The Value of Humility

Humility is considered the foundation of all virtues in the Christian religion. It is equally valued in Judaism and Islam. I have wrestled with humility on many occasions in my life, but have generally found that it has far greater value than most any virtue that I can invoke. It is often hard-won through failure and the more success you have the more prone to setting it aside you can become. Being wrong is a part of life and should be taken in stride and used as a learning experience. Being a good loser is very important, but being a thoughtful winner may be even more important in establishing a baseline of humility.

I have mentioned that I have a text string with two very red motorcycle friends. I keep that channel open and active because they are friends, but mostly because it challenges me to listen to what’s on their mind. It sharpens my political thoughts and dialogue. I want to believe my thoughts and comments help them in the same way though from a different angle. This morning, the more stridently pro-Trump one of the two sent via the text chain a link to an X (Twitter) feed posted by Bill Ackman, the storied but controversial activist hedge fund investor. Ackman is a relative youngster at age 58, but he is both fabulously wealthy ($9 billion net worth) and very outspoken about his views. He has become a Trump supporter in this election, much to the chagrin of his longtime Democratic friends and supporters (he has mostly been a Democratic donor and philanthropist). But now he supports Trump in this election and has felt it necessary to share his rationale for the benefit of his 1.4 million followers on X as well as his friends and investors. I read his arguments and feel the need to, as concisely as possible, rebut his arguments. I start by saying I have a great deal of respect for Ackman as an investor (he has been FAR more successful than me at the game) and have always considered him a voice of reason, even though, like all investors, he too can find his way to the Waterloos of life.

My most recent interactions with Ackman (he wouldn’t know me from a hole in the wall) involved an expert case where I was supporting the 700 or so 401-k participants who had gotten their retirement funds decimated by an over-allocation by their manager in Valeant Pharmaceuticals, which hit the skids in 2015 and beyond. Ackman was not the manager, but he was a huge advocate for and investor in Valeant and he went down swinging to the tune of a $4 Billion loss for his investors and himself. He almost lost everything on that play, but has managed to claw his way back and now, a decade later is back on top of his game. I worked on that case for more than two years and really got inside what and how happened at Valeant. What I summarize as the bottom line of the Valeant ride is that character, playing by the rules and integrity matter at a foundational level and the art of doubling down on a bad decision or investment may be one of the most perilous and destructive things you can do rather than keeping an open mind and a willingness to admit that you are wrong. I know that great fortunes are often made in contrarian plays where you buy when others are selling, but just as many great fortunes are lost by ignoring mistakes and trying to bluster your way through a bad position. Valeant had shown many signs of marginally ethical behavior in its business dealings, and ignoring those in favor of seemingly smart strategies, was a very bad bet. We won $450 Million for those participants and I feel proud to have helped with my expert testimony.

After reading Ackman’s X post and his 33 reasons why he is not supporting Harris in this election and favoring Trump, I strongly believe that he is making the same sort of mistake he made on Valeant. To give him his due, he spends seven entire paragraphs explaining how it is not about his wallet and all about America and the American people, and that is an admirable tack, one I wish more Republicans would consider, but still glosses over many of the problems with is position. To begin with, in his arguments he does not address the failings of Trump, and this is not simply a “what about Hilary!” sort of deflection. This is central to the issue and incredibly important. If humility is the the foundation of all virtues, it is relatively obvious that Trump lacks both humility AND ethical fiber and integrity. There is simply no argument that can ignore that seminal reality in selecting a leader for this country. People like Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Joe Walsh, Bill Weld, Christy Todd Whitman and Stephanie Grisham have not only recognized this failing in Trump, but also seen more good in supporting Harris against Trump. Even more Republicans, including more than 25 ex-staffers in Trump’s White House have denounced Trump as being unfit for office even though they cannot bring themselves to support a Democrat. The basis for their anti-Trump sentiment is very little based on policy and mostly based on character, or the lack thereof.

As for the 33 issues Ackman takes with the Biden/Harris team, I find some validity to the comments, but I also find almost all of them riddles with a high degree of one-sidedness that emphasizes the Democratic missteps and does not properly attribute those caused by Trump actions or policies. They are too plentiful to go over in detail here (you can go to X and read them for yourself), but I challenge anyone to cite even one of those arguments and say that there is not far more under the surface of that issue that needs to modify the sentiment and more often than not, cause one to turn it into a Trump negative rather than a Harris negative. At very least, the points are often inaccurate or sometimes just absurd to claim they are Harris negatives. Two examples are:

• #3 – “withdraw from Afghanistan, abandoning our local partners and the civilians who worked alongside us in an unprepared, overnight withdrawal that led to American casualties and destroyed the lives of Afghani women and girls for generations, against the strong advice of our military leadership, and thereafter not showing appropriate respect for their loss at a memorial ceremony in their honor” – This ignores the pact Trump had already struck with the Taliban that left Biden few options but to withdraw or re-engage (something the American people had not appetite for). The 13 lives lost, while tragic, were perhaps far fewer than would have been suffered by one of the other limited options available. And finally, the mentioned memorial service was not a sanctioned event and was an illegal political publicity stunt by Trump to take advantage of our most sacred national military cemetery in a manner specifically not allowed. Anyone who can suggest that Trump honors our fallen veterans more than Harris is ignoring he evidence about his abject lack of respect for fallen veterans.

• #29 – “fail to provide adequate Secret Service protection for alternative presidential candidates,” – This is ridiculous. Errors are made, even by the Secret Service, but there is NO evidence that Trump has been purposely under protected. In fact, it is the random and casual manner that his campaign undertakes in the planning of its campaign rallies that makes proper protection immeasurably harder and costlier. To suggest otherwise shows extreme bias and fabrication.

Bill Ackman has, once again, fallen prey to that most powerful of errors. He has forgotten about humility. He wants so badly to be right that he is willing to distort truth and reason to do it. And mostly, he has forgotten the most important lesson, that without integrity, no candidate can or should prevail. That is the value of humility that both Ackman and Trump fail regularly to recognize.