The Difference Between Leaders and Thugs
Days before Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in prison, Tucker Carlson gushed over Vladimir Putin, saying, “Leadership requires killing people.”
Well, I’m sorry, Tucker. You’re wrong.
Real leadership is the opposite of thuggery. The world’s greatest leaders help their societies deal with their hardest problems. They have moral authority. Alexei Navalny was more of a leader than Putin will ever be.
The same distinction holds for American presidents, an appropriate subject for Presidents Day.
So far, we’ve had 46 of them. A few were thugs. Andrew Johnson (#17) blocked rights for freed slaves and undermined Reconstruction. Warren G. Harding (#29) took bribes. Richard M. Nixon (#37) arranged illegal break-ins and covered them up. Trump (#45) used his office for personal gain and encouraged an insurrection against the U.S. government.
A few of our presidents were great leaders. George Washington (#1), Abraham Lincoln (#16), and Franklin D. Roosevelt (#32) all focused America on its most important challenges. They strengthened the capacities of the nation for self-government and elevated the common good.
Zoom out from American presidents and we can see that the world is today better off because of the leadership of people such as Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), Volodymyr Zelenskyy (1978-), and Alexei Navalny (1976-2024).
All, too, summoned their societies to cope with their largest problems.
Not all of them were heads of state — which shows that true leadership does not depend on formal authority. It depends on moral authority.
The so-called “strongmen” of the current era — such as Putin, Donald Trump, and Benjamin Netanyahu — are not leaders. They can manipulate public opinion and sustain their bases of power, but they have no moral authority.
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