Trump's evident character flaws leave him unable to meet the historic moment.
(CNN)"In a president, character is everything," wrote the renowned speechwriter Peggy Noonan. And therein lies President Donald Trump's inability to meet this American moment.
Noonan referred, in an essay commemorating her old boss Ronald Reagan, to the human qualities behind successful leadership in the White House. Empathy, courage, vision, decency, candor -- these traits have yielded the presidential moments that resonate through history.
The evident absence of those qualities in Trump leaves him uniquely ill-equipped to handle the intertwined challenges of a public health pandemic, economic collapse and racial conflict that the nation now faces. The results have inflamed enmity, division and hardship across the nation.
Consider some of the signature events that helped define chief executives over the last century. They etch an unflattering contrast with today's incumbent.