There’s a massive difference between leaders and thugs
Days before Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in prison, Tucker Carlson gushed over Vladimir Putin, saying, “Leadership requires killing people.” Well, I’m sorry, Tucker. You’re wrong.
Real leadership is the opposite of thuggery. The world’s greatest leaders help their societies deal with their hardest problems. They have moral authority. Alexei Navalny was more of a leader than Putin will ever be. The same distinction holds for American presidents, an appropriate subject for Presidents Day.
So far, we’ve had 46 of them. A few were thugs. Andrew Johnson (#17) blocked rights for freed slaves and undermined Reconstruction. Warren G. Harding (#29) took bribes. Richard M. Nixon (#37) arranged illegal break-ins and covered them up. Donald Trump (#45) used his office for personal gain and encouraged an insurrection against the U.S. government.
A few of our presidents were great leaders. George Washington (#1), Abraham Lincoln (#16) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (#32) all focused America on its most important challenges. They strengthened the capacities of the nation for self-government and elevated the common good.
Zoom out from American presidents and we can see that the world is today better off because of the leadership of people such as Mahatma Gandhi (18691948), Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), Volodymyr Zelenskyy (1978-), and Alexei Navalny (1976-2024).
All, too, summoned their societies to cope with their largest problems. Not all of them were heads of state — which shows that true leadership does not depend on formal authority. It depends on moral authority.
The so-called “strongmen” of the current era — such as Putin, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu — are not leaders. They can manipulate public opinion and sustain their bases of power, but they have no moral authority.
All have repeatedly put their personal interests over the interests of their respective nations. All have appointed people to key positions based on loyalty rather than qualification. All have taken credit for every success while never taking responsibility for failure. All have a chronic aversion to telling or hearing the truth. All three have fought against democratic norms and institutions. They have undermined whatever capacities their citizens have for self-government.
They have thereby diminished the resilience of their citizens and weakened their societies. As a result, they have made their nations more vulnerable — to external enemies, to economic upheavals, and to natural perils, including climate change and pandemics.
None of them can abide political opposition. One has apparently murdered his key opponent. Another has threatened vengeance on his opponents if he regains power. Another has stoked division and turmoil to weaken his opponents. All have spread outrageous conspiracy theories about those who speak out against them or challenge their power.
These autocratic thugs are not leaders. They hold authority through brute strength. They retain power by dividing the public, spreading baseless lies, and accusing opponents of being traitors. All have thereby weakened their society’s capacities to protect themselves from real threats.
They have undermined the public good, which is the wellspring of a society’s true strength.
America, Russia and Israel are far weaker for having had these thugs at the helm.
Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.
“I have a daughter in Brooklyn! Get the (expletive) out of the way!”
The exasperated driver, whose identity is as of yet unknown, had to finally get out of his car in Manhattan and scream at a group of more than 1,000 pro-Palestinian protesters who decided the best way to draw attention to their cause of the fighting in Gaza was to block traffic and access to several bridges and a tunnel in the most populous city in America.
As a mom myself, I can tell you — anyone who came between me and my child wouldn’t get as polite a warning.
“Our aim today was to clog the arteries of New York City to draw attention to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and the people of Gaza,” said Jamil Madbak, the 29-yearold organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement — the same group that previously celebrated terrorism against Israel and the murders of innocent Jews.
“American bombs and Americanmade internationally prohibited chemical weapons are being dropped on Arabs again, financed by American tax dollars and protected by the American media, again. Those in power think they can get away with this, but us being out here every week is our way of saying we won’t let them.”
No word yet on whether this stunt to snarl traffic was successful in lobbying the Biden administration or Israel to change their course in the war against Hamas. But, it did end in the arrest of more than 320 protesters. Similar protests blocking access to JFK, LAX, and Chicago O’Hare airports over the holidays — on the busiest travel days of the year — also resulted in arrests and delays for legions of frustrated travelers who couldn’t get to their flights.
If you’re wondering how these obnoxious, self-important, unserious, and even dangerous antics would be an effective way of eliciting sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians suffering in wartime Gaza, your guess is as good as mine. I’m betting that most weary travelers who couldn’t get to work or missed a flight to see their