity to forgive if he had just thrown himself on the mercy of the public. But forgiveness has to be asked for, failings have to be acknowledged. And Nixon never could.
Nor can Trump. He clings to some grand delusion, unwilling, unable to see that he just doesn’t have the right stuff.