New, respected leaders and a world that needs them

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Emmanuel Macron, 39, the new president of France, is more evidence that progressive nations are turning to young, learned, and especially sophisticated leadership in these complicated times. Not long ago, Canadians elected

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 45, another cultured leader among the world’s superior heads of state. Both are energetic, multi-lingual, ferociously educated and, for their relatively brief time in public life, accomplished and respected speakers and politicians.

Macron and Trudeau each have multiple advanced degrees and have an insatiable thirst for history, for the footings of complex social, environmental, and geographic issues, and for unraveling moral contentions.

Macron has, for one example, praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for opening her country to the emigration of Middle East refugees, and for another he has recently faced the despot Putin without blinking; Trudeau is empathetic, insisting that refugees be helped, rather than imprisoned. Macron had argued for a united Europe rather than a confederacy; the answer is not “to expel refugees from the national community and build barricades between one another” but to secure cooperation and compassion among Europeans. They have again asserted wisely their support for the Paris Climate Accord.

Merkel is now the world’s discriminating and venerable diplomat, one to whom we must turn for responsible, thoughtful global leadership. Macron and Trudeau are at the top among the world’s astute and informed new leaders.

In stark contrast to the United States, informed and intuitive citizens in Europe and Northern America are choosing heads of state for their perception and understanding, their respect for the citizenry and for a global view that is moderate, discerning and compassionate.

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John Marshall is the retired editor-owner of the Lindsborg (Kan.) News-Record (2001-2012), and for 27 years (1970-1997) was a reporter, editor and publisher for publications of the Hutchinson-based Harris Newspaper Group. He has been writing about Kansas people, government and culture for more than 40 years, and currently writes a column for the News-Record and The Rural Messenger. He lives in Lindsborg with his wife, Rebecca, and their 21 year-old African-Grey parrot, Themis.

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