By
Robert
Reich
Among the current crop of candidates for president of the United States, who exhibits leadership and who doesn’t?
Leadership
isn’t just the ability to attract followers. Otherwise some of the worst
tyrants in history would be considered great leaders. They weren’t leaders;
they were demagogues. There’s a difference.
A
leader brings out the best in his followers. A demagogue brings out the
worst.
Leaders
inspire tolerance. Demagogues incite hate.
Leaders
empower the powerless; they give them voice and respect. Demagogues scapegoat
the powerless; they use scapegoating as a means to fortify their power.
Leaders
calm peoples’ irrational fears. Demagogues exploit them.
My
list of great American leaders would include Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
In his second inaugural address near the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln urged his followers to act with “malice toward none, with charity for all.”
In
his first inaugural at the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin D.
Roosevelt told Americans the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself –
nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts.”
In
1963, as African-Americans demanded their civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr.
urged his followers “not to seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking
from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
My
list of American demagogues would include Senator “Pitchfork” Benjamin Tillman
of South Carolina, who supported lynch mobs in the 1890s; Father Charles
Coughlin, whose antisemitic radio rants in the 1930s praised Nazi Germany;
Senator Joseph McCarthy, who conducted the communist witch hunts of the 1950s;
and Governor George C. Wallace, the staunch defender of segregation.
These
men inspired the worst in their followers. They scapegoated the weak and set
Americans against each other. They used fear to stoke hate and thereby entrench
their power.
Back
to the current crop of Presidential candidates: Who are the leaders, and who
are the demagogues?
The
leaders have sought to build bridges with those holding different views.
Rand
Paul spoke at Berkeley, for example, seeking common ground with the
university’s mostly-progressive students.
Bernie
Sanders traveled to Liberty University where most students and faculty disagree
with his positions on gay marriage and abortion. “I came here today,” he said, “because I believe from the bottom of my heart
that it is vitally important for those of us who hold different views to be
able to engage in a civil discourse.”
Other
candidates, by contrast, have fueled division. Ben Carson has said being
gay is a choice. “A lot of people who go into prison straight and when they
come out they’re gay,” he says, “so did something happen while they were in
there? Ask yourself that question.”
Carson
has also argued that
Muslims should not be allowed to become President. I “would not advocate that
we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.”
Donald
Trump, meanwhile, has charged that
Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re
rapists.”
Trump
has lashed out at
those who he charges come to America to give birth, so that their children will
be, in his term, “anchor babies” – arguing that “we have to start a process
where we take back our country. Our country is going to hell.”
And
after one of his followers charged that Muslims “have training camps growing
where they want to kill us,” and asked Trump “when can we get rid of them?”
Trump didn’t demur. He said “a lot of people are saying that”
and “we’re going to be looking at that.”
Nor
has Trump inspired the best in his followers.
At
one recent rally, after Trump denigrated undocumented workers, his supporters
shoved and spit on
immigrant activists who had shown up to protest. At other Trump rallies his
followers have shouted at Latino U.S. citizens to “go home” and yelled “if it ain’t white, it ain’t right.”
Trump
followers have told immigrant activists to “clean my hotel room, bitch.” They’ve beaten up and urinated on the homeless, and joked “you can shoot all the people you want that cross illegally.”
America
is the only democracy in the world where anyone can declare himself or herself
a candidate for the presidency – and, armed with enough money, possibly even
win.
Which
makes it all the more important that we distinguish leaders from demagogues.
The
former ennoble our society. The latter degrade and endanger it – even if they
lose.
ROBERT B. REICH,
Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at
Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was
Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one
of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has
written fourteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock, “The Work of
Nations," and"Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of
the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause. His film,
INEQUALITY FOR ALL is available on Netflix, iTunes, Amazon. His new book,
"SAVING CAPITALISM: For the Many, Not the Few" is out 9/29.
