Donald Trump's apprenticeship: failed on the job empathy training

President's find their leadership stride during times of crises. It's unfortunately a somber right of passage. They are remembered by how they lead during trials and tribulations. 

President Franklin Roosevelt reached out to the hearts of Americans during his fireside chats. President John F. Kennedy showed strength during the Cuban Missile Crises. President William Clinton provided inspirational bereavement to the survivors of Oklahoma City's domestic terrorist bombing. President George Bush '43, spoke to the American people during the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks. President Obama spoke eloquently and compassionately at more funerals than most people attend in their lifetimes.

In comparisom, it is a tragic lack of leadership in Donald Trump, that prevents him from finding his stride. Consequently, he isn't credible in any leadership capacity.

Moreover, as the cynical writer Andy Borowitz wrote, Donald Trump appeared to read his "post-post Charlottesville Virginia speech", where he was supposed to condemn white the supremacists, like he was a hostage, a person who was being recorded under duress.

CNN reports how Donald Trump is missing a key ingredient to being a successful president

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Tue August 15, 2017

Evidently, Donald Trump has a major empathy problem.

That's not new -- but it is very, very important both to understand his reaction to Charlottesville, as well as his presidency going forward.

Way back in May 2016, Chris Cillizza wrote this:

"As the nation turns its eyes to the general election, I have one question that continues to nag at me as I think about the possibility of Trump in the White House: Can he be empathetic? Like, at all? And does he need to be?"
Watching Trump fumble his initial response to the violence following white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, I was reminded of that question. 

Trump ran as an unapologetic tough guy. But, what happens when you need a softer touch -- in moments like the one that transpired in Charlottesville over the weekend?

"Ultimately, I think a lack of empathy is just one piece of a portrait of a person who is unbalanced and damaged," Stuart Stevens, a Republican consultant who has long vocally opposed Trump, told me of Trump at the time. "He has spent his life in a bubble, surrounded by hired yes men and women who have never told his inner child to grow up."

Unfortunately, the 2016 voters who supported Donald Trump appeared to want a US  leadership change, more than they wanted a leader who cared about them.

That may be an overly-harsh analysis. But, it's hard to dispute Stevens' assertion that Trump's capacity for empathy is extremely low and, when he is required to reach out to people who he doesn't know or who don't support him, he is extremely uncomfortable and often simply unwilling to do it.

Trump's two Charlottesville speeches are prime evidence. In his Saturday remarks, Trump seemed to be entirely focused on ensuring that people didn't blame him for these violent acts and making clear that protesters "on many sides" were responsible for what happened.

On Monday, Trump, defying all political logic, started by touting his many accomplishments as president before turning to denounce the neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups responsible for the violence -- which left a woman dead and dozens injured -- in Charlottesvile.

Particularly in Monday's speech, it was clear that Trump was checking a box that his advisers insisted he needed to check after swinging and missing so badly Saturday. They told him to read the speech, so he did. But, he quite clearly didn't feel as though it was necessary to do so.

Ask people close to Trump and they will insist he is a kind and understanding person.
"He is a compassionate person," said ousted White House communications director -- and longtime Trump pal -- Anthony Scaramucci in an interview with Stephen Colbert on Monday. (See! Told you!)

And, there is little question that Trump is extremely close and fiercely loyal to his family and a very small inner circle of friends. But that is a very different thing than being empathetic about the struggles of people you've never met or who you know didn't vote for you or don't like you.

For Trump, being president has always been about kicking ass and reasserting America's spot at the front of the line. It's sort of like this moment at a NATO summit at the end of May (where he bullied his way to the front row of dignitaries- such an ugly display of ignorance!)

And, it worked for him during the campaign! People -- especially Republicans -- were sick of politics as usual. The color-within-the-lines politicians hadn't done much of anything they liked so they were willing to take a chance on someone who didn't sound or act like anyone who had ever run for president before.

The 2016 exit poll bears this out. Of the 15% of voters who said knowing the candidate "cares about me" was the most important trait in making up their mind who to vote for, Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 23 points. 

Among the 39% of the electorate who said a candidate who "can bring change" was most important, Trump won by 68(!) points.

People didn't think Trump really cared much about them. 

But they wanted change more than they cared about being cared about.

The problem for Trump -- as so starkly exposed by his response(s) to Charlottesville -- is that being president is a very different thing than running for office. 

Where a lack of empathy doesn't stand out all that much as a candidate -- there is a president in place doing that empathizer-in-chief job -- it stands out hugely when you are actually the President and the country turns to you for unity and inspiration.

And when you deliver a speech in which you cast an incident of white supremacist violence that left a woman dead as a both-sides-do-it situation, you lose credibility even with people who want to believe you have it in you to be more and better than you were as a candidate.

Empathy is not usually the sort of thing you can just start having. 

And it's not something that Trump even seems terribly concerned that he lacks. But, as president, empathy matters. There will be more moments over these next three and a half years where Trump will be called on to recognize and identify with the real grief people are feeling while also reassuring them that better days will come. After what happened over the last 96 hours in Charlottesville, it's not clear Trump has it in him to do that.

MaineWriter addendum: 

Being the leader of all Americans is not "on the job training".  

In fact, the 6 months leadership probationary period is ended. Donald Trump isn't an apprentice anymore. It's time he is removed from his job.

What We Left Behind: Filkins profiles the Maliki "Frankenstein"

Some articles should be required reading for all Americans and What we Left Behind by Dexter Filkins in the April 28 2014 "The New Yorker" is definitely among the essential classics. 

In a nutshell, Filkins describes what, in my mind, is the creation of a Frankenstein version of an Iraqi leader named Nuri al Maliki. It's beyond a non-fiction tragedy, because so much of America's youth and money have been misplaced in this terrible creation. 

Filkins profiles the emergence of Maliki, selected by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), to prop up the American invasion of the sovereign Iraq nation and create the illusion of forming a Constitutional government. Maliki's reign of terror is just as miserable a failure as Frankenstein was at becoming a human being - only, of course, Iraq is not Shelley's fiction. In fact, he's worse.

How Americans got wrapped up in the invasion of Iraq under the guise of "we must never forget", a smoke and mirrors offshoot of a misunderstood anti-terrorism retaliation, is something future historians will definitely autopsy. An attack on New York City's World Trade Center and the Washington DC Pentagon building, on September 11, 2001, became fodder for the invasion of Iraq, while the terrorists who initiated these attacks were nestled in the mountains of Afghanistan and remote regions of Pakistan.

But that's not what Filkins writes about.  

Instead, "What We Left Behind" describes the creation of the monster leadership of Nuri al Maliki, to create the illusion of a new Iraq.  In reality, there's only misery, tyranny, corruption and continued violence in Iraq, post the American invasion. 

What's most sickening is how the Iraqi city of Falluja, where over a thousand Americans died while defending, is now in the hands of an Al Qaeda splinter group of men, who fought against the Americans. In other words, the fight for control of Falluja has, ultimately, been lost.

It now appears the Iraqi government is more aligned with Syria than with the US, meaning there's potentially Russian, behind the scenes, influence (but Filkins doesn't hint at this concept in his article, except for one reference to the Syrian-Iraqi connection). 

If Maliki wins a third term as Iraq's prime minister, the prediction is that he will never leave. In fact, his son Ahmed Maliki is being groomed as his successor. This real possibility of a third term makes Maliki no better, maybe even worse, a dictator than, Saddam Hussein.   

How did this happen?

"The capture of Iraqi territory by Islamic extremists, barely two
years since the last American soldiers left, prompted an extraordinary wave of soul-searching in Iraq and the United States, which lost more than thirteen hundred men and women in Anbar Province," writes Filkins.

In my opinion, the answer to the rhetoric question about "how this happened?", is tragically unsolvable. Nevertheless, just asking the question underscores the underlying difficult issue for the historical medical examiners to unravel. Future historians, those unleashed from the shackles of misplaced patriotic emotions, will undoubtedly determine that it was completely unnecessary for Americans to invade Iraq, in the first place.  

Meanwhile, the Maliki "Frankenstein" reign of "in your face America", appears to be heading toward the point of no return.  If Maliki wins a third term, his nation will then take up arms against the Kurds, who are trying to set up a civilized government in northern Iraq and may well secede from the Iraqi nation. Any move toward Kurdish independence will be perceived and reacted to like Russian president Putin re-claiming the Crimea. Furthermore, I predict, America's response will be just as lame.  

Nevertheless, in my opinion, Iraq's fiasco isn't because of President Obama's leadership. It was President George Bush (41) who prevented the first Iraq War from finishing off the dictator Saddam Hussein. Then, his son President George W. Bush (43) claimed "mission accomplished!", although, it never was accomplished.....and still isn't.  President George Bush(41) didn't follow up with General Swarskopf's leadership and President George W. Bush created a blood bath in Iraq, trying to clean up what his father left undone. (I know that's a brutal synopsis, but it's how I see it.)

Obviously, I'm not the historical medical examiner, trying to determine how Iraq has deteriorated, when America was supposed to have saved it under George W. Bush's banner of "freedom". 

Neither do I have any idea how America can un-create Maliki's Frankenstein leadership.  

One thing Filkin makes clear in his exceptionally well written report is that America's lack of presence in Iraq is a huge mistake.

Americans created this Frankenstein Maliki, in my opinion. Therefore, it's essential for us to make the monster Maliki disappear, back into his test tube. 

But, we're no longer in Iraq. As a result, the CIA created Maliki monster, supported by the Bush administration, lives on.

All Americans must take the time to become educated by reading "What We Left Behind - An increasingly authoritarian leader, a return of sectarian violence and a nation worried for its future," by Dexter Filkins in the April 28, 2014 The New Yorker.  

In other words, the Bush administration's misguided leadership to free Iraq, by both Presidents 41 and 43, as influenced by Vice-President Dick Cheney, were miserable and embarrassing failures.