Sunday, August 2, 2020

Political Moderation

A few of you want to blame everyone but the President for the mess we have.  Chani for the virus, Democrats for the political environment, socialists for whatever you can think of and liberals in general.

The idea that the person in charge has responsibility would belie his claim that he does everything perfectly and people tell him so.  

The job of a leader is to deal with new unexpected issues.  First by preparing for them and secondly by taking decisive action to fix them.

A real leader would figure out a way to lead that was persuasive to enough people so that we could execute it.  It involves both strength and compromise.  Leadership that only involves strength is really just a dictatorship.

Building a consensus which by necessity involves granting concessions results in a policy that has a chance to work.  Of course there are times for decisive quick actions but this relates back to being prepared.  If you ever worked in a large building you know they practice evacuations periodically.  No one wants to have to evacuate but the hope is that if you do you can be orderly.

A bunch of panicked people trying to run down the stairs isn't likely to end well.

We see a situation today where the idea of working in a bilateral way to build a policy is rejected by Republicans and Progressive Democrats.  This seems to have started with the tea party group that had a purity test.  This was effective because our system gives too much power to minority but unified groups.

We have similarly seen a rise in strict progressives, although at this point it doesn't seem as bad.  The simple fact is that a small dedicated group can hijack a party during primaries.

This was happening during the Democratic primaries until the great majority came out and voted in a Moderate Liberal.  The greatest reason to elect Joe Biden is that he can lead this country by working with the other side.  They have some legitimate concerns that need to be addressed.

Hopefully the Republicans will realize the country needs to move forward on so many critical issues as a, well, country.  

If not we will continue to see a stalemate.  That is the path to ruin.

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