I recently watched the Ken Burns documentary The War. It is a very moving account of World War Two from the standpoint of various American families. The families were from small towns in states like Alabama and California.

One of the things that stuck with me was the belief that they were being lead by a real leader. As one contributor remarked, Britain had Winston Churchill, we had Franklin Roosevelt. America was fortunate in those days to have a giant of a man as its leader.

FDR was the right man to hold America's hand during the dark days of The Great Depression in the 1930s and just as dark, the period just afer the attack on Pear Harbor in 1941. Roosevelt was a gifted communicator, who used the medium of radio to inform and reassure his people. There is also the small matter of his disability, he was in wheelchair. Can you imagine that today?

What do you require of a leader during a crisis? You need be reassured, you need confidence in the words and actions of the government. You also need to believe in their competence. There is also the need for compassion and empathy. You need to be able to feel pain of people that are suffering. Roosevelt was able to convey that with his " fire side chats" If Twitter had been around in the 1930s and 1940s, he would have been a master, even with 140 characters!

Every President gets tested by a crisis, that either defines them or destroys them. John Kennedy had the Cuban Missile Crisis, Lyndon Johnson had Vietnam as did Richard Nixon. Jimmy Carter had the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Donald Trump is facing something that none of his predecessors have ever had to contend with: a global pandemic that has so far killed over 50,000 of his countrymen. Watching his daily briefings from the White House, its apparent that he has not met the criteria required of a good crisis leader. He has provided plenty of entertainment and confusion. The President should never be a laughing stock in times like these.

The fight against Covid 19 could do with a giant of a man or woman. The world is crying out for a leader like FDR. At the moment, the chair is empty.