The Leadership Test Politicians Keep Failing

We lose faith when those in power lose touch with reality

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

One of my favorite newsletters is The Interpreter, written by New York Times correspondents Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, who contextualize world events. And in last week’s newsletter, The Interpreter opened with a photo of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s now-infamous Supreme Court nomination ceremony. Coney Barrett is sitting for White House photographers with her family.

Borrowing a question first posed by Georgetown University political scientist Don Moynihan, The Interpreter asked readers: “What do you think when you see this picture?”

Here are the responses:

“We cancelled our wedding.”

“I had to have a Zoom memorial for my son.”

“I had to tell my Mother goodbye over the phone.”

“I think about my autistic cousin who died alone in his apartment of covid a few days before Passover.”

“My ten-year-old niece broke down crying this summer, asking whether she could please hug my mom, her grandmom, if they both wore trash bags over their heads.”

The reactions are undeniably raw. Even more than their emotional outpouring, the responses speak to the unfairness of the situation: We…