“Good leadership takes all of the blame and none of the credit.”

As I was sorting through papers during my daily hour of deep cleaning, I came across this quote I gave to someone who interviewed me for a paper on leadership.

I believe this is the key problem that is plaguing our country today and the reason that the U.S. is handling the pandemic worse than pretty much any country in the world. This is not about partisan politics or attacking someone unfairly in a time of national crisis. COVID-19 is not the fault of this administration but the utter failure of leadership in the face of it is.

We will not be able to move past this time of Great Separation safely until there is widespread testing, and that will not happen until there is national leadership coordinating the supply chain to provide for that testing. That is what the federal government was created to do during an emergency. Imagine fighting a war against a common enemy if it was up to each National Guard to determine where they went and what they did, without coordination.

That national coordination will not take place until the commander-in-chief accepts responsibility and focuses not on getting credit but on getting things done within the constitutional understanding of the role of states and the federal government. He needs to appoint a person of ability and authority to coordinate testing and actually get it done. People who continue to focus on giving him all credit but no responsibility are enabling his immaturity and toxicity. As a result, there has been and will continue to be  needless deaths of so many that could have been avoided if this was handled with a focus on others as opposed to self-aggrandizement and narcissism.

You reap what you sow and this nation sowed the wind and is reaping the whirlwind.

It does seem that the president changes his mind if it is deemed “unpopular,” so continued support of this administration feeds the beast of chaos and will lead to more death. Perhaps if people came to their senses and saw that there is nothing life-affirming about his actions, we could once again have two parties that disagree, as opposed to an autocratic leader who wants to be a dictator.

But in the meantime, we need to keep the faith. The Scriptures  exhort us to “not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap a harvest time, if we do not give up.” (Gal. 6:9)

So even in the whirlwind our nation has sown, we need to stay the course by listening to the scientists and good governors, registering people to vote, advocating for voters rights and looking toward Nov. 3 as a day of liberation.