the Lack of Sound Leadership in America

Given the gridlock we are dealing with in America, it is worthwhile to take a moment and look at our situation from a “big picture” perspective. This will hope us better understand the nature of the gridlock and why it is not likely to improve anytime soon.

In general, most people tend to be attracted to leaders that display confidence and conviction in their message. Because our world is so large and complicated, the people who feel the most confidence and conviction in their ideas tend to be those that look at the world in very “black and white”, “true or false”, “good or bad”, “right or wrong” terms.

They tend to boil things down to short-sighted, overly simplistic explanations and remedies, from the naïve anti-Wall Street rantings of Bernie Sanders to the irrational divisiveness of Ted Cruz to the schizophrenic, insanity of Donald Trump (a moderate pretending to be a far right-wing populist).

Conversely, those that recognize the overwhelming complexity of our world struggle to develop a tangible vision of where we need to go. They struggle to develop a vision that people can rally behind. Instead, they sit and scratch their heads trying to make some sense of it all. From the incoherence and inconsistency of John Kasich to the waffling and hedging of Hillary Clinton.

In general, voters are inevitably drawn towards leaders who arise from the lunatic fringes of society. Leaders from both the far left and the far right inevitably make their way to Washington because they are the ones who display the most confidence and conviction in their message.

This creates two problems. First of all, with Washington full of leaders that are so ideologically different, it is extremely hard for them to get anything done. There can be no compromise between each side because of the size of the enormous gulf between them.

Secondly, each side’s message tends to be so overly simplistic that it is impossible for them to improve our situation. For example, the economic policies proposed from the right and left are both so fundamentally flawed that even if one side actually managed to get their policies implemented, those policies are too intellectually flawed to actually do any good. So our economy will never improve no matter who wins the election or the debates in Washington.

What is desperately needed is a visionary moderate that can recognize the insanity being preached by the right and left and somehow develop a concrete vision of a “middle way”. Given where we are in this election cycle, it certainly isn’t going to happen this year. But hopefully we can get enough moderate voices together over the coming years in order to deliver the unifying message that America needs in future elections.