Former Prussian statesman and Chancellor of the German Empire from 1871 to 1890 famously said, “Politics is the art of the possible”.
What this means is that politics is not about what is right or what’s best; it’s about what you can actually get done. Otherwise known as Realpolitik, it’s a political philosophy that recognizes the waste of waste of time and resources attempting, repeatedly, to pound a square peg into a round hole.
Realpolitik seems to have fallen out of favor since I was young. Modern American politicians, of both Democratic and Republican parties and the liberal and conservative fringe groups, have succeeded in polarizing politics to the point that nothing is expected of them because their positions are ideologically set in concrete. Each side refuses to budge, so nothing gets done. Period.
Politics has become the art of the impossible.
Elected officials used to be regular guys (and women!) who wanted to help govern, and went off to their legislative jobs with the idea of helping to brainstorm ideas and move the Ship of State in a positive direction. “Finding common ground” was a key requisite to success; in other words, compromise was the key driver of forward momentum toward important goals.
Compromise has become a dirty word in national politics. Why is that?
I recall the days when I worked for the County of Riverside. When I started there, our county was rural in nature but immediately adjacent to super-fast growing areas in Southern California. In the mid-70’s, a growth boom hit Riverside County like a sledgehammer. Our elected officials (Board of Supervisors) reflected mainly farming interests, and they (and the government that they were elected to run) were pretty unsophisticated when it came to managing rapid land development.
Land developers descended upon Riverside County like locusts, and they dispensed a steady stream of gaudy visions, promises, and bribes to the yahoos in our cow county. Good men on the Board of Supervisors succumbed to this attention, and our land use plans and ordinances were dumbed-down to the point that just about any type of development would be OK’d. Houses, commercial strips, and industrial projects sprang up all over the place, and western Riverside County became a hot mess…lots of people putting up with sub-standard infrastructure (i.e. not enough roads, bridges, traffic signals, parks, schools, etc.). Quality of life was crappy.
As the county rapidly grew, its stature grew, as well. Our Board of Supervisors liked that, as well as the increasing tax base, and the fact that they were being courted by important regional players. They were, after all , politicians, and politicians have egos. Each Supervisor had a lot of clout in their separate District, and they loved their individual discretion “play God” on a small scale.
One of the tasks that I had, as a staffer over the many years with the County, was to help convince them, bit by bit, to relinquish some of that power, for the good of the whole. In the beginning, land developers would “divide and conquer”; i.e. suck up to an individual Supervisor, make all sorts of promises (and, bribes?) regarding a proposed project in his District. At that time, Supervisors had a hands-off understanding in place, where they would not interfered in another Supervisor’s District. It was my job, along with others, to convince all of the Supervisors that this approach was not a good one…in terms of meeting long-term overall objectives, like improving quality of life.
The Supervisors eventually agreed to work as a group, presenting a united front to development interests, and we were able to put in place a long-term infrastructure development plan which was/is paid for by property development.
Prior to this agreement, both sides, the Supervisors, individually, and the Building Industry Association, were ideologically opposed to “impact fees”.
In this instance, the seemingly impossible goal was realized when the Supervisors compromised by relinquishing some of their individual powers to the group. Also, the Building Industry Association compromised by modifying their traditional opposition to impact fee assessments, realizing that the higher level of infrastructure funded by the plan would help to market their product.
Riverside County has since become 10th most populous county in the United States.
The “art of the possible” is on display in Southwest Riverside County in an area known as Temecula Valley Wine Country. It is a well-known tourist area, reminiscent of Napa Valley, but on a smaller scale. There are lots of wineries, tasting rooms, restaurants, and a few hotels. It’s a very pleasant place to visit, but it wasn’t always that way.
Back in 1980, the area was just developing with vineyards. The Cilurzos had been there since 1968, but Callaway, which opened its winery in 1974, made some national splash with its first Chardonnay. At that time, there were maybe about a dozen vineyards out in the hilly, rural area. Probably because of Callaway’s success, many more entrepreneurs got into the act, buying acreage and building homes, farms, and planting vines. Initially, they loved living out in the country…it was, and is, a beautiful area.
And, then, it rained.
That beautiful country Eden became a mess, and the newly-minted country folk became enraged, because they couldn’t get in our out of their properties via the muddy, washed-out, farm-to-market dirt roads that provided them access. This is “unacceptable”, they screamed. What is the County going to do about it? “We want paved roads”, they cried.
Unfortunately for them, the County’s hands were tied. Rural areas that are subdivided by parcel-mapping have no development standards with regard to street improvements; right-of-way for future paved access is dedicated, but the County cannot accept the road into the Maintained System (i.e. with gas tax) until the dirt road is brought up to County Standards.
As it came to pass, the Supervisor for that area got together with the irate residents and worked out a deal: we will help you bring those roads into the County Maintained System over a period of time, during which you (property owners) will cooperatively plan and fund the road improvements. I know about this compromise deal because I managed it: I was the guy running Special Assessment Districts out of the Executive Office.
So, a local Advisory Committee was appointed by the County Supervisor, and we met once a month at the Callaway Winery to develop and implement the Road Improvement Plan. The winery district became Assessment District 149, as I recall. (Note: I was running over 100 special districts at the time.) The property owners agreed to a modest annual assessment (a couple hundred bucks, as I recall), which would be pooled and applied to the highest priority road need, per their long-range Road Improvement Plan. The road improvements were managed by my staff, coordinated with the County Road Department, and, when the road, or portion thereof, was brought up to standard, it was accepted into the County system.
It was a slow process, but the property owners could see their taxes at work benefiting them directly. Occasionally, some of the Supervisor’s discretionary funding (HUD grants, special State grants, etc.) would be thrown into the pot to help out. In the end, the hodgepodge of rural dirt roads became a system of paved streets, making the overall Wine Country a pleasant place to live in and visit.
This was a case of compromise in action: angry residents demanding action; County Supervisors unwilling/unable to satisfy them with an immediate remedy; and, a solution being worked up by both sides to accomplish “the impossible” and move the region forward.
The Temecula Valley Wine Country now has 33,000 acres of vineyards, forty wineries offering public wine tasting, bed and breakfast, weddings, hot air balloon rides, etc. It is a huge tourist destination on weekends.
I mention these examples of political endeavor which exemplify Realpolitik: the art of the possible. It is what government is supposed to be about: problem-solving, and doing what it takes to achieve that end goal.
We used to elect earnest individuals to “go to Washington” and help things get done.
Then, we elected people who promised to get things done.
Then, we elected people who said they would try to get things done.
Now, we are electing politicians who don’t even attempt to try to accomplish anything in Washington D.C.; they blame the other guy.
How did government become so useless to its citizenry? And, why have we accepted this?
It is a puzzler to me.
I rant and rave about Donald Trump, but he is not so different from all of the rest of the scumbags who occupy important chairs in our Nation’s capital. They all seem to want to make a bunch of speeches to their partisan constituents, live the good life off the public trough, help out some buddies, and line their pockets. Both parties are the same, to me: they show no interest in the “public interest”. Instead, they are ideologically indebted to those who fund their elections, and they play to that crowd…the public be damned.
This is populism, when a politician tells a crowd whatever they want to hear…and having no intention to really do anything about it.
Why? Because that would take initiative and compromise, and…blaming others for lack of progress is a lot easier. Let’s blame our problems on the blacks, the Jews, the immigrants, etc. “I’d love to help you, but those damned Liberals just won’t cooperate!”
I am very disillusioned about the state of government in these United States of America. How we could let this happen…we’re the Greatest Nation on Earth, for Heaven’s Sake!…just puzzles the crap out of me. That the average citizen seems to be OK with this charade…baffles and disgusts me.
We are rotting from within…politically. First, the political parties are useless appendages anymore, having no moral character and/or interest in serving all Americans. Second, the process of electing public officials is broken, and no one seems to care. As a result, it is possible to see elected as President an individual who is as unfit for office as he is uninterested in helping all Americans work toward common goals.
Now I can appreciate how the Roman Empire collapsed.