Personnel is policy. The system can’t work better than the people who run it—and that is especially true in politics. It seems evident that our side loses more often than it wins because too many conservatives didn’t bother to take grassroots or party politics 101.
How can that be the case when there are so many experienced people on the field? I believe Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is part of the problem.
Sustained thinking on a topic is one of the most difficult challenges for politicians. They flit from one subject to another, talking points memorized, spin aimed just right, lofty rhetoric that borders on cliché right there in the holster ready to be grabbed, aimed, and fired when called for.
The same is the case for conservative activists. Many have almost a superhuman ability to block out the reality of how little impact they’re actually having. Shakespeare’s line about “being bounded in a nutshell and counting [oneself] king of infinite space” comes to mind.
However, the vast majority of the voting public never gets the word delivered to them effectively. Who are these people on the ballot—really. What have they accomplished? What do they want to accomplish, why, and how will they do so? Election day instead resembles a crap shoot: will the good guys luck out and win?
This year needs to be a good year not for the Republican Party but rather for conservative principles. It won’t be if hubris dominates those who seek to take the lead for advancing conservative principles. The Greeks defined hubris as “excessive pride.” American dictionaries use the word “presumption” in the definition.
No one should presume what we’re doing now is enough. Well meaning activities get us nowhere when their activities are ineffective at reaching more voters—where they live – with convincing information. Thomas Jefferson said that—
—wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.
This isn’t about how wonderful and talented our candidates are, or how powerful political consultants or activists think they are in their rich fantasy world. It is about how much the public knows—and how motivated they are to support the right kind of change.
Narcissistic behavior only gets us more of what we already have. Increasing numbers of Americans—as demonstrated through the TEA (taxed enough already) parties and 9/12 Project groups—have had enough.
