If one looks back across the long arc of history, all nations rise and fall based on the quality of their leaders. 

The United States was blessed at its inception with leaders of unusual introspection and imagination, ones who were somehow simultaneously capable of obdurate stubbornness and breathtaking flexibility. Their willingness to try, fail, and try yet another completely different tack (again and again) with a sometimes stunning disregard for both precedent and tradition was remarkable—and incredibly effective. Perhaps this was only to be expected from a group of often reckless revolutionaries who invented a unique form of guerrilla warfare they used it to rout a stodgy British army that was appalled by our disrespect for the rules of gentlemanly combat, but this template for what has made America and Americans so gleefully addicted to what is new, exciting, and sometimes insulting to not a few was stamped upon our land and people at the outset, which goes far to explain the amazing success of our nation for nearly 250 years.

This melding of ideological fervor and ruthless pragmatism has defined the best leaders throughout our history. The strict ideologues who thrill their acolytes (yet inevitably have little real long-term impact) have always been prone to make mistakes because they wear intellectual blinders that turn them into blustering caricatures. As contradictory as it might sound, the best leaders in America and throughout the world have always been willing to contradict themselves and disappoint their most fervent followers in the pursuit of objectives that advanced the best interests of our nation as a whole. 

Examples abound of American Presidents who went against their own instincts and benefitted our country: Abraham Lincoln, who led the Union to a bloody victory over the Confederate rebels, preaching mercy toward the defeated South after the American Civil War; Dwight Eisenhower, who led the Allies to victory in Europe in World War Two, warning Americans against the threats to democracy from the military-industrial complex; Richard Nixon, who throughout his career was an implacable anti-Communist, opening diplomatic relations with Red China. To pursue only one idea, one path, and one strategy is a dead end for a nation and its people—and American leaders have excelled at changing course when they deemed it necessary or simply expedient.

All citizens expect that their leaders will be delivering policies and services that make a safe and comfortable life possible; in the final analysis, people care little whether results arrive through a resolute march or a zig-zagging scamper. This is the challenge that all successful leaders must overcome when difficulties arise: Ideological purity becomes a trap from which they must escape to survive. Some do not, but others turn wily twists and turns into an art form.

His predilection for self-contradiction in pursuit of his goals is, I suspect, why Donald Trump drives his political opponents to hair-pulling distraction every time he speaks or posts on social media. His bobbing, weaving, evading, and unexpected reversals are a master class in refusing to be backed into a corner or pinned down. Those who believe governance is all about maintaining absolute ideological purity, which is a fair description of today’s flailing and failing Democrats, tend to crash upon takeoff. Now seemingly unable to find a way to abandon deeply unpopular policies that, despite their soaring rhetoric about freedom and human dignity, essentially champion crime, child abuse, and anti-Americanism, Democrats apparently do not understand that political success is all about keeping your options open. The “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) tag that Democrats believe insults their hated enemy is actually a reflection of their strange inability to comprehend their own most crushing political shortcoming—ideological paralysis.

Famed speaker and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson hit the nail on the head regarding this over 180 years ago:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.”

To adapt and change is the way to thrive in a rough and changeable world, and this can occur only when free speech is both unfettered and encouraged, which points directly at the core  problem Democrats are facing right now: They cannot have open conversations among themselves because enforcing mindless adherence to ideology is more important than developing new ideas. 

Today’s government shutdown is a case in point. Unable to compromise because of dogma regarding the perceived necessity of providing both taxpayer-funded Medicaid healthcare benefits for illegal immigrants—a position that polls show most Americans vehemently oppose—and a fat financial top-up for their friends at NPR, Democrats find themselves stuck in a box that they have happily nailed themselves into. There eventually will be, of course, a teeth-gnashing capitulation to the pressing need to fund the federal government because the absurdity of their rigid extremism cannot survive the scrutiny of angry voters, but it might be weeks (or even months) before the requisite self-comforting Democrat lies can be devised and disseminated to disguise their failure. 

To deviate, adjust, reverse course—and even outright lie when necessary—has been the winning strategy of highly effective American Presidents as disparate as Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. It might not be pretty (and drive the true believers insane), but the best leaders know, as Kenny Rogers once sang “when to hold them and when to fold them” when eyeball to eyeball with their opponents.

Thoughtful negotiation and principled compromise must again be the norm in America politics because dull dogmatism always leads to discord, decline, and disaster for any nation.