How unfit for the presidency is Donald Trump? The term “unfit” has been bandied about quite a lot since January 2017, when Trump was sworn in to office. But how, exactly, do we define “unfit”  as the term applies specifically to the presidency of the United States? We can look to the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but it lacks a clear definition, stating only that the President can be removed if he “is unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the office.

We all know that Trump ran for president by saying that he was a great CEO and that he’d run the country like a business. I have my doubts about his effectiveness as a business leader. But even if he is somehow as good as he has bragged about, a president is not a CEO [he has yet to figure this out], nor is the White House a mob-family compound. Presidents of the United States need a completely different set of skills and personality traits from presidents of family owned real-estate conglomerates with no accountability, bosses of crime syndicates and “Dear Leaders” of authoritarian regimes.

But what are those skills? In a recent Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, psychiatrist Prudence L. Gourguechon describes her search through professional literature for definitions of leadership – a search that led to many descriptions of business leadership, but few that defined the characteristics needed to carry out  the “powers and duties” of the presidency.

She finally found what she was looking for in a most intriguing place: The U.S. Army’s Field Manual , which contains a 135-page subsection [FM 6-22, published in 2015] entitled, “Leader Development.” After studying the document [so we don’t have to], Gorguechon distilled the Army’s criteria for high-level, strategic leadership into the five categories quoted below.

While it’s tempting to cite examples of Trump’s unfit behaviors regarding each of these traits, there are simply too many to list — and even the most casual observer of the man’s words and actions knows what we’re talking about here. So, I’m going to quote Gorguechon without comment and let you remember your own favorite, illustrative moments from the Trump presidency so far.

Trust

According to the Army, trust is fundamental to the functioning of a team or alliance in any setting: “Leaders shape the ethical climate of their organization while developing the trust and relationships that enable proper leadership.” A leader who is deficient in the capacity for trust makes little effort to support others, may be isolated and aloof, may be apathetic about discrimination, allows distrustful behaviors to persist among team members, makes unrealistic promises and focuses on self-promotion.”

Discipline and self-control

The manual requires that a leader demonstrate control over his behavior and align his behavior with core Army values: “Loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage.” The disciplined leader does not have emotional outbursts or act impulsively, and he maintains composure in stressful or adverse situations. Without discipline and self-control, a leader may not be able to resist temptation, to stay focused despite distractions, to avoid impulsive action or to think before jumping to a conclusion. The leader who fails to demonstrate discipline reacts “viscerally or angrily when receiving bad news or conflicting information,” and he “allows personal emotions to drive decisions or guide responses to emotionally charged situations.”

Judgment and critical thinking

These are complex, high-level mental functions that include the abilities to discriminate, assess, plan, decide, anticipate, prioritize and compare. A leader with the capacity for critical thinking “seeks to obtain the most thorough and accurate understanding possible,” the manual says, and he anticipates “first, second and third consequences of multiple courses of action.” A leader deficient in judgment and strategic thinking demonstrates rigid and inflexible thinking.

Self-awareness

Self-awareness requires the capacity to reflect and an interest in doing so. “Self-aware leaders know themselves, including their traits, feelings, and behaviors,” the manual says. “They employ self-understanding and recognize their effect on others.” When a leader lacks self-awareness, the manual notes, he “unfairly blames subordinates when failures are experienced” and “rejects or lacks interest in feedback.”

Empathy

Perhaps surprisingly, the field manual repeatedly stresses the importance of empathy as an essential attribute for Army leadership. A good leader “demonstrates an understanding of another person’s point of view” and “identifies with others’ feelings and emotions.” The manual’s description of inadequacy in this area: “Shows a lack of concern for others’ emotional distress” and “displays an inability to take another’s perspective.”

In a political and cultural environment in which the military is revered nearly to the point of worship, the U.S. Army’s take on leadership is especially relevant, and it’s worthy of serious consideration. You have to wonder what the people who wrote this section of the Field Manual are thinking when they evaluate their current commander-in-chief against these principles, and as they try to instill these values into up-and-coming leaders. If they really believe in what they have written, the irony must be very, very painful.

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When the U.S. Army recently announced that two women had successfully completed its toughest training regimen, my initial reaction was, “Good for them, and good for the U.S. Army. It’s about time!” But rather quickly, my feminist joy became tempered by a healthy dose of sadness and misgiving.

The two women, Capt. Kristen Griest, 26, a military police platoon leader, and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, 25, an Apache attack helicopter pilot, knew that they were blazing a new trail. Griest said, “I was thinking really of future generations of women that I would like them to have that opportunity so I had that pressure on myself.”

Of course, equal opportunity is a good thing. I’m glad to see these women getting the chance to show that their physical strength, endurance and toughness match—even surpass—that of the men who tried out for Ranger status. [Let’s not forget that women have been demonstrating courage and resilience for ages—just in other ways: as mothers, breadwinners, healers, inspirers, caregivers and teachers–to name just a few such roles. It’s just that these types of strengths have, traditionally, not been equated with the “real” courage of men in battle.]

I’m glad that Griest and Hayer got the opportunity to self-actualize in a way that is meaningful for them—a way that had previously been not available to women. And I’m happy to note, too, that it was a government institution that was willing to give them that chance.

We may not be able to, as Hillary Clinton recently said, “Change people’s hearts,” but, as she also said, “We can change laws.” That, in my mind, is an excellent and appropriate role for government: to lead progressive social change, sometimes by enacting laws [expanding voting rights, for example] and sometimes by example, which is what happened when President Harry S Truman instituted racial desegregation in the US military in 1948—long before integration became acceptable among the general American population.Truman may have reasoned that integrating the military—an organization revered by the American public [at least in the era immediately following World War II]—would have a trickle-down social effect on the rest of the country.

Truman was doing what government does best: tackling the big issues and projects that individuals can’t. I don’t love that he did it through the military—whose track record tends more toward destruction and harm than it does toward helping people—but I respect the impulse to use government to do the really big things.

Retired U.S. Army Colonel Jack Jacobs, appearing on the Rachel Maddow Show, noted that the Army could have taken a more gradual approach to gender equality.

The original assumption was that if they’d wanted to see if women could be in combat units, they’d stick them in combat units in the States, where they were in garrison..doing war games and small-unit tactics, and then, maybe, much later on, they’d send them to the toughest school.They didn’t do that.They did it exactly the opposite way.They sent women to the toughest school first. And the result of that, of course, is that it’s difficult to engender any support for the idea that women can’t take it.

If you stick them in a regular unit, but don’t send them to ranger school, people can say, ok, they’re in a regular unit, but they can’t make it in ranger school. But if you put them in ranger school and they complete it, and 40% to 60% of the men don’t complete it, you’re way down the road to putting them in combat units. Which I think is the ultimate objective.

So I must applaud the Army powers-that-be for taking the boldest route to showing that women can do all the jobs previously restricted to men.

However, there’s also a downside to the particular form of progress exemplified by the women graduating from Ranger School.

The ability of women to become Army Rangers means that the military has a whole new demographic that it can recruit into the top ranks of its war machine. There’s a whole new population—women—that can be thrown into the toughest battlefield assignments—whether battle is justified or not. A whole new demographic that can be injured, maimed or killed in the most dangerous assignments in nonsensical, no-win wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, and who knows where else in the future.

The availability of women for the top ranks of combat jobs might even embolden the military to undertake more adventures, because they’ll have the additional person-power to do so. No more complaining that there aren’t enough highly qualified troops for the most high-risk operations.

Of course, I know that women have been serving in the military for many years now. And don’t forget that, at the same time that they have been barred from official combat roles, they’ve been driving trucks and flying supply planes into very risky areas–resulting in many injuries not specifically recognized as combat-created.

And look, I can understand why women want to—and deserve to—achieve full gender equality in the military: For a military-minded women—as for a man—serving in the elite units means moving up in the ranks, earning more pay, and fulfilling the quest for leadership positions. The sad part is that all of that takes place in the military, where the metrics of success are invasion, occupation, subjugation, colonization, economic plunder and body counts.

As an aside, I have long been bemused by the “gentlemanly” and “chivalrous” argument that women shouldn’t be allowed in combat. Hah! In fact, women have always been involved in combat—as invading and occupying armies overrun their homes; kill their husbands, brothers, sons and daughters; terrorize and injure them with bombs, bullets, cannonballs, howitzer shells and drones; steal their food and money; force them to pick up what few belongings they have and flee; and rape them as war trophies. The only difference now is that women will be allowed to be the leading-edge invaders and the assassins.

Don’t get me wrong: I want women to enjoy all of the same societal rights and economic opportunities afforded to men. I just want us to think about whether, bottom line, the opportunities afforded by a gender-equal military career—for women and for men—are ultimately good for anyone.

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