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Hillary Clinton will not face criminal charges relating to her use of classified information while serving as Secretary of State.

But her political opponents and ideological enemies will still make hay out of what the New York Times described as FBI Director James Comey’s “extraordinary public tongue-lashing.” Comey rebuked Mrs. Clinton for being “extremely careless,” and made plain that a typical government official would probably have been penalized for doing no more than what she did. Put differently, in ordinary circumstances, Hillary Clinton’s original transgressions, and her subsequent cover up, would have and should have ended her political career.

But these are not ordinary circumstances. In November will be a presidential election in which the American people will have two options: Clinton or Trump. This better than anything else explains why Comey did what he did. By walking a fine line – on the one hand not recommending criminal charges; and on the other hand engaging in public castigation – he acted in a way he thought right. He said his piece – but stopped short of upending the presidential election.

There is scholarly research suggesting that women leaders are somewhat more ethical than men leaders. Really? Judging by recent events, you’d never know it. As I said in this space a couple of days ago, “Those few women who make it to the top have a special responsibility to behave in ways that live up to their own highest ideals.” It’s not a responsibility that Loretta Lynch has met. Or Samantha Power. Or Hillary Clinton.

Sad.

UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Attorney General Loretta Lynch are among the most high-profile appointees in the Obama administration. This, in addition to the posts they hold, means they are among the most powerful women in American politics.

Which makes it especially disturbing when their fealty to the president compromises their judgement – and their independence.

By remaining in her post for the last three years, Ambassador Power has been precluded from doing the kind of work for which she previously was best known: railing against those who stand by and do nothing (or close to it) in the face of political murder and mayhem, as in the case of the war in Syria.

Though the analogy is weak, Attorney General Lynch nevertheless resembles Power in that she too caved in to what she believed, for whatever reason, her boss would want her to do – meet off the record with former President Bill Clinton who, you might know, is the husband of Hillary Clinton who, you might know, is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States who, you might know, is under federal investigation for using a personal e mail account while Secretary of State.

Unfair it may be that female leaders be held to higher standards of personal and public probity than male leaders. But so long as there are so few women in positions of power, authority, and influence, that’s the way it is. Put directly, those few women who make it to the top have a special responsibility to live up to their own highest ideals.

One of America’s most prominent poultry farms yesterday announced plans to make both life and death better for its chickens. It was agreeing to change, to make more humane, the way it raises and slaughters its birds.

Why? To his credit, Jim Perdue, CEO of Perdue Farms, was straightforward in his explanation. It was not a his sudden concern for animal welfare. Rather it was that his customers, “want to be sure that animals are raised in as caring a way as possible. With the least stress, the least discomfort.” Who more precisely are these customers? They are millennials, younger consumers who tend to care more about animal rights than do their elders.

Which brings me to Britain’s referendum. When the numbers were crunched it was clear that the young voted dramatically differently from the old. Fully 73 % of those aged 18 to 24 voted to REMAIN in the European Union – compared with only 40 % of those over 65.

This difference is huge! Clearly Jim Perdue was onto something. Leaders who want actually to lead had better pay attention. To their followers – to how old they are.

How many explanations for the stunning outcome of Britain’s referendum? Here’s a baker’s dozen:

1. The rise of populism.
2. The rise of nationalism.
3. The rise of tribalism.
4. The antipathy toward globalization.
5. The antipathy toward immigration.
6. The antipathy toward free trade.
7. The antipathy toward the European Union.
8. The antipathy toward the Establishment.
9. The antipathy toward London.
10. The generational divide.
11. The class divide.
12. The regional divide.
13. The income divide.

I could go on – the list of explanations or excuses, depending on how you look at it, is even longer. But what the list never includes is the trajectory of history.

More’s the pity. For had we put this vote in an historical context, even before it took place, not only would we after the vote better understand what happened, before the vote we would have better predicted the future by extrapolating from the past.

One of the shocks of Brexit was the shock of Brexit – the fact that it was not foretold by pollsters or markets, not even by bookies. Which raises the question of why was everyone so off? Why were even the best and the brightest shocked and then stymied by the outcome?

Because we are ahistorical. If we were not, we would know that the balance of power between leaders and followers has been changing for hundreds of years, with the former becoming relentlessly weaker and the latter relentlessly stronger. The only way to preclude this from happening – we see this, for example, in Russia, China, Egypt and Turkey – is for the leadership class to clamp down. If it does not, as it generally does not in Western Democracies, we should not be surprised to see leaders upended.

Ordinary people now seem to enjoy  nothing so much as giving the finger to those positioned higher than they. In the workplace, of course, they are precluded from making a gesture so rude. But not in the commons. In the commons, in politics, giving the middle finger seems to be cost free. And it gives instant gratification.

So sang Donald Trump this morning in, of all places, Scotland! In Scotland, where he just happens to be on this historic day, celebrating the refurbishing of one of his golf courses.

To Trump the outcome of the British referendum has to be heartening. For the dynamics there are similar in important ways to the dynamics here.  A divided country. An angry electorate. A strong sentiment against the leadership class.

In Britain virtually every leader in virtually every sector strongly urged the electorate to vote for the status quo – to vote for Britain to remain in the European Union. Still, voters rejected their entreaties, as if deliberately thumbing their nose at those higher and mightier than they.

Just the kind of thing on which Trump thrives. Just the kind of thing that can turn an election on its head.

This is an historic day. The stunning outcome of the British referendum was that in two years time Britain will be severed from the European Union.

I do not use the word “historic” lightly. Nor do I use the word “revolution” lightly. But this vote is an indicator of change that is revolutionary, not evolutionary. Which is why it is historic.   The old, existing order is dead, and in its place is something new.  Driven by impulses variously described as nationalist and populist, driven by sentiments strongly anti authority, the British electorate has made its preference clear. On the assumption that the future will somehow, in some undetermined way, be better than the present, what was goes.

• This vote means that the United Kingdom will never be the same. Among other likelihoods is that in the not distant future the Scots will vote to exit.
• This vote means that Europe will never be the same. Among other likelihoods is that referendums similar to Brexit will be in other countries in Europe.
• This vote means that the global order will never be the same. Among other likelihoods is that Russia will create a wedge between Britain on the one hand, and the European Union on the other.
• This vote means that the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States will never be the same. Among other likelihoods is that the US will discover it has no choice but to find another European partner.
• This vote means that the present resident at 10 Downing Street will go.  We know for sure that in short order David Cameron will be replaced as prime minister.
• This vote means that anger against people in positions of authority – both in Europe and in the United States – is unlikely anytime soon to dissipate.   Among other likelihoods is that just as Donald Trump’s candidacy was seeming seriously to weaken,, what’s happened in Britain will give him a shot in the arm.

I said before and will say again. As a result of Brexit the short term occupation is with markets. But as a result of Brexit the long term preoccupation will be with politics. As of today they have changed completely and irrevocably.

So one could reasonably argue that just as the United States was in some ways in the vanguard in the last decades of the eighteenth century, it was in some ways in the vanguard in the last decades of the twentieth. Some two hundred years after the American Revolution, there was similar ferment – the powerless taking on the powerful, demanding, finally, greater equity.

What then can we conclude about the historical trajectory? We can say what we have seen: that over the course of human history power and influence generally have devolved from the top down. 

Barbara Kellerman, The End of Leadership

The unprecedented attempt last night by House Democrats to wrest control from House Republicans was no more than this:  an attempt to wrest power from the powers that be, in this case, specifically House Speaker Paul Ryan, to force a vote on gun control.

In the short term, on the most obvious level, Ryan responded by squeezing the Democrats. He simply turned off the lights and announced their demand would be denied. In the long term, this will be seen as an historic moment in which the relatively powerless wrested some power and, as importantly, some influence, from the relatively powerful. The story of gun control  in America has yet fully to be told.

“Social Media Told Our Story,” Rep. John Lewis Says As He Ends House Democrats’ Gun Control Sit-In

In an unprecedented move, 51 followers made the seismic decision to take on their leader, in public. Their leader is the president of the United States.

Who are these followers? Most are mid-level State Department officials, career diplomats, who had the temerity to speak truth, their truth, to power. They had the temerity to take on the administration’s miserably failed policy in Syria, by attaching their names to an internal document that registers their strong opposition.

The dissenters urged a radical change. Basically they advocated a tougher approach to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a more militant and military one, “which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”

There is such a thing in the State Department as a “dissent channel.” It’s a way of registering disagreement with official policy, which is why the Department has a modest history of dissent either by an individual, or by a few individuals banding together. Two years ago former ambassador to Syria, Richard S. Ford, resigned from the Foreign Service precisely because he was in such strong disagreement with the administration’s policy on Syria, which generally has been hands-off.

However, never before has dissent been so strong.  Never before have 51 State Department subordinates joined openly to challenge their superiors. It is not likely that as a result of their action President Obama will have a change of heart – or a change of policy.  However, the timing of their protest is no accident. Clearly it’s meant less to shape policy in this administration than to try to effect change in the next one.

In the old days a man like Judge Aaron Persky was virtually impervious to opposition. First, there would have been nearly none. Second, such opposition as there was, would have been muted. People simply did not take on a sitting judge – it just wasn’t done.

Now things are different.  Now Judge Persky of Santa Clara (CA) Superior Court has discovered that someone in his position is no longer immune to opposition.  No longer immune even to humiliation for a decision which many have found as offensive as objectionable.

Setting aside the question of whether or not the sentencing of Stanford student Brock Turner to what is effectively three-months in jail for a sexual assault was fair, what’s remarkable about this case is the widespread refusal to take the court’s decision sitting down. Here’s some of what happened since Judge Persky rendered his sentence:

• The victim released a long, powerful statement to BuzzFeed, which since has been read online millions of times.
• A petition was drafted to remove Judge Persky from the bench – which so far has almost a million and a half supporters.
• At least twelve jurors have openly objected to serving in his courtroom.
• Judge Persky was removed from presiding over a case involving a male nurse accused of inappropriately touching a sedated female patient.
• A Stanford Law Professor, Michele Dauber, has organized a campaign to remove him from office.

Whatever his final fate, it’s clear that the judge was not even remotely prepared for what hit him. His failure to consider the consequence of context did him in.

Having a referendum on whether or not Britain should exit the European Union (EU) is one of the dumbest political ideas in years.

It was David Cameron’s idea – who is not normally this stupid. But his zeal to be reelected in 2015 got the better of him. His ambition to win drove him to promise his own restive Conservative Party that if he remained as Prime Minister, such a referendum would be held.

Now, to his obvious dismay, the increasingly likely outcome is that he, and Europe, will lose. Contrary to what Cameron wanted and intended, the indicators are that on June 23 Britain’s electorate will vote to leave the EU.

There are all sorts of reasons this is a bad idea. A miserably bad idea. They are political, economic, and social. But above all to quit is to forget. It is to forget that during the 20^th century the bloodiest continent by far was the European continent. It is to forget that the EU was stitched together, slowly and painfully, primarily, precisely, to preclude this sort of bloodshed from ever happening again. It is to forget that whatever its deficits, the EU has been among the most heartening political accomplishments of the last seventy-five years.

In their fear and loathing, especially of immigration, increasing numbers of Brits are planning to vote to Leave.  If they end up winning, if they vote for Britain to ditch the EU, not only will Cameron’s name be sullied, they will give democracy a bad rap.

Assuming the Brits vote to leave the EU, the short term concern will be about the serious, deleterious impact on markets. But, assuming the Brits vote to leave the EU, the long term concern will be about the serious, deleterious impact on politics.