The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump weighed in on how Bernie Sanders handled his Seattle rally being interrupted by protesters claiming to speak for BlackLivesMatter:
Frankly, this was not surprising. I was expecting that someone, maybe Hillary, or one of her DNC surrogates, would raise this issue. Regardless, the suggestion of weakness was inevitable. if it wasn't Trump it might have been Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or any one of the stable of Fox News anchors, as well as any of the other 16 Republican candidates."That will never happen with me," said Trump. "I don't know if I'll do the fighting myself, or if other people will. It was a disgrace. I felt badly for him, but it showed that he was weak. You know what? He's getting the biggest crowds, and we're getting the biggest crowds. We're the ones getting the crowds. But that's never going to happen to Trump.""
Let's talk about weakness. Sun Tzu says, "Avoid your competitor's strength, and attack their weakness," and "'Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak."
I would argue that What Trump sees as weakness is more an indication of his top-down, paternalistic, authoritarian way of thinking and operating. It tells us the difference between how Bernie Sanders handles challenges, power and conflict and how Trump does.
Sanders' response to black lives matters activists in Arizona and Seattle gives us a clue how he'll handle pressure from defense secretaries, generals, and others who push for "tough, strong" reactions. There's another kind of power. Joseph Nye, one of the world's most respected experts on diplomacy, and author of Soft Power and The Future of power, and I discussed power that is not based on force or money. It's the power that keeps the people of the world loving the US instead of hating us-- soft power-- power based on attraction rather than power over.
A top-down, authoritarian response to the women who took over the microphone at both the Tuscon and Seattle events would have been to call the police and security and then to have the interrupters escorted out or arrested.
Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, suggests that the oppressed and oppressors are both victims of an oppressive system, but only the oppressed can free both victims. If Bernie had used authoritarian power he had access to, he would have used part of the oppressive system blacklivesmatter activists were protesting. Instead, he shared his power and gave them a voice and followed that up, after Tuscon, by hiring a black organizer, Symone Sanders, who is also a supporter of blacklivesmatter. Then he released a racial justice platform . Trump, Thinkprogress reports, " said he would give the police more power if elected."
One of the Seattle blacklivesmatter activists, Marissa Janae Johnson, quoted civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, famous for saying, "We didn't come all the way up here to compromise for no more than we'd gotten here." BlackLivesMatter activists deserve solid answers from candidates. Bernie delivered. He could have easily called in the police. I say that Bernie's approach was the more courageous one. Calling the police would have been the cowardly way to handle a challenging, complex situation. Trump showed the stuff he is made of and it's just what one would expect-- , spoiled brat grown old and ugly American. He's made it clear-- rather than facing such a situation he would have hid behind police. That's not leadership.
We need strong leaders, but it is essential that WE, the people define what it means to be strong. How do you define strength and weakness?
2
1
1
