I have a theory: Most Americans aren’t nearly as divided as we’re being led to believe.
We want safe neighborhoods. Good schools. The freedom to build a life, raise our families, and mind our own business. We want government to do what it’s supposed to do, and when something isn’t working, we want somebody to fix it.
That doesn’t seem particularly controversial.
And yet somehow, we’ve built an entire political culture around making it so.
I’ve spent much of my career on the inside of that system. I’ve run businesses, managed political action committees, worked alongside elected officials, and led one of California’s largest regional chambers of commerce through some of the most turbulent years in recent history.
I’ve sat in the rooms where decisions get made. I’ve watched good people accomplish extraordinary things. I’ve also watched otherwise intelligent adults spend enormous amounts of time and money defending positions they know aren’t working.
And somewhere along the way, I started asking a question:
When did being right become more important than getting it right?
I didn’t grow up in politics. I grew up in Kansas, started working at 13, and have been making my own way ever since. I never finished college. Instead, I learned business from people who were willing to take a chance on me, and by my mid-twenties, I was running the finances of a real estate company.
That experience shaped the way I see the world. Decisions have consequences. Money has to come from somewhere. Good intentions don’t pay the bills. And when the people in charge get something wrong, someone else usually pays the price.
Years later, as CEO of the Sacramento Metro Chamber, I saw those same principles play out on a much larger stage.
I saw how government can be an extraordinary force for good. I also saw how easily it becomes an industry unto itself, where the process matters more than the outcome and the people who are supposed to benefit become almost incidental.
It changed my politics.
I spent years as a Democrat. Today, I’m a Republican. But I still believe in individual freedom, including the freedom to love who you love. I believe in environmental stewardship and economic growth. I believe we have a responsibility to help people who need it, and an equal responsibility to ask whether that help is actually working.
Apparently, that makes me difficult to categorize.
I’m comfortable with that.
What I’m not comfortable with is a world where asking a reasonable question is treated as an act of aggression. Where acknowledging a problem means you’ve chosen a side. Where admitting you were wrong is somehow worse than continuing to be wrong.
I don’t think most people want to live that way.
And I don’t think we have to.
That’s why I’m here.
The New Pragmatic is about getting past the performance of politics and into the substance of what actually works.
Jay and I won’t always agree. I don’t expect you to always agree with either of us. In fact, I hope you don’t.
But I do hope we can approach difficult questions with curiosity instead of contempt, recognize that two things can be true at once, and remember that the point of having a debate isn’t to win it.
It’s to get somewhere.
Because I believe we can do better than this. And I suspect a lot more of us agree on that than anyone wants us to realize.
Welcome to The New Pragmatic.
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