The inevitable result of poor leadership is failure and, at times, disaster. This is precisely what is happening under the inept, self-serving, bumbling leadership of President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a trio of Democrat misleaders. Democrat “leadership” failures to date include an out-of-control southern border, a weakened and inflated economy, a national crime wave, loss of energy independence, inept COVID response, the Afghanistan travesty and cowardice before Russia, Communist China, Iran and North Korea. The Democrat’s trio of misleaders fail even the most basic leadership tests. At no time in our lives has the United States been more poorly led than during the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer era.

Good leaders come in all shapes and sizes, both sexes and various political persuasions, but they all share several characteristics: a unifying vision, integrity, positive change agency and a willingness to accept blame and share credit. To be an effective leader, one must have a worthy, unifying vision people from different backgrounds can rally around, a vision uniting a diverse nation. The Biden-Pelosi-Schumer vision of a socialist nanny state drowning in debt, steadily losing ground to China both economically and militarily, overrun by illegal immigrants, a laughingstock to our enemies and an untrustworthy partner to our allies not only fails to unify but it has resulted in nothing but division and discord.

Not only have the Democrat misleaders failed to unite Americans — more than 70 million reject their socialist vision — they have failed to unify their own party. Moderate Democrats running for reelection in November 2022 are doing everything they can to distance themselves from the left-wing ideologues who control the president. To date, more than 20 Democrats in the House of Representatives have chosen not to run for reelection.

The most important quality of good leaders is integrity. Followers want to trust their leaders. In fact, they won’t willingly follow leaders they don’t trust. Biden, Pelosi and Schumer fail the integrity test as badly as anyone ever has. This is why the Democrat troika continues to insist on vaccine mandates. Trusted leaders are able to inspire people to accept new ideas and new programs, but untrusted misleaders must resort to the methods of tyrants: coercion, threats and mandates. Much of the opposition to vaccines results from free people rejecting the bullying of misleaders they don’t trust. If Biden, Pelosi and Schumer were trusted by the American people, vaccination rates would be much higher, even without unconstitutional mandates.

Another distinction of good leaders is their ability to be positive agents of change. Leaders make changes good for the country even if they are not advantageous politically. The tyrannical trio have made a lot of changes, but their changes have been driven by self-serving political objectives, not what is best for America. This phenomenon is evident in their politically motivated decisions to eliminate policies from the previous administration that were benefitting Americans of all stripes: gaining control of the southern border, creating a booming economy, giving America the highest employment rate in decades, making our country energy independent and increasing U.S. security by bolstering the morale and readiness of the military.

A final characteristic of good leaders is willingness to accept blame for failures while sharing credit for successes. The score for the president, speaker of the House and Senate majority leader on this criterion is so low it falls off the chart. Their entire political platform is based on blaming the previous administration for problems they created. Real leaders understand once they take the helm, responsibility for steering the ship rests with them. Constantly blaming the previous administration instead of setting a positive course for our nation is the strategy of losers, not leaders.

COPYRIGHT 2022 OLIVER L. NORTH AND DAVID GOETSCH