From Without or Within
I did an interview with Bari Weiss last week, and she asked me a question that I’ve been getting a lot for the past number of weeks:
“Do you think you’re better off trying to reform an existing organization, or building something new?”
Now, coming from Bari this is kind of a loaded question. She famously left the New York Times to produce journalism on her own (her letter of resignation is legendary), and I’m sure many people asked her the same thing. She also is now part of the founding team of the brand new University of Austin, so she has a penchant for trying to build from the ground up.
I laughed and said that I’m a fan of both approaches, but I’m more of a build it up kind of person.
It’s true. And it made me reflect – how many times have we seen a major organization reform from within?
America has faced a cascading loss of trust in many institutions over the past number of years. The media, schools, and our political leadership come to mind. You could also throw in the Catholic Church, Wall Street, or big tech. Most recently with Covid, perhaps the CDC.
Which of these institutions has seen meaningful reform or rejuvenation?
It’s hard to say. Most of the time, reform now takes the form of optics. In a time of rapid news cycles, the most common plan is to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass and for people to get upset about something else. Maybe you make a commitment to improve. Maybe you try to recruit visible figures – say women or an underrepresented minority – who can help shield you from a certain sort of criticism.
Genuine reform or accountability has been absent in most areas. It is fueling our mistrust.
Of course, the question posed to me was probably about politics. And we certainly have seen political movements overtake political parties in the past number of years.
Most conspicuously, Donald Trump took control of the Republican Party in 2016 in the primaries. At the same time, Bernie Sanders vied for control of the Democratic Party with Hillary Clinton and lost narrowly. The 2020 Democratic primary could be seen similarly, with Bernie losing narrowly again versus Biden.
Donald Trump and Bernie both represented a certain form of institutional revolt - this set of establishment figures is not working for me, and I want to move on to something different.
I drew a similar conclusion when I was writing ‘Forward’ – our political system is designed not to deliver results for us but to disappoint, divide and frustrate. It’s why I now see the most urgent mission as reforming our decrepit political system so that it is more genuinely representative. There shouldn’t be only 2 major parties – there should be 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7. The Democratic Party and Republican Party each contains at least 2 parties at this point: Progressives and Moderate Democrats on one hand, Moderate Republicans and conservatives/Trumpers on the other. Our country would almost certainly be functioning better if each of these parties could act independently, as you’d see different coalitions being built and a higher resistance to authoritarianism. In an era of non-partisan open primaries and ranked choice voting, you’d see a much better set of incentives.
Republican members of Congress are being criticized for voting for infrastructure, despite the party being historically for it, simply because it might help the other side. What’s up with that?
It’s the system itself that needs to be changed. That’s a vision that will energize the people. 62% of us want to move away from the duopoly.
Was it plausible to try to takeover and reform the Democratic Party? I met thousands of Democrats when I was running for President. They were, by and large, great people. That’s not a trait exclusive to Democrats – most of the people I met on the trail were great.
One interesting facet of the Democratic Party that I’ve noticed is that they tend to have an expectation of a certain sort of candidate and then back into it. You saw it in Buffalo – the ‘wrong’ candidate won so at least some Democrats decided to run it back. Bernie got sandbagged both times in different ways. The DCCC and the DSCC have been known to put their thumbs on the scale to favor certain candidates – mainly those they think can raise money and seem ‘electable’ by their calculation or who won’t rock the boat.
You do have to say this for the Republicans – there is no wrong candidate. Now, this has its own set of issues.
I have nothing against people who believe operating within a system is the best approach. A lot of good can be done from within various organizations. We need great people everywhere. And sometimes it’s very difficult to do anything but work within a given context because crafting an alternative is too high a bar.
But I am more of a “Build It” guy. I think that’s what this era needs. And the right movement can draw millions in a very short period of time.
Let's build what the country needs.
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This week on the podcast Zach and I discuss the infrastructure bill, Zillow, new universities and more. And the Forward Tour is coming to New York City this Saturday at City Winery – it’s going to be a great event! Zach and Evelyn will be there so you know it’ll be good. I’ll take photographs and meet everyone and sign books. Looking forward to seeing you there or tell your friends!
