The uses of adversity

2020 promises to be a turbulent time in America. As the Trump impeachment moves to an inevitable non-conviction in the Senate and the campaigns for the POTUS, 100% of the House and 1/3 of the Senate ramp up, the divisions among Americans will be exploited by the press and by the White House.

For this reason, Rebecca and Anna’s Christmas gift of “Leadership in Turbulent Times” by Doris Kearnes Goodwin is timely. It is a reminder of how leaders can emerge in times of anxiety and crisis and can do the right thing. The book consists of the stories of four American presidents, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and LBJ, and how their respective biographies provided the tempering crucibles from which they derived their strength of conviction, vision, tenacity and zeal to turn the power of government to the benefit of the most vulnerable in society. I read the Edmund Morris Theodore Roosevelt trilogy, as well as “River of Doubt,” the story of Roosevelt’s adventures in South America after leaving office. I read the four published volumes of LBJ biography by Robert Caro. And I read Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” about Lincoln’s cabinet. I haven’t read an FDR bio, but my many readings of 20^th century history have made many of the FDR stories in this book familiar. Nevertheless, I found Goodwin’s reframing of these familiar histories as narratives of leadership edifying and engrossing.

What a sobering contrast between the leadership visions of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and LBJ and Donald Trump’s vision of the presidency as solely a venue for perpetual campaign and grift! And what a revealing contrast between the willingness of political opponents in these earlier times to compromise in the name of greater national good and the current extremist GOP that reflexively rejects and attacks anything and everything that emerges from the other party.

If you are a Libertarian, you will hate this book. It is about how government has been a force for good. Over and over, Goodwin underscores the various ways each of these acknowledged leaders used governmental power at their disposal to unite the nation, improve the lot of the most marginalized in America and move America closer to the idealized vision of what a great society should be. As Johnson exclaimed: “What the hell’s the presidency for?”

Goodwin does explicitly acknowledge the stark contrast between Johnson’s unswerving focus and energy in the service of his domestic agenda (civil rights, voting rights, Medicare) and his reactionary and secretive expansion of the US involvement in propping up an oppressive government in South Vietnam against a North Vietnamese-supported domestic insurgency. His bad judgment cost 50,000 American lives and forever stained his legacy.

Goodwin writes well and with authority. This book is easy to read in bursts, as it moves between segmented histories of its four protagonists. It has vital historical lessons for our time. I recommend it.