Dear 45,
I hope all is well. I know you’ve had a pretty rough couple of months with the new job and all. I’d thought I’d brighten it up by sending a note of thanks. As you’ve quickly realized, the presidency is a thankless job so I thought I’d share 3 things I’m thankful you’ve knowingly or unknowingly done.
You’ve shown all the leaders of tomorrow anything is truly possible under the right circumstances.
I’ve always thought there’s a guide/ steps to becoming a leader. Leadership requires trials and tribulations, you have to have self-awareness, earn the loyalty of your followers, be a consensus builder, etc…. We can throw the last 30 years of leadership cannon down the drain. Seems like there’s a little bit more to leadership than I thought. I guess I missed something.
You single- handily forced America to have the conversations we’ve been running from since our founding.
I don’t know how you did it or if you did this on purpose but kudos. We are having all types of conversations now. What is the role of the executive branch and what are the real checks on power? What is the role of the 4th estate (journalism) and what will it look like going forward? How are we going to reconcile our past in a way that is inclusive of experiences and true to reality? Do we really need the electoral college? Do protests really work? Yes, there’s definitely a separation of church and state but is there a separation of morality and state? What kind of country do we want to be? Was Kanye right?* How do we walk toward the future without leaving others behind? There’s probably a ton more but you’ve got people talking and some of those conversations are translating to significant action.
You’ve shown us how to accelerate Globalism.
A mono-polar world works when there are institutions that give the rest of the world confidence in leadership. With your presidency, you’ve accelerated the need for other nations to take on leadership on the global stage and accelerated the start multi-polar political reality we’ll have to navigate for years to come.**
Thanks again for your work so far. I can’t wait to see what other things you have in store.
Best,
Chika Umeadi
*Kanye said, “Racism still alive, they just be concealing it.” Actually…. #Charlottesville
**Most will argue we were already in a transition to a multi-polar reality globally. I’d agree when looking at economic and military might. However, with Trump’s presidency, we’ve fragmented our power in the political space by bringing China and other regional players to prominence and creating uncertainty in US leadership.