A discussion between two political experts held at Grand Valley State University was livestreamed to a crowd of around 40 attendees at the Ford School of Public Policy Tuesday night. The event, titled “Character and Presidency,” featured David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, and Ronald C. White, an award-winning presidential historian.
The event began with former U.S. diplomat Peter F. Secchia presenting a clip from the documentary “Gerald R. Ford: A Test of Character.” The short segment displayed the 38th president’s moral conflict in pardoning his predecessor Richard Nixon, who resigned in the wake of the Watergate Scandal.
Secchia said Ford was able to make the decision that cost him re-election because he was able to naturally see beyond short-term results and think about the public good. Character was ingrained in him, he explained.
“It wasn’t the water he drank, it wasn’t the religion he had, it wasn’t just his wonderful parents,” Secchia said. “It was the fact that he grew up in a community that cares. Judging by the numbers, people still care.”
The audience was subsequently introduced to Brooks, White and moderator Gleaves Whitney, director of GVSU’s Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies.
When asked about the relationship between character and leadership, Brooks recalled a time when he was passionately arguing policy with former President George W. Bush. He said though Bush was fuming at times, the president reminded himself that he was enjoying the argument because his staffers would never directly engage with him.
“You’re love-bombed all day by everybody,” Brooks said. “One of the big character challenges in being a leader is how do you deal with that love bomb and how does it not have an effect on you. And I have never seen anybody really immune.”
White argued seeing beyond what is said and looking at the speaker’s character can reintroduce civility in public discourse and revive engagement between people who have different views.
“I think we might want to be in that place where we can disagree with someone’s particular policy … but we can see and value their character,” White said.
Perhaps the most pertinent question to students in the audience was the role universities should play in building character. While lamenting the loss of “in loco parentis” after the student movements in the 1960s, particularly surrounding civil rights and issues of racism on campus, White recommended students read biographies of great historical figures to explore their moral development.
“(Biographies are) very different from just doing a survey class in American history or European history,” White said. “We need to watch the formation of character in individuals and lift that up as models for young men and women.”
Brooks concurred, observing that students these days have an abundance of what he called “résumé words” — traits that make them attractive to employers — they lack in eulogy words such as “honorable”, “courageous” and “capable of great love that truly shows character.”
“We give (students) a series of empty boxes, partly because we’ve grown up in a culture … where the emphasis is all about liberation and emancipation,” Brooks said. “People get lost in their freedom, and they just don’t know how to bind (themselves), and I think that’s a national failure, not just a university failure.”
Ann Arbor resident Judith Reiter said she was glad that, in a political atmosphere that at times seems to reward dishonest individuals, well-read men like Brooks and White shared her belief in morality.
“I feel so strongly in the importance of morality and responsibility and leadership, and to have my feelings supported by people as verbal and incredible was very heartening,” Reiter said.
Others were critical of the speakers’ views. Public Policy student Kristina Kaupa pointed out that though the event title evoked the abrasive personality of the incumbent president, the speakers seldom referred to him. Brooks and White tended to focus on the moral character of presidents like Lincoln, Grant, Truman and the two Bushes.
“I was surprised that we didn’t spend more time talking about the current presidency and a little shocked that they weren’t more willing to engage with that conversation,” Kaupa said. “They still didn’t really challenge the character of the current presidency or even talk about the character of Hillary Clinton as a potential alternative.”
Kaupa also found issue with the speakers’ praise of the effects of mothers on sons. She said this implied women cannot have strong moral character because daughters tend to get along with their fathers better instead of their mothers.
“In my own personal experience, the strong women in my life never had an easy relationship with their mother,” Kaupa said. “It takes a strong woman to raise a strong woman, and those personalities do not always match.”
Public Policy student Jackson Voss criticized what he perceived as the speakers’ assumption that young people do not know anything about character.
“That’s a weird opinion to have because it’s not our generation that’s exhibiting all the bad character in government,” Voss said. “It’s not people our age that tend to be the problem.”
Public Policy student Max Gigle chimed in, stating while Brooks and White emphasized good mothers and religious faith as roots of character in past presidents, the speakers also said great people can be found in non-believers.
Gigle argued morality cannot be found just in those sources because more and more young people come from nontraditional families and trend agnostic, but they are good citizens nevertheless.
“When asked the question, ‘Where else can one find (morality)?’ they said, ‘Well look to Socrates,’ ” Gigle said. “That’s not a way forward.”