With the world in turmoil, it is clearer than ever that America can no longer afford the preening, puffing and partisan gotchas that masquerade as leadership in Washington today.
As our leaders bicker endlessly with one another, we are losing sight of our nation’s most critical goals, our domestic priorities, our place in the world, and our responsibilities around the globe.
John F. Kennedy defined leadership as “an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and comprised of no private obligation or aim, but one devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest.”
Such high-minded idealism at most seems quaint in our increasingly cynical nation’s capital, but that’s exactly what the current moment in U.S. history demands. As our nation looks wearily ahead to 2024, I hope people in Washington will embrace five pearls of wisdom that have historically helped guide America’s best leaders.
1. Your failure is not necessarily my success
Washington has lost sight of this idea in the last decade and the result has been almost disastrous.
The most consequential legislation in U.S. history has often been produced as a result of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans including The Social Security Act of 1935, The Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965, and The Clean Air Act of 1970.
Then of course there was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Credit for that legislation is often, and rightly, given to Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights leaders who compelled Washington to act, and Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic president who shepherded the bills through Congress.
But the bill never would have passed if not for the Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen. Imagine where we’d be if Senator Dirksen refused to support these bills because he didn’t want to give a “win” to a president from the other party.
It would have been tragic, short sighted and destructive – and yet that’s…
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