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President Donald Trump: Continues to fail as a leader
September 10, 2020

In my June 17, 2017 article: Donald J. Trump: "Leader" or "Boss"??, I outlined my reasons for believing that U.S. President Donald Trump is far from the epitome of leadership, but is truly an abject failure as a “leader”. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/donald-j-trump-leader-boss-chris-lewis/

Many of his campaign aides and confidantes have been charged and sentenced to jail; are awaiting trial and/or currently under criminal investigation. Arguably, according to legal experts, if he wasn’t the sitting President of the United States he would have been indicted himself. In fact, he may well be charged with a variety of financial crimes as soon as he is out of office. He’s refused to open up his tax records despite almost four years of false promises to do so. Why ?


He lauds tyrannical dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, but has alienated world leaders of many democratic nations. To what end ?


Most recently, recordings of his interviews with famed journalist Bob Woodward for his upcoming book Rage, have clearly shown that he deliberately misled the American people about the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic, and despite knowing the reality of the virus’ threat, his failure to take decisive action in a timely way has led to the loss of thousands and thousands of U.S. lives.


But despite all of that and proffering lie after lie and spewing nonsensical drivel every time he opens his un-presidential mouth; and making almost every decision based on what will advance his own political career and family business interests – a large percentage of his base still believes he is the best thing for their country. That is frightening to me and should be to us all on both sides of the international border and beyond.


We have our own house of horrors from a federal leadership perspective in Canada as well, as our former drama teacher PM continues to demonstrate personal failings time after time, but this article isn’t about him. Stay tuned though!


Because of my interests in the topic of leadership and what makes good leaders great and bad leaders abysmal, it pains me to hear and see Trump’s sycophants speaking of him as a great “leader”, when in reality he is the total antithesis of a leader in every way humanly possible. Many of these marionettes were highly-critical of him and called him out quite honestly prior to his assumption of power. Now the Lindsey Graham’s of the world stare at him like they are love-struck teenagers and arduously defend his every bizarre move.

Let’s take a brief look at the qualities of a good leader versus what we see from Donald Trump:

True leaders effectively communicate in an open and honest way. Trump has told more lies in the past four years than all the prior U.S. Presidents combined, ever. Fact checkers point out dozens of his lies every time he speaks publicly. The Woodward tapes alone irrefutably show he has lied to the American people in a very dangerous way over the Corona-virus, to the point that he may have committed criminal offences akin to criminal negligence causing death.

He claims he didn’t want to unnecessarily inflame the pandemic situation or cause panic.


Real leaders strive to turn chaos into calm, but not at the expense of the loss of life! They tell the truth. They explain the situation; the risks involved and outline the plan of attack. They then keep people up to date – honestly, as what is being done and what to expect next, but inspire confidence that “we will get through this, together, as a team”.

What Trump did in this case is like a police chief telling the public that although they have heard that there is a sniper on the roof of a downtown building, there really isn’t, or he only has a squirt-gun, so they can safely walk the streets without fear. Or a fire chief telling tenants that the fire in their building was minor and was put out, only to have them enter back into an inferno and to their likely death. Would either of those situations demonstrate leadership?

Good leaders make decisions based on what is best for people they serve and the people they lead. Unlike Trump they don’t make decisions for personal gain, i.e. re-election. They make decisions that they know might personally hurt them, but they do so with the confidence that it is the right thing to do.

True leaders encourage dissention; criticism; feedback; suggestions and innovation. Trump routinely appoints people and sings their praises, but turns on them like a jackal when they don’t blindly agree with his every ridiculous whim. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Rex Tillerson, John Bolton, Generals John Kelly and James Mattis and dozens of others come to mind as those that were pushed to the side or fired and publicly vilified by Trump. No U.S. President since 1789 has had such an all-encompassing turnover of key administration members. Why is that? Certainly not because Trump is a great leader.


True leaders encourage dissention; criticism; feedback; suggestions and innovation. Trump routinely appoints people and sings their praises, but turns on them like a jackal when they don’t blindly agree with his every ridiculous whim. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Rex Tillerson, John Bolton, Generals John Kelly and James Mattis and dozens of others come to mind as those that were pushed to the side or fired and publicly vilified by Trump. No U.S. President since 1789 has had such an all-encompassing turnover of key administration members. Why is that? Certainly not because Trump is a great leader.


Good leaders don’t profess to know it all. They pick good people, encourage them to offer the best advice and then act on it. As OPP Commissioner, I oversaw a budget well in excess of $1B. I am not good with money and have never been able to manage my personal chequing account without help. The OPP had wonderful financial experts that advised me as to what I could do, should do and how to do it, legally and in the best interests of OPP personnel and the people of Ontario. Trump on the other hand knows more than his Generals; more than his intelligence agencies and much more than Dr. Fauci. Think about that.


And lastly, real leaders set the positive example for those they lead. It’s never a “do as I say, not as I do” world to the true leaders. For example, hypothetically, if there was a deadly pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of followers and public health experts were telling people that wearing a mask to protect themselves and others was critically important, a real leader would wear a mask and not mock those that do.

Enough said.

By Chris Lewis February 4, 2025
Is there any meat to this or is it more of the same?
By Chris Lewis January 4, 2025
Police know how to conduct major investigations and find bad guys. Although several specific factors change from case to case, their general investigative playbook remains the same. Once some ungodly multi-victim attack occurs, in very simplistic terms: the scene is protected, and the health of the living victims is looked after. Forensic experts begin processing the crime scene. Witnesses are located and interviewed. Physical evidence is gathered. Area and witness video recordings are collected and analyzed. Victims are identified. An off-site reunification centre is established where there are multiple victims. Next of kin notifications begin. At any point – if a suspect or suspects become known, their background is gathered, and the hunt begins. They need to be apprehended before anyone else is hurt. Area law enforcement officers need to know suspect details ASAP. “Motive” is at top of mind as investigators are synthesizing all this information, whether the suspect is identified or not. Of course, establishing motive often leads to identifying the suspect, but at other times identifying the suspect helps fill in the blanks on motive. What was the initial basis of what became a murder? Was it a robbery? Could it have been a street fight gone bad? Was it simply a want or need to kill someone specific or maybe anyone at all? That’s for investigators to sort out. There is an onus to warn the public or at least tell them something, i.e. “ongoing threat”, “stay indoors”, or “no threat to public safety”. There are reporting protocols to follow. Senior officers need to be advised up the food chain as do their political masters, so everyone knows what is happening. None of that should detract investigators from doing what they do best – catching killers. But that’s when the ravenous “thirst for knowledge” and political grandstanding often take over and completely interfere with police work. The only knowledge the investigators are thirsty for in those early hours is evidence and then identifying, locating and capturing bad people. They do not need politics monopolizing their time or efforts. The New Years Day massacre in New Orleans was big. Fourteen innocent party goers were killed and dozens injured. The world wanted to know what happened and the community wanted to know if they were in danger. I absolutely get that. However, what sometimes comes with such tragedies is everyone wanting to know everything. We see it in most mass murder cases, but this was an exceptional example of the insanity surrounding such a high-profile incident. Whatever blanks weren’t immediately filled in by police officials and verified mainstream media reports, were filled in by social media. In such cases police totally lose control of the narrative as rumours, theories, falsities, conspiracy theories and “hey look at me” games take over. The political party and individual positioning in this case was nauseating. In any multi-agency response, having the leaders of those agencies at press conferences in a united front makes sense. The public needs to have confidence that the situation is in the best of hands. But where did these massive press conferences where police officials are flanked by numerous politicians come from? I can see some elected leaders being present when a new program is launched or government funding is being announced, but it should never be in the early hours of a mass murder. Having a bunch of partisan wonks peacocking on stage and in follow-up interviews, helps no one at the operational level. As some of them were speaking, I was responding to their dumb questions in my mind: Was it a terror attack? Maybe, but let the experts figure that out. In the meantime, it’s a mass murder. Was the killer an illegal immigrant? Let’s worry about that when the dust settles. What political party is to blame for allowing him into the country? We don’t care. Maybe he was born here. Let’s sort that out if he turns out to be an illegal immigrant. Why wasn’t the area more secure? Good question for a future debrief. We need to get the FBI and HSI leaders before a government committee right away so we can find out who failed! Shut up. We have police work to do. There are always enough social media theories, private citizens’ investigations into suspects, outright lies and misinformation being spread to the public, without silly partisan games sidetracking investigators who are fighting to stay ahead of legitimate theories and tips. In the early hours of a mass murder case investigators are probably the busiest they have ever been, and don’t need any of this interference. Controlling the social media fever is next to impossible. It would take a sudden level of maturity across the populace that may be unattainable. But politicians at all levels need to get the message that they are not welcome on stage at operational press conferences and their comments to the media – if asked for them – aside from expressing sadness, thoughts, prayers and confidence in the police, should be “Our law enforcement agencies are investigating, and we need to let them do what they do.” Adding any theories, raising questions or passing blame is totally wrong. If elected officials truly care about their electorate and feel the need to say more, they should have some prior dialogue with the police leaders or their Public Information Officers to ensure that what they say is helpful as opposed to harmful. Otherwise, be quiet.
By Chris Lewis December 28, 2024
Violent Crime Remains High
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