“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” – Abraham Lincoln
In a world once seen as dominated by the west, particularly the United States, we now seem to be coming apart at the seams—albeit slowly—since the 2000s, largely by our own hand. Often we are like children who, finding a lose thread on their pants, will tug at that thread until a hole develops making the entire pair of pants useless. Trust me, I know. Did it all the time. Lost lots of change that way.
We are losing much more than the change in our pockets,
though. The west seems to be in rapid decline, with an apparently ascendant
Asia, led by China, India, Russia, and Iran in the Middle East. None of them
are very fond of us and for good reasons, from their various points of view. In
the meantime, America is doing its level-headed best to fight its own civil war
on every cultural front it can find. Here are just a few examples:
- Woke culture to include the dissolution of nuclear family, capitalism, religion, and the rearing of gender neutral children
- Federal spending to pay voluntary debt like mortgages and student loans
- Defunding law enforcement and the radical revision of the U.S. Constitution
- Refusing prosecutions for violent crimes in major cities
- Permitting unbridled organized looting, rioting, and substance use in the streets
Conversely, those who would pose as leaders in this country can hardly conjure an intelligent phrase, question, or inspirational comment between them. At a time in our history when we definitely could use some inspirational leadership that sounded wise, mature, and not prepared for a soundbite on The Daily Show on Comedy Central or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO, we don’t appear to have any.
One case in point from this past week, has U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene calling out another Congressman in public, during a committee hearing for having an extramarital affair with a Chinese spy (no proof of information sharing), and during the same hearing calling the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas a liar for not stopping the trafficking of fentanyl into the country. Her outbursts earned her a prohibition from further speaking due to her impugning of people’s character.
Coinciding with the lunatic right’s propensity to shoot itself in both feet with just about every word, vote, and declaration—either by one of its congress members, other elected officials, or Fox News—we have similar poor behavior and speaking by the culture-war driven left. I never thought I would be able to say that any member of The Squad—that now famous group of socialists that has grown since the last election—would sound more reasonable than the likes of MTG, Pistol-packin’ Lauren Bobert, or the now infamous fraud George Santos.
It's so exhausting. And this isn’t just my take. According to an NBC News poll released today, 70% of Americans aren’t enthusiastic about another Trump-Biden rematch in 2024, and most Democrats don’t support Biden, at all.
Between Biden’s apparent instability/senility (depending on your political leanings) and Trumps criminality, mouthiness, and tendency toward litigation (again, depending on your political leanings) Americans aren’t offered much in the way of inspiring leadership by either of these men, nor any of those who fall far beneath them in the poll data. This, in a time when our nation desperately needs someone to stand and deliver in a Churchillian moment in our history, even as we fade into insignificance.
Does the nation have anyone capable of the kind of reasoning, politicking, and coalition building skills needed to bring the country together for the good of all? Not according to Pew Research. The chasm between left and right in this beautiful land is at its widest point ever. Politics everywhere is more of a left vs. right brawl. Congress and the executive branches, indeed those branches at the state and local levels have been reduced to deceptive snippets for public consumption on news shows, not for collegial, meaningful deliberation.
Pew Research released a poll which says that sizable majorities of American adults believe that by 2050—if I am still alive, I will be a little older than my Dad is now—the U.S. economy will be weaker, the U.S. will be less important, the wealth gap will be wider, and we will be more politically divided than we are now. To me, “more divided than we are now” would pretty much look like anarchy or a zombie apocalypse, and that’s no joke. You must be hiding under a rock to not see what’s happening on the streets of most of the major cities of America: they’re out of control, often willingly by the decisions of the local governments.
It has been about 80 years since we had the kind of leader we needed for a moment in time in which history screamed for decisive, unifying, wise leadership such as we need right now. World War II produced Franklin Roosevelt. There have been other crises since then that required that caliber of leader, yet we didn’t get one. It is terrifying to think that we have no one up to the task who immediately comes to mind.
We’ve already had four years of the divisive and crass Donald Trump. His outsider’s misunderstanding of even the most basic machinations of how Washington, D.C. works—much less constitutional government has been eclipsed by the ultimate insider, the string-pulled puppet Joe Biden who reportedly needs sleep throughout the day in an attempt to make himself able to read teleprompter texts, and not appear feeble.
The Internet Age, with the immediacy of social media has made finding world class leaders harder, since looks, and not depth seem more important to those who get their information this way most of time.
Let me encourage you who look at the surface of things without digging in too deeply. Great leaders have important things beyond education, and the ability to work very hard to achieve goals with others, including those they don’t get along with:
- Charisma - like John F. Kennedy, saying the right thing at the perfect time
- Assertiveness - both Roosevelts, Teddy and FDR, had the ability to unite sides to achieve great goals
- Commitment & resilience – Abraham Lincoln is the model for this by any stretch of the imagination. Getting us through the Civil War and reunifying a torn country, while leaving a model for moving forward.
- Handling stress & controlling impulses – JFK and Barack Obama remind me of calm under pressure every time I see a news video of either of them. They never lost it in public and always handled the media without hiding from it.
- Openness – openness to many things that are new, even pioneering. All of America’s greatest presidents had the ability to see a greater America and enunciate a vision to the country which could unify the people of that time and move toward a common goal.
There’s somebody out there who is up to the task. That woman or man is not on the radar right now but should be. I’m a prayerful man, and I believe we will recognize a great leader soon but we as a nation have to stop deluding ourselves into believing this will happen by accident.
The French Enlightenment philosopher Joseph de Maistre said it best:
The French Enlightenment philosopher Joseph de Maistre said it best:
“Every country has the government it deserves.”
Absolutely. Nothing could be truer about 2023 United States.
What will you do to deserve better?
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