I have witnessed the public behavior of a number of previous US presidents and have acquired an informal understanding of what it means to be presidential. The current ex-president does not seem to fit easily into my understanding of being presidential.
So, I started thinking about presidents in other
contexts … presidents of a congregation, of an enterprise, of a university, of
a professional organization, and so on. I also have some experience with some
of those kinds of presidents. My father was president of our congregation in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee prior to becoming an ordained Rabbi. I wrote the
president of IBM when I worked at the SDD Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado
expressing my disagreements with the war in Vietnam and hoping IBM would also
express similar disagreement, and he wrote back in agreement. Surprising. I
posted his response on my office cubicle bulletin board, which bothered at
least one of my co-workers who complained to my supervisor. My university
president is also a model of presidential behavior and walks a thin line
between Texas politics and maintaining a humanistic campus. I have heard a
previous CEO of a political organization express strong disagreement but always
in a civil and reasonable tone. None of those persons ever used nasty language
nor did I ever hear any of them curse at anyone or anything. Oh yes … I have to
admit to having been the president of a professional organization and I have
expressed strong discontent publicly while in that role but without cursing or
personally attacking anyone.
It seems reasonable to expect the president and ex-presidents
of our country to act presidential at all times, especially in public. One
ex-president fails to meet my expectations of presidential behavior … only one.
It seems so unusual that so many others do not seem bothered by that person’s
public discourse and behavior. Do I need to reconsider what it means to be
presidential?
Mike Spector
August, 2022
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