The American people put more faith in government than they do in themselves.
No matter who wins the election tonight, or tomorrow, or next year when the lawsuits and recounts have been settled, the American people will once again have lost.
Why is that?
Not because of the ideological or personal faults of either candidate — though they are legion. Not because the mainstream media is no longer trustworthy — though that’s true, too. And not because the system is rigged, either.
The people will lose because we’ve already lost ourselves. We’ve put more emphasis into a political horse race than we have in the race that is our lives. Our obsession with whom becomes the next chief executive and all the requisite predictions of doom and gloom if our preferred party loses reflect a dangerously exagerrated level of belief in the power of government to solve all our problems.
This is not to say that government shouldn’t be a powerful and influential force for good in our lives. Nor that government necessarily should be libertarian-small. But government is only an extension of who and what we are, and what we want to be. Whether you’re liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, you can’t dispute one inalienable fact about human existence: each individual is ultimately responsible to himself. As the old saying goes, you go out the same way you came in.
But what does that mean to say we’ve lost ourselves?
To answer this question, it’s instructive to start by thinking of another question:
What effect will the next president have on your life?
For most people, it takes a lot of speculative reasoning to come up with a legitimate answer to this. Principally, because presidents are not kings in this country, the amount of change that can be affected by a president, at least domestically, is somewhat minimal without the help of a willing Congress. Anyone foreseeing a cooperative Congress for either Trump or Clinton? Yeah, me neither. Contrary to popular belief, presidents don’t “run the country.”
Even considering the recent presidential trend of issuing executive actions and orders, the impact of a unilateral decision by the president on the vast majority of American citizens is miniscule. The major exception to this rule is during wartime, but even with respect to that case, we haven’t seen a military draft in more than 40 years.
For the sake of argument, however, let’s assume the next president can devise a plan and execute a significant legislative agenda with the help of a suddenly charitable Congress. Maybe they pass a new budget, reform our immigration laws, overhaul the tax code and pass an uncontroversial jobs bill. (Yes, this thought exercise requires a willing suspension of disbelief.) Even with all of that — much of it overwhelmingly positive — what would you do differently tomorrow?
Might it be nice to have a few extra dollars in your pocket? Sure. Do we want a fair, humane and economically productive way to handle the 12 million undocumented alien residents here? Absolutely. Will any of this change the way you put on your socks tomorrow? I think not.
Maybe it’s time to stop acting like vegetables
In a recent column in the National Review, writer Kevin Williamson makes the Capitulo 2 argument more effectively than perhaps anything we’ve ever published here. His overarching point is that we are facing a dilemma in this country today. We must decide if we want to be a people who take moral responsibility for our lives or if we’d rather outsource the heavy lifting of taking care of ourselves to an outside agency (chiefly, government).
The argument, of course, goes beyond the cliched conservative pitch about personal responsibility. No one is truly alone or 100% on their own. We have families, friends, social networks and, yes, governments to help shepherd us through the wilderness of the future and all of life’s travails. But it’s time we cultivate an understanding that we are our own masters and government is merely a tool by which we achieve better ends. It ultimately boils down to what we want and how we seize control of our destiny.
Here is one of the money passages:
Free markets — which is to say, the economic networks that emerge when people are left free to pursue their own ends and interests — are good at many things, and one of the things they are terribly good at is sorting. Companies know who their most productive people are and which of the firms they work with provide the best results; and, though it is more art than science, they are pretty good at figuring out what characteristics those valuable workers and partner firms have. As human cooperation grows more and more seamless — this is what is meant by “globalization” — markets become larger, more fully integrated, and more efficient. Your value to an employer is always relative to the value of the next-best option (just as your employer’s value to you is always relative to your next-best option), but 50 years ago your employer’s choice of next-best options was limited to the available workers in your area and those who might be recruited to relocate there for work, whereas today there are next-best options everywhere from Ireland to India, depending on your job.
To the extent that you have skills and abilities that are neither uncommon nor bound to a particular place or institution, you are now in competition with workers from around the world in a way that your father and grandfather probably weren’t. That probably is not going to change, and the government could not do much to change it even if it wanted to, which it really doesn’t and shouldn’t.
One of the primary insights here is that we are no longer playing by the rules of yesterday’s America. Sorry to disappoint the “Make America Great Again” set, but we have to face a different reality. One that means young people embracing new forms of learning, new cultures and new skills to keep up with an evolving marketplace. It also means leaders, whether in government or the private sector, who need to come from diverse and hopefully more optimistic viewpoints while maintaining allegiance to American sovereignty.
On the other hand, the “Stronger Together” crowd must face an even harsher truth: the government simply cannot, will not and never has created prosperity. It cannot create jobs (outside of bureacratic ones, which are inherently incapable of stimulating wider growth) any better than it can create healthy families or basic human happiness. Most of all, contrary to several generations of revolutionary leftist dogma, government simply cannot create equality.
These are the facts on the ground. Time to deal with them.
So how do we start winning again?
First and foremost, let’s stop thinking about elections for a minute. Granted, elections are still important, especially on a local level where your voice truly makes a difference. But during any given day, an elected official probably has zero impact on any of the thousand or so decisions you make.
Unfortunately both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, along with a slew of other contemporary politicians, treat the American public as a giant herd of human cattle. Just livestock subject to the whims of the rancher (i.e. the rich and powerful). Everything is based on how much they can give to us, in return for our unyielding support.
Isn’t this what the Constitutional framers were hoping to avoid?
Think about it. Hillary Clinton has touted literally hundreds of new government programs that she wants to push through. If there is an identity group or voter bloc that seems within her reach, she wants to buy it something nice — paid for of course by you, John Q. Taxpayer.
Despite the (R) by his name, Trump is barely any better. His incessant promises to bring back manufacturing jobs to the desolate corners of the rust belt are hollow promises offered decades too late in the interest of riling up a forgotten and underserved portion of the middle American electorate.
Of course, none of these special voter cases on either side of the aisle is without a legitimate gripe or complaint. Many got a raw deal in this brave new world. It would be nice if government could help them. But bending the principles of American federalism, pushing the limits of what presidents and governments can do, or spending government money (debt-fueled) without popular restraint will hardly solve anyone’s problems. As a matter of documented fact, it has made them demonstrably worse.
So in the end, it comes back to us. The people. Let’s start by focusing on ourselves, our families, our jobs and our own communities. We must cultivate the discipline, skills and values to take control of our own lives. We must deal with the reality of a global marketplace replete with competition from all corners. We must take advantage of the limitless potential presented by technology, connectedness, and accessibility. Opportunity is more widespread than ever before. But capturing it still requires voluntary will.
Only after we’ve taken this step can we demand the same accountability from our government leadership. Only once we’ve reigned in our own demands can we reign in the runaway freight train that is our elected officials.
Or we can do what John F. Kennedy warned against: we can just keep asking what our country can do for us?