As things have taken a darker and darker turn in our country, and really throughout the world, in the last two decades, I’ve come to see moral leadership as more and more important. I don’t think human beings are basically good or fundamentally bad, but they’re highly malleable. How they behave, even what they feel, can be influenced by whether they’re asked to be generous or resentful, welcoming or defensive, optimistic or angry.

Presidential Moral Leadership Really Matters, Martin Longman, Washington Monthly

I began my adult life as a secular-minded philosophy student, impatient with moral arguments and suspicious of leaders who spoke in moral terms. My initial problem with the Bush administration was that their reckless disregard for the truth prevented people from having reality-based conversations. I no longer see this as the primary threat we face. What I see now is a daily devolution of the basic goodness and generosity of our people. Every day this gets worse, the path to recovery back gets longer, and the prospect of societal breakdown grows.

Our next president will hopefully bring as much of the country together as possible, but what they absolutely must do is exert moral leadership to stem and reverse this tide. If they can.