Lots of people have drawn parallels between UK prime minister Boris Johnson and our own lovable commander-in-chief Donald Trump. Examples include their mutual conservative leanings, nationalist screamings and wispy – Brits might say “candyfloss” – hair. If you want to see an entertaining comparison of the two that might end with you wishing you were a Royal subject instead of a colonist, watch John Oliver’s expose from a year or so ago.
More recently Johnson and Trump have shared membership in
the “screwed the pooch on COVID” club. Johnson famously began the journey
suggesting that building widespread COVID immunity through mass infection was
the way to go, while Trump went for the far simpler, “this is not the pandemic
you’re looking for” Jedi mind trick. Neither worked and, since then, both have
had to moderate their approaches and modulate their rhetoric – somewhat. But differences remain.
For one thing, the US has over 208,000 COVID
related deaths, which is the worst possible statistic I’ve ever written;
while the UK has 42,000. Still horrific, to be sure; plus the deaths as a
percentage of the total population is dead-even at .06%. So maybe that makes
you feel better, although I can’t imagine how.
Another similarity is growing dissatisfaction across the
pond with Johnson’s administration’s competence in managing the crisis. In that
regard, he is under fire in much the same way Trump is here; although it’s
tough to say from this distance who is imperiled more. One thing I
will say is a headline caught my eye today and made me squint a little at the screen. It said, “Boris
Johnson apologizes for getting his own Covid rules wrong.”
It said he “apologizes.”
That word caught me off guard, I’ll admit. It’s not unlike
what happens when you watch a rerun on TV and two characters kiss and you
flinch and internally scream, “your mask! Where’s your mask? Are you crazy?!”
“Boris Johnson apologizes.” It said so right in the
headline.
Maybe it was a mistake, so I read the article. But nope, it
references a Johnson tweet where he says, in direct quotes, “Apologies. I
misspoke today.”
By the way, can I say how tired I am of presidents and prime
ministers tweeting? If we wanted an 8th grader for president, we
would have elected one. I’ll pause while you finish the joke silently in your
own head. Ready? Good. Let’s move on.
It’s the day of the first presidential debate and I’m marveling
at the break in nouveau presidential protocol that, up until not very long ago,
wouldn’t have even been a consideration. Imagine being a world leader in an
unprecedented health crisis and saying to the people, “Ooops, sorry, there’s a
lot going on and information is changing rapidly. I’m only human and I’m trying
to get the most information and make the best decisions I can, as fast as
possible. Obviously, even one person dying from this thing will weigh heavily
on me and all of us, but I want you to know it’s the most important thing on my
plate and I’m doing the very best I can for you, and for all of us.”
Whew, I got a little teary-eyed there. Can you even imagine
what it would feel like to have a leader like that? Someone who wasn’t afraid
to admit he was human? Fallible? Working to do his best, not claiming to own
the patent on what’s right? Isn’t that a leader we would all want, assuming we
had that option? I mean, let’s face it, doctors haven’t been able to achieve
uniform consensus about COVID, even today, so clearly you can’t fault a
bureaucrat in a suit and a big office for not having all the answers and making
all the right decisions months and months ago. That’s just not reasonable. That
rejects the laws of nature, human and otherwise.
But is it too much to want a leader who is transparent, who
admits what everyone already knows – that a pandemic is larger than all of us,
and that we are hampered by discovery before we can embark on recovery? Don’t
we want a leader who isn’t afraid to change his mind as the base of knowledge
grows? We should hold our leaders accountable to a high standard of integrity,
not omnipotence. One is attainable, one is not. We should hold our leaders
accountable for doing the right thing for the right reasons, not for picking a
path and doubling down when times get tough.
Do you know how I know that? I’m a parent. And that’s what I
hope I’ve (we’ve) instilled in my children. Have a soul. Be thoughtful. Do the
right thing, whenever possible. Don’t let having done the wrong thing (because
we all do!) justify doing the wrong thing again. And the main thing my wife has
hammered into my head over decades, which has finally taken hold, sorta: It’s more important to be kind than right.
To be fair, I enjoy being right more than almost anything, so in my daily life
I aspire to being both. When I can.
So OK, all of this is backward-looking, which is of limited
value. In the Boris Johnson article, we are reminded that many in the UK are
troubled by how indecisive or uninformed or scattered he and his people are
being with regard to COVID policy. In comparison, people here in the US who are
displeased with Donald Trump’s COVID response are displeased with his rigid
adherence to the “this is not a problem, we are doing great” talk track and
aggressive “reopen business” mandate. I guess my question is, which is better? What
are we more comfortable with?
It’s an important question, because I feel like – starting with
the debate tonight – we might have an opportunity to test the candidates, as
well as ourselves. If there’s one thing I’ve learned during four years of
President Donald Trump, it’s that he absolutely will not change, no way, no how, and when
challenged based on his motivations he will respond by defending his point of
view and inflaming those who agree with it. How would President Joe Biden respond? We
can only guess, since he has never been president before. That said, the
only thing we have control over is WHAT DO WE WANT?
I can answer that for me, certainly. I want a guy (or gal,
let’s be clear) who is more like my wife. I want someone who will admit his
humanity, define himself by it. I want someone who is principled but fallible.
I want someone who will make mistakes within reason, acknowledge them, learn
from them, and do better. I want someone who earns our support by earning our
trust. I recognize that there are bad people out there, powerful people who are
bad: people without principle who don’t play by the rules. I can only imagine
what it would be like to line up behind a leader who was under attack by such
people but who had earned my support and respect by being unwilling to bow to
the base instincts of mankind.
This has gotten pretty political, obviously. I’m not sure
how any conversation, about anything, over the next several weeks can escape
being political. I won’t apologize for it, but I also won’t reduce myself to
campaigning for, or against, anyone. I would love it, though, if people around
the nation would think, mull over questions, push themselves out from their
comfort zones – in the privacy of your own mind – about these important issues.
Because the choices we make, including those we decline to make, are the choices
we own. And we are responsible for the consequences therefrom.
Over the past year, accelerated by the wear and tear of
George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, I have come to believe the base narrative that
systems of government, society and business have all been engineered in the context
of a white reality in which both whites and non-whites reside. This is
traumatic for me. Further, I refuse to be branded by this information, nor
reviled because I am white and grew up in the only manner available to me.
Anyone who wants to make judgments about me based on being a gainfully employed
white guy in his fifties can suck it.
But that said, I own who I am and what I want. I can look
back and see a time when life was easier and more comfortable and, if I’m a
pinhead, long for those times. But since I’m not a pinhead, I can also look
forward to a time that is different than “the good old days,” and maybe not
easy in ways that I don’t even understand yet; but that is a better time. When
I was younger I wanted to be a screenwriter, a jet pilot, a singer-songwriter.
I’m none of those things, and that’s okay because I have people I care about,
who care about me, and a desire to be a good person.
I recognize if I was a superstar it would be a lot harder to
put all that at risk in order to be a good person, open to change, open to
growing. We’re taught to want what we want and to hold on desperately to what
we get. Maybe the only thing of value I have are the people I keep close. Maybe
I just don’t have enough material wealth to be concerned about losing what I
have or sharing what I could have.
Or maybe it’s as simple as this: I want to hold onto my
humanity. I want that to be how I live, and how I’m known; and, eventually, how
I’m remembered. And I’m curious how many others there are like me out there.
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