Our Asshole In Chief--And Actual Leaders

Rather than a leader or even a help, the Chief Executive of the U.S. continues to be an active hindrance to coming out of this Covid 19 crisis short of complete catastrophe and wanton tragedy.

His press conferences are fonts of callous misinformation at a time when clear information is most important, and his indecisiveness at this critical moment is crucially dangerous. (Today's New York Times headline: Trump Resists Appeals for More Urgent Action.) Every time he speaks the stock market drops into freefall.  That's even before we get to his diversionary racism. No wonder that Rachel Maddow suggests the media stop enabling him, and refuse to carry his statements live.

He outdid even himself at his press conference the other day when an admittedly combative NBC reporter ended a series of tough questions with a slow one, belt high, over the plate: he asked what the President of the United States would tell people who are scared.  Instead of taking this opportunity to offer words of compassion, reassurance and leadership--let alone inspiration--Trump let loose with a pent-up tirade attacking the integrity of the reporter and his entire TV network.  So instead of a leader, we've got--at best--the Asshole-in-Chief.

By contrast, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, hit all the right notes in her TV address to her nation.  First of all, the event assumed great importance because it is rare--she simply doesn't bloviate publicly, and rarely gives speeches on TV.  So people were listening, and what they heard informed and inspired them.

She did not minimize the situation, but she did so within a noble framework:  “Since German unification—no, since the Second World War—no challenge to our nation has ever demanded such a degree of common and united action.”

Of the speech, which contained no specifics about required actions, reporter Justin Davidson writes: "Yet what gave her address its force was her tone, which was direct, honest, and searingly empathic. She laid bare not just the test we all face but also the solace that leadership can provide. Without accusations, boasts, hedges, obfuscations, dubious claims, or apocalyptic metaphors she did what a leader is supposed to do: explain the gravity of the situation and promise that the government’s help would flow to everyone who needed it.

This is a war without a human enemy, and Merkel lay no blame. She asked for the sacrifice of discipline, for heroic acts of kindness. She acknowledged the paradox in calling for solidarity and apartness at the same time. She understood how painful it is that just when people desperately want to come together, families and friends have to endure separation."

Further, what Merkel did was praise those whose behavior is a model for the needed behavior throughout the crisis.  But not just medical workers, the most obvious. "Those who sit at supermarket cash registers or restock shelves are doing one of the hardest jobs there is right now.”

America is missing this unifying voice.  It is missing this grasp of the situation and understanding of what is necessary that could deploy the power of the federal government.

But the good news is that others are not waiting helplessly for the asshole in chief and a fractured Congress.  They are utterly ignoring the former.  In terms of governance it is the governors of the states who are leading.

Ann Marie Slaughter in the New York Times chronicles some of these efforts: "But if this crisis is highlighting our weaknesses as a nation, it is also bringing out some of our greatest strengths. In the absence of competent national leadership, others are stepping up. Governors and mayors, business owners, university presidents, philanthropists, pastors and nonprofit groups of all kinds have taken the initiative to mobilize, guide and protect those they lead and serve."

These--as well as true medical experts-- are the people we need to be listening to. Not the Asshole in Chief.

Slaughter continues: "These are the hallmarks of a horizontal, open society, one that is often inefficient but ultimately more innovative and resilient than closed, top-down systems. That is not to excuse the absence of national leadership; many Americans are likely to die who could have been protected had the nation been better prepared and better led. When people are suffering and dying and a virus is propagating, high-quality, centralized, top-down direction is critical.

Over the longer term, however, we are better off with as much experimentation and as many leaders as possible, not only to spur the kinds of innovations that will protect us from the virus (vaccines, treatments, cheaper and better medical equipment) but also to guide our transition to a very different world."

This pivot point of Slaughter's piece leads to the subject of an upcoming post--what people are saying about what may await us on the other side of this.