"Now that you've seen what he's done, don't you regret not voting for Donald Trump?"

That's the question a Trumpist friend posed to me back in 2018. It was a reasonable question. The president's chain of undeniable accomplishments included promoting U.S. energy independence, lowering unemployment — especially among minorities — overhauling the criminal justice system, shoring up the VA, aggressively filling judicial seats left vacant by his predecessors, and avoiding new military entanglements.

My answer was unequivocal: No. (For the record, I had voted third party, as I almost always do.) I offered my friend the same explanation he had been incapable of hearing since the 2016 Republican convention: Donald Trump's toxic style of leadership had already produced toxic cultural fallout that could ultimately prove catastrophic and irreversible.

In recent weeks, however, I've begun to equivocate. In the first year of his second term, Trump has brought unprecedented hope for stability to the Mideast. He has strengthened the Abraham Accords, possibly ended the Gaza war, and freed the hostages held by Hamas for two agonizing years while arresting Iran's economic influence and nuclear aspirations. In the process, he has marginalized Vladimir Putin and deprived China of accomplices in its campaign of aggressive expansion.

The president has seriously confronted hyperpartisan influences in academia and journalism, returned sanity to women's sports, restored meritocracy by curtailing identity politics, attempted to correct foreign trade imbalances, and acted to contain illegal immigration. His cheerleaders laud him, with some justification, as the most consequential president in three-quarters of a century.

So, am I finally ready to endorse Trump? Not yet.

Despite his successes, the president's erratic, inflammatory, arrogant, undisciplined, bombastic and uncivil persona continues to cast a dark shadow over his undeniable accomplishments. More significantly, the Trump Doctrine has consistently called for scorched-earth imperial edicts rather than far-sighted, reconstructive policies. Which leads us to this week's addition to the Ethical Lexicon:

Epistemic uncertainty (ep*i*ste*mic un*cer*tain*ty/ ep-uh-stem-ik uhn-sur-tn-tee) | noun

The recognition that knowledge of complex systems and how they will influence the future is fundamentally limited.

Socrates purportedly said that you don't know what you don't know. That means no one can predict the future with anything close to absolute certainty. The charge of the Light Brigade seemed (to somebody) like an exceptionally good idea at the time. So did the French Maginot Line, the DeLorean sports car, and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill. Not one of them achieved its goals, and all of them created far greater problems than they solved.

None of which excuses irresoluteness or ambivalence; after all, no decision is also a decision. Rather, the inevitability of unintended consequences demands a more cautious approach to decision-making, contingency plans that allow for adaptability, and letting the principles of ethics guide us both in what we do and how we do it.

Building bridges to foster bipartisan collaboration, brainstorming options and possible outcomes in an open forum, communicating clearly, promoting constructive disagreement and practicing humility by acknowledging what we don't or cannot know — these constitute the essence of responsible leadership. Together, they promote consensus, eliminate the quadrennial Ping-Pong game of executive orders, and curb the sandbox politics that has cratered public trust in congressional lawmakers.

Of course, ethical actions are often unpopular. But that's the job of leadership — making hard calls to do what's right and what's necessary, not what meets with popular approval.

Evaluating the legacy of any president still in office is childishly myopic. Harry Truman left the White House with one of the lowest approval ratings in history; half a century later, he's routinely counted among history's top five presidents. Ulysses S. Grant was so beloved he could have easily won a third term; now, historians rank him scarcely higher than Jimmy Carter. In years to come, who knows how those rankings might change.

If the Trump Doctrine of bullying and bellicosity ultimately restores U.S. prosperity and global stability, I will tip my hat and concede that the ends justified his means. However, even if his economic and political policies seem to prove beneficial and enduring, both might eventually founder in the morass of social disintegration. I'll take that up in my next column.

S See more by Yonason Goldson and features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists; visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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