Wouldn’t it be lovely if, in 2021, we installed a president (and legislators as well) who had intelligence, compassion, honesty, integrity, humility, dignity, maturity, unshakable ethics; an individual who had an interest in the welfare of every citizen; who valued truth and made every decision based on reality and on the impact of those decisions on coming generations; who is more substance than façade; whose first allegiance is to people and the health of the land on which we depend; someone beyond the need to lie in order to gain counterfeit status; someone genuinely motivated to protect the vulnerable; who knows the value of relationships, of diversity, and of the land that we hold in common; someone inclined toward self-reflection and who accepts responsibility for the fruits of her or his actions; an individual who inspires our own compassion, generosity, nobility, and the courage to tackle our personal and collective challenges in constructive ways; someone we could respect, and hold up as a role model for our children; who counted wealth as the ability to give away rather than to hoard, as well as the success of ordinary people; someone equally comfortable and welcome in any religious building, as well as in a forest.
(Imagine a rating scale that evaluated each candidate on these attributes.)
One can certainly also anticipate the various interests and factions that would be threatened by such a person, and the smear campaign that would arise – but that would tell us something about them as well.
I suspect such people are out there and, perhaps, some of our current candidates might have this potential – or, at least, some of it. In the end, I wonder how we might need to change in order to call forth such a person.