Article content continued

Such a response is not all that surprising for someone who not only questioned John McCain’s status as a war hero, saying early in the campaign “I like people who weren’t captured,” but who has taken to Twitter in recent days to knock Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., as “all talk, talk, talk — no action or results” after the civil rights hero questioned the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency. Nor is it surprising coming from a candidate who said on the campaign trail “I will give you what you’ve been looking for for 50 years. I’m the only one,” and said “I alone can fix it” in his acceptance speech last year.

Moreover, naming a historic figure he admires could set Trump up for comparisons on such leadership traits — things like transparency or empathy — that go beyond the dealmaker image he’s cultivated for himself. It’s telling, after all, that Trump says several times in his answer that what he learned from his father (or inherited from him: “I also think negotiation is a natural trait, I don’t think you can, you either have it or you don’t”) was how to negotiate.

After all, unless you count sales or political skills, the ability to negotiate is the only leadership trait he mentions in the answer — not authenticity, not creativity, not inspiration or integrity — before going on to say that “natural ability, to me, is much more important to me than experience and experience is a great thing — I think it’s a great thing — but I learned a lot from my father in terms of leadership.”

Trump’s answer to the question about heroes is, yes, a revealing if muddled glimpse into the ego-driven worldview of a man who is about to be president of the United States. But it also demonstrates a lack of concern for society’s needs for common heroes and historic figures we can all aspire to emulate. It looks past the lessons of history and ignores the power of shared figures to whom we can all relate. And it presents a narrow and simplistic definition of leadership as both the pedestrian task of a negotiating deal-maker and a task that’s limited to those with natural abilities.