Author: Barbara

Leaders and Followers

“Leaders” and “followers” are defined in literally hundreds of different ways. Therefore, when we use one of these words, in speaking or writing, it’s our job to make clear how we, at least on this occasion, are defining them.  

For the purposes of this essay I will use them in keeping with the thinking of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In their classic pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto, they claimed that humankind always divided into two groups, the powerful and the powerless. They wrote about, “the freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman” – in short, the “oppressor and the oppressed.” As they viewed human history, these two groups were always “in constant opposition to one another,” sometimes even engaging in a struggle that ended “either in revolutionary reconstruction of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”

,Given the clarity of Marx and Engels’s distinctions between the haves and have-nots, it requires no great leap for a student of leadership to wade into their waters. It is easy enough to equate leaders with lords, and followers with serfs; and, or, leaders with patricians, and followers with plebeians. The overarching point remains the same: that societies fracture. That they are so riven with competition between the two groups, between the powerful and powerless, that it can lead, and sometimes does, to “common ruin.”

History though did not turn out quite as Marx and Engels foresaw. While the fractions remained, capitalism did not simply give way to communism because it, capitalism, was more pliable than they anticipated. Frequently, such as in the United States and in West Europe, capitalism was able to adapt, to provide the relatively powerless with enough goods and services to preclude them from taking on and tearing down the relatively powerful. This does not, however, mean that balance invariably is a given. Sometimes, between “oppressor and oppressed,” between leaders and followers, is imbalance.

The Communist Manifesto

Marx and Engels published their manifesto in 1848, hard on the heels of, and in response to, the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution that, as they viewed it, had divided Europe into two new, though still deeply divided camps: the bourgeoisie and the proletarians. On the one side owners (or capitalists) with power, position, and money; on the other side workers without power, position, or money.

The overarching sentiment of The Communist Manifesto is struggle. A never-ending struggle between haves and have-nots, between leaders who have everything and followers who have little or nothing. Marx and Engels’s assault on the bourgeoisie – those dastardly instruments of industrialization – was relentless. Owners, leaders, were responsible for, among a host of other sins, “stripping of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe.” They were responsible for tearing “away from the family its sentimental veil” and reducing it to a “mere money relation.” And they were responsible for “creating more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together” – all in their self-interest, all at the expense of proletarians who toiled for a pittance for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.

No wonder then that The Communist Manifesto concluded with a cry for revolution. A cry for revolt by followers against their leaders. “Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!”

Never in a million years would Marx and Engels have imagined themselves part of a conversation about “leadership” and “followership” as we in the 21^st century conceive of these concepts. Among other distinctions, their conception of leaders, of capitalists, owners, and employers, was all bad, while our contemporary conception of leaders, especially as they are configured in the leadership industry, is all good. People aim to be leaders, they want to be leaders, because the leadership industry depicts them not as instruments of destruction, but as instruments of construction.  

However, to imagine that leaders are pure as the driven snow, that they bear no relationship whatsoever to their forebearers, the bourgeoisie, even as Marx and Engels conceived of them, is to imagine wrong. One could argue, in fact, that to deprive leaders and followers of class distinctions is to deprive the entire leadership industry of consequence. For in the 21^st century, as in the 19^th century, leaders tend to have power, position, and a pile of money, while followers tend to have no power, no position, and no pile of money. In sum, Marx and Engels live. The class distinctions they made then apply now. And they apply to any discussion we might have about leaders and followers – always implicitly even if never explicitly.  

The United States in 2020

Our natural proclivity is to focus if not fixate on individuals. Sometimes these people are celebrities, known for something they did or achieved; other times these people are in high places, known for the positions they hold, which connote power and authority. Our fixation on individuals comes to a climax every four years, during presidential campaigns, when our prolonged obsession with who will be elected president reaches near hysterical proportions.  

One could argue, however, that closing the American divide – between those who have and those who do not – has less to do with individuals than with institutions. That what we need more than good leaders are good institutions. Institutions that will contract rather than expand the schisms among classes against which Marx and Engels railed over a century and a half ago. Institutional changes would include among others reforming the Senate; eliminating the Electoral College; revising the electoral system (above all to ensure voting rights); and a taking another look at the Supreme Court, for example, eliminating lifelong tenure for justices in an era in which people live forever. In the last few decades several of our most important institutions have become less rather than more democratic, thereby exacerbating the natural antipathies between leaders and followers. Time for change, lest we find ourselves overtaken by the class antagonisms with which Marx and Engels were deeply familiar.  

It happens that President Donald Trump’s base consists mostly of angry Americans, angry at being relegated to second class status. It similarly happens that Bernie Sanders’s base consists mostly of angry Americans, angry at being relegated to second class status. To be sure, these are two different peas, but without doubt they are part of the same pod.

Both Trump supporters and Sanders supporters tend to feel screwed – tend to think of themselves, many times justifiably, as have nots. The oppressed as opposed to the oppressors. Not leaders, but followers. Americans worried about health care.  Americans saddled with debt. Americans not knowing whether their paychecks, presuming they even have one, will cover their basic expenses. Mostly their stories are similar. Stories of hard luck and hard times, in which the overriding feeling is that the American dream has betrayed them – or that the American dream is dead.

Two recent book drive home the point. The first is by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, titled Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. It documents in grim, irrefutable detail how over the last three decades the rates of deaths of despair – deaths in consequence of suicide, alcoholism, and drug use – have soared. These deaths underscore, as the New York Times’s David Leonhardt points out, that “inequality has risen more in the United States – and middle-class incomes have stagnated more severely – than in France, Germany, Japan or elsewhere.” Whites without a college degree have been especially hard hit, but many of the problems afflicting the working class span racial groups. Moreover, these problems are not only financial. Case and Deaton document that “life for many middle-and low-income Americans can lack structure, status and meaning.” Marx and Engels saw the syndrome.   

The second book is by Nelson Schwartz, titled The Velvet Rope Economy: How Inequality Became Big Business. It displays the other side of the coin, the side that depicts how the rich have benefited from their power, their position, and their money. Schwartz: “There has always been a gap between the haves and have-nots, but what was a tiered system in America is morphing into a caste system. As the rich get richer and more businesses focus exclusively on serving them, there is less attention and shabbier service for everybody who’s not at the pinnacle. This trend does not merely delight the wealthy – it also exacerbates the isolation and abandonment of everyone else.”

Is it reasonable to argue as I have, that the divide between the classes pertains now as it did then, when Marx and Engels penned The Communist Manifesto? Is it reasonable to argue as I have, that the antagonisms, the fierce and even ferocious antagonisms that Marx and Engels so vividly and enduringly described relate at least somewhat to the situation in which Americans now find themselves, one riven by class distinctions? And is it reasonable to argue as I have, that to cut from our conversations about leadership and followership the subject of class distinctions is as misguided as misleading?  

In the past I have written about what I called the leadership class. Here, for the first time, I use the word “class” as Marx and Engels did – literally. For the leadership class and the upper class are usually, or at least frequently, one and the same. An inconvenient truth that those of us in the leadership industry would do well to consider – lest one day not far into the future we get hoisted by our own petard.

Jack Welch, for two decades head of General Electric, was one of America’s best-known chief executive officers ever. When he retired, in 2001, he was anointed by Fortune magazine, the “Manager of the Century,” which, given his reputation at the time, was a plausible plaudit. For the twenty years during which Welch reigned were a time of seemingly unbounded success for the company into which he poured his extravagant energies.  

But whatever his triumphs during his tenure at the top, once it was over, it was game over. Few great companies anywhere in the world have fallen so far so fast as did General Electric in the two decades after Welch’s departure. In a soaring market its stock price is a fraction of what it was. The company has been kicked out of the Dow. Its current assets are puny compared to its former assets. And its failed leadership cadre has been an unarticulated rebuke to the man who invented, or at least popularized, routinized in-house corporate leadership trainings.       

Welch’s obituaries took note of his different levels of skill as they applied to two different skill sets. Skill set number one was successfully to lead a large organization in the present. Skill set number two was successfully to lead a large organization into the future – to leave a strong legacy by smart succession planning. Welch did wonderfully well at the first. He failed badly at the second.

The Financial Times noted that “Welch’s departure as chief executive marked the high point of his – and arguably GE’s – reputation.” The New York Times’s obituary cited James Stewart, who commented a few years ago that, “hardly anyone considers Mr. Welch a role model anymore.” And the Wall Street Journal concluded that GE’s troubles during the decades after his exit “raised questions about Mr. Welch’s management methods.” Again, each of these obituaries paid their respects, citing Welch’s accomplishments. But, at the same time, each made clear that though he had been tagged manager of the twentieth century, by the second decade of the twenty-first century his previously stellar reputation was visibly tarnished.    

For students of leadership the trajectory of Jack Welch career raises important questions. These include:

1. What were the traits and behaviors that allowed him for so long so spectacularly to succeed?
2. Why did these same traits and behaviors lead him astray when they involved his own succession planning?
3. Exactly why did his team serve him outstandingly well for twenty years – but then badly let down not just him but his company?
4. How did GE’s corporate culture – a culture that Welch created – contribute to GE’s steep descent?
5. What was it about the context within which GE itself was embedded that contributed to its success for two decades – and then for the next two decades contributed to its decline?

Exceptional is the leader for all seasons. Whatever Welch’s strengths, turned out he was not exceptional. As a leader he was the rule – excellent at executing some tasks in some situations but far from excellent at executing other tasks in other situations.   

It’s a trick difficult to pull off. Very difficult. Not many can do it. Only a few even try. Only a few even try to follow and to lead simultaneously because not only is it difficult, it’s distasteful. Dreadfully distasteful.

Most people who want to lead want only to lead. Nothing else – as they see it, nothing less – will do. They do not want to follow, have no intention of following, not even for a moment, especially when that moment is hard on the heels of them trying hard, desperately hard, to be a leader not a follower.

The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, is, then, an exception in more ways than one.

• In the 2020 presidential campaign he was relatively young while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were relatively old.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign he was from the Midwest while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were from the East.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign his political experience was limited and at the local level while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination had extensive experience at the national level.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign his background was relatively broad – he was, for example, a Rhodes Scholar and Navy Officer – while the backgrounds of most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were relatively narrow.    
• In the 2020 presidential campaign he at every turn had a first-class temperament while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination clearly thought they had to scream to be heard.
•  In the 2020 presidential campaign he was demonstrably a man of faith while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination eschewed all displays of faith.   
• In the 2020 presidential campaign he was an openly gay man, happily married to another gay man while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were presumed to be straight. In fact, in this Pete Buttigieg deviated from every other presidential contender ever. He is gay and proud of it.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign he was able to act in his own self-interest and in the national interest simultaneously, while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were reduced to seeming narcissists.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign Buttigieg got that in order to lead he had to follow. He had to follow – to all appearances Joe Biden who in the wake of his blowout win in South Carolina emerged the only viable alternative for the Democratic nomination for president to Bernie Sanders.

Buttigieg claimed that all he did was the math. That he calculated that after his loss in South Carolina there was no path to his becoming president. That’s true. But if math were the only calculus the rest of the field would also drop out – now. So, obviously, this is about much more than math. Obviously, folks like Bloomberg and Klobuchar and Warren still feel driven to lead not because they do not know that two plus two equals four.* But because they cannot bear the idea of being a follower. They cannot bear the idea of following one or the other party leader until they are forced by circumstance into compliance.

Mayor Pete on the other hand – by proving it’s possible to follow and to lead simultaneously – has positioned himself supremely well for his political future. Whether sooner or later the remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination for president – that is, those other than Biden and Sanders – will follow his lead and drop out. Whether sooner or later Buttigieg, still only in his thirties, will leave them all in the proverbial dust.    

*Technically Tulsi Gabbard also remains still in the race.

I rarely revisit one of my own blogs. Today is an exception.

Just over two weeks ago I posted a blog titled, “Mike Bloomberg – My Hero for Good Reasons.” My reasons were two. First, Bloomberg correctly foresaw that none of the contenders for the Democratic nomination for president were likely to “confidently challenge Trump.” Second, Bloomberg had committed to supporting with his limitless resources whoever became the Democratic nominee – even if the nominee was other than he.

Between then and now the political ground has shifted. Why? Because twice over Bloomberg performed so woefully wretchedly on the debate stage that he effectively removed himself from contention as Democratic standard bearer.

Joe Biden meantime has staged a modest, a very modest, political comeback. But, if he racks up a considerable and therefore convincing win on Saturday in South Carolina, overnight he will be the only Democratic candidate credibly to challenge for the Democratic nomination the Democratic Socialist, Bernie Sanders.   

This then has gone from being a game of checkers to being one of chess. If you are Pete Buttigieg, or Amy Klobuchar, or Tom Steyer, or Mike Bloomberg, and you really care about what you say what you really care about – preventing President Donald Trump from securing a second term – you must, you must, get out of the race. You must get out of the race if in South Carolina Biden racks up some very good numbers – in which case he becomes the only viable alternative to Sanders. And, therefore, possibly if not probably, the only viable alternative to Trump.  

For Bloomberg, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Steyer to imagine themselves elected president in November is delusional. If, therefore, they want really to lead, they must follow. They must follow the candidate they conclude has the best chance of defeating the incumbent president. They must follow – the sooner the better.  

Of the candidates for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States left standing (if precariously) after the caucuses in Iowa and Nevada and the primary in New Hampshire, two were women. Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. Klobuchar was at no point in the process a serious contender. Though she had a few good moments, never did she come close to be the Democratic nominee.  Warren is a different matter. She did come close. At least she appeared to. During most of last fall she seemed, along with Joe Biden, to be at or near the head of the pack.

Warren’s strengths were apparent:

• She had energy and integrity.
• She had experience and expertise.
• She was a strong retail politician.
• She had a solid staff and a good ground game.
• She had an enthusiastic band of vocal supporters.
• She had policy positions that were carefully conceived and well crafted.
• She had policy proposals that were clear and cogent.
• She was plausible as the first woman president: neither too young nor too old; neither too diffident nor too strident; neither too ingratiating nor too off-putting; neither too feminine nor too masculine.

What then happened? How did her campaign go from being strong, self-confident, and successful to being weak, unpersuasive, and unsuccessful? (As I write, Warren is projected to get 8 percent of the vote in the primary in South Carolina, five days away.)

In hindsight were several theories, such as one focused on the specifics of her plan on health care, which made clear the high cost. (Bernie Sanders, in contrast, has avoided providing any hard numbers.) This though makes little sense. First, most of us have not the slightest memory of whatever the figures she gave. Second, even if this was a misstep, close observers would be hard-pressed to find another. Another theory focused on strategy: her claim to the lane dangerously close to Sanders’s. But would her becoming more of a centrist have helped – given the too large number of centrists already competing?

It’s a tad early for post-mortems. But only a tad. Though we have heard nearly nothing about the relationship, if any, between Warren’s being a woman and her fading campaign, I suspect that when this is over the issue of sexism will surface. I suspect that it will emerge the most important single explicator of what happened to Elizabeth Warren.

We don’t at this point in the process know much. But we do at this point in the process know this. First, that many if not most Democrats have wanted nothing so much come November as to defeat Donald Trump. Second, that many if not most Democrats who have voted so far remained undecided until almost the last moment. Third, that part of the reason for their indecision was their uncertainty about whether a woman could effectively take on a man – specifically this woman, Warren, this man, Trump.   

No doubt about it: Warren effectively eviscerated Michael Bloomberg in the debate in Nevada. But Bloomberg turned out a pushover. At least on that occasion he was a hapless opponent who seemed nothing so much as visibly to shrink from her tongue-lashing. But I don’t doubt for one moment that in their mind’s eye those who voted so far saw on some distant debate stage the large, looming, and seemingly supremely self-confident Trump versus the inordinately intense and probably excessively professorial Warren.

Does this make me a sexist? Or a realist?       

Most of the world has stood by and done nearly nothing other than watch since 2011 – since the civil war in Syria started. We have not in any significant way intervened to prevent the widespread suffering or even to alleviate it, despite the regime of President Bashar al-Assad being directly responsible for:

• Some 500,000 Syrians dead.
• Some 5 million people forcibly displaced within Syria.
• Some 6 million people forced to flee Syria.

Now, as I write, is unfolding what the United Nations has described as the worst humanitarian catastrophe since the beginning of the war: a vicious offensive – backed by the Russians and Iranians – intended to force the still renegade province of Idlib back into the clutches of the government. Back into the clutches of the president.  

Let there be no mistaking. The United Nations emergency relief coordinator, Mark Lowcock, has described the military advance on Idlib, which has already forced the flight of nearly a million people, as “the biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21^st century.”   

Meantime, the United Nations itself is hamstrung because Russia continues to use its veto to block the Security Council from taking meaningful action. And the United States and Europe are precluded by their own indifference from doing anything significant to staunch the suffering.

What is a bystander? What is a follower? What is a bystander follower? For the answers to all three of these questions, see above.

Every group has a purpose. Whether a small unit or a large organization, whether situated in government or business, whether located in China or Canada, members of groups affiliate with each together to fill a function. These functions range from accomplishing certain tasks to providing community and comity. The point is that groups are not random collections. Their members are joined for a reason.

The six people who are the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States constitute a small group that has two purposes particularly. The first, in sequence, is to select someone to be the Democratic standard bearer between the party convention in mid-July and Election Day in early November.  The second is to preclude the Republican standard bearer, President Donald Trump, from winning a second term.

As I write, in late February 2020, the small group in question is fixated on its first purpose while ignoring nearly entirely the second. Though Democratic experts and pundits have pleaded for the candidates to spend most of their time taking on Trump, by and large these pleas are ignored, so busy are the contenders taking on each other. One could argue in fact they are obsessed with the less important task – being the standard bearer themselves – while neglecting the more important task, doing everything they can to preclude the incumbent president from winning a second term in office.

Why is this? Why are their priorities screwed up? Well, the obvious answer is that each of them wants to be the leader. Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren (and even Tom Steyer, still in the race though not recently on the debate stage) all want to lead, none of them wants to follow. Each wants to be president of the United States and, at least at this point in the process, nothing short of being at the top of the heap will suffice.

From a distance, for each of the candidates to cling to this position has little logic. While some have a crack at becoming the Democratic candidate, others clearly do not. For example, two who during the last debate turned on each other with special venom, Buttigieg and Klobuchar, have no chance whatsoever at winning the Democratic nomination. On the contrary, one could argue that at this stage of the process they would gain public support, not lose it by pulling out of the race and, instead, throwing their weight behind another candidate more likely than they to be the Democratic nominee. It would not hurt their future in electoral politics, and it would help their chance to have a positive impact on this one.

Still, they run. Still all six of them prefer to pick at each other instead of picking at the president. Which brings us to the next level of analysis. Why exactly do they want to lead? Why are they so extremely averse to following?  If you asked each of them this question chances are they would say that they are best equipped to lead us, their fellow Americans, to a new and better place. That they would be more ethical and effective a leader than their Democratic rivals. Similarly, chances are that they would not admit to vaulting ambition. Nor would they say that leaders are stronger and superior, while followers are weaker and inferior.

Truth is though that these last two reasons are the more powerful. The reasons all six run and then continue to run, even when they’re running against all odds, is first their ambition is beyond apparent reason, and second they are persuaded that leading is somehow better, far, far better, than following.

The first reason is individual – it is psychological and personal. For a constellation of reasons, some related to nature some to nurture, some people are far more ambitious than others. The second reason is collective – it is sociological and cultural. We have grown a generation, by now two generations, in which leadership is exalted and followership is denigrated. In which standing out is more highly valued than blending in. In which individual achievement takes center stage and the common good is shunted aside. Until these values change – until we revive the conception of civics as the ultimate in high mindedness – we will be saddled with putative leaders for whom personal ambition takes precedence over the national welfare.          

On the one side is a circular firing squad – a group of people “engaged in self-destructive internal conflicts and mutual recriminations.” This circular firing squad is of course as in my previous post – the small group comprised of the six leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.

On the other side are not only the Republicans but the Russians who, as long predicted, are already interfering in America’s 2020 presidential election. Putting their thumb on Trump’s side of the scale.

Given this, any reasonable person would conclude that instead of aiming at each other, Democrats should be cooperating with each other. Training their fire as one on their real opposition: Republicans buttressed by Russians. However, as the term circular firing squad suggests, reason does not always prevail. The Democrats continue to cannibalize each other rather than on taking on those hellbent on doing all of them in.

What the Democrats are doing in 2020 is reminiscent of nothing so much as what the Republican did in 2016 – when the likes of Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush were so busy shooting at each other that in the end it was the putative outsider, Donald Trump, who prevailed. This time around threatens to be the same: Democratic moderates will knock each other off while the outsider, the Democratic Socialist, Bernie Sanders, will emerge the last one standing.    

This outcome would be as foolish as dangerous. It would also be altogether illogical, for as every state and national poll suggests, Democrats in the center outnumber Democrats to the left of center. But, of course, so long as Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and, arguably, even Elizabeth Warren continue to carve up the centrist slice of the Democratic pie, so long will Bernie Sanders hold the largest single slice of all.

What does this have to do with leadership and followership? Everything.

So, there are two ways of looking at last night’s debate among the six leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. The first is as a collection of six separate, disparate individuals. The second is as a group, as what social psychologists refer to as a small group.

The morning after the night before the overwhelming temptation for pundits is to look through the first lens. To see the six candidates as individuals and to rate them accordingly. This morning, then, the report cards for last night’s performances look something like this:

• Joe Biden: B
• Michael Bloomberg: D
• Pete Buttigieg: B
• Amy Klobuchar: B
• Bernie Sanders: B
• Elizabeth Warren: A

One could argue, however, that if the Democrats are to be believed, if their goal first and foremost and even only is to get Donald Trump out of the White House, the better way of looking at the Democratic field as presented on the stage in Nevada last night is as a small group. As a small group that purports to share a common enemy – the president. How then did they rate as a small group, effectively united against the man they profess most fiercely to oppose?

• Candidates as a group: D

Americans have short memories. Whatever happened in Las Vegas last night will be forgotten by the time of the next Democratic debate next week. Still, as of this morning, the happiest man in America has got to be Donald Trump. As a group the Democrats:

• Failed to address Trump as a dangerous narcissist.
• Failed to address the corruption and lawlessness of the current   administration.
• Failed to address even a single issue relating to foreign policy or national security.
• Failed to emphasize their unity against a common enemy.
• Ripped into the political personas of those inside their group instead of those outside their group.
• Ripped into the public policies of those inside their group instead of those outside their group.
• Presented themselves as an entirely dysfunctional family.
• Presented themselves as a random collection of angry, alienated individuals rather than as a small group with shared values core to America’s character and culture.

Social psychologists describe small group leaders as having two different though related responsibilities. The first is affective leadership – keeping group members reasonably cooperative and collaborative. The second is task leadership – keeping the group effectively focused on the task at hand which, in this case, is next November to defeat the incumbent president. The best way then to look at last night’s brawl, last night’s free for all, is not to see the candidates as individuals, but to see them as members of a small group that is as feckless as it is leaderless.    

• William Barr (I don’t care if he really meant it. He criticized the president.)
• John Kelley. (I don’t care if it was too little too late. He criticized the president.)
• Mitch McConnell. (I don’t care if he’s not to be trusted. He criticized the president.)
• Some Republican members of Congress. (I don’t care if they’re mostly pusillanimous. By criticizing Trump’s pick for the Federal Reserve, Judy Shelton, they criticized the president.)   
• Some Republican members of Congress. (I don’t care if they’re mostly pusillanimous. By voting to constrain the president’s military leeway on Iran, they criticized the president.)   

You get the idea! America needs more people to speak up and speak out!

Mitt Romney did it – spoke out against Trump. Where are the other Republican senators? Where for that matter are George W. Bush and Jeb Bush? John Kelly spoke out against Trump. Where is James Mattis? Where, for that matter, is H. R. McMaster, who wrote a book about speaking out? (Dereliction of Duty.)

Citizens at every level who believe that Donald Trump should not be reelected in November owe it to the state of the nation to say their piece – not later, but now, the sooner the better. After Election Day could be too late.

Anti-Trump Followers find Your Voices! Pro-Trump Followers have assuredly found theirs.