NOVEMBER 5, 2025 – If you ask what I think about how we govern ourselves in this country, I could easily talk your ears off. You might say I’ve got some ideas on the subject. Governance per se is different from substantive public policy, however, but given how policy is formulated and implemented, governance and policy are bound together inextricably. Governance and policy, in turn, necessarily revolve around politics. If you have “bad” politics, you wind up with “bad” governance, and ultimately, horrible policy, which, in my (strong) opinion, is what has been inflicted on our country since January 20.
With yesterday’s off-off-year election dominating the past 24-hour news cycle, my thoughts have been distracted by politics. For most of us political junkies, election night is like Saturday during college football or basketball season: who defeated whom; which team surprised the prognosticators; what are next week’s match-ups; and so on. But if I take a step backward, I see the structural flaws in our system, starting with a mismatch between “what it takes to get elected” and “what it takes to govern responsibly.” The chronic chasm between winning an election and governing responsibly is often unbridgeable and warrants close examination.
This feature of American politics and governance prompts an idea for teaching “government” or political science in an academic setting. If I had the drive and opportunity, I’d design a course around a question based on an underlying assumption. The assumption would be that out of a country of 340 million souls, only in rare instances are la crème de la crème motivated to run for the House, Senate or White House. (For reasons beyond the scope of this post, I’ve omitted the Article III branch of government—the federal judiciary.) The question comprising the main thrust of the course would be, “What reforms would be required to attract la crème de la crème to run for high elective office?”
To be fair, latitude would be assigned to testing, arguing, deciding the validity of the assumption as I’ve stated it. Members of the class would be allowed to argue by way of examples that la crème de la crème do, in fact, inhabit House, Senate and the Oval Office. The main point of addressing the assumption, however, would be to fuel the larger discussion in response to the question: “What would it take to get the best people to run and get them elected?”
For starter fuel, I’d urge people to identify the most desirable traits in the candidates we’d like to attract to elective positions of governance, that is, characteristics of “la crème de la crème.” (Examples: “integrity,” “intelligence,” “coolness under pressure,” “well informed,” “experienced in governmental affairs,” “international travel and diplomatic experience,” “proven managerial experience,” “ability to delegate,” “reading and listening comprehension and retention,” “analytical thinking ability,” “networking ability,” “comfort level with opinions opposing your own and ability to synthesize a spectrum of viewpoints,” “ability to attract advisors well versed in trade, housing, tech, finance, economics, military affairs, health care system, higher education, pre-school through 12 public education, environmental affairs,” “communication skills,” “ability to reconcile opposing interests,” and so on.)
The objective of the whole exercise would be as follows:
FIRST, develop a better understanding and definition of “good governance” in the context of a large, complex, economically powerful and pluralistic country in which so many competing dogs are in the social, political, and economic “fight.”
SECOND, determine why la crème de la crème aren’t lining up to run for Congress or the White House. (Examples: “too much fund raising—and soul-selling—required,” “too many others seeking office who aren’t la crème de la crème.” . . . or the dynamite stick, “the whole darned framework is so flawed, it requires major reform to attract the people most qualified.”)
THIRD, in essence, an extension of the foregoing step—what reforms would have to be instituted to incentivize la crème de la crème to run for House, Senate, White House—or to a completely restyled government in the form of a parliamentary system, for example, or some entirely new form of consensus government.
I don’t know what they “teach” or cultivate at the Harvard Kennedy School or at similar schools of public policy around the country, but given the current political landscape, we seem to have reached a point in the “Experiment” where arguably we’ve become ungovernable within the anachronistic framework of the late 1780s, as amended so far. Nearly all political strategy in today’s world is centered on unseating the “other side’s rascals” in favor of “our own rascals,” but very little consideration is reserved for critiquing the structure within which one set of rascals or another gets to operate and how that whole structure could be reformed—without triggering an uncontrollable revolution—to achieve better governance and policy.
Okay, enough for now. Time to go back to the eleventh century in China to understand better what caused the remarkably successful Song Dynasty . . . to fail. From what I’ve read thus far, there are some parallels to our own time and place.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
