Navel gazing: yes we are at year’s end. People who write regularly, drawing attention to their work by making predictions, put the best case on their hits and misses in 2023. I am more interested in what the past tells us we need to do in the future. There was a time when past developments were the future; that time has passed.
America needs a new generation of leaders. Persons whose minds have been shaped and tested by the vast potential of breakthrough technologies. Leaders who are not pickled in an irreversible liquid of preservatives. It will take strong and insightful leadership to push beyond clever bureaucrats and congressional grandees who run interference for the embedded interests that stand in the way.
Inertia in public leadership is a fact. Its causes are many and unlocking it is complicated. How, for example, can you transition from weapons that cost hundreds of thousands or millions per copy to ones that take advantage of artificial intelligence and robotics that at scale cost relatively little? After all, we have a defense industry built on producing new generations of old weapons. They will fight hard to maintain the status quo.
I use national defense metaphorically as its outcomes are measurable. Results can’t hide. America gained early wins in Afghanistan and Iraq and then began to lose. The horrifying withdrawal from Afghanistan was telling. Low tides are revealing.
In general, how can we overcome vested interests that have shaped lawmakers and laws that protect their market advantage? A political gerontocracy lacks the energy and motivation to lead us out of those riptides. The incumbents, politicians and industrialists alike, have hired clever infighters to protect the advantages of incumbency. They do a good job often at the expense of America. What’s so wrong, the political incumbents ask: “I got elected.”
Beyond how we prevent and/or fight wars and terrorists, how do we reform medicine to deliver better outcomes with fewer costs? I wonder how much money, for example, is spent just handling government paperwork? Administrative personnel piled on top of administrative personnel. And, how many first medical contacts could be screened and potentially resolved by Telehealth as artificial intelligence tools communicating with body sensors point to necessary steps? Steps that don’t require driving to a crowded waiting room, listening for your name to be called while wondering about the person one seat away who is hacking away.
We live in a rapidly changing world. Computing capabilities and now the potential of artificial intelligence are offering new and tested ways forward. The guardians of the status quo will fight back and at our expense. And the last thing we can afford is piling new regulatory agencies on top of old ones. The FCC, my old bailiwick, was given its basic mission in 1934. Update it or fold it.
Presidents do not have to be technicians, but they must understand the world of possibilities. And they must be able to speak about them and lead collaborative bipartisan initiatives to deliver results. If America is to continue leading the world, this will not be optional.
I used to be a Republican and then changed my affiliation to Independent. Both major Parties and many of their candidates are simply not up to the task. They are a dull amber—frozen by time and emotions. As we look toward the next election the one thing we can count on is aggressive repartee on abortion, guns and real or imagined forms of discrimination. These redundancies often take up our attention span.
I am looking for competition in how we choose our leaders because I can’t imagine a moment when renewal is more important. In my view neither Party should choose a nominee who is approximately my age to be its standard-bearer. Regardless, our first and most important standard should be renewal. And renewal must be led. Renewal of civility. A renewed integrity in our fiscal affairs. And a tough-minded assessment of the causes of inertia paired with a sharp pencil and a persevering backbone. The nation’s voters intuitively know that Donald Trump will press his advantage with incivility and that President Biden will not deploy the sharp pencil.
As things stand we have a conspiracy theorist with a good family name enjoying better net favorability ratings than either Biden or Trump. Could Robert Kennedy Jr. (RFK) be the next President? Many of his conspiracy theories revolve around the origins of Covid 19 and the public seems to be unsettled on a range of questions presented by the pandemic’s origin and government commands.
Over time I have written about particular policy positions. Now, in some respects, I have a single position. I want somebody who can win with majority support and who has the talent necessary to be a real leader in a rapidly changing world. My preference: a center-right leader.
But, count on it, pickled leadership will deliver talking points screened by political operatives. In short, their angle of view will be from the rear view mirror. The media should take note of its own culpability in our stunted times and skip over the brush fires to look for the sparks—the causes. We, the electorate, can only avoid our own culpability if we are impatient with the superficial and search out the sparks of real leadership.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
Dick Gnospelius says
I agree completely with Mr. Sikes.
Anne C Stalfort says
So vote for a third party and get a dictator. Trump has made very clear who he is. Believe him. List all this administration has done and judge Biden on what his administration has accomplished. To imply that Biden is not a leader when he has expanded NATO, formed a coalition to support Ukraine, passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill, lowered prescription drug prices for seniors is ridiculous. Unemployment is at an all time low and the stock market is breaking records. Still there is work to be done. I will vote for President Biden so he can finish the job.
Anne Stalfort says
Let me add if Mr. Sikes thinks abortion rights and effective gun laws are issues not important enough to campaign on, I couldn’t disagree more. Ask Republicans in Michigan and Ohio how banning abortion in their state worked out.
Paul Rybon says
I don’t think we need leaders with fresh ideas. Fresh ideas are trouble. The French revolution contained ‘new’ ideas and they are still struggling for balance. Under Hitler’s guidance the Third Reich became a total disaster. Mexico’s revolution with the purpose of throwing off Spanish colonialism has produced an agonizingly slow reformation where cartels stifle economic growth.
Yes, I think our struggles to reach the potential within the ideas expressed in the Declaration and the Constitution are only lately realizing maturity. We’re still fighting the notion of all men being created equally and the notion that ownership of weapons should be unfettered, to name a few of our latest struggles with Democracy.
Societies that try to change too rapidly get into trouble and so cooler heads are warning us about the dangers of artificial intelligence going amock. I don’t think we need the Ramaswamys and the Kennedys to put dynamite into the stew. Let’s just keep on fighting the good fights among ourselves.
William Dalton says
I agree with the comments of Anne Stalfort. Traits of leadership include life experience. Mature leaders have learned what works and what doesn’t. Our President learned how to compromise to accept reasonable results. That is how a democracy is supposed to work. The problem is the Republican Party refuses to compromise and takes the position that it is my way or the highway. In spite of that President Biden has been able to effect some programs with the assistance of Congress that have greatly helped to achieve results noted by Ms Stalfort. No one can challenge the fact that President Biden has demonstrated leadership. Facts, and not misrepresentations, are stubborn things. Not everyone can be satisfied in a democracy. Membership in a political party is, in my opinion the best was to participate.Being an independent gives one an opportunity to be against both political parties. That saves on political donations but experience tells us being an independent achieves very little in the way of getting anything done to achieve positive change.
Mickey Terrone says
The election of 2024 isn’t about normal social, economic and military issues. The Republican Party is in the process of nominating a man who has attempted to overthrow the 2020 election based upon his Big Lie and his followers’ alleged “belief” in that Big Lie. Trump has already announced that if he loses the 2024 election, kit will be because the election was rigged. Again.
Numerous among his congressional supporters are “all in” with Trump, because they participated in his insurrection plan. These Republicans, like Trump, are now immersed in their personal strategies to avoid prosecution. Trump himself if running primarily to save himself from 91 charges in several cases against him.
Trump says, and his followers believe, that he is the only person who can save America. He has declared he will establish martial law and arrest his political opponents as well as begin a massive roundup of millions of immigrants. Oh, and he will clear himself of any charges or conviction against him in any court.
The election of 2024 is about saving the American democratic republic from a deranged potential dictator. Nothing less. Trump is a clear and persent danger to our American traditions and way of life. Trump must not be underestimated in his desperation. He has already tried to falsify state election returns to his favor and he organized a violent attempt to retain power in 2021. A vote for Trump is a vote against our democratic republic.
This election is not about new leadership or new programs or finding a reasonable answer to the immigration crisis. Its about saving America from becoming an authoritarian, fascist state under an unstable, pathological liar.
We, the electorate can only avoid culpability (and compliicity) by rejecting Trump and Trumpism and save the country that the Greatest Generation sacrificed so much to preserve. Lest we forget.