"All politics is local"

Their is a commonly heard saying that "all politics is local."  According to multiple sources, former Massachusetts congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Tip O'Neill first coined the phrase based upon the idea that a politician's success depends to a great extent upon his or her ability to understand, and in some cases, even influence the political views and issues most important to his or her constituents.  There is an ongoing debate that politics is less local than it used to be, not just here in the United States, but all around the world.  That may or may not be true, but that's not really what I want to talk about today.


We see today, in the current worldwide crisis due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, a number of examples where, in the absence of any significant or effective leadership at the federal government level (at least in the United States), local civic leaders (state governors and city mayors) stepping up and showing what it means to be a crisis leader.  I am thinking in particular about local leaders like Governor Mike DeWine in Ohio, whose quick decision-making and control of a highly fluid and rapidly escalating situation have earned widespread praise, as opposed to the almost universal condemnation of President Donald Trump's ineffective (or in some cases, absent) leadership.  But, I don't want to talk about COVID-19 anymore either.


What I want to explore is the concept that widespread political change happens first at the local level.  There is no question that people are generally very unhappy with government.  For example, a study conducted by the Pew Research Center last year found that about slightly more than half of all Americans believe that democracy is working well.  More revealing was the finding that a majority of Americans (61%) stated that significant changes are needed in our government.  However, while it is tempting to suggest that a lot of that unhappiness has been recent, it's just not true.  In fact, the generalized unhappiness with our political system has been with us for a very long time.  One could even argue that it started at the very beginning (I am talking about during the early days with of our nation's history). 


In that same Pew Research Center study, slightly over two-thirds (67%) of all Americans had a favorable opinion of their local government (compared to only 35% of  Americans who had a favorable opinion of the federal government).  Is that because local government is more effective, or is it because local government is viewed as more concerned with the needs of their constituents?  That's hard to say for sure, and I am not a political theorist, but I suspect that may be the case.


If you want a couple of great examples of really effective political leadership, check out two of the books on my 2020 Leadership Reverie Reading List - A Prayer for the City by Buzz Bissinger (he also wrote the book "Friday Night Lights" about Texas high school football that was made into a movie and a television series) and Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America by James and Deborah Fallows.  The two books are quite different, but they both support the idea that effective political change happens first at the local level.


A Prayer for the City tells the story of a big-city mayor, Ed Rendell, took office in 1992 at a time of significant unrest and turned things around.  At the time, the city of Philadelphia was on the verge of bankruptcy and dealing with violent crime, racial unrest, a failing public school system, and the flight of the middle-class to the suburbs.  Rendell's leadership calmed the tension, jumpstarted the economy, and rescued the schools, and turned the city around.  Bissinger had unprecedented access to Governor Rendell for three years, and tells the story of Philadelphia's dramatic turnaround through the lives of five Philadelphia citizens.  The Publishers Weekly said, "Bissinger's unflinching report is an inspirational saga for those who care deeply about the crisis of America's cities."  I would agree.


The husband and wife team of James Fallows and Deborah Fallows is both different in scope and similar in concept in their latest book, Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America.  Over the course of nearly five years (2012-2017), the couple flew in their single-engine Cirrus SR-22 plane all across America, visiting mostly small towns, as well as a few large cities, such as Columbus, OH, Los Angeles, CA, and Charleston, WVa.  They visit 29 towns across the United States.  The two authors alternate chapters, so you get a little bit different perspective on each city that they visited.  The book becomes, on the one hand, a travel diary, and at the same time is a documentary of life across America.  They describe both the challenges and successes of local leaders in both large cities and small towns. 


It is perhaps not too surprising that no mayor has ever gone directly from city hall to the White House.  Mayors Pete Buttigieg and Bill de Blasio are only the latest two mayors to fail in that attempt.  But I can't help but wonder that are small towns and cities are functioning like laboratories of democracy.  If what they say is true, that all politics are indeed local, then it is at the local level where political change can and will happen first.