There is a simple yet profound principle I learned as a teenager, one my father first learned the hard way after following a buddy into joyriding in a stolen car. It was a trip that somehow ended with the car partially submerged in a city fountain, and his takeaway was this:
“If you’re going to follow a leader, make sure you know where he’s going.”
I set off from home a few years later understanding the importance of critical thinking, with a healthy skepticism toward what people say versus what they do, and a worldview modeled on the phrase trust but verify. But early on I also learned a few principles of employee management, one being the greatest indicator of future success is past performance. There is a problem with this last principle, however: people change.
We wrestle with this concept of personal change because human beings are not predisposed to forgive and move on. We have a hard time with it, and an even harder time trusting people to make better decisions later on since we don’t like to look at their journey.
“That person was a jerk. I don’t care what they’re up to these days.”
We wash our hands of them and have no interest in their story going forward. We make judgements based off the limited data we’re familiar with rather than catching up. It’s easier to pad our ignorance and leave them to their past. That insulates us from further harm.
“Save your facts, I’ve already made up my mind about him.”
“Just look at what they did back then.”
“It must be true what they say. I’ve trusted this source in the past.”
Since the media gatekeepers claim to place a premium on fact-checking these days, here’s a well-known but little-stated fact: People change. So you’d better be willing to spend the time looking into a person before going all-in supporting them. Remember, if you’re going to follow a leader, be sure you know where they’re going. We learn this by looking at where they’ve been. Right?
Four years ago, I wrote a similar statement on the eve of the 2016 election. At the time I was critical of then-candidate Donald Trump. I had done the homework and didn’t like what I’d seen. I had problems with his past transgressions as well as his seeming unwillingness to repent of them. I didn’t like his daily rhetoric and found it off-putting for a leader seeking this level of prominence. I didn’t trust his promises based off of his past performance.
I didn’t like him, didn’t trust him, and didn’t vote for him. That was then, but things have changed. At least, he has changed regarding the things that matter. Actions speak louder than words as the saying goes, and they matter a great deal more.
So here we are in 2020, and this time we have the benefit of four years of data to base our decisions on. Let us take a brief look at some of the facts before rendering our verdict on the presidency of Donald J. Trump:
- Trump made historic peace deals in the Middle East.
- He has done more to combat human trafficking than any president in history.
- He defeated ISIS in six months and sent Marines to defend our embassy in Iraq with zero casualties.
- He nominated three pro-life constitutional originalists to the Supreme Court.
- He defended historical monuments and federal buildings from rioters and domestic terrorists.
- He federalized National Guard units when local governors refused to defend their cities.
Any one of these is a good reason to give the president a second look. Taken together, they are a dissertation on his qualifications for continuing as leader of the free world. If you need a few more bullet points to hammer home the point, here are 53 of them.
If you’re going to follow a leader, be sure you know where they’re going.
Of course, none of this matters to some people. They don’t like what he says and are therefore unwilling to look at what he’s done. Their fixation on past transgressions has blinded them to the present, because the narrative, even if false, fits the prejudice. This might be a good time to ask yourself if you’d like to be judged on such criteria.
I write this in obvious defense of President Trump’s 2020 reelection bid. I think everyone should vote for him because I think he’s the only person standing in the way of America descending into an abyss of socialism that abandons the rule of law, denigrates the name of God, celebrates debauchery, and perpetuates evil. If you want to know where Joe Biden is going, look no further than California and New York, once great states destroyed by democrat leadership. Or, Minneapolis, Seattle, Chicago, Baltimore…cities run into the ground, living out Biden’s version of social justice.
But there is another reason why I defend Trump’s leadership. As awful as some of the things he said and did in the distant past were, I believe everyone is capable of becoming a better, wiser, and more efficient leader, and President Trump, like many of us, has made that journey.
Prisons and half-way houses are full of people who will one day know the joy of a life in alignment with righteousness. People doing and saying vile things today will be teaching their children how to avoid such foolishness in the future.
People change.
If we spend all of our time looking at the past and sizing up our leaders based off of their greatest failures in the past, we will miss what lies right before our eyes. We will disregard leaders refined by their mistakes, humbled by the new opportunities afforded them, and passionate about restoring what has been laid waste, even if they had a part in it.
If you’re going to follow a leader, be sure you know where they’re going. You might start by looking at where they’ve been, but that’s only half the story. The true measure of a leader is looking at where they’re at…and admiring how far they’ve come.
