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It's not the leaders who disappoint me. It's the led. - Shalom Auslander
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The statement above, by an author who is known for his "existentialist themes, biting satire and black humor," if we are to give credit to his Wikipedia profile, was published in the January 16, 2026, edition of The New York Times. Click the link below to read Auslander's column in its entirety.
The statement I have reproduced above is what struck me most. Auslander's piece in The Times was titled, "They Were Ordinary Germans. We Are Ordinary Americans."
Auslander says that he thought that Americans were "different" from the Germans who accepted, and often advanced, the horrendous actions of Hitler and the Nazis. Not different at all, he now appears to conclude, looking at how Americans (including Members of Congress) are reacting to the actions of our current president.
You can make up your own mind about that comparison between Germans in the Nazi era, and Americans today - there has certainly been some very significant and apparently growing "resistance" to our current president and those who are following his orders - but what I'd like us all to focus on is that distinction between the "leaders" and "the led."
Supposedly, the United States of America is a "self-governing" nation. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address summed up what that means. What that means, to quote Lincoln directly, is that what we usually call our "democracy" is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
As I often say, it's the "by the people" part that is most important.
If we, people now living, and operating in our contemporary times, truly believe that we are personally implicated in that claim that our government is "by the people," then the idea that we, as citizens, are "led" drops out of view. In the kind of self-governing democratic republic in which we profess to believe, and the reality of which can be validated by our history, including during both the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, "we, the people" are "in charge." We claim the right to "run the place." We have never, in other words, ever conceded that our role as citizens is to be "led." We don't "choose" our leaders, and then comply with their directions. We take leadership upon ourselves, both individually and collectively. Today, as we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., is a good day to remind ourselves of this.
I do think, with Auslander, that this aspect of our self-understanding as Americans is being challenged, most certainly and centrally by our current president, who claims that "he, alone" is in charge.
It is never easy to be "in charge," and citizens, today, are overwhelmed with the need to earn a living and pay the bills - besides maintaining some positive and hopeful stance towards a world in which economic, social, and environmental doom is ever more present in our minds as a possibility, or even as a likelihood.
In our circumstances, it is an easy temptation to forego the responsibility of "leading" ourselves. As Faulkner said, however, in his famous Nobel Prize acceptance speech, we must commit ourselves not only to "endure" the realities of our time, but to "prevail."
If we are to be "leaders," and not "the led," and if we are determined to "prevail," we must not "accept," or allow ourselves even to "endure," the authoritarian and dictatorial claims of our current president.
So, that's the question: Are we "leaders," as our Constitution and history proclaim - putting us, collectively, in charge of our own destiny? Or, are we "the led," subjects who are told what to do, and what to think - and told, actually, what is "true," despite the evidence of our own eyes?
We need to decide. It is high time for us to decide!
What's your choice? We will either be "leaders" or "the led."
But if we are going to be leaders, individually and collectively, we need to take action, and that means reallocating our time and getting personally involved.
If any residents of the City of Santa Cruz are reading this sometime before 10:00 a.m. on Monday morning, January 19th, you are invited to participate in a march, downtown, in honor of Dr. King. That is one small way for someone to get "personally involved."
Just a start, though!
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