Get back to governing

The cover story for this summer’s issue of America’s leading highbrow magazine, The Atlantic, carries an apocalyptic title suited to the age of clickbait: “What will become of American civilization?” The article itself is more contemplative, an eloquent 25,000-word mosaic sketch of the trials and triumphs of the city of Phoenix that offers the nation’s fastest-growing metropolis as a metaphor and case study for the crises of contemporary American politics. One line sums up the problem: “When Kari Lake ran for governor in 2022, everyone knew her position on transgenderism and no one knew her position on water, because she barely had one.”

Throughout the article, author George Packer laments over how the politics of culture-warring has crowded out the politics of everyday life, so polarizing and poisoning the debates that no one has the time or the will to tackle crucial issues of basic sustainability and infrastructure. Although Packer is wrong to dismiss worries over transing teens as a distraction from serious policy, he nonetheless offers a timely warning for would-be conservative leaders: Don’t forget to govern.

In recent years, conservatives have happily remembered that politics is about morality and virtue, not just economics and national security. Living well, which is to do so virtuously, is the proper goal of human life. However, to live well, it is necessary first to live. Thus, any successful politics must begin with the basics of food and water, health and shelter. Although “sustainability” is a word usually coded as reflecting the priorities of the left, it is a prerequisite of any civilization. And increasingly, it is at risk of becoming a casualty of the culture wars.

Two of America’s top culture-war battlegrounds and fastest-growing states, Arizona and Florida, are a case in point. One is forever plagued by too little water, one by too much, a problem that has only worsened in recent years, as extreme drought has affected the Colorado River Basin and rising sea levels have meant chronic flooding in Miami. And yet, fueled by the availability of cheap air conditioning after 1970, both states have witnessed relentless, thinly regulated growth, as mile after mile of desert in Arizona and mile after mile of wetland in Florida have been devoured by housing developments. For years, it was mostly only conservationist groups that raised alarms, but increasingly today, ordinary citizens are struggling to deal with the ramifications.

In Florida, the home insurance industry is in crisis, with rates tripling in the past few years, while numerous insurance companies have gone into bankruptcy or abandoned the state, forcing more and more homeowners to rely on the state-subsidized insurer of last resort, the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. The causes are numerous, but the leading culprit is clear: too many houses too close to the coastline in Hurricane Alley as sea levels rise. In Arizona, wells are running dry in some of the outer suburbs of Phoenix as corporate megafarms suck aquifers dry, and a growing homeless population faces unprecedented risks in 110-degree heat.

Many of the ordinary citizens Packer interviewed, right or left, expressed frustration that their political class was fiddling while the state burned, consumed by culture-war politics: “We can’t get nothin’ done, because we got the far right over here scared of the far left. It’s all this new sexual revolution of the transgender stuff.” Similar problems are playing out at a national level, where critical commonsense legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act has been held up by progressives and conservatives both worrying that it would empower the other side to enforce a woke or anti-woke agenda online.

While the battles over abortions, race, and transgenderism may dominate headlines, most Americans are more likely to worry about more mundane problems. Gallup’s recent “Most Important Problem” poll showed that the No. 1 frustration for Americans was quite simply “poor leadership” by their governments, followed closely by immigration and “the economy in general”—which for most people has less to do with GDP statistics and more to do with their everyday struggles of trying to pay for utilities and insurance. As social conservatives, we might be tempted to fume at this moral apathy: Why can’t we just get more voters worked up about abortion? Most citizens, though, will only trust political leaders to tackle such morally thorny topics if they can first prove themselves able to clear the lower bars of good governance, such as keeping drinking water in and floodwaters out.

Such brass-tacks issues, as we have seen recently with showdowns over policing and immigration, offer a golden opportunity for conservatives. As progressives have abdicated some of the basic tasks of governing, leading to spiraling crime rates and homelessness, many Americans have voted with their feet, fueling the population rises in places like Arizona and Florida. If red state governors can demonstrate a commitment to solving everyday problems of water and housing, even when it means taking on well-heeled lobbyists, they can earn the trust of voters and a mandate to enact lasting cultural reforms.