Listening to NPR this morning, I heard an interview with Joe Biden. He’s written a book about his son Bo and in the media tour, plenty of journalists are asking him questions about the current political scene. I was struck again by how much I miss civil, articulate, and thoughtful political discourse from leaders who wish to help us to be better. Biden pointed out the danger of silence in the face of Nazi and KKK-supporters and called it out by noting that, “silence is complicity." At one point in the interview he notes that American influence and strength in the world is less about “the example of our power” and more about “the power of our example.” It was refreshing and honest. It was leadership. Vice President Biden spoke of a nation I want to be part of; one that is aspirational in search of being better together.
In last week’s election, New Jersey elected a Democrat as our next Governor. His name is Phil Murphy. He comes into office with a Lt. Governor named Sheila Oliver, New Jersey’s first African American in the position. In this morning’s news, I learned that Murphy’s transition committees are majority woman and majority people of color. Murphy is white, a former banker, and at the start I feel like we may very well have a thoughtful woke leader on hand. In any case, it’s a promising beginning and I feel optimistic, a far cry from the sentiments that consumed me last November.
As I think about this year of Trump, I’m struck by the realization that things have been every bit as horrifying as I feared. Trump had no honeymoon, but in all fairness he never made a single effort to govern as a leader with a tentative hold on the position. Rather than acknowledge the reality that winning the Electoral College without securing a majority of the national vote placed him on thin ice, he bullied forward with slippery lies (looking at you, inaugural crowd claims) and an attachment to the bully side of the pulpit that show him to be small-minded, self-absorbed, and ignorant.
At every juncture, Trump has dodged responsibility, blaming the Obama Administration for all foreign policy challenges he faces and announcing that all policy failures belong to Congress. He doesn’t understand even the most basic principles of our system of government and he doesn’t care to try to understand. He’s made things uglier and meaner; his only skills are in self-aggrandizement and lying. He uses those deceptions to attack everyone, including the media, and challenge the very idea that truth exists.
At 10 months in to his leadership, his presidential approval rating is the lowest of any president in the modern era. It shows signs of sinking further. As a nation, we are divided and wary, some of us furiously angry and others of us disheartened and afraid. It doesn’t feel very great.
Last week’s elections in New Jersey and Virginia offer the prospect of much-needed hope; a semblance of measured reason in a sea of ugly tweets and lies. I find myself clinging to them as we head into 2018 and the next electoral season. There are signs that we understand the power of our example. For ourselves and the world I sure hope that is the case.
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