Democrats, Republicans and The Failure of Leadership
When Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President on June 16, 2015, I along with many others thought it was a stunt to generate some buzz for his “reality” show The Apprentice. Whether or not, this was yet another of Trump’s marketing stunts, it turned out to be the end of both the Democratic and Republican parties. If the leaders of both parties had shown even the slightest bit of leadership, there’s no way Trump would have gotten within miles of the White House. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that we’ve been experiencing a leadership crisis for many years now. Trump becoming President of the United States is simply the a physical manifestation of that failure.
Leadership is about vision, insight, integrity and inspiration. Vision, meaning the ability to see beyond what others see in order to take your group to a better place. Insight, meaning the ability to look at a thing or a person and to discern what others cannot. Being able to gain a deep and accurate assessment of whatever one focuses on is a rare talent. Integrity means being honest, trustworthy and having ethics and morals. And finally inspiration. The word inspiration comes from the Latin word inspirare which means to “blow into,” “breathe upon.” So, to inspire means to excite or inflame.
Take a look at those words again, vision, insight, integrity and inspiration. Those encompass the foundational traits of leadership. Can you truly look at the DNC and GOP and see how they’ve exhibited any of these traits? No, they haven’t. And thus, Trump was able to come along, and speaking the words of a populist, inflame the hearts of a downtrodden country and win the Presidential election. We can debate the popular vote versus the Electoral College vote another time.
And what of Hillary Clinton, whose entire campaign boiled down to, “Vote for me, I’m a woman and I’m not Trump.” Where was the vision and inspiration in her campaign? There was none. For the most part, her campaign barely had a pulse.
Regardless of whether you lean right, left, or center, we should all agree that in order to be a Democratic Republic, two privately owned corporations (The DNC and GOP) should not have been allowed to control the election the way they did. The Republican establishment fought hard against Trump with their #NotTrump and #NeverTrump campaigns. Of course, all this did was to solidify Trump as a Washington outsider which just made him stronger. Now that he’s won, the Republicans smelling the intoxicating scent of power are trying to play nice with Trump. Where were the Republican candidates that truly believed in small government and individual freedom? Well, unless they were able to convince a billionaire to fund their campaign, they couldn’t buy a ticket into the game.
Wikileaks showed that the DNC worked overtime to kneecap Bernie Sanders and prevent him from winning the Democratic nomination. Despite his excited base who would have come out in a Democratic deluge to vote for him. The DNC allows owns a large portion of the blame for allowing Trump to become president.
Leadership was nowhere to be found in either party. And I sense that they will never find it because they don’t care to. When the people cried for someone to throw them a lifeline to keep them from drowning, the DNC decided to give them Hillary Clinton. During a feverishly anti establishment year, the DNC refused to change directions. As has been written repeatedly elsewhere, Clinton was a wounded, and disliked candidate. So after she lost what did the DNC decide to do? They decided to double down and give them Nancy Pelosi to lead the minority party. Because nothing says “we’ve heard your pleas and are heading in a new direction” like bringing back a 76 year old person who has been in congress since Full House aired its first episode, Michael Jackson released his album, “Bad,” and a gallon of gas cost 89 cents. Where’s the leadership?
The Republicans who used to be the party of small government and individual liberty, can’t seem to throw enough money at the Pentagon, and want to be in your bedroom, a woman’s uterus and watching you at all times. Tell us again how free we are?
A true leader would talk with the people and create a vision for the future. Based on Trump’s cabinet picks so far, we’re going to live in a full-fledged oligarchy. Not that we haven’t been already, but now the veil has been lifted, the curtain pulled back and it’s in plain sight for all to see.
The United States has a population of over 325 million people. Where are the Thomas Jefferson’s, the Abraham Lincoln’s and John F. Kennedy’s? Are we to believe that within such a diverse population there aren’t any great men and women ready to rise to the challenge? Of course there are, but because the DNC and GOP are private organizations run to benefit their donors, they won’t allow greatness anywhere near center stage.
The DNC and GOP are dead. They’re dead to the people, and in time, once the people wake up to this, they will demand that true leaders be allowed to lead.