The death of dignity in leadership

The concept of dignity encompasses many traits of a virtuous person. It speaks to seriousness of purpose, gravitas, reserve, and self-respect. Throughout our nation’s history, we have considered it indispensable to effective leadership. Our two greatest presidents – Washington and Lincoln – were avatars of dignity.

Donald Trump’s utter inability to conduct himself in a dignified manner, and the follow-on effects that has created, has to rank as one of the most pernicious ways in which he has coarsened and degraded our society. Certainly this is not the worst of his misdeeds. But it is nonetheless important to understand, because it sets the tone for his administration and his followers, and tears at the fabric that binds us together, or used to.

His lack of dignity has been clear for decades. He infamously bragged that he could “grab [women] by the p****” without consequence. He posted an AI video of himself in a fighter jet dropping payloads of excrement on No Kings Day protesters. He gave a worker the middle finger during an auto factory tour. He wrote “Good, I’m glad he’s dead” about Robert Mueller, a decorated war hero. After a hammer-wielding Trump supporter bashed in the skull of Nancy Pelosi’s husband, he sneeringly asked a crowd “how’s her husband doing by the way, anybody know?” One could roll out literally hundreds of similarly graceless and appalling examples.

Try to imagine Washington or Lincoln behaving this way – impossible. Actually, try to imagine any human being with the slightest sense of decorum or decency acting this way – also impossible.

The dignity deficit extends to his Cabinet – that collection of hacks, nonentities and bootlickers who periodically assemble before him to compete to see who can degrade themselves the most by showering him with absurdly over-the-top praise (actual example: at one of these gatherings the (since fired) Secretary of Labor said “Mr. President, I invite you to see your big beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor because you are really the transformational president for the American worker.”). In what can only be understood as a self-inflicted humiliation ritual, male Cabinet members beclown themselves by sloshing around in oversize dress shoes because Trump has bestowed them without regard for the proper shoe size, and they fear offending him by not wearing them. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi displayed all the refinement of a feces-flinging baboon when in a Congressional hearing she bizarrely told Congressman Jamie Raskin “you don’t get to tell me anything, you washed up loser lawyer. You’re not even a lawyer.” (Raskin is the foremost constitutional law scholar in Congress). Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that if Trump fired him he’d say “thank you sir, I love you sir.” He actually said that.

Republicans in Congress are similarly afflicted. On January 6, 2021, Trump exhorted his supporters to march on the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power, and then sat by and refused to lift a finger for hours as they ransacked the building and viciously attacked Capitol police while members of Congress – of both parties -- hid and cowered in fear for their lives. Instead of forsaking him for this – the most traitorous act ever committed by an American president – within a few weeks Congressional Republicans embraced him as the leader of their party once again. The degree of self-abasement it must take to support a man after he has sicced a violent mob on you (and refused to apologize for it) is off the charts. No one with a shred of self-respect could act that way.

Stripping other, less powerful people of their dignity is also a hallmark of this administration. Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem flew to El Salvador for a photo op in front of dozens of caged, half-naked deportees deployed as props – a shameful, dehumanizing spectacle. Trump regularly demeans and degrades all Somali-Americans as “garbage.” ICE detains thousands of undocumented immigrants in inhumane and filthy human warehouses.

We used to expect more from our presidents. In this way, as in so many others, Trump has broken the mold.

James Speyer is a lawyer and a volunteer with Lawyers Defending American Democracy. He lives in Sharon, CT.