Modern leadership can be described in part by the lack of individual, internal and personal leadership. What does that mean? Essentially, there are millions of teens and 20-somethings who have finished their childhoods, schooling, even college for many, and arrived at a point in their lives: about 30 at the oldest – when they should be taking charge of personal events. They should be building careers but they are buried in little screens of non-reality, comparing relatively meaningless consequences. Who among them could “lead” in any direction? They are, in fact, easily LED. Like modern “LED’s” they have small impacts except to give off light when switched on by a “leader” who has reached them socially, with no prior personal connection, valuation or judgment.
Political leadership is the model of “leadership” for most people, today. Each must choose a course or direction and communicate it, and his or her reasons for choosing it. The success of that leadership is election and the gaining of some level of legal power, which the new office-holder claims is truly power belonging to all who worked so hard to get out the vote, etcetera, etcetera. In most cases, inexorably, only the elected person gains very much – he or she and those who garner favors from his or her new position. The Mission, then, turns out to be quite personal and bears no serious risk for failure. Was there leadership? Not in a classical sense, although in a modern one, perhaps.
One might suggest a postulate: The more personally enriching it becomes to win an election, the less likely widespread benefit or moral strengthening of the polity will result.
An unfortunate reverse postulate also writes itself: The more personally risky or costly a political campaign is to the candidate, the greater the likelihood of positive widespread benefit should he or she win, and the greater the forces that will array against that candidate’s success.
Is it as simple or as “clean” as that? Does the same dichotomy fit other forms of leadership?
Now that government leaves nothing and no one alone, leadership – in terms of effecting change – is grievously political, which is to say, tied to gaining and holding political power. If a politician becomes wealthy in the process, all the better, but gaining elected power isn’t everything… it’s the only thing. And in our soup of communication overload, the democracies of the world are at a distinct disadvantage in matters of social and national cohesiveness. In other words, short-term power is subject to instant and widespread pressures to make changes beneficial to ever-smaller “communities,” and no one, no one, is holding the line against social corruption.
Pandering has become retail… online retail. What has become of leadership? When leaders are discussed, now, they are either somewhat dictatorial, like Putin, Khamenei, Li Keqiang, even Kim Jong Un. What about Trump? Unlike true dictators, Trump is bound by cooperation with representatives who are intensely sensitive to retail forces of social change, including removal of borders and national identity. To the degree that he can exert some power vis a’ vis other, less malleable nations, he exhibits many hallmarks of leadership, something most American politicians creatively retreat from.
Given that most of the planet is explored and most markets interconnected, leadership is lately more “thought-leadership.” That is, influencers of what others believe. These are decreasingly Christian belief-leaders and much more often sexual-abandon leaders or, a small journey away, hate-leaders. While the sexual-abandon leaders break down old standards, beliefs and word meanings (public schools raise your hands), hate leaders can in minutes, not only destroy individuals and their livelihoods, but also families and friendships, the fabric of civility. A list of actively hated people and causes is disturbing:
• Donald Trump
• Family members of Donald Trump
• Every member of Trump administration
• Anyone who voted for Trump
• Anyone expressing support for Trump
• Republicans, unless very liberal
• Conservatives
• Opponents of abortion
• Limiters of abortion
• Those opposed to public funding of abortion
• Christians if they “act Christian”
• Politicians in favor of Christian prayer
• Meat eaters
• Farmers deemed unkind to chickens
• Companies owned by Christians
• Straights
• Straights uncomfortable with homosexuals
• People who disagree with homosexual marriage
• People who say they disagree with homosexual marriage
• People who disagree with “gay” rights
• People who disagree with teaching homosexuality in schools
• People who don’t believe in transgenderism
• People who believe in boys’ and girls’ bathrooms
• People opposed to homosexual adoption
• People opposed to self-declared gender identity
• People who disagree with unregulated welfare
• People who disagree with unregulated food-stamps
• People who want illegal entrants deported or kept out
• People who support the amended Constitution, every word
• People opposed to legalized drugs
• People who want lower taxes
• People who believe in American exceptionalism
• People opposed to Socialism
• People opposed to Communism
• People skeptical of Islam
• People opposed to Sharia law
• People opposed to black racism
• People opposed to Black Lives Matter organization
• People opposed to “Antifa”
• People in favor of Israel
• Jews
• People in favor of Jews
• People skeptical of Climate Change
• People “opposed” to science
• People opposed to unions
• People opposed to public-sector unions
• ICE
• Border Patrol
• American Flag
• Declaration of Independence
• U. S. Constitution
The reader may not have heard every one of the instances of hatred listed, but some of them, certainly. Each is disturbing when the fact of its ability to affect politics, civil discourse, even civility itself, is understood. The days of disagreement are over for many on the left, it seems; their aims now include destruction of both individuals and beliefs, causes and of the nation, itself.
One of our major parties has departed from its drift leftward and begun to rush somewhat blindly toward radical socialism. Republicans, feeling confident with Trumps popularity ratings, are failing to grasp the need to LEAD the nation away from the base hatreds of liberty that “leaders” on the left are using to gain power. The ridiculousness of statements by Rep. Maxine Waters and others seems obvious to the right.
The left evidently believes that now is the culmination of their 100-year plan to undermine the experiment known as the United States of America. Their dream is that “the American Dream” of all kinds of people living together under individual freedom and individual responsibility, morality and civility toward all, shall be snuffed out.
Where are the leaders?