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Tuesday night’s Republic debate came and went. By now it’s been sliced and diced every which way – save one.

In his opening statement, designed to do nothing so much as gin up fear, Governor Chris Christie said this:

“America has been betrayed,” he began, not by our sworn enemies, but by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Then he went on to draw a dark and dire picture of life in America post San Bernadino. “Think about the mothers who will take those children tomorrow morning to the bus stop wondering whether their children will arrive back on that bus safe and sound. Think about the fathers of Los Angeles who tomorrow will head off to work and wonder about the safety of their wives and their children.”

What’s striking about these opening lines is not their fear-mongering. Fear and loathing have become commonplace. No, what’s striking is that the New Jersey Governor imagines the 21^st century family a 20^th century construction.  The woman stays home, minds the kids, and does the housework. The man leaves home, brings home the bacon, and returns when day is done in time for dinner.

Guess what, Governor Christie! The number of stay-at-home moms is less than one third. This means that more than two thirds of mothers are unlikely to be able to “take those children tomorrow morning to the bus stop.” And it means that you, Governor, are woefully out of step, stuck in the 1950s and early ‘60s, when “Leave It to Beaver” ruled the airwaves, and Ward Cleaver (Dad) and June Cleaver (Mom) presided as perfect couple.

This alone should disqualify you from being president. This alone should disqualify you from leading anything – given the demographics have departed dramatically from your archaic ideal.

If you haven’t seen it, you really must. A photo of Facebook icon Mark Zuckerberg cradling his newborn baby daughter, wife gazing adoringly alongside, a rhapsodic shot of domestic bliss!

In addition to posing for this perfect picture, Zuckerberg commemorated daughter Maxima’s birth by sending her an open letter, in which he announced that during their lives he and his wife, Pricilla Chan, would give 99 percent of their Facebook shares to charity. The shares are currently worth more than $45 billion.

Zuckerberg further revealed that he would be taking paternity leave. Not just a week or two away from his desk, to hang with wife and child. No, fully two months, which is half of what Facebook now gives any parent, male or female, who wants to take time off during a child’s first year.

The big story is that Silicon Valley’s most successful and recognizable CEO made a big story out of his child’s birth. At a time when the number of men taking more than a week away from work after a child is born remains woefully low, Zuckerberg chose to send several messages. First, that parenthood is important. Second, that parenthood is important for men as well as women. And third, that he intended not only to play an active role in his own daughter’s life, but simultaneously to make clear that his company supports such parental involvement for all its employees. (Note: Feminist activist Sheryl Sandberg is Facebook’s COO.)

If truth be told, though, Zuckerberg is not a pathbreaker – not on this front. Tech companies have recently been joined by Wall Street firms, all competing furiously for talent, all now acknowledging that young professionals are more determined than were their predecessors to achieve a semblance of a work/life balance. Amazon, Accenture, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley are just some of the companies that recently enhanced benefits to new parents – benefits ranging from more time off for primary caregivers, to more time off for secondary caregivers, to paying for (selected) employees who choose during baby’s first year to bring them and even their nannies along on business trips.

Whether these more generous company policies will dramatically change the equation – in particular whether they will encourage more women to take top leadership jobs – remains to be seen. I obviously have my doubts.* Still, Zuckerberg as doting dad is a welcome sign of the times.

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*See my recent posts on this subject, such as “Leadership and Lactation.”

Note: This is my last post until on or about December 20th.  

On August 31^st The New Yorker published an article by Evan Osnos titled, “The Fearful and the Frustrated.” The purpose of the piece was to explain why Donald Trump was morphing into a serious presidential candidate. Now, since those lazy, hazy days of summer, the political landscape has changed dramatically. Establishment candidates have lagged, while Trump defied the odds and confounded the experts. Not only does he hold the lead in the Republican field, his closest competitor, Ted Cruz, is fully 20 points behind.

As the title of Osnos’s article makes clear, even in August fear was the major motivator. Americans were attracted to Trump because they were scared, and because they thought he was the Republican most likely to provide safety and security. What exactly were, are, Americans afraid of?

• Of an alien and uncertain world as disorienting as it is complex.
• Of others, especially immigrants, who could crowd us out and steal our jobs.
• Of technology that might make us personally isolated and professionally irrelevant.
• Of income stagnation that could be permanent as opposed to transitory.
• Of politicians who seem irretrievably greedy for power and money.
• Of America badly divided and in steady decline.

Since then there is something else to be afraid of. A threat more dire and deadly, and much closer to home. I refer of course to terrorism. Terrorism hard on the heels of the massacre in Paris. Terrorism hard on the heels of the massacre in California. It is one thing to be scared of an abstraction – such as immigration or stagnation. It is quite another to be scared for your safety on a daily basis – scared of getting on a subway, of going to a store, of sitting in a stadium.

Frightened followers go in either one of two directions. Fear can make us saner, long for a leader who is steady, serious, and sensible. Or fear can make us crazier, long for a leader who is fervid, furious, and fierce. Fear can, in other words, turn us toward a Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who at the height of the Great Depression told Americans that the only thing they had to fear was fear itself. Or it can drive us toward toxicity and demagoguery: toward leaders who promise impossibly simple solutions to complex problems; who exude unquestioning authority in the face of unnerving ambiguity; and who assure anxious audiences that they and they alone can decimate and demolish whoever the enemy.

Times like these provide rich soil for bad leaders.* This is not necessarily to claim that if he ever did get to the White House Trump would be a bad or even toxic leader. But it is to insist  that his shameless pandering to the fears of his followers is downright disquieting. Sad to say that so far at least there is not a shred of evidence that Trump will ever incline to the better angels of our nature.

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• For more on the relationship between bad leaders and fearful followers see Barbara Kellerman, Bad Leadership, and Jean Lipman-Blumen, The Allure of Toxic Leaders.

It used to be that Wilsonianism was associated with Woodrow Wilson’s vaulted views on foreign affairs. Because of this association Princeton University – of which Wilson once was president – named in his honor its School of Public and International Affairs.

It used to be.

But, because of the recent actions of a small number of Princeton undergraduates, this legacy is now threatened. More likely it has already suffered a serious blow.

Wilson is remembered primarily for his contributions to American foreign policy. While his proposal for a League of Nations suffered a stinging defeat at the hands of the U.S. Senate, the idealism that inspired it has lived on, perpetuating his vision of an ideology and institution that would promote and perpetuate world peace.

Wilson’s status as one of America’s most esteemed presidents – earlier this year he ranked 10^th among our 44 chief executives – has essentially remained unchallenged, until now. Now it has been challenged so powerfully and persuasively that the New York Times ran an editorial this week that said first that Wilson was “an unrepentant racist,” and second that in consequence Princeton should revoke the honor of naming after him one of its most prestigious schools.

How did this sea change come about? Credit a year-old student group, the Black Justice League, which a few months ago began exposing Wilson’s racist views. To start there were posters exposing some of Wilson’s more offensive quotes, such as his comment to an African-American leader that “segregation is not humiliating, but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you.” Next there were certain complaints, such as that only about 2 percent of Princeton’s faculty is black. Then there were various demands, for example, mandatory courses on “the history of marginalized peoples,” and also a joining of forces. These included not only other undergraduates but also faculty, some 54 of whom eventually signed a Black Justice League petition. Finally there was a sit-in in the president’s office. It dragged on 32 hours, and when it was over Princeton’s President, Christopher Eisgruber, had agreed to many of the students’ demands, including considering wiping Wilson’s name from the School of Public and International Affairs.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the Princeton protest, it’s a striking example of how a powerless few, here a knot of undergraduates, can win out over the powerful many, here not only the Princeton establishment, but an American president who historians have judged near great.

Woodrow Wilson will never be discredited entirely. Nor should he be. He was in many a progressive, and in all ways an internationalist. His contribution to American foreign policy thought will endure. Moreover his racism must be placed in context – he was after all a man of his time, born in 1856. Still, because of a handful of activists at Princeton, it is now widely known that in accordance with his views, in some cases at least he engaged public policy to further white supremacy. It is why his estimable reputation will never be completely restored.  And it is why American history textbooks must again be revised – as they were with Thomas Jefferson, who similarly was transformed from marble icon to man in full.

Francois Hollande has spent most of his time as president of France mired in the depths of public opinion. Put precisely, he has been the most unpopular president in modern French history.

This will now change. Whatever the French people thought of their president before the attacks in Paris, in their immediate aftermath their opinion of him will go up. It’s a typical pattern, which in the US is called the “rally ‘round the flag effect.” The phrase refers to increased popular support for a president in a time of national crisis – especially war. By promptly declaring that “France is at war,” Hollande virtually assured that in the short term at least his level of support among the French would rise.

Who can say the right thing to do when terror strikes an iconic city – which happens also to be the capital of the country over which you preside? There is no handbook for such a circumstance, no handy-dandy leadership guide. Rather, as history attests, in such situations  leaders fly by the seat of their pants. At least to an extent, they improvise.

This is not to say that someone in Hollande’s position – president of a country that recently suffered a serious terrorist attack (in January of this year, the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo) – would not have given serious thought to what to do if terror struck again. But it is to say that the specifics of such situations remain unknown – until they are known. And so while leaders obviously do prepare for terrorist attacks, how exactly to respond remains unclear until after at least the initial attack has passed. How could Hollande have prepared for this particular complication – Turkey shooting down a Russian warplane just as he undertakes his major diplomatic initiative?

In the wake of the most recent terror in Paris, Hollande went into overdrive. His rhetoric has been strong and unyielding. His domestic policy has been fierce and persuasive. (He sought and secured parliamentary approval for declaration of a three month state of emergency.*) And in foreign policy he has played his level best, while holding a hand that’s quite weak.

France is a country widely perceived in decline. In the last decade it was Germany that surged to the forefront of Europe, while France lagged. Hollande understood then that if he was to declare that France was at war, far smarter not to have France stand alone. So he has been making the rounds – trying his damnedest to forge an international coalition against ISIS. On Monday of this week he met with Britain’s David Cameron. On Tuesday he flew to the US to meet with Barack Obama. On Wednesday back to Paris to meet with Germany’s Angela Merkel and, later, with Italy’s Matteo Renzi. On Thursday he’s off to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. And on the weekend he’ll conclude his diplomatic marathon by hosting a dinner in Paris for China’s Xi Jinping.

Impossible to know now whether this abundance of activity at home and abroad will pay off. But if it does not, it will not be because Francois Hollande had a dearth of determination or imagination – or, for that matter, stamina.

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*Some have objected to this concentration of power in the hands of the French executive. But, then, during the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus.

The Hunting Ground is the title of a documentary film about sexual assault on American college campuses. Since its release earlier this year, it has been considered a critical, if controversial, contribution to a national conversation that only recently gained ground.

Its airing last night on CNN is certain further to inflame both sides. The one side argues that the film is an essential chronicle of trauma effecting some 20 to 25 percent of female undergraduates. The other side argues that the film is a distortion of life on campus, that it places advocacy ahead of accuracy and even impugns the reputation of some who don’t deserve it.

My point in this piece is not to take sides. Rather it is to argue that even if the film is, as legal expert Stewart Taylor charged “propaganda,” it is propaganda with a purpose. I do not claim that truth should be sacrificed on the altar of political persuasion. But to exaggerate to make a point, to bring in some facts and leave out others, to ostensibly elevate the powerless while simultaneously denigrating the powerful – all these are typical of propaganda at its most persuasive.

I do not take the film’s deficits lightly. Nevertheless the producer and director of The Hunting Ground have managed to do what no one did before.

• They gave widespread credence to the idea that sexual assault on college campuses is a major moral as well as legal issue that we must take seriously.
• They gave widespread credence to a large group of women on college campuses who previously had no voice – none.
• They gave widespread credence to the virtues of campus activism, to the band of sisters who, by banding together, made a difference.
• They gave widespread credence to the charge that campus authorities – including college and university presidents – have been derelict in their duty to a large fraction of their student populations.
• They gave widespread credence to the proposition that money and power play out-sized roles on college campuses – even when it comes to crime.
• They gave widespread credence to the accusation that there is a yawning gap between what American higher education is supposed to do – provide a safe and secure learning environment for every single student – and what it actually does.

These are no mean accomplishments for filmmakers turned leaders. These are no mean accomplishments for Kirby Dick (director) and Amy Ziering (producer), who are also responsible for an earlier film on sexual assault, The Invisible War, in this case in the military. Dick and Ziering came, in effect, out of nowhere, determined to shine a light on rape –  and did. Whatever the errors of their ways, I defy you to watch either one of these films and deny or even discredit their main message.

Our attention has been focused on Paris. But Brussels is the bigger story. Brussels exemplifies more than does Paris how a very small, generally weak minority is able to bring a very large, generally strong majority to its knees.

Brussels is not just another European city. It is large – the greater Brussels area has some 1.8 million inhabitants. It is the political, economic, and cultural hub of Belgium. It is headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). And, perhaps most importantly, certainly symbolically, the city is home to several of the European Union’s (EU) most important institutions. Brussels is considered the capital of the EU.

The fact that the authorities thought it prudent to shut down the entire city – metro, museums, malls, cafes, cinemas, every single space and place where people naturally congregate – is a stunning, even stupefying sign of the times. What happened in Bamako was obviously a tragedy. What did not happen in Brussels was less obviously a calamity.

Whenever an event seems impossible easily to explain, the event is impossible easily to explain. We search for facile answers. We reduce complex events to a single cause. We ache to fix what’s badly broke. But the real world precludes it. The real world is hostile to our desire to control whatever our situation – and to right whatever is wrong.

The terror in Paris falls into this category. The terror in Paris is not amenable either to a simple explanation, or to a quick fix.

To make my case I provide three prisms through which to view the recent events in the City of Lights. None should be considered more powerful a prism than the other two. But, together, they provide a way of grappling with the world in which, willy-nilly, we now live.

The Clash of Civilizations. The phrase is the late Samuel Huntington’s, an esteemed if also criticized political scientist, who for many years was on the faculty at Harvard. In 1993 he published an article in Foreign Affairs titled “The Clash of Civilizations,” that while controversial even now, has come to be regarded by many as prescient. Huntington wrote: It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic….The dominating source of conflict will be cultural…. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

The Wretched of the Earth. The phrase is the title of a book by Franz Fanon. Fanon was a psychiatrist and philosopher who died in 1961 at the age of 36, but not before having written The Wretched of the Earth, a classic of the leadership literature. Fanon’s view of the world was simple. He divided everyone into either master or slave, colonizer or colonized, bourgeoisie or worker, white or black, the former always free, the latter always in chains, if not physically then psychologically. Fanon’s mission in life was to end the inequity, once and for all, if necessary by force. He wrote: For the last can be first only after a murderous and decisive confrontation between the two protagonists….This determination to have the last move up to the front…can only succeed by resorting to every means, including, of course, violence.      

The End of Leadership/The End of Power. The first phrase, The End of Leadership, is the title of a book that I published in 2012, which argued that leaders were in decline, and that followers, ordinary people, were on the rise. Times had changed in ways that made it increasingly possible for people without obvious sources of power, authority, or influence to be preemptive or proactive, while those with obvious sources of power, authority, and influence were increasingly obliged to be reactive. This is not to say that in the past the powerless, even single individuals, never effected change – the young Serbian nationalist who assassinated Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 lit the fire that ignited World War I. But it is to say that in the 21^st century governments, such as, yes, the French government,  have less power (and authority and influence) than they used to; that power has become more widely distributed; and that warfare, which typically was symmetrical, is likely as not now to be asymmetrical. I wrote: In the last one hundred years, relations between leaders and followers reached a turning point, if not a tipping point. Leader power and follower power became the more equivalent.  The second phrase, The End of Power, is the title of a book by Moises Naim that came out a year later, in 2013. His argument is essentially the same – that power is undergoing a “historic and world-changing transformation.”  Naim writes: The growing ability of small, nimble combatants to advance their interests while inflicting significant damage on much larger, well-established military foes is one way in which the exercise of power through force has changed. 

No more need be said.

Ordinary Americans have a hard time organizing on their own behalf. Other than the high impact but short-lived Occupy movement, they, we, have been unable in recent years, in any significant, sustained way, to bring about change – even when there is wide agreement on what sort of change is called for. There has been, in other words, a disconnect: on the one hand a high level of popular dissatisfaction, and on the other an inability to turn this dissatisfaction into something new and different.

Occasionally this disconnect gives way. Occasionally something new and different does come to pass – as now, in two special, select cases. Two of America’s most wildly successful private sector disrupters – Uber and Airbnb – have started harnessing followers to their own purposes. Moreover both plan further to expand their already sizable armies of followers – consisting largely but not exclusively of satisfied customers – to fend off government attempts to regulate them.

Historically in America government has been supposed to protect ordinary people from the rapaciousness of big business. Now business is out to rally ordinary people against the protectiveness of big government. In both cases the idea is to provide people with what ostensibly they want. In both cases the idea is to forge people into a collective to maximize their political power. And in both cases people end up relying on others to do their organizing for them. Which begs the question: Why do Americans have difficulty acting in their own interest absent an outside agent?