Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “Virtues of any kind are rare enough that those who have them should not be harassed about their type and relative importance.” With leaders who carry vast responsibility, that’s not enough. But in order to understand and critique political figures, it is important to grasp both their strengths and their weaknesses, their virtues and their vices. A decade into Donald Trump’s political career and nearly half a century into his career as a front-page newsmaker, his vices are well-documented, and I’ve written on the topic many times myself. Yet, he is not without virtues. In order to grasp Trump’s appeal and his successes, one needs to consider them.
Resilience: This one, I’ve written about before, including the crucial role it played in his 2024 revival from the political grave: “Trump, throughout his life, has had a remarkable knack for clawing himself back out of every hole. It’s not just luck, or a ruthless willingness to throw others under the bus. It’s also that Trump is amazingly resilient. His belief in himself never wavers. His belief in the power of positive thinking never flags. When his back is against the wall, he never accepts that he’s finished, or that anything was his fault. That’s how he survived bankruptcies and scandals, declining public fortunes and the real onset of middle age in the 1990s.”
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