A Question of Character and American Values

U.S. military strike of civilian boat off Venezuelan coast, October 3, 2025

When he ran for president in 2020, Joe Biden described the election between he and Donald Trump as “a struggle for the soul of America.” It was an eloquent phrase from a politician not known for his eloquence, but the sentiment resonated with me for one simple reason: it was true.

Men and women make history, but they are incapable of knowing how history will turn out. This was true of the American patriots who fought in the revolution and the men who wrote, debated, and agreed upon the Constitution. It has been true of all the people who have fulfilled positions of leadership throughout American history. It is why, since its inception, the ultimate success of the American experiment has remained precarious and uncertain, and why Abraham Lincoln asked at Gettysburg “whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”

The men who founded and molded the early American republic were deeply human and possessed profound moral shortcomings, yet they were the greatest collection of political minds in history. Despite their strong disagreements, personality conflicts, regional rivalries, and conflicting interests, they held the union together during a vulnerable and turbulent time. The leadership they provided to a young and not yet fully formed nation helped shape the character of the political institutions that we rely upon to create and enforce our laws, protect our liberties, and implement the checks and balances set forth in the Constitution. In their public statements and proclamations, the leaders of our newly formed nation spoke with an eloquence frequently lacking in today’s political discourse, because they knew their reputations and legacies rested on the judgment of history.

A nation’s leaders transmit values across generations that determine and influence its national character. David Brooks has written that human beings “are social and spiritual creatures whose souls are either ennobled or degraded by the systems, cultures, and behaviors in which we are enmeshed.” In examining the policies and actions of a government, it is fair to ask, “Does this moralize or demoralize the people it touches? Does this induce them to behave more responsibly or less?” It is not possible to separate policy making from moral character. It is why America’s founders believed so strongly in the concept of public virtue.

As the historian Joseph J. Ellis noted in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, the United States is “the oldest enduring republic in world history, with a set of institutions and traditions that have stood the test of time.” That is true in part because “the fate of the American experiment … required honest and virtuous leaders to endure.” Honor and character still matter. Without leaders who exemplify these traits, the American project cannot survive.

I have been thinking about honor and character lately, particularly as we learn more about the President’s military campaign against civilian boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. At the orders of the President and Secretary of Defense, small vessels suspected of carrying illicit drugs are blown to bits with laser-guided missiles and military-grade munitions. In most cases, everyone aboard the vessels is killed immediately. In one violent drone strike on September 2 that killed nine people and split the boat apart, a second strike forty minutes later killed two defenseless men while they desperately held onto a floating piece of debris to keep from drowning.

In none of the approximately twenty-two strikes to date, which have killed at least eighty-seven civilians, has there been any attempt to arrest and prosecute the individuals on the boats or to seize the drugs allegedly being transported. Indeed, in one strike in October, two survivors were detained and repatriated back to their home countries (Colombia and Ecuador). Why they were not detained and brought back for prosecution raises a host of questions. Were there no drugs on the boat? Was there insufficient evidence that these two individuals were connected to a drug smuggling operation? We do not know because the government has provided no explanation or evidence.

These killings have no legal or moral justification. Blowing up boats operated by civilians, even ones suspected of committing a serious crime, is murder, not justice. These are attacks against citizens of a country with which America is not at war. The individuals on these boats are not enemy combatants, but people suspected of drug trafficking, a crime which, even if supported by evidence (we have at present only the President’s and Secretary Hegseth’s unsupported statements), is not a capital offense. Because the government has disclosed no evidence, we know nothing about the targeted individuals, what they were doing, what was on their boats, or where they were destined.

Trump and Hegseth have claimed that they are seeking to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States, which has been responsible for a surge of drug overdose deaths over the past few years. But the targeted boats, if they are indeed trafficking drugs, are almost certainly carrying cocaine and not fentanyl, which comes mostly from labs in Mexico. Will Trump start ordering military strikes on Mexican drug mules? He implied as much recently when he said: “And now we’re going to do land, because the land is much easier.” Is that to be the legal and moral justification for the undeclared war killings of non-combatants?

If Trump is so concerned about illegal drugs entering the United States, why has he pardoned or commuted the sentences of over one hundred convicted drug traffickers? And why did he recently pardon the former president of Honduras, who was convicted last year in U.S. federal court of conspiring to import more than four hundred tons of cocaine into the United States?

The military strikes on the civilian boats in the Caribbean are unjustified killings under domestic law, international humanitarian law, and the U.S. Code of Military Justice. Most or all these killings would constitute war crimes under the law of armed conflict, but that does not apply because the people targeted in these boats were not at war with the United States or engaged in armed conflict with us. Even if they were members of drug cartels (or “narco-terrorists” as Trump calls them), and we have no evidence to know either way, no drug cartel is engaged in armed conflict with the United States. That they may be engaged in criminal activity (again, we have seen no concrete evidence) does not justify the lethal force inflicted. (For a thorough analysis of the clearly illegal nature of the military strikes on the boats, see "Expert Q&A on the U.S. Boat Strikes” from Just Security).

Americans understandably have strong feelings about drug trafficking. I served for eighteen years as a federal prosecutor during which I prosecuted and convicted hundreds of suspected gang members and drug dealers. I have no problem with aggressive interdiction efforts that intercept, arrest, seize, and prosecute the individuals responsible for smuggling drugs into the United States. But drug trafficking is a crime to be managed pursuant to our democratically enacted laws, just like any other crime.

The United States is supposed to be a nation of laws, and we cannot simply kill anyone we suspect of committing a crime, even a serious one. As stated by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY): “There is a difference between being accused of being a bad guy and being a bad guy. It is called the presumption of innocence. It is called due process. It is called, basically, justice that our country was founded upon.” Respect for human rights, the rule of law, and constitutional safeguards are what separates democracies from the authoritarian regimes of the world.

America today is experiencing a crisis of values. How else to explain that large numbers of Americans appear indifferent to the President’s and Secretary Hegseth’s callous indifference to human life and the rule of law. Trump and Hegseth think that enough Americans will admire their toughness that they will not ask the challenging questions. But the soul of America, the character of our nation, demands better than that.

As former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) wrote in a recent essay in The Atlantic: “Citizens can support firm action while still holding on to their humanity. Death inflicted on the helpless is never an act of strength; it is what remains when strength forgets its purpose.” If extrajudicial killings of non-combatants are allowed to proceed with no oversight from Congress and no apparent accountability to the rule of law, we will have forfeited public virtue and lost the battle for America’s soul.

When, in 1776, the signers of the Declaration of Independence agreed to "mutually pledge to each other … our sacred Honor," they knew that the fate of the new republic depended on the honor and character of the men and women who would eventually be called upon to lead and represent the American citizenry. They did not demand perfection. And they understood that we cannot always expect people of impeccable moral character to lead the country. But public virtue, public honor, and public character have always mattered.

What message does it send to American citizens and the world when the statements and social media posts coming from the White House and many of the people serving in this administration, from Pete Hegseth to Stephen Miller, consistently appeal to the worst, most vile instincts of the body politic? These are people who routinely dehumanize immigrants, attribute the worst in everyone they fear or oppose, mock concepts like diversity and inclusion, despise the poor, openly discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and show resentment to the historical achievements of women, African Americans, and Latinos. They give little thought to how their policies impact real human beings, the communities in which they live and work, and the values they convey to American society. Their answer to every problem is to shift the blame to the prior administration and to accept responsibility for nothing.

What national values does the president convey when he orders the military to perform extrajudicial killings of civilians on the high seas? For that matter, what is the character of a nation that allows masked agents to racially profile Latinos, pull men and women from their cars as they head to work, ignore pleas that they have valid work permits and are here legally, and in some cases are U.S. citizens? What is the character of a country that, on the flimsiest of evidence and without due process, sends hundreds of immigrants to a notorious El Salvador prison known for its cruel treatment of inmates and human rights violations? What message does a country send when the president and his family members make billions of dollars on crypto investments and real-estate deals with foreign governments without regard for government ethics, the rules against conflicts of interest, and the laws against bribery? These are the actions of authoritarian governments and dictators, countries that are run by men and not laws.

The United States is better than this. As James Madison wrote in 1788, if our leaders lack sufficient “virtue and wisdom … we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks--no form of government can render us secure.” It is up to “We the People” to restore virtue and wisdom to American governance.

As Noah Webster wrote in 1835, “If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted.” We have had moments in our history when principled leaders of good character were not in charge, and the nation suffered. But we are today at a crucial turning point. How much longer can we endure under the current regime? The character of the nation, the “soul of America,” demands more. It is up to Congress, the Courts, and all of us, to ensure that the rule of law, and the checks and balances embedded in our Constitution, are upheld. If not, it is doubtful “whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”