Any organization of people, whether a nation, a big business, a small business, or a local Boy Scout unit, needs good leadership to be successful and prosperous. Good leaders will build and promote growth; bad leaders will tear down and cause a decline and stagnation of the organization. It is axiomatic to good, patriotic Americans that Joe Biden is an atrocious leader.
We blame Biden for the catastrophes and disasters in America over the past three years, and that’s fair. Biden is incompetent, not very intelligent, and lacking in any demonstrably positive leadership qualities—morally, politically, personally, or by any measure one wishes to use. But the disasters have been caused not just by Biden’s personality but by his Leftist policies. Any other Democrat would have done exactly the same things Biden has done with equally disastrous results. Leftism always fails because it runs counter to human nature, economic laws, absolute morality, and every other principle necessary for the improvement and progress of mankind. Biden gets the blame because the guy at the top always does. That is what happens in every organization, and there is plenty of justification for it, though rarely is one person 100% at fault for every failure in his institution. Again, Leftist policies are the major culprit in America’s three-year decay under Biden. But Biden is fully culpable for promoting these heinous, destructive programs.
The Republicans haven’t helped. Many times, I have said that America’s most serious problem is Washington, D.C. That city is destroying the country. It has power our Founders never intended for it to have, and because the major philosophy dominating Washington is Leftist ideology, the collapse is inevitable. And it will continue until new leadership arrives in Washington and turns it around. It is a Washington problem, but “Washington” is only a name. Ultimately, a people-problem, a leadership problem, is causing America’s decline. People will follow their leaders, and bad leaders will lead to failure. “O my people, those who lead you cause you to err” (Isaiah 3:12).
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“Business as usual” is not leadership unless that business produces victories and growth. It hasn’t in Washington, D.C., Just the opposite, and this is why I wasn’t disappointed when Kevin McCarthy was removed as Speaker of the House. There needs to be some serious modifications in Washington, and he wasn’t going to enact them. He was obviously better than Pelosi, but that’s like saying it’s better to die in your sleep than to be slowly roasted to death over a fire. McCarthy didn’t intend to initiate the structural and ideological reforms necessary for the country to return to a positive, healthy track. He wasn’t the answer to America’s Washington leadership severe crisis. Whether Mike Johnson will help or hinder remains to be seen.
Again, leadership must produce victories and growth in a prosperous, vibrant, successful organization. Is this happening in the Republican Party? Not many of us will say that it is, and all we need to do is look at the Party's leadership the last decade or so—Boehner, McCain, Bush, Romney, McConnell, McDaniel, McCarthy—to see why this is so. Herein lies a major reason—perhaps the reason—the Republican Party is deteriorating.
Let’s look at some stats. From 2016 through the 2023 elections, the GOP has gone from:
34 to 24 governorships;
68 to 55 state legislative chambers;
241 to 222 House seats;
52 to 49 Senate seats;
Now, what happened in the Republican Party in 2016? Should the leadership of the party be held responsible for the above numbers? If Joe Biden is (much) to blame for the downturn in America in the past three years, should the “leadership” of the Republican Party share at least some of the guilt for the declining numbers in the GOP?
How many of us didn’t want Ronna McDaniel re-elected as chair of the Republican Party committee PRECISELY because of those numbers above?
No one person is solely at fault for all the decay in any organization. Teamwork is essential for success. But, it is basically Ronna McDaniel’s job to improve the Republican Party’s election results, and she has failed miserably. She surely must accept a high degree of responsibility. And, of course, in true Stupid Party fashion, she was re-elected this year to her current position as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. If history teaches us anything, this does not bode well for the Republican Party in 2024. Don’t reinstate bad leaders.
But Ronna McDaniel isn’t the true “leader” of the Republican Party.
It is ultimately the CEO of an organization’s responsibility to make sure good people are where they need to be, thus producing growth and success. If he/she doesn’t do that, he/she should be replaced, and new leadership sought. Again, all the fault for the GOP’s declining numbers cannot be laid at any one individual’s doorstep. But the buck must stop somewhere, and that is generally recognized to be at the top. And, as the numbers above indicate, the Republican Party has waned since 2016. We can search for all the excuses we want, but this decline must be honestly explained if it is going to be corrected. And the person at the summit should receive at least some of the blame. We fault Joe Biden for the many failures of America in the last three years, though he has certainly had plenty of help. The Republican Party can’t deny that principle in their own circumstances.
Who is to blame for the declining numbers of the GOP since 2016? And what are Republicans going to do about it? Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
A leader accepts responsibility for failure—except in Washington, D.C., where they never do.
America desperately needs new leadership. Here were my suggestions over a year ago.
Listen to my podcasts on “Wisdom From Our Founders” (paid subscribers only, sorry) on my substack mklewis929.substack.com. You want to hear that. Many other articles/podcasts as well (free). Read my western novels, Whitewater , River Bend, Return to River Bend, and Allie’s Dilemma all available on Amazon. Follow me on Twitter: @thailandmkl.
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