One of the most courageous things for a leader in a democracy to do is to take a necessary, but unpopular stand, and stick with it, despite tremendous pressure to change their mind. John Kennedy’s book, Profiles in Courage is a collection of stories of US Senators who took such stands, knowing it could (and generally did) cost them their jobs.
Career-limiting decisions like these are courageous under the best of circumstances. How much more courageous to stick to such a decision in a broken society, where gangs of armed dead-enders form up into ersatz militias, and form plans to violently overthrow authorities who make decisions with which they disagree.
One thing such leaders can typically count on in our country is the support of law enforcement, and the federal government. How vastly more courageous it must be for a governor to sustain a necessary, but unpopular decision when the local sheriff sides with the anti-government vigilantes - and even the president tweets dog-whistle endorsement for their criminal plotters.
A profile in courage stands out most boldly within a milieu of cowardice.
