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Or do I mean “gig” or “nano”? Whatever the case, I believe that the dominant political party of the future will be the one whose candidates are conversant in the daily micro-realities that allow a city, or a state, or a nation to function. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has some good ideas but does he know about permits and EIRs like Mr. Trump? Has he ever seen a building project through from blueprint to masonry?
In Mike Judge’s dystopian comedy, Idiocracy, we are presented with a future where teetering skyscrapers are anchored to one another with cables because no one knows how to repair or maintain them. When a man who was considered an idiot in the past saves this future society from itself, Judge invites us to consider the fate of a nation lacking sober-minded, knowledgeable leaders. Surveying the near-wreckage of the present, my position is that we are at a point where the next generation of leaders must not only be selfless, but possess 1) practical knowledge and 2) the discipline to forgo the more incendiary debates.
Some decades ago, an erudite gentleman once remarked to me: “There was a time when a man would bring his girlfriend home to meet his mother and the mother would ask the girlfriend if she could cook. It’s not such a bad question when you think about it: can this woman start and finish a project? Can she do something practical?”
I recalled our conversation recently, during a municipal election. The town newspaper asked one candidate what had prompted her to run for city council. The woman, a naturalized citizen, replied that she wanted to represent “her people.”
“Americans?” I wondered aloud. “Hobbiton-ers (not the name of my town)? All right, maybe she is referring to everyone in the Shire (not the name of my county)?”
Here he goes again, my wife was thinking.
Of course I knew exactly what the candidate meant. She was referring to her fellow Mexicans, but she could have been referring to her fellow Star Trek enthusiasts. My quarrel was with her rationale for seeking office. There was no We, but only Us and Them. Nor did she claim to possess any special knowledge as, for example, if she had announced, “I have studied the issue of water conservation extensively and have a solution for Hobbiton.” Years earlier, when the community decided to provide housing for migrant farm workers, a committee was formed that, naturally, included contractors, architects, and engineers. Videogame developers and florists with lots of opinions were not invited.
Again, I might have asked if, owing to some peculiarity, “her people” needed a different type of sidewalk to stroll. If beings from another planet settled in Hobbiton, I would expect their candidate to speak this way: “Since we are not human, I am running for office to represent my people. We don’t drink H2O, for example, and would appreciate some consideration on this point.”
Once again, I knew what the candidate meant, but I reject her assumption. Municipal governments should pursue matters of common interest — e.g. sidewalks and water. They typically do not have the resources or competence to do much else.
My sense of unease returned when California staged a recall election in 2021. Kevin Faulconer, a three-term council member and two-term mayor of San Diego, was the candidate with 14 years of micro-economic and administrative experience, but Republican voters were distracted by the candidacy of radio broadcaster Larry Elder. Elder had not held elected office, nor did he seem to possess some sort of equivalent experience. Had he ever worked with state officials on some vital issue? Had he served on the board of a local non-profit? What does someone who practiced law in Cleveland in the 1980s know about levees in the Central Valley? Perhaps a lot, but farmers along Highway 120 deserved a clear answer.
Though popular, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom is the ultimate distracted macro-politician. His state has been blindsided by a $97B budget shortfall, and its status as the home of reproductive freedom and a large itinerant population has tracked with the flight of companies and working-class families. Where it was once considered an outlier, California is now an anomaly.
If, then, progress is hamstrung by shallow politicians and fashionable issues, how can we pivot away from ideology? Let us ask every candidate, “What are your qualifications?” rather than “What do you believe?” In so-called “purple” states, I think that non-ideological candidates who demonstrate a familiarity with vital, common-benefit issues will be positioned for victory in the next few election cycles. Another key issue will be recruitment and candidate support. According to research by Chinoy and Ma, one third of current members of Congress are lawyers, and a substantial number of the remaining members are doctors, teachers, and those who were employed by non-profits. People who work in these fields are typically insulated from creative capitalism and modern finance.
California assemblyman Matt Haney is a trifecta for the purposes of this essay. The San Francisco Democrat has a background in non-profits, education, and law. In more than a decade of public activism, he has distinguished himself for a failed effort to rename his hometown’s George Washington High School and for a $1.7M Noe Valley public toilet. The latter, a project for which Haney personally secured funding, was almost derailed when a New York Times exposé questioned the cost of the project. Feeling the heat, Haney re-positioned himself as one of the toilet’s biggest critics, demanding to know why the project cost so much. A letter from the city’s manager of the Recreation and Parks Department pointed to key guidance passed while Haney was a member of the Board of Supervisors. A feel-good ordinance, for example, restricting San Francisco’s ability to contract with states that restrict abortion access added time and labor to the cost. What I want to focus on is that 1) Haney did not know how much a public toilet should cost (about $200,000) and 2) his preoccupation with national debates wasted taxpayer time and money.
In the micro sweepstakes, Donald Trump has given the Republican party an advantage by re-branding it, but there is also a strong possibility that the MAGA spirit will be repudiated if Trump fails in the general election. The Republicans will also stumble if they cannot recruit creative, broad-minded candidates with a history of community engagement and from a variety of career backgrounds. The spiritual and intellectual crisis of the West is also very real — and that debate must continue — but I see little opportunity for progress, especially in Congress, given that our nation is evenly divided on most of these questions. I do believe that a majority of the electorate want our leaders to stop shouting at one another, rebuild our communities, position our economy for the future, and restore our international credibility. Here’s to the Age of Micro!
J.D. Palmer is a philosopher and essayist. He invites you to follow him on X and to visit his website, www.pistrinum.com.
Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).
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