My Perceived Flaw In D.C.

In pursuing my second Master’s in Educational Leadership, I learned a great deal about leadership; In addition to the curriculum for the Master’s degree, I read many books in regards to this subject…Randy Johnson’s, “Life Lessons from Baseball”, “Lincoln on Leadership” by Donald T. Phillips, “Leadership Lessons of Robert E. Lee” written by Bil Holton, PhD., Lee Iacocca’s “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?”, Dr. Henry Cloud’s book, “9 Things a Leader Must Do”,  Steven Covey’s “& Habits of Highly Effective People” among others.

All of the information indicated a leader must possess many qualities. It would be too hard to declare the most important quality one must possess to be successful in a leadership role.  But without question, the leader must have a vision about what needs to be accomplished, develop a methodology to make the vision a reality, then motivate people to follow the leader’s path.
  
And along the way, build a confidence in those with whom you may have the opportunity to work by demonstrating your commitment to making the “vision” a reality.  The “vision” must be well articulated and thought out accordingly.  Any chaos or confusion would be counter-productive to the acquiring of the goal.

Now with all of this being said, one may wonder…WTH?

Let’s consider the uncertainty of Washington DC at the moment.
 

• Deportation of undocumented citizens, only to find the court system to order the return of a deported citizen for no apparent reason other than “tattoos”.
• Tariffs on, off, on, and then pause for 90 days.  (I am more than aware of the history of tariffs dating back to the beginning of our country.)  On, Off, On…Pause for 90 days.  Even an island occupied by penguins was the recipient of a tariff.  Most all countries in the world…except Russia.  Does this sound like a government that has a convincing vision of what needs to happen?
• The volatility of the stock market based on the on, off, on, paused tariffs.  That does wonders(sic) for the economy; not just for the US, but for the World.  The stock market tanked.  Not long after trading opened at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 9th, Trump took to his Truth Social platform and wrote:  “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”  Four minutes later, he wrote:  “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”.  Just before 1:30 p.m., Trump announced the pause, sending stocks soaring. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index had its biggest one-day gain since 2008, rising nearly 12%, while the S&P 500 climbed 9.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 8%, or about 2,800 points. The next day, Thursday, the market lost another 1000 points.
• Let us not give a pass to Elon Musk and his “chainsaw approach” to firing people who were government workers.  Ask yourself, did his DOGE have any criteria to determine whom should be fired?  Did his DOGE have enough time to evaluate programs based on need and impact if collapsed?  Evidently not!  With his approach, Musk fired many nuclear scientists, whom he had to try and rehire because they were the only ones working on a project.  Musk has said he has found wasteful spending, which I do not doubt, and corruption, corruption, corruption.  What I have difficulty trying to understand is, if the corruption was that prevalent, why hasn’t the DOJ been involved with federal indictments and arrests?
• RFK, jr. who is a proponent for not vaccinating people to prevent disease, and has made that statement saying, vitamins, and healthy eating will prevent most diseases, has walked back this idea after attending the funeral of a 9-year-old girl in Texas who died of the Measles.  RFK, jr. said the best way to prevent Measles is to take the MMR vaccine.  Duh!  Polio was virtually wiped out by the Salk Vaccine.  
• Recently, the “play by play” of an attack on Houthi encampments took place in a group text.  Included in the group text was Jeffery Goldberg, of the Atlantic magazine, who obviously isn’t a Department of Defense employee, or in the inner circle of the Oval Office.  Tim Walz took full responsibility, yet the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth stated numerous times that no secret information was involved in the Signal Text group.  It makes one wonder…who is actually minding the Defense Department and the Pentagon.

I recognize that change often brings about apprehension and anxiety.  But I also know that the tradition of peaceful transition of power hasn’t been fulfilled.  The occupant at the White House has used intimidation (tariffs) to try and get what he wants from other countries around the world.  (World domination?)  The occupant at the White House has insulted previous Presidents of the United States by calling them horrible and stupid.  That is a complete lack of respect for the office of the President of the United States.  The occupant at the White House has called a respected service member and Senator, John McCain, a “loser”.  The de facto President, Elon Musk, has called Mark Kelly, a combat pilot with 39 missions, an astronaut, and Senator a traitor.  Again, a complete lack of respect for men who were veterans and took on extremely dangerous jobs.
  
The President received 49.81% of the recent votes cast in the Presidential Election in November.  The President hasn’t fostered an aura of confidence with investors, with blue collar workers, with educators.  The President may not believe this is important for his success…but just saying "Make America Great Again" without a cohesive, well-articulated plan, doesn’t get it done.  Trump’s statement, “Trust me, I know what I’m doing” doesn’t play well if one examines the recent behavior of his leadership, those chosen by him to fill offices of the government, as well as the many legal challenges to the actions of the Trump administration.
 
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/trump-tariff-pause-experts-question-timing-trump-social-media-posts-rcna200526