Is There a Leader in the House?

“Politics is downstream of culture.” – Steve Bannon

It is a simple but profound statement. Read between the lines and it packs quite a wallop.

Steve Bannon was the CEO of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign who also served as President Trump’s chief political strategist for the first eight months of his first term. He quickly fell out of favor, was unceremoniously fired by President Trump, and returned to Breitbart News, which he had co-founded in 2007. Since then, Bannon’s career has experienced more ups and downs than a Coney Island roller coaster, including a four-month prison sentence for contempt of congress in 2024.

Regardless of his checkered past, Bannon’s quote is spot-on, but what exactly does it mean in layman’s terms? Simply put, Bannon is saying that most political issues – and most politicians, for that matter – follow cultural trends. In other words, culture leads… and politics (and politicians) follow.

But is that the way it’s supposed to be?

Yes, the lower chamber of Congress is called the House of Representatives because its members are supposed to represent the interests of the 760,000 or so constituents that live in their district. But is that all they are elected to do, simply rubber stamp their constituents’ wishes? Or is there a time and a place for actual leadership, independent of – and even counter to – the latest poll numbers?

The fact that Congress with its single-digit approval ratings boasts a re-election rate above 90% tells you all you need to know. Intent on being re-elected ad nauseum, senators and representatives are overly cautious about bucking the system (and the voters). And so, they wet their fingers, hold them aloft, and see which way the political winds are blowing before casting a vote.

That, my friends, isn’t leadership nor does it demonstrate a single ounce of courage or conviction. On the contrary, it reminds me of lemmings, aimlessly and senselessly following each other as they plunge over a cliff and take the rest of the country with them.

That is the only explanation for why decades of elected officials – from those residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to those presiding on Capitol Hill – have continued to spend money we simply do not have. They have seen the polls and done the political math, realizing that a vote to drastically reduce federal spending will anger the voters who are affected by the cuts… and angry voters tend to send the incumbents packing.

And so, self-preservation trumps doing the right thing, the courageous thing, the responsible thing.

Kick the can down the road and let the next generation of elected officials deal with the carnage and the consequences. Just don’t touch our congressional pensions in the process.

Truly transformational leaders are few and far between. If we are lucky, they come along once every other generation or so. The last one was Ronald Reagan, who lifted America out of the malaise and inflationary death-spiral of the Carter administration with one hand while simultaneously winning the Cold War with the other. Unfortunately for us, there are very few Gippers, and even he wasn’t able to downsize government the way he wanted.

It has been 40 years since the Reagan Revolution and Donald Trump is showing signs that he might be cut from similar cloth. No, he is not nearly as eloquent as The Great Communicator nor is he as affable. But President Trump shares one important Reagan characteristic and that is this: he could care less about the polls, the pundits, and the politicos. Simply put, he knows what direction he wants to take the country and it’s up to us to decide if we want to follow him or not.

I don’t know about you, but I find that to be a refreshing change, especially after four years of total incompetence.