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Jewish World Review
Nov. 29, 2010
/ 22 Kislev, 5771
Wanted: Someone to Trust
By
Paul Johnson
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
What the midterm elections proved is that the American people do not trust Barack Obama to lead them. And trust, that magic five-letter word, is the most important element in the relationship between a nation and its government.
Trust has been of central importance in American history. During the long and exhausting War of Independence the American people gradually learned to trust George Washington. They subsequently were happy to have him preside over the process of governing that led to the writing of the U.S. Constitution.
The more one reflects on that wonderful document the more extraordinary appears its birth. Washington felt this at the time, saying it struck him as "little short of a miracle, that the delegates from so many different states … should unite in forming a system of national government, so little liable to well-founded objections." He further said: "It approached nearer to perfection than any government hitherto instituted among men [and was] provided with more checks and barriers against the introduction of tyranny … than any government [previously devised by] mortals." He later concluded that it came into being under "the invisible hand" of Providence.
The central reason that the delegates were prepared to accept the Constitution and the states subsequently ratified it was that Washington was in charge of the process. He was the one man they all trusted. That trust proved to be justified. During Washington's two terms as President he showed that the Constitution was workable; he then stepped down without argument or fuss and made way for another. By then the Constitution had become a living thing, an organized part of America.
Trust is always the best contract between a government and its people. It does not need to have a constitutional basis or legal definition. But it needs to be felt in the hearts and minds, the blood and bones. And it is reciprocal. A leader will never be trusted until he or she shows, by attitude and conduct, that he or she in turn trusts the people.
I remember feeling this as a boy in 1940, when Britain was in danger of being drowned in the rapidly advancing tide of Nazi military success. We trusted Winston Churchill to save us, and he, in turn, trusted the British people to have the courage and endurance and the intelligence and strength to make salvation possible.
I had a sense of déjà vu at the end of the 1970s. Britain was in an appalling state, with militant trade unions rendering elected governments impotent, while the economy was sliding into bankruptcy. For the first time in our history we chose a woman to be prime minister. Slowly the people's relationship with Margaret Thatcher became one of trust and was strengthened over the course of some nasty and brutal attempts by the unions to overthrow constitutional government. The trust was justified: After a dozen years under the Iron Lady, Britain emerged strengthened and invigorated.
In the U.S. something similar happened. The 1970s had also been a disastrous decade there, marked by a collapse in the nation's self-confidence. When Ronald Reagan first emerged on the national scene many dismissed him as a second-rate movie actor. Gradually, however, trust built up. When Reagan was elected to a second term he secured the enormous tally of 54,455,075 votes nearly 60% of the total carrying 49 states and winning 525 votes in the electoral college.
The processes of earning and granting trust are gradual and almost metaphysical. So it is that a good leader, at some point, ceases to be merely a politician, an officeholder; he or she becomes a trusted institution. And from that point on the nation becomes healthier, more secure and thus happier.
Britain has a new prime minister in David Cameron. He has begun well, but we don't know yet whether we can trust him. We shall see.
As for the U.S., at few times in its history has it stood in greater need of a leader it can trust. The scars from the financial crisis are still raw and unhealed; unemployment is a cruel scourge; and there are terrible threats to the country's internal and external security, with the future overshadowed by emerging superpowers and competitors. And there is no one to trust.
The U.S. has all kinds of problems. But its biggest over the course of the next two years is how to find a leader who will inspire through character and integrity, vision and resolution, courage and judgment the belief, faith and confidence that Americans have always warmly given to the right person someone they can trust.
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Eminent British historian and author Paul Johnson's latest book is "American Presidents Eminent Lives Boxed Set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant". Comment by clicking here.
Previously:
10/19/10: Are Universities Worth It?
06/01/10: The English Language and Freedom
04/20/10: Listening and Telling the Truth
02/28/10: There Is No Keynesian Miracle
10/20/09: A Job Waiting for a Woman?
07/21/09: Obama Has to Be World Sheriff
03/24/09: Short works of genius that cheer up the writing profession
02/11/09: What would Darwin do?
01/27/09: Are you sophisticated? Here's how to find out
01/06/09: What did they talk about in the Ice Age? The weather, of course
09/09/08: Time, and our appalling ignorance of it
08/19/08: Eye-stopping glimpses of an exotic and forbidden world
06/30/08: How to fill a lecture hall, and how to empty it
06/23/08: Americans should count their blessings
05/20/08: Pajamas for Presidents
05/13/08: Literary woodlice boring needless holes in biographical bedposts
04/01/08: When markets come crashing down, send for the man with the big red nose
04/01/08: Quality for dinner. Pass the Fairy Liquid, Old Boy
03/25/08: In search of an American President with brains and guts
03/18/08: Technological warfare against mice won't work. Try cats
03/11/08: What is a genius? We use the word frequently but surely, to guard its meaning, we should bestow it seldom
03/03/08: Fiction as a crutch to get one through life
02/26/08: Impatience + Greed = Trouble
02/13/08: Shakespeare, Neo-Platonism and Princess Diana
02/07/08: Where Industry Has Failed Us
12/19/07: People who put their trust in human power delude themselves
12/12/07: What is aggression?
12/04/07: Pursuing success is not enough
11/07/07: Are famous writers accident-prone?
10/31/07: Courage needed to disarm Iran
09/20/07: Who Will Say I Promise to Lay Off?
07/24/07: Greed is safer than power-seeking
04/02/07: Benefactors must be hardheaded
03/07/07: American idealism and realpolitik
11/28/06: Space: Our ticket to survival
10/24/06: Envy is bad economics
10/11/06: Better to Borrow or Lend? Rethinking conventional wisdom
08/22/06: Don't practice legal terrorism
08/08/06: A summer rhapsody for a pedal-bike
08/03/06: Why is there no workable philosophy of music?
07/11/06: Historically speaking, energy crisis is America's opportunity
07/06/06: The misleading dimensions of persons and lives
06/06/06: First editions are not gold
05/23/06: A downright ugly man need never despair of attracting women, even pretty
ones
04/25/06: Was Washington right about political parties?
04/12/06: Let's Have More Babies!
04/05/06: For the love of trains
03/29/06: Lincoln and the Compensation Culture
03/22/06: Bottle-beauties and the globalised blond beast
03/15/06: Europe's utopian hangover
03/08/06: Kindly write on only one side of the paper
02/28/06: Creators versus critics
02/21/06: The Rhino Principle
© 2009, Paul Johnson
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