President Trump is a great salesman. That may sound like a knock against him from some circles, but it’s a necessary trait for a successful president when there’s a need to convince the American people and leaders in Washington DC about the efficacy of policies. Presidents Obama, Clinton, and Reagan were also great salesmen and it served them well to push forward their agendas.
President Trump is a cautious leader. Some would argue he’s too brash or acts on whims, but there needs to be a clear distinction between actions and sentiment, just as there needs to be an understanding that quick reactions do not necessarily indicate lack of caution. Most presidents since Kennedy have been cautious with the exceptions of Presidents Carter and Obama. The difference between President Trump and many of our past presidents is that he’s cautious for the sake of doing what’s best for America, not out of some misguided sense of political expediency.
President Trump is a decisive man. When he makes a decision, he sticks by it. Sometimes he may adjust in the face of new information, such as the bump stock ban that was prompted by the Las Vegas shooter, but he has maintained an uncanny consistency in his policies. This has helped him achieve a reputation of fulfilling his promises above just about every modern American president.
As the United States and the world copes with the invisible enemy of the Chinese Coronavirus, we’re seeing a sentiment shift. Even as millions of Americans are concerned about their health and their financial future, they’re seeing from the President and his staff daily the right mix of caution and hope that this nation needs right now. His ability to sell us on his administration’s maneuvers regarding the crisis have gone mostly unnoticed as it’s often difficult to see when we’re embracing a narrative. It’s only when we disagree with a narrative that we take note of how a sales pitch makes us feel. Considering the magnitude and widespread fear associated with the coronavirus, it’s absolutely amazing that the nation isn’t grabbing torches and pitchforks to take down the White House. A lesser salesman would be facing much more heat from a terrified populace. A lesser president would be hated by many more, even supporters, during troubled times like these.
And yet, we’re not under martial law. There have been concerns that the President will invoke the Stafford Act to mandate quarantines across the country and effectively shut it all down. I know for certain this type of action has been recommended to the President on multiple occasions for weeks as a way to drive back the disease, but the President has remained cautious. Such a move would have already been made by some of our presidents past. President Trump is rightly cautious when necessary, and within this caution lies the ability to recognize that paranoia cannot rule the day.
Arguably the most important trait this president possesses at a time of crisis is decisiveness. We need to see confidence exuding from the nation’s leader. It mustn’t be perceived as a false front nor a haughty facade, and many in mainstream media have been taken aback by their inability to slice through what they assumed would be falsehoods. There are none. Unlike many president we’ve seen in our lifetimes, President Trump says what he means and means what he says. In politics, this is generally considered to be a liability. It has proven to be one in the past as he rubbed many the wrong way with his transparency. But in a time of crisis, transparency and decisiveness are precisely what the American people need to see on a daily basis. The President is delivering that better than any of his predecessors could.
When we soberly examine the President’s traits and carefully watch his actions on a daily basis regarding the coronavirus, it’s difficult for an honest observer to not be very impressed. As a nation, we weren’t built from a constitutional perspective to handle this type of crisis. It may be the one major flaw in the Constitution because it requires exceptional leadership to fight a faceless foe, one or founding fathers could never have predicted. But they trusted future generations would be able to discern the changing needs of the times. Thank God we proved them correct by electing President Trump.
We are at war against an invisible foe. It’s a war that certainly would have been lost already by many of our past presidents. But we will be able to beat the odds and overcome this foe because we have the right president at the right time.
