(Come join me on Substack at https://janlinn.substack.com/p/a-pedestrian-presidency.)
“Where there is no vision, the people perish,” writes the Hebrew wisdom writer (Proverbs 29:18).
That sounds like the beginning of a sermon, but it is actually an explanation of why Donald Trump’s presidency is flailing and failing.
It’s not the only reason, but it identifies the impact all the other reasons are having.
The Trump presidency has no vision for the country. Instead, it is absolutely and utterly pedestrian, dull, utterly and totally lacking in imagination.
Not once has Trump called on the nation to band together to achieve anything great or difficult or demanding.
That’s what presidents do, but not Trump. He’s too pedestrian to know where to even begin to articulate a vision for the country.
At the most critical moments in history, American Presidents have been leaders with great vision, electric imaginations, uniting us as a people to a common cause, assuring us that whatever the challenge, we will prevail.
George Washington had the vision of the nation uniting together in the peaceful transfer of power, choosing not to run for a third term as president even though the founders wanted him to.
Theodore Roosevelt had the vision of a nation that protected and preserved its most majestic places of beauty as he created five of our most beautiful national parks.
Abraham Lincoln had the vision of a nation at war against itself uniting once again to preserve the great experiment of a government of, by, and for the people.
Franklin Roosevelt had a vision of a New Deal for the American people that would raised them out of abject poverty during the Great Depression.
John Kennedy had the vision of an America demonstrating its capacity to lead the world in scientific advancement by landing a man on the moon.
Barack Obama had the vision of an America no longer lagging behind 75 other developed nations in providing basic healthcare to its people as a human right.
Others like Martin Luther King, Jr. have also cast great visions for America, but we naturally look to our president first and foremost for that kind of inspiration.
Casting a vision for the nation is what presidents do. It’s how they lead. Some have had oratory skills others have not had, but all of them have used their voice to unite us, inspire us, encourage us, assure us that there was no challenge we could not meet if we worked together.
Every president has done that…until Donald Trump.
He has no vision for the nation. He and his presidency are so ordinary that being pedestrian would be an improvement.
He thrives on condemning, dividing, dismissing, pitting one group of us against another, lying, telling us how great he is rather than what great things we can do together.
His mantra to make America great again is itself an intentional slap in the face of the presidents who’ve gone before him, especially Obama and Biden, because he is too small to build on the accomplishments of others.
As a result, America is in decline. Historians are already writing about the era in which American exceptionalism as a concept died from a lack of vision.
A nation once admired by the world, Trump has brought us down to a level where our friends no longer look to us for leadership and no longer trust that our word is our bond.
The vision of America as a city on a hill, a light shining in the darkness, makes the world laugh at us rather than acknowledging the pivotal place we occupy in world affairs.
Foreign leaders do not want to be seen as standing with or beside Donald Trump because they know their own people abhor everything about him.
This is the challenge we face as Americans today, a president who has no vision for the country he leads.
But, as always, we, the people, are proving ourselves resourceful, offering a vision for ourselves in the absence of one being articulated by a pedestrian president.
We are showing that we can rise to the occasion and save ourselves from perishing in a sea of chaos, conflict, division, and discouragement caused by the person who is too consumed with himself to care about the rest of us.
We are casting our own vision, as the people of Minneapolis did in January when we said NO to Trump’s vision of troops in the streets of American cities, choosing instead a vision of neighbor helping neighbor.
Ours is a different vision from what Trump brings to his job, one where diversity is valued, equity is affirmed, and inclusion continues to story of our immigrant heritage.
The three NO KINGS marches and protests drawing millions of us to unite in solidarity with one another raised our sights to a vision of one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice FOR ALL.
Because Trump has no vision, for all practical purposes, his presidency is dead. He is left to firing off unhinged social media screeds in the middle of the night, proving again and again how truly pedestrian he is.
He still has support from people as pedestrian in their thinking as he is. But the majority of us want more. We want a president who calls us to tap into our better selves, let our words and actions be guided by our better angels, as Lincoln said.
It will be a while before we have a president with vision again. Until we do, it will have to come from us.
And we are proving that we are up to the challenge.
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