America has lost the “Art of Leadership.” We no longer develop men and women with integrity and courage. Instead of Statesmen, we have political hacks only concerned with getting reelected. Instead of people with a backbone and the guts to stand up against injustice, we have a Congress of sycophants willing to do whatever they are told to do regardless of how unethical or immoral it may be. We have thousands of lawyers who do not uphold justice but find arguments to support an amorality that meets the letter of the law but ignores the significance of decency, goodness, honesty, conscience and fairness.
In my next blogs, I want to write about 41 insights regarding leadership from one of the greatest American leaders and Presidents of all time. I found a compilation of these insights in an old collectors edition of “Civil War Times” published in Winter, 2013. I would like for you to hear the words of Abraham Lincoln and what he had to say about leadership. I will include some of my own experiences from my years of working with senior management in over 32 organizations. Some of the men and women I worked with were incredible leaders. Most of them wanted to be better leaders and that is where I brought the teachings and thoughts of W. E. Deming to my consulting practice. Dr. Deming achieved extraordinary results in business by tapping the knowledge, skills and abilities of ordinary people. Senator Hubert Humphrey famously said that “Democracy is a system that achieves extraordinary results with ordinary people.”
I should issue one caveat before I begin this series. There are some who disparage “Honest Abe” as not really caring about slavery. They argue, Lincoln only fought the war to save the Union and not to free the slaves. My readings and knowledge of Lincoln shows that nothing, I repeat NOTHING could be further from the truth. Lincoln was appalled at slavery from the time he was a young child until he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The idea that Abe did not care about slavery is a lie fostered by a bitter Confederacy that wanted to hide their heinous practice behind the cloak of states rights.
Lincoln said, “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.” –August 22, 1862, Letter to Horace Greeley
Lincoln also said, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.” —August 22, 1862, Letter to Horace Greeley
Two very different goals. Two very different thoughts. What are we to make of Lincoln’s motivations? The Confederacy pushed the latter because it justified their defense of States rights to choose slavery as a viable economic system. Several of the constitutions of the new Confederate states proclaimed their rights to practice slavery.
In its statement for seceding from the Union, the state of Georgia wrote the following:
“The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose.”
Alexander H. Stephens, the Confederate vice president said the following:
“Our new government is founded upon . . . its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition.”
Lincoln was always against slavery. Long before he became president he argued about the evil and immorality of slavery. He modified this position to include saving the Union at the beginning of the war as a political expedient to gain support for the war. As it became clear that the North would win and thereby have the power to free the slaves and abolish slavery, that became his main objective. There can be no doubt that he did both. There can be no doubt that in doing so, he signed his death certificate. Like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and many other civil rights martyrs, the cause of equal rights for all has always been a precarious position to assume.
Lincoln said that “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Martin Luther King in his famous “I have a Dream” speech said that this promise was an uncashed check. It is now “Eight Score” years from the date of the Emancipation Proclamation and we are once again engaged in a battle between racism and equality, between prejudice and tolerance and between fascism and democracy. We have begun a new “Uncivil War” which has divided the hearts, minds and loyalties of Americans from the East Coast to the West Coast every bit as deeply as did our first Civil War.
Today we face a battle between those who believe that America should be a White Supremacist Christian nation ruled by rich oligarchs and those who believe in the concepts of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. One half of America wants to create a country that believes in the concepts of White exceptionalism, America First and Evangelical Christianity above all over religions. This half praises individual rights above individual responsibilities. The rights of the individual are more important than the rights of society.
The other half of America wants to create a country where racism, sexism, exclusivity and prejudice does not exist. This half believes that responsibilities are just as important as rights. That the rights of others in society must be protected from those who would trample on them. This group believes in democracy over oligarchy. These Americans believe that we all have the right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” as long as we take responsibility to insure that everyone in our nation shares these rights.
The war between these two sides of America has now entered a new phase. The first phase started many years ago. The second phase has started on January 21, 2025. I want to help us to remember the ideas and insights of Abraham Lincoln as we move into this second phase.
Insight # 1
Fight the Good Fight: The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. — Springfield, Illinois, 12/20/1839
Lincoln was thirty years old when he said these words. They reflect the words of Frederic Douglas who said, “ If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.”
The words of Patrick Henry also come to my mind,
“If we wish to be free– if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!
I keep these words and thoughts in my mind as our “Uncivil War” commences the next four years to preserve and protect what we call our democracy. I have no doubt that many people have struggled throughout American history to save things that they believed in. There has been times when African Americans, Latinos, Women, Indigenous People, Asian Americans and LGBTQ people have all been persecuted and where life must have seemed totally unjust and not worth living. Many of us woke up on November 6th with similar feelings. I cringed when I saw people walking around town waving Trump flags and others proclaiming that they voted for Trump. I consoled myself with “hoping they would get what they deserved.” Then I realized that “hope” was not enough. We must fight for what we believe in.
How do we fight an “Uncivil War”? Insight # 2 from Old Abe has some valuable thoughts to help us in this struggle. I will share these in my next blog.
Donald Trump is not America. Donald Trump is a creation of a media empire that is out of control. A media that trends sensationalism, exploitation, fear and paranoia to feed a 24/7 system of so called news reports. A system of glitz, glamour, ads, sound bites, commercials, sex appeal and worthless trivia that has little or no educational or informational value. It is a system that neither informs nor educates. It is a system that thrives on the likes of Donald Trump. It is a system that thrives on the exotic, the unusual, the strange, the bizarre, the kinky, the outlandish and the far out. Donald Trump is all of these things but he is not America.
Donald Trump is not even a real Republican. The party he claims as his own is one he and his small band (less than 9 percent of the total registered voters in the USA)* has managed to co-opt. The Republicans that I have called friends over the years want nothing to do with him. They are as appalled as the Democrats are at Donald Trumps rise to popularity in the media polls. Americans however should not be surprised at this. It is not the first time that a fraud, demagogue and charlatan has captured the media stage. Looking back through US history, we can find similarities between Donald Trump and the likes of Aaron Burr, The Know Nothing Party, Huey Long, The Silver Shirts, and of course Joseph Mc McCarthy. None of my Republican friends would avow affiliation with any of these characters. They are not America and neither is Donald Trump.
Every country in the world has its right and left-wing extremists. It has been this way for hundreds of years. Fortunately, in the USA, our political system usually kicks out the extremists and the middle ground or centrists have always trumped the left and right-wing fanatics. Due to our political system, we have escaped such maniacs as General Franco, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. There are many drawbacks to our political system and chaos often seems to be a major characteristic of it. There are many people who would discard such a system in favor of stability and security. These people would buy such a political system at the cost of freedom and liberty. In many nations throughout the world, citizens select benevolent dictators rather than trying to deal with the vagaries and uncertainties that are often characteristic of a US style democracy.
Donald Trump says that he will create the largest wall that the world has ever seen, but it won’t keep out immigrants. It will only keep out ideas and innovation. Donald Trump supporters include the misguided and fearful who believe that if we only had less poor people, less immigrants, less refugees, less minorities, less disabled people and less women in power that “America Would Be Great Again.” This is a delusion held by those who dream of a bygone era when “Father knew best, Blacks knew their place and women stayed in the kitchen.” The myth of “The Good Old Days” is almost impossible to kill in a population fed on media mediocrity and where real history is either not taught or understood. Donald Trump will not bring back the “good old days” because the good old days where not really that good. Donald Trump will not “Make America White Again.”
What all of Trump’s bombastic speeches fail to note is that America is still great. Unfortunately, the things that make America great are hidden behind the media pronouncements of Donald Trump and his ill-advised followers. The ceaseless stream of bad news, crime, bizarre and weird news that titillates so many also deprives us of being a well-informed populace. In addition, our outlandish media system simply serves to hide the many great values that the USA stands for.
The message of hatred and intolerance that spews daily from Trump is something that one could pity Trump for if it were not so dangerous and belligerent. It is hard to feel sorry for the bully that is kicking other people when they are down. Somewhere though, we know that such bullies are really cowards. Their intolerance and lack of compassion towards others is driven by fear and insecurity. No matter how big and bad the bully seems, they are the biggest cowards in the playground. It is time to put Donald Trump and his followers in their places. There is no room in America for bigots, sexists and racists who are intolerant of and lack compassion for others. We need to keep America great by letting the world see the true values that guide our nations and not the distorted hate filled messages that the media loves to display.
Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire started its decline after having been the greatest empire that the world had yet seen. Many historians point to the decadence of the Roman Empire during its decline. “Decadence” is defined by the Oxford On-Line Dictionary as, “Moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.” The Romans had their “Bread and Circuses.” The Oxford Dictionary defines “Bread and Circuses” as, “A diet of entertainment or political policies on which the masses are fed to keep them happy and docile.” For many, football and politics are the bread and circuses or our American Empire. I think the rot and decay in America today goes much deeper than that. Here is my list of some of the decadence that I see in the USA today:
I have another T-Shirt where I list the “No Exceptions” groups that somehow seem to be conveniently overlooked by many Cultural Christians. The major fallacy that many Christians seem to observe is to define their neighbors as either someone in their own church or in their own social group. When Jesus included the Samaritans who were an outcast group at the time as his neighbors, this should have made it clear that you must go beyond your tribe or friends to include other nations, other ethnicities, other religions, and other people with different beliefs as your neighbor.
A few more months went by and one day I decided to come home from work early. As I entered my house, I heard screams coming from upstairs. I went to a desk and grabbed a loaded Colt Commander 45 ACP that I kept ready for emergencies. I feared that Ashley was being attacked by some unknown intruder. I ran up the stairs and into our bedroom. There on the bed was Ashley and one of the young lawyers from my old law firm. They were both nude and she was on top of him riding him like a bucking bronco. What I thought were screams of pain were screams of ecstasy. I had never heard anything like that from Ashley during our entire marriage.
Years ago, religions enforced what I would call a pseudo moral code through the power of the state to enact laws desired by the most powerful religions. This of course reflected the power that religions had in society back when you could go to hell for missing mass on Sunday. Gambling was verboten. There was legalized horse race betting in only a few states, and a few states had some other sports such as greyhound racing or Jai Alai which you could bet on. Legally, you could only place bets at the venue. Of course, organized crime found it very lucrative to offer “off track” betting. Every street corner where I grew up had a bookie some place or other. And of course, the numbers game was a very popular way for fools to lose their money. Sports betting was done privately, and casino gambling did not start in Las Vegas until 1931. It had been legal earlier but was outlawed in 1910 and not legalized until 1931. The only lottery I ever heard of when I was growing up had to do with the Irish Sweepstakes. There must have been some way to buy these tickets, but I never investigated it.
Whiskey can now be purchased almost 24/7 in many states. You can buy it in grocery stores, gas stations, bars, and convenience stores. Perhaps no substance has been more abhorred by religions than whiskey. Benjamin Franklin said that “Beer is proof that God loved man and wanted him to be happy.” However, this was not the attitude of most religious organizations. Temperance movements motivated by so called moral considerations did their best to ban alcohol in the US. It is illegal in thirteen countries in the world. Several of the world’s major religions ban the use of alcohol. There are seventy-five scripture (Bible) warnings against the drinking of alcohol. Is it any wonder that so many religions have prohibited the drinking of alcohol.
Now there may be some of you reading my blog and expecting a fire and brimstone sermon regarding the sins of humanity and the temptations of the devil. Nothing could be further from my mind. I am not advocating going back to the religious sanctions or beliefs that fueled so much of our political system. In the first place, they were misguided and in the second place they penalized those who could practice moral virtues along with those most reluctant. I could never understand why I could not buy liquor on Sunday or after 10 PM on weekdays or in a grocery store. I have never received a DUI or even a warning for driving drunk.
The government has always been in the marketing business. They would market “SIN” if they could find a way to sell it or allow it to be sold. In some respects, they are already doing that with the legalization of gambling and their promotion of bigger and bigger lotteries. The poor buy more and more tickets when the odds go ever higher against anyone winning. Powerball’s odds are 1 in 292 million, and the combined populations in the states where tickets are sold equal nearly 320 million. What would anyone do with 2 billion dollars? (As I write this, the lottery of 2.0 billion has been won by a single person in California)
Aging Capriciously 