Integrity, accountability, and ability to speak with – not at – one another. These three elements are essential for the survival of a republic. But where are we? Losing track of all three. Here is why they matter, and how we can reestablish common understanding – at least on this basic point.
Integrity involves principle, understanding that truth and honesty matter, then pledging internally – just to yourself, not to the world – that you will abide what you understand to be right-minded principles.
This is not a hard concept. We either subscribe to it, or we do not. Our leaders either subscribe to it or they do not. Their actions – their behaviors – tell us all we need to know, so watch closely.
Absent a life centered on principle, people – and leaders, indeed entire nations – get off track fast. While all compasses are not alike, True North never changes; all stars pivot around the North Star. Recognizing the North Star is worth it, and once you do others will.
Integrity – in a moral sense – is like this. We know it when we see it. It is not about perfection, not about hindsight, not about absence of mistakes, conformity, uniformity, politics, or policies.
It is about one thing: Deciding to do the right thing as you see it, every time. That is when we value ourselves most. That is what we need in our leaders, to straighten up the ship.
Leaders – at every level, of every political stripe – make mistakes, misjudge facts, make decisions they regret. They are judged. Good ones judge themselves, correct things, go forward.
That does not mean they lack integrity. Only by erring with intent, by not caring about the compass, by forgetting True North, the prime directive – “do the right thing” – do we fail.
But there is another kind of integrity. Call it engineering integrity, or the way things hold together – or do not. Failing this kind – for person, leader, or nation – is also calamitous.
Think of it this way. A person who does not have a set of principles to guide them, a consistent worldview – whether conservative, liberal, or some combination – or who has not thought about what they believe and why, or whether they need to stick with it or change things, is lost.
Likewise, any leader who waffles, or is consistently inconsistent, or abides some “foolish consistency” – to quote Emerson – tells us all we need to know about his inner ticker, lack of engineering integrity. This leader is a mish-mash of ideas, conflicting positions, inner conflict.
Leaders who lack engineering integrity – whose worldviews lack cogency, consistency, and cannot be logically or empirically defended, are – in that engineering sense – unstable, unpredictable, and always lead poorly.
Finally, nations led by those without moral or engineering integrity are on a like course, progressively divided, filled with conflict, unruly, and usually unhappy. Rather than being reminded of their strengths, capacity and ideals, they get lost, falter and fail.
So, if a republic needs both types of integrity – at the personal, leader, and nation levels – what about accountability? Same thing. If actions taken by citizens or leaders do not result in predictable outcomes – good acts rewarded, bad punished – things fall apart.
Without accountability – especially for those in positions of power – trust in leaders, and more gravely in the government, electing, appointing, and removing leaders, plummets.
Republics, based on sovereignty vested in leaders expected to be accountable – just fail, if accountability fails. As with integrity, a republic flirts with failure if they give up accountability. As a nation, we need to demand accountability as a condition for holding power – to survive.
Finally, communication is vital. Republics depend – fundamentally – on reaching agreement, which requires compromise, which requires communication. Sometimes we agree to disagree, some seeing one configuration of stars around the North Star, others seeing another.
But when we cannot agree to disagree, instead disagreeing to disagree, we default to fighting among ourselves. Just as loss of integrity and accountability are truly dangerous, so is this.
Loss of honest conversation prevents learning, which blocks compromise, which prevents agreements, which gums up the works of any republic, with unforgiving consequences.
A republic filled with people who cannot tolerate talk, comes apart from within. Political violence grows, respect for history, institutions, law, and each other erodes. Foreign powers see opportunities; no better time to win a war than when the enemy is destroying itself.
This, my friends, is where we are headed, where the discussion ends, or where it should start. We have in our power, the ability to re-elevate integrity and accountability. We get there by speaking with each other. Absent such things, republics fail. We can save ours, and we need to get to it.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
