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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.

I’m in the camp of those convinced that Americans have no more sacred an obligation than to defeat Donald Trump for president in November. Defeat him so soundly and resoundingly that he will have no choice – albeit kicking and screaming – but to exit the White House in January. The incumbent president is poisonous – it’s that simple.

Because the alarm is finally being sounded, there’s tension and teeth-gnashing about the Democratic candidate for president. Who will personify the opposition to Trump? In today’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman’s column is titled, “Paging Michael Bloomberg.” He argues strongly against a leftist candidate, particularly Senator Bernie Sanders; and equally strongly for a centrist candidate, particularly former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg.

I agree with Friedman. I too am persuaded that Bloomberg would be the best, most-likely-to-succeed candidate to take on the tyrant in the White House.

However, I refer to Bloomberg as “my hero” not because of my future preference, but because of his past performance. His past performance twice over.

First, Bloomberg demonstrated remarkable political acuity at the earliest stage of the 2020 presidential campaign. He threw his hat in the ring when he foresaw, correctly, that absent him the Democrats would be unlikely to muster a single candidate who could confidently challenge Trump. Long before Joe Biden, five minutes ago considered the Democrats’ strongest contender, dropped off the political radar, Bloomberg foretold the future.

Second, Bloomberg promised to support the Democratic nominee with the vast resources at his disposal – even if the nominee is other than he!  Nothing speaks as powerfully and persuasively to the sense of urgency he feels – as well as to his sense of duty. Bloomberg has committed himself – and a good fraction of his fortune – to removing Trump from the nation’s highest office because he has accurately assessed the dangers of a second Trump term. In consequence, Bloomberg has committed to directing his already very large campaign operation, and everyone and everything that this entails, to whoever becomes the Democratic nominee.

Let’s be clear here: the Democrats will need, badly, every bit of help they can get. Even now, Trump’s campaign machinery is in full gear, and his existing advantages, from incumbency to technology, are enormous.  This makes Bloomberg’s promise to stay the course, no matter who ultimately is the Democratic candidate, critical. For it is no exaggeration to say that without him, without Mike Bloomberg somehow in the mix, the Democrats likely are lost.     

Forty-eight hours ago, the U. S. Senate voted 51 to 49 to block all witnesses and any further evidence from the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Of the 53 Republican Senators, only two dissented, Maine’s Susan Collins and Utah’s Mitt Romney. Which again raises the question, why nearly all Republican Senators continue to toe the White House line. In this case various Senators provided various reasons, some of which were somewhat persuasive. But neither they nor anyone else satisfactorily explained why so many Senators, themselves putatively powerful, denied the American people the most prototypical aspect of American jurisprudence – first-hand fact witnesses.    

In a blog posted January 11^th, I objected to the word “cult” as it was applied – now with relentless regularity – to Donald Trump. The fact is that while some of Trump’s followers are akin to cult members, others are not. Others are entirely devoid of the admiration, devotion, and even veneration that characterizes cult members. Trump’s followers are not, in other words, alike, the one a clone of the other.

Which returns us to Senate Republicans. Again, though they belong to the same legislative body, the 51 Republicans who voted to block witnesses had their various reasons for doing so. No doubt some were motivated by positive feelings toward the president, such as admiration and ideological alignment. Others, though, were motived by negative feelings, including that most primal of human emotions – fear.

Fear of what exactly? To the degree the question is asked, the answer is almost always the same. Fear of being “primaried” – that is, of being challenged for their Senate seats by a candidate running to their right, one who will, among other things, be slavishly devoted to the incumbent president. Granted, this is a fear – but by no means is it the only one. There are at least three other fear factors – three other things that Senate Republicans are afraid that President Trump could and likely would do. Do to them.

• He could and likely would make certain they are debased, demeaned, belittled and besmirched.
• He could and likely would make certain they are exposed in ways that make them vulnerable politically and professionally and, potentially, legally and even personally.
• He could and likely would make certain that they are down for the count – finished forever.          

There is a reason Trump is often compared to Strongmen such as Russia’s Putin, and Turkey’s Erdogan. The reason is he, like they, will do what it takes to preserve their power. To be sure, Putin and Erdogan must be distinguished from Strongmen of a more virulent strain – say, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. The former two are encased in the trappings of democracies while the latter two are not. Still, a Strongman is a Strongman. A Strongman is a leader who rules if not by fiat then by threat.  

What exactly did President Donald Trump mean when a few days ago he said that House Manager Adam Schiff had “not yet paid the price” for his role in the impeachment process? I have no idea. What I do know that if it sounds like a threat and smells like a threat, it’s a threat. The real question is not, in fact, whether it’s a threat, but what kind of a threat. Is it an empty threat? Or is it a threat that’s real? Trouble is, with Strongmen you never know.

When the history of the current impeachment process is written, only a few even of those most heavily involved will be remembered. President Donald Trump, of course. And, of course, Speak of the House, Nancy Pelosi. And now, as anyone paying attention knows, Congressman Adam Schiff.

Schiff has taken the lead in presenting the case for impeaching the president to the Senate, whose members constitute the jury. Schiff’s contributions have been various. Most importantly, first as leader of the House managers he has been fastidious in making what is widely agreed an extremely strong case; second as presenter, as orator, he himself he has been extraordinary effective. His content sometimes sung, and his delivery generally was impeccable. There were of course some naysayers, some who insisted that Schiff was playing more to the cameras than to the people. But overwhelmingly his reviews were unusually strong, words like “dazzling” and “brilliant” and “tour de force” tripping off the tongue of many close observers.   

Trump has a nickname for Schiff – in fact he has two. The president refers to the Congressman from California as “Little Pencil Neck” or, more often, “Shifty Schiff.” (In a 2018 tweet, Trump also named him Little Adam Schitt – about which no further comment.) Trump is bothering insulting as Schiff has emerged from the impeachment process as Trump’s most formidable opponent. Which brings me to the point of this post – to retrieve from the past the psycho-historian.

When I was a graduate student at Yale in the 1970’s psychohistory was big. Erik Erikson especially – whose biographies of Martin Luther and Mahatma Gandhi were widely read and even revered – was a proponent of biographies that took account not only of the leader’s psychological development but of the way it mapped on to those of the led. In other words, Erikson’s explanation for why some leaders became great leaders was their singular capacity to reflect not only the temper of the time but the temper of the people.     

I am not arguing that Schiff will forever be remembered as a great leader. It is in any case too early to know his place in history. What I am suggesting is that this man in particular mapped on to this moment in particular. A moment most obviously characterized by coarseness and cynicism – and by followers who not only widely dislike their leaders but also widely distrust them. In 2019 less than 20% of Americans approved of the way Congress was doing its job.  

What then is it about Schiff that made him stand out? That made it possible for him to rise to the occasion – to meet the moment? Clearly there was as indicated the overarching importance of his near perfect performance. As a manager, as an orator, as a leader who freely drew on the glories, real and imagined, of America’s past to try to pull the people from what he depicted as their dismal present. To pull them toward a better future in which they, we, would be led by those who appealed to what Lincoln famously called the better angels of our nature.  

But in addition to Schiff’s political position was his personal impression. His presentation of self on a stage now better known for performances that are crude and rude than for those that are quiet and calm. To be sure, the content of what Schiff said was hardly meek or mild. But the way he said it was, well, maybe not meek, but certainly mild. One of the monikers that Trump bestowed – calling Schiff “little pencil-neck” – has a certain resonance because Schiff’s body reflects his history. He is atypically tall and lean, with an aura almost of an ascetic. No accident, as Schiff has not only run marathons he has participated in triathlons. He is, moreover, a vegan. Of how many other Senators can this be said?! Moreover, while he might carry a big stick, he speaks softly. He always speaks softly, never really raises his voice, though it does sometimes, when he is especially impassioned, take on a certain urgency. Still, Schiff’s presentation of self is nothing if not atypical: his silver tongue encased in a body that seems more suited to self-denial than to self-promotion.

How then does this man meet this moment?  By providing the American people with the obverse of their president.  Whereas one has been inexperienced and inexpert, the other is experienced and expert. Whereas one has been impetuous and impulsive, the other has been determined and deliberate. Whereas one has been intermittently sluggish and lazy, the other is as relentlessly hard-working as deeply committed. Whereas one has been proudly licentious, the other has been quietly conventional. Whereas one has flouted a long list of American norms, the other remains steeped in American ideas and ideals.  Whereas one has been a real estate developer and television personality the other is a lawyer who has spent most of his life in public service.

Donald Trump once sued comedian Bill Maher for calling him the son of an orangutan. Can you imagine Adam Schiff suing Donald Trump for calling him Little Pencil-Neck? Or for that matter Shifty Schiff? The fact that the former has better things to do than the latter is precisely why the former, Adam Schiff, has met this moment. As much as anyone else in American political life, he is the anti-Trump.

Removing a bad leader under the best of circumstances is difficult enough. But removing a bad leader under other than the best of circumstances is a hurdle almost impossible to climb.

This post is not about the American president. It is about the American political process which threatens to be so biased against hard evidence as to violate every American norm relating to the rule of law. To be sure, the story of President Donald Trump’s impeachment is not yet over. Moreover, almost 70% percent of Americans surveyed – a very large majority – say they want witnesses to be heard at his trial. However, the fact that the Republican Senate majority leader can try with a reasonable expectation of success to turn a legal or, if you prefer, political, process into a sham tells you something about the state of the Republic.    

Explanations for how we got to this moment in American history abound. They range from the personal, such as the persona of this particular incumbent; to the political, such as the inordinate divisiveness of the body politic; to the economic, such as the measurable decline in well-being of the working class.

However, one explanation so far has been absent entirely from the discussion: the 21st century paucity of civic education in the nation’s schools. Suffice to say here that at a time when only 26 percent of Americans can name all three branches of government – how shocking a finding is that?! – and when the increased focus on math and reading has meant pushing civics out of the K through 12 curriculum, we should not be surprised when bad things happen. When members of America’s political elite try beating the system to keep a very bad leader in a very high place.

Though the American people strongly support calling witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial, they are by and large passive observers of the political process, not active participants in the political process. For example, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell can be virtually 100 percent certain that if he manages to railroad the impeachment trial, turn the Senate into, in effect, a kangaroo court, there will be no immediate political price to pay. He is betting on the American people screaming and yelling on line, but not taking to the streets in sufficient numbers, and maybe not even turning out to vote in sufficient numbers, mortally to wound either him or his Republican majority. The fact that the American people are inadequately socialized to the American experience, the American experiment, means they do not understand, we cannot understand, how precious is our liberal ideology, how singular is our political history.

While Russian President Vladimir Putin has been busy rejiggering his government to satisfy his ceaseless lust for power, his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, has been busy doing something similar. Xi too has been seeking to satisfy his ceaseless lust for power, albeit in his case not exactly at home, more like abroad. Though how exactly Taiwan relates to the Chinese mainland lies, of course, in the eye of the beholder.   

Xi has always claimed that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory.” There’s just one small problem: the people of Taiwan see their situation differently. A few days ago, they handed a landslide victory to incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen, who has flat out rejected Beijing’s insistence that Taiwan succumb entirely to Chinese control. The reason for their increasing skepticism is clear: what happened recently in Hong Kong. What happened recently in Hong Kong frightened the people of Taiwan – and it emboldened them. They are frightened by what they rightly regard as Xi’s attempts to hold Hong Kongers increasingly tightly in his iron grip. And they are emboldened by Hong Kongers’ fierce resistance to what has become Xi’s dictatorial rule. The model held out by Beijing to both Hong Kong and Taiwan, known as “one country, two systems,” is widely perceived now a sham, which means that people in both places can be expected to fend off for the indefinite future Xi’s most ardent overtures.

Once again, this leaves this most powerful of dictators with a difficult hand to play – a very difficult hand. He is pitted against two peoples who have lived their lives in systems more akin to democracies than autocracies – and they rather like it. Which means that Xi has few if any good policy options. Political compromise is unlikely. And the prospect of using military force is as unattractive as, likely, counterproductive.

When the results of the election in Taiwan became known, Beijing was, predictably, furious. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, reiterated yet again that Taiwan was an “inalienable part” of China,” adding for good measure that “those who split the country will be doomed to leave a stink for 10,00 years.” But, in the short term at least, it is those in mainland China, not those on the island lying just 100 miles to the east, obliged to hold their nose.