As I watch and read politics, mostly in the American spectrum, I realize the lack of emotion and empathy used by leaders. When someone comes into the political scene on the basis of helping others or has emotion to back up their stances, people call them weak and claim there’s no place in politics for empathy.

I’d argue that empathy and morality are exactly what we need in today’s world. I could also argue that the decrease in both through recent years has created this greedy and negligent world we are now being forced to fix.

My entire life I’ve heard people’s description of their ideal leader consists of a male, who’s an iron fist ruler. A typical description is a person who leaves empathy and morality at the oval office door and isn’t heavily affected by emotion

That’s not what we need in a leader. Emotion isn’t a weakness; the ability to make concise decisions involving and considering emotion is something most leaders don’t have. So we’ve just begun to believe that emotion and feeling empathy is weak, even though the reason we don’t see it is that most leaders don’t have their country’s citizen’s wellbeing in mind.

Most leaders and elected officials give more thought to what is good for the companies who funded their campaign, rather than those who voted them into the position. To many, it’s less about being a civil servant and doing your most for the people and more about the power, fame, and wealth that they gain through making deals and passing policies with/for large corporations.

Bringing morals into politics is the only way to improve our conditions. We can only last so long without thinking about others. The way we overlook and disregard pollution and climate change, bigotry, and economic inequality is what is allowing for the growth of these issues.

Stop voting and electing officials who haven’t faced the problems they are put in office to fix. Let the people of this country who have faced the problems lead us through them and aid in finding a proper solution.

Throwing money at things won’t fix it… pushing away your problems won’t fix it… bullying someone won’t “fix” them. Don’t leave your morality at the door! Allow yourself to make decisions based on how they will affect others for the best outcome.

Allow the emotion and empathy you feel towards others to guide your decision making into rays of hope. Being a caring person doesn’t make you weak; it makes you a perfect candidate to be the leader of people in deep need of care.