Millions of Americans are bewildered, afraid, disillusioned and suffering from self-imposed inertia as a consequence of the 2024 election. They are asking: Where do we go from here?
The outcome of the Elections of 2016 and 2024 had been predicted by the founders who also told us how to prevent it. Their advice was followed by that from Alexis de Tocqueville, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Learned Hand, Harry Truman and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a few. Explicitly, MLK told us in 1963 how to preclude that tragic outcome when he told us to go back to our local communities and get to work. But we did not — we allowed the national political machine to invade, corrupt and manipulate local leadership and cultures.
The human race will have no respite from evils until those who possess the highest level of intellect, wisdom and morality and who act for the benefit of all the people (are Public Servants), acquire political power; or until those who now have political authority, through an act of Divine Dispensation, become Public Servants. (Socrates)
Obviously, Divine Dispensation is not likely. We are on our own.
“We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to protect us from bad laws.” (G. K. Chesterton)
These “good people” are called TRANSFORMATIVE LOCAL LEADERS and America needs them now more than ever.
People long abused by our corrupt, centralized political power system must look for solutions outside that system. The abrogation of moral authority by our national leaders has permeated all American political leadership, and influences, and, therefore, corrupts, every aspect of political governance down to the most local levels, even school boards. Everybody in the political system has to choose sides and declare to be a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent, and toe their party’s line. Moral Political Statesmanship, if ever existent, has given way to “Maniacal Partisan Politics” resulting in a pseudo-struggle between “liberals,” most often called Democrats, and “conservatives,” most often called Republicans, which overshadows the fact that the status quo has remained intact.
Local leaders must take control of their decision-making power and govern their own communities. They will have to develop a comprehensive vision of local control and put a plan in place that guarantees civil and human rights and that secures locally-relevant, locally-responsive, locally-effective endeavors.
The public is ready for more dominant local leadership. (SOURCE: Local Solutions Support Center)
The pivotal question is whether there are enough local leaders sufficiently intrepid to save their neighbors from Fascism and enough intrepid neighbors to support and defend such leaders.
The descendants of slaves in the first three post-slavery generations showed how to make progress against great obstacles in the all-important Childrearing, Schooling, Personal Conduct, and Money Management pursuits. But that was before we began to imitate mainstream communities.
“Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.” (Samuel Johnson)
Unfortunately, local communities are like families. F. Scott Fitzgerald said that family quarrels are bitter things, they don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds, they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal. TRANSFORMATIVE LOCAL LEADERS will put the people’s needs above even longstanding, personal animosities.
TRANSFORMATIVE LOCAL LEADERS work to advance their communities, not themselves, and protect their people from misfeasance, malfeasance, incompetence and exploitation.
Irrespective of the issue, TRANSFORMATIVE LOCAL LEADERS approach every decision free from unexamined and ineffective dictates from their membership groups – political, religious, economic, educational, gender, social, etc.
They ask: what the people in their communities need in order to live more decent lives; what they would decide if failure would negatively affect their closest family members and their closest friends; what they would do if the world could know the things leaders thought about as they made decisions; what constitutes performance, e.g., outcomes, as distinct from intentions; what measures are employed to assess performance and results, how are results communicated, and how are outcomes used to modify future planning; what can and should I do, all by myself, to make a difference; and how can I involve myself for good purposes with my associates in my own organizations and link with other organizations across the community — Summitry over Silos.
TRANSFORMATIVE LOCAL LEADERS NEVER ask themselves whether they like or dislike colleagues or peer leaders, but they are intolerant of their moral, ethical and character transgressions – public and private.
TRANSFORMATIVE LOCAL LEADERS’ primary commitment is to their communities — although they think nationally, they act locally.
The single most important test for TRANSFORMATIVE LOCAL LEADERS is their ability to bring people together and galvanize them to achieve community-wide, significant, positive, and sustainable results.
