Our president’s leadership style has been noted for being transactional.  Relationships are managed as one-off deals, where any giving is conditional for an expected return.

The most ruthless transactions are those where power or advantage is used to maximize return at the expense of the other party. Such transactions leave the “loser” resentful and destroy any trust that may have developed to that point.

The leadership of virtually every other president in our country’s 250-year history has been guided by principles. Trusted relationships are built and sustained by consistent actions guided by moral rule or core values. Internationally, countries trust principled relationships, which makes it much easier to resolve economic and defense conflicts.

Our nation is singularly great in human history because we were formed on principles and have mostly remained true to them over time. We’ve never had a king or autocratic tyrant.  

Perhaps our most notable principle is that we were founded as a nation of refugees.

Every non-native American came from somewhere else. They came to escape religious persecution, governmental persecution and economic distress. This is why France gave us the Statue of Liberty on our 100th birthday. 

There is no rationale that supports abandoning this principle, even today. Our national security is not impaired by continuing to be a refuge. It is impaired by pushing away allies when we abandon our principles.

President Obama was actually known somewhat derisively as the “deporter-in-chief.” He made non-citizens with violent criminal records a priority, leaving alone people peacefully established in the U.S. He advocated for Congress to find a path to citizenship for such people. 

There were no protests. Citizens were not beaten up or killed. He tried to find a balance between our principles of social justice and a responsibility to remove dangerous people.

President Kennedy, in his inaugural address, told citizens to ask not what their country could do for them, but rather to ask what they could do for their country. He advocated for the principle of the common good and serving others as opposed to prioritizing self-interests.

He created the Peace Corps, organizing Americans to demonstrate peace and community service in poor countries. This is a far cry from sending in military corps based on the principle that might is right, which embitters those people affected for generations beyond our own.

President Carter’s guiding principle was advocacy of human rights, which is also what he understood was his calling as a Christian. He was the most effective peace-maker modern history has witnessed in the Middle East, guiding a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt. He didn’t strong-arm anyone; he built trust by remaining true to his principles.

The Allied Nations that won World War II were united by the principle to oppose tyranny and territorial aggression. NATO is a mutual defense pact to this day based on that same principle. That alliance has been the foundation for economic alliances that have created great wealth for Europeans and Americans.  

Our current administration is so obsessed with the transactional goal to get Europe to increase defense budgets that they reject the principles that define our national greatness.

America has been historically great because we protest when our government does not adhere to the principles inherent in our foundation as a country. The Patriots protested and eventually fought for the principles of representation and freedom. The Vietnam War was eventually stopped due to increasing pressure from protesters.  Civil rights protestors eventually won rights that were: denied them in our Constitution in repudiation of the concept that all men are created equal; and, embedded in our Constitution after the Civil War but persistently denied by local Jim Crow segregation laws in defiance of our Constitution.

And now we are protesting ICE agents in our neighborhoods. We’re protesting their brutal tactics.  We’re protesting their lack of accountability. And we’re protesting the idea that the crime of not having documentation is punishable by unwarranted arrest, detention and deportation.

Are such protests illegal? Obstruction of law enforcement is a crime. But civil disobedience is a misdemeanor, punishable by an arrest and fine. It is as far as you can be from crimes deserving capital punishment (which a majority of Americans don’t support either). It is not a justification for violence and beatings by law enforcers – actions that we don’t even allow in maximum security prisons.

In our history, every protest has resulted in violence, killings and beatings by our government on the people they’re supposed to represent. It is unprincipled, the tyranny of corrupt power.  History implies certainty that there will continue to be beatings and killings of Americans in our current protests against ICE.

But you know what? It never stops the protests and the protesters have always won… because we are a nation of principled people – whether our president is or not.