The President cannot operate independently, no matter what shoulds our principles call for. At least, it would take the extremely rare convergence of an extraordinary set of circumstances with a human being of exceptional qualities. A lot of time and energy can be wasted agitating for a hero or a savior, the “right man for our times”, to lead us to a better place. But we as individuals may not need a better place if we’re enriching instead of deplete the one we’ve got. And if we’re not focused on that, how and on what basis would we recognize such a person to begin with?

“Illuminating realization number one: You are the only light there is for yourself, my friend.” -Gogol Bordello

Once that has been accepted, we can partner up in meaningful ways with others who supply their own light.

Tangentially, the laws and principles that govern a civil society may not govern an uncivil one. And due to unintended consequences, the very same laws that govern that civil society may also be instrumental in producing an uncivil one. It’s a process that may as well be termed societal desertification, where goodwill is treated as a resource and overutilized.

At the base, this is a society that, if it is to become whole, needs enough uniform downward pressure to cause its own internal heat to fuse its fragmented segments. But where the downward pressure is itself fragmented, the turbulent black tea will well up through the fissures and in some places it will release its heat and solidify there, producing strange and tortured extrusions that exacerbate the discontinuities of the upper strata, setting new precedents and standards to use as reference points in future shoulds, oughtas, laws and principles.