STARTING TOMORROW: (Leadership) Cadres!

MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2024

American leadership meltdowns: Last night, then again this morning, the poisonous conduct continued.

The parodies of "journalism." The imitations of life.

We're speaking of such people as Joey Johnny Jones. Also, we're speaking of Rachel Campos-Duffy. 

(Yesterday morning, she added "pagan" to "Marxist" and "Communist" on her list of most commonly uttered invectives. To our eye and to our ear, Campos-Duffy is fully sincere!)

Also, who invented the new Lisa Boothe? We're speaking of her as well! Concerning Princeton and Harvard's Pete Hegseth, who can explain what he does?

Needless to say, Brian Kilmeade was at the heart of the imitations of life. He was "reporting" what one unnamed person had allegedly told him. All the others rushed to affirm it:

What Kilmeade said this person had said simply had to be true!

So the imitations went. Last night, then again this morning, the poisonous conduct was general over the Fox News Channel. The poisonous conduct was general, but also the imitations of life. 

This afternoon, we'll offer some links. Below, we'll outline our pre-existing, provisional plan for the rest of the week.

As learned in kindergarten:

Everything he needed to know he learned in kindergarten!

We refer, of course, to Robert Fulghum. More specifically, we refer to Fulghum's famous 1988 book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. 

The Wikipedia entry gets snarky real fast. That said, the entry starts like this:

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten is a book of short essays by American minister and author Robert Fulghum. It was first published in [1988].

The title of the book is taken from the first essay in the volume, in which Fulghum lists lessons normally learned in American kindergarten classrooms and explains how the world would be improved if adults adhered to the same basic rules as children...

The world would be better if adults did that? We can't really say that's wrong!

From that point on, the snark and the snide come fast. That said, a publisher notes the fact that Fulghum's book became a "phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller."  In Wikipedia's entry about Fulghum himself, the site even tells us this:

"His first collection of writings, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, stayed on The New York Times bestseller lists for nearly two years."

We can't verify the perfect accuracy of that specific statement, but Fulghum's book was huge. At any rate, according to Fulghum's basic thesis, he could have dropped out of school in first grade and proceeded quite nicely from there!

In the past few months, we've been shaping a variant on Fulghum's powerful theme. Our own implied claim has been this:

Everything You Really Need to Know You Can See On Display in The Iliad

As the leading authority notes, the famous, ancient poem of war "is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature." Over the course of the past few months, we've been asking you this question:

Can we inhabitants of Blue America learn to see ourselves more clearly by perusing the martial tales contained in this ancient war poem?

As (almost) everyone has acknowledged by now, our own modern nation is currently coming undone. We've already divided into Red America and Blue America—with other subgroupings within each nation—and rarely the twain ever meets.

Each of these modern nations has its own news orgs and its own battle cries. As is routine at times like these, citizens find it easy to spot the flaws of those in the rival America, but may not be able to spot the flaws on their own side of the divide.

The Iliad is a largely fictional account of a war which is said to have taken place in the late Bronze Age. Cultural frameworks have changed since that time:

Human nature possibly hasn't.

Human nature may not have changed since the days when men fought on the plains outside Troy! On that basis, can we possibly see ourselves more clearly by stepping outside the modern context and returning to the behaviors put on display in that first poem of war?

All this week, we expect to be talking about contemporary leadership cadres. As our nation, such as it was, continues to fall apart around us, we'll be evaluating the failed leadership of these four basic groups:

The group of Red America thought leaders found on Fox & Friends Weekend.

The former president who will likely be the Republican Party's nominee in this year's presidential campaign (and the rest of his leadership cadre).

The sitting president who will likely be the Democratic Party's nominee in this year's presidential campaign (and the rest of his leadership cadre).

The group of Blue America thought leaders found on MSNBC programs.

That's what we plan to do as the week proceeds. We'll start today with the leadership meltdowns suffered by Agamemnon, lord of men, at various junctures during the last few weeks of the siege of Troy. 

The Iliad begins with one episode of violent rage—an episode which creates the central conflict, within the clan, which drives the rest of the poem. By the time we reach Book Nine (out of 24 books in all), we find the lord of men behaving in a remarkable manner.

The Achaeans (the Argives; the Greeks) have been laying siege to Troy for more than nine years. But now, the force of the battle has turned against them—and Agamemnon, lord of men, suffers an emotional meltdown during a nighttime gathering of the troops:

Lord marshal Agamemnon rose up in their midst,
streaming tears like a dark spring running down
some desolate rock face, its shaded currents flowing.
So, with a deep groan, the king addressed his armies:
"Friends—lords of the Argives, all my captains:
Cronus' son has entangled me in madness, blinding ruin—
Zeus is a harsh, cruel god. He vowed to me long ago,
he bowed his head that I should never embark for home
till I had brought the walls of Ilium crashing down.
But now, I see, he only plotted brutal treachery:
now he commands me back to Argos in disgrace,
whole regiments of my men destroyed in battle.
So it must please his overweening heart, who knows?
Father Zeus has lopped the crowns of a thousand cities,
true, and Zeus will lop still more—his power is too great.
So come, follow my orders. Obey me, all you Argives.
Cut and run! Sail home to the fatherland we love!
We'll never take the broad streets of Troy."

Tears streaming down his face, the lord of men advises his men to cut and run—to sail for home, to admit that their siege has failed.

Let's be clear! It isn't just that the lord of men has suffered an emotional breakdown. Beyond that, he believes all kinds of crazy things concerning the reasons why his siege of Troy will never succeed.

For unknown reasons, he has come to believe that Father Zeus deliberately tricked him in the past. Beyond that, he suddenly sees that Zeus (the son of Cronus) will never let his efforts succeed.

Spouting an array of unfounded beliefs, Agamemnon has melted down as the troops look on. No modern American political leader ever suffered a nuttier breakdown—not even, let us say, at 2 o'clock on a typical morning, offering poisonous social media posts composed completely in caps.

Within the clan, Agamemnon is regarded as king of the Argives. That said, he engages in bouts of rage at various points in the poem.

Now, in Book Nine, he completely melts down. Imagine what he might have posted on social media had he only been given the chance!

Agamemnon has melted down in a massive leadership failure. What happens next is a reminder that leadership often comes from leadership cadres, not from monarchs alone.

"Tonight's the night that rips our ranks to shreds or pulls us through!" Eventually, that's what one member of the Achaean leadership cadre tells the troops on that fateful evening. 

A second member of the cadre is now dispatched to reason with Achilles, who has been sulking in his tents ever since Book One. Agamemnon has melted down, but seasoned members of his cadre manage to pull the clan through.

Sure enough! Even way back then, even with someone as mighty at this, a political leader is only as great as the cadre with which he's surrounded. In Saturday morning's New York Times, Frank Bruni applied that basic framework to the political choice confronting our own failing nation.

Headline included, Bruni's column started like this:

The Overlooked Truths About Biden’s Age

In terms of optics and in terms of energy, I wish President Biden were younger. There’s no point in pretending otherwise. And from the casual conversations all around me and the formal polling of voters, I know I’m in robust company. A great many Americans consider his age unideal, and that belief is why there’s no wishing away the focus on it. The swell of attention to it over the past few months is more beginning than end. There are tsunamis yet to come.

Even so, aspects of the subject actually get too little consideration, starting with this crushingly obvious and yet frequently overlooked fact: The presidency isn’t a solo mission. Not even close. It’s a team effort, and the administration that a president puts together matters much, much more than his brawn or his brio.

[...]

He’s not Atlas; he’s POTUS. And the president of the United States is only as good as the advisers around him, whose selection reflects presidential judgment, not stamina.

We acknowledge as much when we discuss how a president might fill or has filled his cabinet. We recognize that many vital decisions are made—and that most important policies are realized—outside of the Oval Office.

Will the president's cadre be able to pull him through, along with our own Blue America? Will they be able to do so through the application of their wisdom and their competence—wisdom and competence which exceeds that of the Trump leadership cadre? 

Bruni seems to suggest that the answer is or should be yes. This week, we'll be prepared to admit that we hold a somewhat less sanguine view.

Full disclosure! We expect to unveil a set of gloomy assessments as the week proceeds. We expect to announce that all four cadres under review seem to lack what it takes to pull our nation, such as it is or was, through.

By the rules of the game, one of the two major candidates will end up in the White House next year. But our nation's troubled history will continue from there—and after that, will anyone be able to pull us through?

Even in the late Bronze Age, Agamemnon, lord of men, was saved by the skill and wisdom of a leadership cadre. As our own nation splits in two, we have no expectation of similar conduct in the months and the years ahead—not from our political leaders, not from our groups of thought leaders.

"The day will come when sacred Troy must die!" Prophetically, Hector of the shining helmet makes that declaration in Book Six of The Iliad. 

Human nature remaining unchanged, do you know of any reason to suppose that our current bifurcated America will be able to pull itself through?

Fulghum thought he knew it all by the time he reached first grade! Sadly, our various flailing leadership cadres seem to think they know it all too!

Tomorrow / as seen on Easter morning: Just about as gruesome and faux as "cable news" ever gets!