David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

If you want a president to ‘run the country,’ you’re missing the point

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You can tell just how warped people’s assumptions are when they speak of which presidential candidate is going to “run the country.” There are few political phrases that irritate me as much, because it reveals a pervasive belief that “someone has to be in charge.”

I was reminded of this again Thursday night when I saw comments on a Ron Paul website from random people in the public urging him to run in 2012, comments obviously left before he announced a couple of weeks ago. One of the comments said:

“I lean to left of center politically but I would vote for you to run the country as I believe you represent the fiscal common sense our nation requires.”

If you want Ron Paul — or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney or anyone else — to “run the country,” you miss the entire point of what this nation’s government was supposed to be all about. But the fact that so many people do want this is yet another indication that we have to start something brand new — maybe many brand-new things — in different places for freedom to have a chance to grow again.
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Do political labels make things clear or just confuse everyone?

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One of my very first political clients had no idea what she believed in, but she knew she was a conservative. It was about 20 years ago and I was new enough in political consulting that I’d take whatever clients I could get. The woman was a first-time candidate running for an office with enough prominence that she was going to be interviewed by a local TV news crew. She was terrified, and she became my client because she needed someone to help her prepare and then to run her campaign.

I did a mock interview in front of a video camera and tried tossing her softballs in the beginning just to get her comfortable. I just asked her to tell me what she was in favor of — what she believed in.

“Well, I’m a conservative,” she said confidently.

“What does that mean? What do you believe in?” I asked.

“Well … I’m a conservative. I believe in … well … conservative things. … So I’m … conservative.”

Things went downhill from there. Keep Reading

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Attention, fellow nerds: How are we doing with ‘normal’ people?

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I love being part of groups with so many intelligent people. I confess quite freely that I’m a little nerdy. Sometimes … well … a lot nerdy. Or maybe geeky. Books excite me. Television doesn’t. I prefer to talk about ideas rather than argue about who should be starting at quarterback for the DoofusDogs.

As a long-time libertarian, I’ve enjoyed the benefits of being part of a group with a rich intellectual tradition. Being able to read amazing exposition of ideas and have rich intellectual conversations with my friends is something I’ve treasured for more than 20 years. We have great think tanks and books and websites and all sorts of resources — as long as your brain works in the same hyper-rational way that most libertarian brains work.

But let’s be honest. We’re not doing so well with mainstream audiences. Why not? I think we’re so focused on our ideas — and on arguing with each other and winning intellectual debates with our opponents — that we’re not very good at actually doing things. We’re very good at producing 74-page white papers on a subject, but we’re not as good at finding real-world ways of implementing the things we talk so much about.

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