One word in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address conveys why Donald Trump is and always will be an abysmal president.
The word comes near the end of the greatest speech in American history.
“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Resolve.
In this context, it speaks to a deep sense of commitment, a determination that goes beyond implacable.
The great presidents in our history—Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt—were fierce in their resolve. They did not start fights. They finished them.
Lincoln all but begged in his First Inaugural Address not to begin the Civil War. Once the fighting commenced, though, he was determined to see it to the end. He ignored the counsel of political allies and risked losing reelection in 1864 to see the battle to the end on terms that would make the promise of America a reality.
FDR hoped to avoid or delay U.S. entry into World War II. He knew that a country wearied by the Great Depression and still disillusioned about U.S. participation in World War I would not be eager to spend either treasure or the lives of its young in a foreign conflict.
Once the war came, though, he was resolute in his determination to win.
He did not welcome or accept negotiated or conditional surrenders from the Axis powers. He wanted the resolution of the conflict to be clear, both because he thought the Germans and Japanese needed to know that they had been defeated and because he thought decisive outcomes would curtail the sort of lost-cause revisionism and mythologizing that took flight following the First World War.
Washington may have been the purest case of resolve. After enduring humiliating defeats early in the Revolution War—defeats that shook confidence in his leadership—he realized that the way to win the conflict was to turn it into a battle of wills.
Whichever army and whichever nation outlasted the other would prevail.
That is how we won our independence.
Trump is another story, as demonstrated by the unsatisfying conclusion—maybe?—to his ill-advised war.
He is quick to start fights—and even quicker to lose heart when he does not achieve success immediately.
His opponents realize this, which is the reason that the president’s peace memorandum of understanding with Iran has earned widespread derision even among Trump’s staunchest allies.
When U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina—a man who has abased himself again and again and again to demonstrate his loyalty to Donald Trump—says the peace settlement with Iran is a bad deal, it’s a bad deal.
They don’t like the provisions that call for providing Iran with $300 billion in reparations and likely allowing the Iranian government to charge fees on oil transported through the Strait of Hormuz. They call this peace MOU a huge victory for Iran.
It is, but that was the almost inevitable outcome of this war.
Because of who Donald Trump is.
This president is not a leader who is up to great and sustained challenges. In both his professional and personal lives—at least six bankruptcies and two divorces—he has demonstrated a willingness, no, an eagerness, to quit when the going gets hard.
And then blame someone else for his failures.
Our great presidents would have carefully weighed the costs and risks of entering this war. Once in it, though, they would have done everything necessary to win it.
Because they would have known that leaving an Iran that is more powerful and therefore a greater threat both to world peace and its own people was not acceptable.
But those presidents are different from Donald Trump.
They have a quality that is necessary to great leadership.
Resolve.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College. Also, the views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.