Our country is weary of having a person in a leadership position who is seemingly in the eye of every storm. He seems to be the lone constant in personal, political, company, country and media attacks. Even his supporters lament some of his tweeting habits.
Yet, our imperfect country has some nice things going for it. Here are a few thoughts.
– when our leaders do not address our real problems, companies, cities, states and people can step up and do more;
– when the president cannot get out of his own way and then has his people spend time, energy and their integrity defending his inane comments, we can choose to tune him out;
– when the president is untruthful more than he is not, we can choose to not believe a word he says or tweets;
– when leaders rationalize indefensible comments as normative, we can push back on them;
– we can choose to act on conservation, climate change and guns by voting with our feet; companies pay attention. Why? What creates profits and jobs are customers.
To this last point, companies like Google, Amazon, IKEA, Walmart, Facebook, etc. and states like California, Texas, Iowa, North Carolina, etc. are active in renewable energy. Walmart, Dick’s and Albertson’s are stepping up on gun sale restrictions. Even ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell are paying attention on climate change due to shareholder pressure.
If leaders choose not to lead, we can all do more. It sure would be nice if they helped some, too. If they do not, they become less relevant.
musingsofanoldfart 
My daughter and her husband went to Hawaii and then San Francisco, lately. She told us that in San Francisco you find no plastic straw and the bags at Walmart are made from recycled plastic bottles. You don’t even get water in plastic bottles anymore but in glass or in aluminum bottles. I am amazed by how progressive California is.
Erika, good example. If California were a country, it would be the fourth largest economy in the world. So, it can be a major driver of change. Walmart and Ikea have been key behind solar powered stores. Keith
It is such an encouragement to see those companies taking action and being leaders and role models in this. Thumbs up and they shall be rewarded in their gains!
Agreed.
Note to Readers: I started to put this in my post, but will mention it here. In the US, we have the power to tell our leaders “to go screw themselves.” If that liberty ever changes, we will have lost a key part of who we are.
We (California) switched to “bring your own bags” to the grocery store a few years and no one died! So many sustainability practices may seem inconvenient at first but soon just become habit. It just takes vision, commitment, and giving a s#@t about our planet. Unfortunately, these things seem to be lacking in so many of our (so called) leaders.
Janis, well said. Plain talk appealing to a mission to protect our planet will sell on the costs of so doing. Many of the costs are overstated, it is just a matter of laying them out. Keith