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Not that it matters, but this quote is credited to Aristotle. It is not a new thought. I think it means that unoccupied spaces will always be filled by something. The main message is that any empty space tends to attract things that fill it. We don’t know if what fills the vacuum will be better, or worse, than what it replaced. That Aristotle’s statement is still viable, centuries later, says a lot about its accuracy.

For at least the last 5 years the American people have been suffering the presence of widespread leadership vacuums at nearly every level of society. When the COVID pandemic arrived in 2020, fear of the unknown had political leaders all the way up to the President running around like chickens with their heads cut off. We were told to wear ineffective masks and remain an arbitrary 6 feet apart. Schools and businesses, other than lottery outlets and liquor stores, were ordered closed. At a time when many of us needed to pray together, places of worship were closed. It was a complete vacuum of leadership in the religious community that allowed for those unconstitutional closures. When the new administration took over in 2021, it was incapable of making a decision as to when to send our children back to school. That vacuum was immediately filled by teacher unions who kept students out of school for at least a year longer than the science said was necessary. Leadership did exist in Florida, Georgia, and Texas, as the Governors of those states made the decision to keep their states open. They were threatened by the federal government and vilified by the biased press/media. They remained open anyway. Leadership is about making clear-headed decisions in the middle of chaos.

The leadership vacuum began in the auto industry a long time ago but came to a head recently. Starting in the 1970s, the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration, a government agency, began dictating to automakers, private shareholder owned corporations, what they could and couldn’t build. That is when the first Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards were announced. While basically viewed as a nuisance for a number of years, CAFE was responsible for the cancellation of luxury, and other full-size vehicles in the USA. Biden’s CAFE regulations are so stringent they will require automakers to sell a preponderance of EVs. If the CEOs of the automakers were real leaders, they would have said no thank you. We will not build vehicles our customers don’t want. We are not going to comply with a mandate that will result in mass layoffs of our employees, cause our company to lose untold billions of dollars, and hurt our shareholders. We don’t think the government has the authority to force its will on private companies. Customers would have applauded.

Our K-12 education system is almost completely bereft of leadership. Superintendents and Principals all over the U.S. have abdicated their responsibility when it comes to allowing boys into bathrooms and locker rooms designated for girls, and vice versa, and allowing boys to participate on girl’s athletic teams. While I am sure there are a few isolated cases where school leaders believe this is the right thing to do, most of them know it is wrong. My local school district decided, without community input, to allow kids to use the facilities, and participate on the team, of the sex with which they identified. I had a meeting with the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent after the announcement appeared in the local newspaper. There was no doubt that they made their decision because their legal counsel told them they would be sued if they didn’t take that position. They were told they would lose the lawsuit. The Assist. Super. said that as a father he disagreed with the policy. Their decision was made completely out of fear of being sued. I ended the one-hour meeting by standing up and saying: You know guys, sometimes when you are a leader, you have to stand up and do what is right, even if it means getting sued.” Sadly, our District is a microcosm of the lack of leadership that exists in our education system nationally.

True leaders are getting harder to find at the corporate level. It has been disgusting to watch as people, who are being paid multiple millions of dollars a year, cower when confronted by a loud, obnoxious, minority demanding wokeness. CEOs were told their companies would be monitored for its acceptance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training. Like a gaggle of Chicken Littles, too many CEOs rushed to hire, DEI trainers. Real leaders would have stepped back to assess the current culture of their company before spending millions of dollars on an idea that may have been unnecessary. CEOs are finally beginning to remember their companies place in our quasi-capitalist society. For a while they forgot that consumers expected them to make quality products for our use. They decided it was also their responsibility to be social engineers. Companies like Target, Bud Light, and Disney, tried to cram political correctness down our throats. Customers rebelled leading to billions of dollars in lost sales and an approximate 50% loss in their stock prices. Their cowardly decisions also, sadly, cost employees their jobs. Shareholders cumulatively lost billions in their 401(k)s because of CEOs woke decisions. While the CEO of Disney correctly lost his job, too often poor leaders face few consequences.

We are witnessing how a lack of leadership resulted in wars in Europe and the Middle East. We are watching as the mandating of DEI in our military has led to good warfighters taking early retirement. They enlisted to defend our country, not to be lectured to by drag queens. It is also part of the reason we are falling well short of our goals to recruit future warfighters. Starting on 1/20/2025 a new leader will be taking over in the White House. We can expect our military to again focus on lethality, not on the proper use of pronouns. Too many corporate CEOs will still be cowardly, but Trump will give them the cover they need to back away from wokeness and DEI. The names and faces of school Superintendents and Principals will stay the same. But Trump will make changes that will allow them to do what they know is the right thing. I am not a fan of the saying, there is a new sheriff in town. I do like the saying, adults are again in charge. Once again it becomes clear that bad leaders care most about who is right. Good leaders care only about what is right.

Thank you for taking the time to read my latest thoughts. Bob