Dear President-Elect Trump:
I awoke this morning to protests and riots across our land, protesting not just your election, but you. I imagine that is difficult to witness and difficult to endure. But what an opportunity for you, to demonstrate leadership.
Strength is the ability to absorb criticism without retaliation of any kind. Stronger yet is the person who absorbs criticism without retaliation and who uses the criticism to examine how they can improve. The strongest person is he or she who possesses sufficient humility to acknowledge the criticism, honestly assess the criticism for elements of accuracy, accepts that which needs to change, and eliminates the personal weaknesses that the criticism addresses. The weak person simply rages–demeaning and minimizing adversaries in the process. The leader finds the inner capacity to metabolize rage and recycle it into real change, sincere compassion and greater understanding. That is strength.
You can be better than you have been. To make America great again, you must be better than you’ve been. You can be stronger than you are. To make America great again, you must be stronger than you’ve been. You have the ability to develop the capacity to build our nation by responding to your critics with love, compassion, and forgiveness.
Frankly, most of us have the same problem. We all weaken our nation each time we respond to insults or criticism with an outward attack rather than inward reflection coupled with outward compassion. We would strengthen our nation if we did so. But it has been so long since America has seen that kind of leadership. We’ve forgotten what it looks like, what it feels like. Mahatma Gandhi said this: “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness in an attribute of the strong.” You need to demonstrate this kind of strength.
You must learn the skill and develop the strength yourself. You must demonstrate it to us. If you do, you will lead us to a be a better people, a more peaceful nation, an example to the world.
What America really needs is a national intervention, of sorts. An intervention to help us face what we have become and to become a more humble, inclusive, and forgiving people. You’re an unlikely person to accomplish this. But if you can accomplish this, so can others; indeed, so can America.
We need a transformation, and it needs to begin with you.
Till tomorrow,
David O. Leavitt
