Looking for good American leadership?

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The majority of Americans do not like former President Donald Trump or President Joe Biden as presidential choices and are pessimistic about the future of the country. One reason for this is that our media and leaders have paid too much attention to the political extremes.

It is as if the only choices available are “woke” or “MAGA” — neither of which are widely popular. It is time we paid attention to leaders who have tried to move us away from those choices. Here are four of them: two Democrats and two Republicans.

Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., did this country a great service by calling attention to the personal decline of Biden and by calling for a new generation of political leadership. In declaring his presidential candidacy, he asserted: “It’s time for the torch to be passed to a new generation of American leaders” — a need more urgent now than ever. He also rightfully acknowledged the harsh problems of inflation and “chaos at our border.”

Phillips was the first prominent Democrat to acknowledge two key difficulties: The now-obvious problem of an elderly president in decline and the shortcomings of some of his policies. As a result, he received universal scorn and hostility from leading Minnesota and national Democrats. Now his intraparty vilifiers must deal with a gigantic political albatross that they willfully ignored.

Nikki Haley likewise noted the many problems attending the GOP’s presumptive nominee. As she stated, they extend beyond Trump’s age: “He’s made it chaotic. He’s made it self-absorbed. He’s made people dislike and judge each other. A president should have moral clarity, and know the difference between right or wrong, and he’s just toxic.”

She also has consistently decried the behavior of Trump and his followers on Jan. 6, 2021. She described it as “a terrible day” and said any person who broke the law at the U.S. Capitol that day “should pay the price.” Unlike Trump, Haley pointed us toward future possibilities, not past calamities.

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania’s recent comments illustrate the difference between political liberals and woke progressives. Once the darling of his party’s left wing, he now criticizes the woke. “I am not woke,” he asserted in an interview in which he opposed homeless squatters and lighter sentencing for major felonies. Stating “I am not a progressive” in a different interview, he strongly supports Israel in its conflict with Hamas and decried the Biden administration’s loose border enforcement.

Most elected Democrats love woke activism on their behalf but fear saying anything that might raise the ire of the far left. Not Fetterman. On most issues, he is a reliable liberal vote but has no time for more extreme agendas.

One senior politician who now gets no love from zealots in his own party is Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Despite a lengthy career as one of the most effective chamber leaders in U.S. history and his record of delivering three recent Supreme Court appointments for the GOP, MAGA activists label him a compromised hack and want him thrown in the dustbin.

MAGA leader Steve Bannon called McConnell a “dirt bag” who has “betrayed” the GOP. One reason is that McConnell excoriated those activists and Trump for their unseemly behavior on Jan. 6, 2021: “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”

American politics has other laudable public leaders like Phillips, Haley, Fetterman and McConnell. They seldom get consistent attention because they are not pressing extreme agendas in sensational ways. Try ignoring all that “acting out” of the far left and right and keep your eyes peeled for national leaders of similar quality. They are out there.

Steven Schier is the Emeritus Congdon Professor of Political Science at Carleton College in Northfield.