Donald Trump yesterday said, "It’s been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about COVID. I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school. This isn't the 'let's read the books' school."
Trump’s statement reveals three qualities that alone disqualify him for the presidency, have prevented him from being a competent president, and hopefully cost him the reelection. These three qualities that he lacks and that every president must have are: empathy, erudition, and humility.
When a leader has empathy, he or she feels whatever the people feel. They can put themselves in the shoes of the suffering, and want nothing more than to end it. When someone is a good leader, the people’s pain becomes the leader’s pain. A good leader does not rest until the suffering of the people comes to an end. A good leader does not have to go through the suffering himself to understand what the people are going through. A good leader is one who does not need to be struck by the plague to urge the senate to pass a relief bill for the suffering of his people. A good leader can feel the desperation and depression of the people and families who have lost loved ones, a job, or a home. A good leader puts the needs of the people above his own selfish desires. A good leader can understand through things outside of himself.
Trump is incapable of seeking understanding outside of himself not only because of his lack of empathy but also due to a lifetime of lacking in an appreciation for and refinement through erudition, or as Donald Trump would call it, “book learning.” Because he has gone through life just sort of “winging it” and only using the existing knowledge in his own head to make decisions, he does not value the scientists and their scientific knowledge acquired through years of study through books, and the years of application of that knowledge. He did not have to understand this virus through, “ the real school,” he could have simply listened to the experts and advised the people on what the experts were telling him to do to save people’s lives.
This inability to take the advice of experts, and lack of desire to learn from them is a result of his inability to humble himself and say, “I do not understand this but I will seek understanding by learning from those who do know.” His pride like anyone’s pride is the enemy of humility. He, like many of us, at some time in our lives have said, “ I don’t need you,” or “I know better than you,” or “I already know how.” A person’s pride can only carry them so far until like the old biblical adage says, “pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall,” and the person is brought down to a lowly teachable position. Unfortunately for Donald Trump, he often refuses to humble himself even after the fall; in fact his pattern is to double down and continue doing the opposite of what the experts advise. In the case of the devastating Covid 19 pandemic, it took Trump getting the virus and facing his own mortality, before he tweeted to congress to pass a covid bill. His pride costs this country jobs, homes, businesses, and lives. Because he did not humble himself to the experts and surrender to the truth of which they spoke, over 7 million people contracted covid 19, and 210,000 souls have lost their lives to it. To put this in perspective, we are leading the world in cases and deaths, with only 4% of the world’s population. This virus started in China, a country with 1.3 billion people, but because their leader humbled himself, respected the science, and cared enough, he listened to the scientists resulting in a policy that virtually eradicated the virus and got the economy back to booming.
We have had four years of a president who thinks he knows more than the experts, values the school of life over book learning, lacks the ability and the desire to connect with the people, and who bases policy on what he thinks is best rather than what the experts recommend. We have all known people like this and maybe even have one or two in our families; these flaws however, can not be in the character of the President of the United States and the leader of the free world. The President must value education and live in the intellectual waters of life. He or she must value research, empirical data, science, and especially the experts of long study who have brought us such knowledge. A president must love the people, and be in his position only to serve the people. Trump can not serve the people because he does not know the people or want to know them or their problems, he does not have the knowledge to help the people, nor does he have the humility to ask experts how to help the people. It is time for a President who does know what the people are going through, who will use his knowledge of the law and government to make things better for the people, and who is humble enough to ask for help and learn from the experts; it is time for President Joe Biden.