Ingram's Magazine July 2022

Critical Questions Confront Voters

E D I T O R ’ S N O T E

by Joe Sweeney

Once Again, It’s About Leadership. And Character.

Well, another election season is on our doorstep. It’s this time of the election cycle when politics becomes a bit personal for me. My Dad was an elected official—the last elected Jackson County Assessor, back in 1968. Though an effective team player, Dad’s party feared him a bit because he saw the Jackson Countians who elected him as his top priority. The late Jim Nutter, a big wheel among Democrats, attem pted—without success—to suggest otherwise. He told Dad that, no, the assessor’s office couldn’t bring a lawyer of its own onto his staff. Dad simply told him to talk to his attorney about it. I was raised a Democrat, but, as Ronald Reagan would fam- ously declare, “I didn’t leave the party; the party left me.” Reagan had me at “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!” (June 12, 1987). Michelle and I were inMunich shortly after—the tension was notice ably thick in eastern Germany but appreciation for America was high. Those words, like so much about Reagan’s world view, were grounded in American principles of democracy, patriotism and the belief that public officials served the people first. Not many of them operated in that mode back then; fewer still today. One who did was Jack Danforth, the former senator from Missouri. I’m glad to see him standing up independently in recent election commercials in support of Missouri Stands United. The ideology is superior, though I have a hard time believing it will catch on any time soon. It appears modern progressivism—don’t call it liberal, because it’s anything but—is running rampant. We must get back to the basics and instist that every school-age student learn the Constitution. And maybe mandate that each elected official be trained in a neutral program about the virtues of the Constitution and their oath to the commonwealth. Somewhere along the line, the majority of politicians become part of an exclusive club working on behalf of their party’s interest—and usually, their own. I can’t think of many who shouldn’t immediately be replaced. In a matter of days, voters across the nation will render judgment on members of the U.S. House, roughly one-third of the U.S. Senate, the performance of state legislatures and governors, and more. Missouri and Kansas will be among the states voting in primary elections on Aug. 2, and again in the general elections in November. From what we’ve seen in early voting in other states, “judgment” might be the wrong word to describe voters’ motives this time around. “Punishment” might seemmore appropriate. And fitting. We hear a lot about a red tidal wave coming in November, one that will sweep Republicans into control of the legislative branch in Washington. I’m not so certain, given the way House seats have been configured to keep incumbents coming back to the trough every two years. The House might see a big shift to the GOP, but it might also be a narrow split in favor of Republicans this time around. The Senate, too, is a reflection of a Red State/Blue State America, and from what we’ve seen over the past generation, we can probably count on something closer to a 50-50 division again there, as well. Certainly not a 60-40 national mandate for change. In an America this sharpy divided politically, that’s to be expected. But I’m left to wonder. Why is so hard to see a way out of this?

The root causes of so many of the current conditions, the one that have many small businesses struggling, most investors deeply discouraged and many families absolutely crushed financially, can be traced in a direct line to decisions by the elites who believe they know better than everyone else. That’s not an entirely political statement: Bipartisanship, or what passes for it, has given us a $30 trillion bill that will be coming due for younger genera tions of Americans. The leadership of both parties bears the full responsibility for that. Neither party is the voice of fiscal responsibility, and that’s been the case going back 20 years or more, to the last time we actually had a balanced federal budget. Can this all be fixed? I’m talking about the inflation, the price of energy, the mis guided foreign policy that has not just the U.S., but our friends in Europe, dreading what’s to come. Well, if history is a guide, yes. Yes, it can. But you have to take off the political blinders and look at what worked more than 40 years ago, when Americans were being scourged with the same economic and policy lash. Unfortunately, too many working-age Americans today weren’t even alive when that happened. I’m reminded of all this after a good friend recently sent me a clip of President Ronald Reagan’s farewell address in 1989. On the opposite page, we’ve excerpted a key passage from that (but Google and read the whole speech). Were this not America, I’d say the situ ation is nearly hopeless. History, though, and President Reagan’s example teach us that hope—with a generous application of sheer will—can change the direction of a ship so badly off-course. It’s my hope that as voters head to the polls, they’ll set aside some of the petty divisions that have been stoked over recent years, and focus on bringing to office people who have, as President Reagan said, “great ideas” to pursue. Responding to Reagan’s farewell address (and especially the final three para graphs on the opposite page), one person in that email chain asked one very important question: Who will lead?

Joe Sweeney Editor-In-Chief and Publisher E | JSweeney @ Ingrams.com

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July 2022

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