Volume 10, Issue 33
It is not that the electorate is sending mixed signals. They are sending one clear signal that national leaders and political consultants refuse to recognize. The public is demanding that their elected officials respect the value proposition from which they are making personal choices.
Chuck Todd this week on NBC’s Meet the Press quoted from national surveys that the public is angry, suspicious, and disillusioned about the current situation of their country. His analysis is that anything can happen in the midterm elections. For once, Chuck is right.
The new NBC poll out this week finds that 74% of the American public believes that America is on the wrong track. This is the highest percentage ever recorded in their surveys and has lasted the most weeks in the history of the research. Further, a majority of Democrats have a negative view of the Democratic Party and a majority of Republicans have a negative view of the Republican Party. Former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris all have higher negatives than positives. Never before in national polling has the public been so dissatisfied with government leadership while at the same time being also dissatisfied with their own political parties and party leaders.
Given these facts, national leaders and Congressional candidates continue to campaign on ideological platforms in an effort to divide the electorate pursuant to a we-versus-they universe that is not part of the citizens’ worldview.
In the movie The American President, Michael Douglas as President Shepherd is trying to understand why his opponent continues such a negative personal dialogue when it’s not working. He states that it is easy to play on people’s fears. He further states that this determination must be his opponent’s strategy because he doesn’t understand why what he’s doing is failing. Douglas then presents the revelation that it is not that his adversary doesn’t understand why the people are resisting the message. The answer to the question of why is that division is all he knows, and his problem is that he can’t sell it.
Candidates and party leaders are determined to drive a message to connect with the public based on issues rather than values. Whether this is by design or default, they are ignoring all the warning signs that they can’t sell it.
In interview after interview after interview following the primaries around the country, members of both the Democratic and Republican parties are emotionally pleading that their leaders, “are missing the mark.” Yet candidates mystifyingly ask, what mark?
In the latest research conducted on America’s values by AmericasOne, two-thirds of the American public responded that citizen responsibility was critical to the social fabric of a sound national culture. Americans are open to leadership who will explain to them what is required for obligation or sacrifice to cure problems facing the country. For some reason, leaders are afraid to draw on the strength of American values to guide citizen participation in a reciprocal government-citizen relationship establishing the union of values.
In the movie Darkest Hour, Winston Churchill is portrayed to have received inspiration from the people to never give up when it was near unanimity among members of Parliament that the only option was for Great Britain to sue for peace with Hitler immediately prior to World War II. Whether Churchill actually rode the tube to discuss matters of state with the general public doesn’t matter. It is true that he disappeared for two hours and then, in one speech before Parliament, turned the entire sentiment of the British leadership to never give up. Churchill later said that it was the people from which he grasped the vision and the courage to lead the West against Nazi aggression.
Regardless of the particulars, one man, at one critical moment in history, was defiantly connected to the values of a people. The entire Western world today is indebted to this conviction, societal connectivity, and the tenacity to act on it maintaining the union of values.
America is faced with great challenges. The people will respond if given the respect of the viewpoint of their values. What is required is accountability, from both government and the citizens. Sacrifice must be applied justly. The objective must be explained in terms of righteousness. The consequences of failure must be emphasized. And most importantly, in the government-citizen relationship, the union of values should be based on the joint trust in the community commitment to the moral imperative.
Leaders today must trust the people to be told the truth in reference to what is required to achieve sensible solutions through shared sacrifice.
From where will such leaders rise?
They will be called from a remnant representing a Higher Authority reflective of the union of values. Government as a spiritual pinnacle can never acquiesce to temporal sacrifice, for the essence of their special interest resides in the competition of this system of things. Only by belief in a spiritual order that does not rely upon manifested power can sacrificial leadership emerge.
Leadership for a moral cause can be found collectively in the courage of the citizens. Leaders need only to respect the will of the people in making the point of the connection.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?