PROFESSOR DONALD

This is a response to my correspondent who asked, “Don’t you ever have anything GOOD to say about Donald Trump?”

Since reaching senior-citizenhood I have found that my social life is increasingly dependent on correspondence, since I can communicate more easily by the written word than by the spoken (and often ill-heard) word. In some ways this has been a broadening experience, since my former social relationships tended to consist of attendance at functions mostly attended by like-minded political believers. My “old buddies” from high school and college were pretty much all in the same category — I went to a liberal prep school and a college where ‘conservative’ was almost a dirty word. Now that I can reach out via the Internet to anyone with an e-mail address I have been able to get in touch with people with whom I disagree politically, and this has proved helpful in allowing me to better understand their positions. It was one such contact who recently sent me that query.

OK. Fair question. So what can I say about the good side of Donald Trump? I have pondered the problem deeply and here is my reply.

I think Donald Trump should get credit for doing all Americans a valuable service by reminding us of what our criteria should be for choosing our political leaders. We refer to them in Congressional debate as “Honorable” and we expect them to live up to the appellation. Our Constitution is written to encourage cooperation and compromise, not to encourage domination by any of the three branches of government. It assumes both good manners and good will. When it comes to our presidents especially (George Washington having declined to consider the offer to be our king) we have always been pretty much agreed on what the basic requirements are. Namely,

• An education that includes a familiarity with our cultural heritage, and a interest in the relationship between Man and his maker — fairness — that goes deeper than just rules covering non disclosure contracts between lender and borrower, or investor and broker, or employer and employee.

• Respect for the fact that his or her national status brings with it a responsibility to represent us all; not just push for benefits to one group of citizens at the expense of others.

• Eloquence in public rhetoric — reasoned persuasiveness rather than bluster and bluff.

• A dignified demeanor that can make us proud of him or her as our representative on the international stage.

• Unquestioned honesty, both political and personal.

In terms of these job requirements Mr. Trump is providing an unparalleled example of an executive who possesses none of them. As a role model he is such a repellent character that even people who continue to defend him on the grounds of the selfish personal benefits they want him to keep on providing them with will privately admit that they would not be able to stomach him as their boss in a private enterprise — or as a son in law.

There are signs that we are starting to learn our lesson. Capable people are declining invitations to work in Washington. Numbers of civil servants, and even legislators, are retiring, unwilling to face more of what Harry Truman called “the heat in the kitchen”. Journalists are abandoning the Fox and Breitbart propaganda machines. Farmers and steel workers and coal miners are waking up to the con game they fell for.

The Donald will undoubtedly be able to continue to find enough Boltons and Sessions and Pences and Pompeos, to help him pull the wagons into a tight circle. That might under ordinary circumstances be enough to keep him in power and out of jail, but unfortunately these are not ordinary circumstances — Kim Jong-un is brandishing his missiles, Vladimir Putin is sending his little green men across his borders in a desperate effort to achieve achieve tsardom, Theresa May is trying her best to pull the plug on future European unity, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have been liberated from centuries old enmity into collaborating to try to save the EU, Ayatolla Khamenei teeters day-to-day with the hard choice between  serving his tenth century vision and allowing Iran to join the modern world, and the likes of Xi Jinping and Mohammad bin Salman have not relinquished their delusion that a rigged vote constitutes a devotion to democratic principles. Meanwhile, thousands of Rohinga and Syrians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Salvadorans and Venezuelans are being blown up or shot or tortured while we in America do our best to look the other way. All these crises cry out for leadership and intervention by our government; not bluster and pouty faces.

I think it is safe to say that almost any American with an interest in living out his or her lifetime without nuclear annihilation has a better appreciation of these problems than does our present President.

For these lessons in civic responsibility and the criteria for responsible leadership, I give credit to Donald Trump. He calls our attention to them every day by his example of a total lack of any of them. I hope we can learn from him while there is still time.