Tell us what we can do to make a difference, and we'll do it.

That's what the people of the United States must have been saying when Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, because when he led, the people took action, and things got better. What we were suffering from, under Hoover, was a lack of leadership at a time when we desperately needed it.

Now people are looking for a message to take away from yesterday's huge march in Manhattan. It's the same message. We desperately want to make a difference. Look at what we can do without leadership. Imagine what we could accomplish if we elected someone to lead us who had vision, and could communicate that vision, in the form of something we can act on.

And the amazing thing about the problem we face is that it will respond to mass action, in fact that is exactly what's needed.

So that's the takeaway. If we had leadership, we would do better.

PS: I highly recommend the Ken Burns series, The Roosevelts.