Leadership?

-by Dan Levitin

I am a neuroscientist and a musician. An odd combination, perhaps, but one I come by honestly. I played in a series of punk and new wave bands, including The Mortals, which is how I met Howie Klein in 1981, when he came to see us perform at The Mabuhay Gardens, the On Broadway, and other clubs.

When I produced our first record, Deserted Eyes, he enthusiastically played it on his radio show at KUSF.

I had always been interested in science, and when I started working for the great producer Sandy Pearlman (Blue Oyster Cult, The Clash) I found a kindred spirit. We drove over to Berkeley and down to Stanford whenever we could and sat in on neuroscience lectures. When the music business started to implode, I decided to actually enroll in college and eventually earned my doctorate.

In my music and my science, I have tried to avoid being political. I believe science exists as a public trust and should be politically neutral, providing a reliable source of information from which people should draw their own conclusions. And I always wanted my music to be a source of emotional expression that would potentially reach everyone (although I have occasionally written and recorded some political songs). My efforts to remain politically neutral occasionally collide with firmly held beliefs. This is one such moment.

Around the world, I am stunned by the stark disparity in how different leaders are responding to the corona virus crisis. The largest chasm is between President Trump and Queen Elizabeth. Think about that: the man who wishes he were a monarch or dictator (he has made a number of assertions to prove this point, previously documented in DownWithTyranny) is being completely outclassed by an actual monarch. If you haven't seen it, I urge you to watch the Queen's address to the nation. It was so moving, my wife and I cried while watching it.

Her majesty begins by applauding health care workers, workers in the food delivery chain, and calls upon all Britons to face the challenges together, and to help one another through this. She references a similar radio address she made 80 years ago, in 1940.

This reminded me of Jimmy Carter's "sweater" speech from 1977 during the energy crisis, when he called upon Americans to help their neighbors, and to make sacrifices for the common good. And he set an example: rather than wearing the suit that all presidents before him had worn for presidential addresses, he wore a cardigan, while asking us to work together through the energy crisis. "Simply by keeping our thermostats at 65 degrees in the daytime, and 55 degrees at night."

The visual image of the president setting an example is a powerful one.

And it's not just Democratic presidents who have set a positive example for us. After the Challenger explosion in 1986, Ronald Reagan postponed his state of the union address to bring the country together to honor not just the seven astronauts who died then, but to honor the wonders of science, of exploration, "the process of discovery, of expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted." [If he were making the speech in 2020, he would certainly replace "man's horizons" with "humans' horizons.")





I'm contrasting that with Trump's selfish, and outlandish refusal to wear a mask. Rather than setting an example for the country, he is concerned about his image, about what other people will think of him. This is the opposite of leadership. A leader puts the interests of everyone else ahead of them. My friend Stan McChrystal, when he was a four-star general and head of the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and Afghanistan went out with his troops kicking down doors and capturing terrorists. He was among them, setting an example, not hiding behind a desk. "That beautiful, Resolute desk" as Trump describes it, in the oval office, a desk that official diaries show he rarely actually uses (insiders say he spends most of his time watching television). He goes on to say, in this remarkable video, "I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens... I don't see if for myself, I just don't." What he's saying in essence is that he is more concerned about vanity than about the 330 million people he supposedly leads.

(Did he really say that he welcomes dictators into the Oval Office? I had to watch this twice because I couldn't believe what I was hearing. But of course he does—he is trying to learn from them. Can you imagine any other president bragging about meeting with dictators?)

The Queen offers reassurance and a steady hand. Trump provokes uncertainty, he wavers, and he contradicts his own experts, ultimately firing them if they don't become the sycophantic yes men he craves. This approach has tanked the stock market, of course, and this is not just an issue for the wealthy: many working class Americans-- government workers, truckers, teachers-- have their pensions and retirements funds managed by large organizations that have invested in the stock market. I was curious to know if the last major disaster to hit the U.S. had a similar effect on the market. After 9/11, the market took a hit, but rebounded completely within a month. I, and most presidential biographers and historians I know, do not consider George W. Bush to have been a particularly good president. But in his address to the nation on 9/11, Bush offered a steadying message in a defining moment when Americans may have turned on many of our own.





Rather than looking to blame others as Trump always does, Bush called for us to work together and not to blame.

"The American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday's attacks. And so were Muslims all across the world... When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that's made brothers and sisters out of every race-- out of every race... This is a great country... because we share the same values of respect and dignity and human worth. And it is my honor to be meeting with leaders who feel just the same way I do. They're outraged, they're sad. They love America just as much as I do. I want to thank you all for giving me a chance to come by. And may God bless us all."

There is a humility to Bush (I never thought I'd be writing those words) and a graciousness that we never see in Trump. And he emphasizes meeting with leaders who feel the same way he does, in embracing liberty, compassion, peace, and rationality.

As a musician, I always tried to take the stage with a sense of gratitude and humility. I knew that people had paid money to be there, that they had planned an evening around the performance, and that I had to do the best job I could in order to help them to get the most out of their interactions with me. I was in a great band once with a fantastic songwriter who somehow sabotaged every concert by insulting the audience. He was not there for them, he was there for himself. The band did not last long. Not nearly as long as the Trump presidency. But we can all come together as a nation in November and say "this is not good enough. This is not leadership. This is not the country we love." 

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 Daniel Levitin is a neuroscientist, musician, and best-selling author of a number of books including This Is Your Brain on Music and his anti-Trump, pro-rationality book, A Field Guide to Lies. His newest album is available free on most streaming platforms and his anti-Trump song, "Turnaround." is here: