However historically bad the 2025 Legislative Session seems to have gone for advocates of limited government and commonsense, it all seems…familiar.
The American political system, for what feels like an eternity now, has done a phenomenal job of prioritizing above all else the advancement of the unserious. I’m not talking about a few elected individuals or actors, but an unseriousness infecting governing across the board. The more outlandish the idea or policy proposed, the higher the fundraising totals. The more unserious (or shameless) the individual, the higher share of votes they carry across their county or country. Just look at some of the names on the national political stage gaining the most attention. From the daytime soap-like rants levied against business on Instagram by a fifth-term Congresswoman from NY, or the rapid rise of a, now, high-level elected official peddling generational levels of shamelessness and self-interest as generational political talent, the unseriousness of our “leaders” knows no bounds.
What starts at the top eventually flows downstream. Here in Washington State, the Legislature has taken the ineptness of Congress as a roadmap, not a caution sign. Whereas DC offers countless bipartisan examples of unseriousness, for the sake of Washington State’s political endoscopy, we’ll turn our attention to the group that’s held power in our state for longer than I’ve been alive.
Looking around at innumerable crises, some legitimate and some just serious problems, State Democrats didn’t look inward at failed policies of the last twenty-plus years and reexamine ideological priors; they doubled and tripled down.
Faced with a crime epidemic and deep challenges in areas of housing and economic development (by no means an exhaustive list of issues in our state), Democrats in Olympia put their brightest minds in a room with orders to develop a suite of policy proposals ready to meet this moment of crisis. In McKinsey fashion, each proposal would be presented with a sharp PowerPoint filled with buzzwords like synergy, database, and machine learning. After months of work, Democrats unveiled their plans to…do the exact same things they’ve always done. Turn on any press conference of Olympia Democratic leadership, and you’d be forgiven if you confused it for a press conference from any of the last fifteen legislative sessions instead of one from just a few weeks ago. Increased taxes, greater government control, and the tired attacks levied at anyone daring to disagree.
To top it all off, if you didn’t agree with their prescriptions, it was because you didn’t understand them. Parents wondering why State Dems wanted to limit parental involvement and give government officials final say on what was best for families were basically told to see slide 28E of the PowerPoint on Government Planning for more details on why the State loves their children more than parents do.
Olympia Democrats won’t even consider the disastrous results of other Blue cities when it comes to economic policies like rent control. Economic arguments aside for a moment, at the very least, any average Washingtonian would know not to look to New York City for ideas on how to provide more affordable housing. Yet, Democrats persist.
A lot of commentators will ascribe nefarious intent to many of these policies. But I think it’s simpler than that. This isn’t some 4D chess move for Democrats to obtain more power or recreate Washington State into a Progressive’s utopia, it’s a group of unserious individuals using the very tactics that put them in positions of power to begin with. As the saying goes, you get what you incentivize. When politicians are elected for saying unserious things, for coming up with catchphrases instead of solutions, it’s no surprise that the solutions we see them advocate for once in power carry no greater depth than the catchphrase they shouted at campaign stops. In the case of the Democrats, so many of the muscles they once exercised in the legislative process have atrophied for the likes of cliches and one-liners they’ve borrowed from whatever MSNBC host is popular with the youth at that time. Those bright minds were handcuffed by the very mediocrity they rode to power.
Before anyone accuses me of making an argument that Democrats are stupid and so are their ideas, let me clarify real quick. This isn’t a matter of intelligence, it’s a matter of skillset, incentives, and motivations. When the electorate rewards individuals who are willing to say anything to win, who believe in nothing but personal ambition, and have a career of advancing through political means, not achievement, you’re left with an elected body full of actors wearing the suits of statesmen.
You don’t think Russell Crowe would actually perform well in the gladiator arena with Marcus Aurelius looking on? Emilia Clarke can’t actually control dragons. Being an elected official, a leader, is a skill. No matter how well they act – Crowe was a very convincing Roman general – it isn’t the real thing. Calvin Coolidge offers our ideal roadmap: advancement through achievement. I’m not arguing against career politicians (I like my plumbers to be experienced, too), I’m arguing against a political class full of outrage-peddling actors with no skillset beyond playacting and smooth talking.
Watching Olympia Democrats pass rent control, provide unemployment to striking workers, or passing an incandescently irresponsible budget, I was left with that feeling of familiarity. Like watching your dog roll in goose excrement at the park again…we’ve been here before, it ends in tears for everyone. Elected officials turned to what they know, in this case taxes and big government, not because they’re true believers, but because they don’t know any better. Just like the dog, the downside isn’t high enough (the dog likes the smell and is eventually getting a bath anyway) to incentivize change. Democrats have maintained control under this exact same playbook for years, so there’s no incentive to stop now.
We can and should expect better of our elected officials. So long as we the people continue to advance those willing to say and become anything for power, we’ll continue to suffer the consequences.
