100 Treatises

Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill

In the following recent conversation between Bill O’Reilly and Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, the former raised the assertion that liberalism is incapable or ineffective at governing. Newsom correctly pointed out that governance is, at least currently, a lost art in the US, irrespective of ideology or political persuasion.

The causes of this state of affairs (too much polarization, poor memory of history, just plain stupidity) can be debated all day long. But what is clear is that if liberalism were, as a philosophy or an ideological system, generally less effective at running a country or an economy, then we face at least two inexplicable phenomena: (1) the Republican congress under Bush and its unprecedented levels of debt and poor fiscal and economic management, (2) several consecutive decades in the 20th century of left-of-center dominance in economic and social policy (roughly from the 1930s until the 1980s) that nonetheless seemed to work out pretty well, with a broad consensus to boot.

What becomes clear is that good governance and effective management is a skill unto itself. This is why many CEOs and top-level managers can work successfully in the IT industry, five years later go to work for a healthcare company, and later for a multinational shipping company. The products and services differ, but the skill of effective management remains universally applicable.

The same applies to the public sector and to the ship of state. Independent of conservative or liberal ideological goals, nothing gets accomplished without an effective governance (at least, nothing sustainable). The natural conclusion is that, as politics in the US has increasingly become the domain of populism, ideology and sound bites, the art of getting things done has fallen out of fashion. Technocrats and realistic management have been displaced by politicians and ideological mismanagement.

The Democratic party has descended from the effective leadership of Tip O’Neill to the haphazard tomfoolery of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who, with a majority everywhere in sight, still could not get a realistic and decent healthcare bill passed within a self-imposed deadline. Meanwhile, the Republicans have fallen from the smart guidance of Newt Gingrich to the simple-minded childishness of Sarah Palin.

The election of Scott Brown, as I have said, indicates that perhaps Americans are starting to understand that the issue is not ideology, it’s governance, and who can do it more effectively. Somebody should give Bill O’Reilly the memo.