Tiffanny Junee

I woke up this morning to footage of protests, turned riots in America and solidarity protests across Europe.

These were the continuation of activities over the weekend following the death of a man, George Floyd, at the hands of a former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, with a reported history of misusing the agency his position gave him.

Last night, as I watched media reports about the escalating situation, I wanted to know what the US leadership’s position was… so I went to Twitter.

Unsurprisingly, the escalation of protests into riots had its genesis.

This morning I revisited the @realDonaldTrump Twitter feed and confirmed my suspicions.

The preferred narrative of the current American president was purpose-filled: insight division, assert white power, silence free speech and deride the 4th estate (media).

My default research platform, should tell you all you need to know about the style of ‘leadership’ in the region of genuine discontent.

While President Trump (@realDonaldTrump) is not the first President to utilise the social networking platform, it is his communications platform of choice (for the moment).

So to understand the ‘Voice’ of the President, Twitter is the logical place to start.

Originally, I started screenshoting the President’s twitter feed, but I stopped.

The abuse of people, process and community was abundant and not something I was looking to give oxygen.

But it got me thinking…

We keep hearing both locally and globally about the ‘new normal’ following the COVID-19 pandemic that literally saw the world ‘lockdown’.

However, absent in the global leadership dialogue is what we want our ‘new normal’ to look like.

We know the ills of each society are only exacerbated in extreme conditions and hardship.

But is the American leadership position still a viable justification for repression?

IMHO complacency of conversation and supporting action is why a non-politician became the President of the United States of America.

It is also why the new normal is whatever the ones who speak up, stand up and ‘do’, decide.

Ignorance breeds contempt and social structures are embedded with the bias of those who wield power. Their perspective is deemed (rightly or wrongly) appropriate.

However, in reviewing the annals of business (and more recently politics) when is anything @realDonaldTrump has ever done been deemed appropriate?

There is nothing united about the American states.

In reviewing the news footage, I couldn’t help but wonder why and how ‘civilised society’ can repeatedly get it so wrong.

This is a time for leadership within the global community – irrespective of political, legal and economic structures and biases associated with them.

This is the time for men and women – leaders, future leaders and their followers to stake a claim on the future we desire to work towards.

If we are genuinely ‘all in this together’, I wonder who within the group of world leaders will speak up, stand up and lead.

Deciding when enough is enough is a solid place to start our ‘new normal’ as I am reminded how well Sorkin nailed the issues in his opening scene of Newsroom, way back when…