A time for choosing: America’s future is bigger than one election

For context, a time for choosing: America's future. A time for choosing: America's future is bigger than one election.

Key points

• Without congressional action, the individual income tax provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would have expired.
• While still a real burden on household budgets, has fallen by almost 2/3rds from its 9.1 percent peak under President Joe Biden, inflation.
• Mississippians will choose between Cindy Hyde-Smith and Scott Colom today.
• The modern Democratic Party has increasingly embraced an ideology that views American society through the lens of competing identity groups, systemic oppression, and historical grievances.
• When Mississippians head to the polls today, they'll ostensibly be choosing between incumbent Republican U.S.

Mississippians will choose between Cindy Hyde-Smith and Scott Colom today. But the stakes extend far beyond the two names on the ballot.

When Mississippians head to the polls today, they'll ostensibly be choosing between incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic challenger Scott Colom. But the choice is much bigger than either candidate.

For context, the reality of modern Washington is that individual members of Congress have relatively little independence from the political parties with which they caucus. Party leadership controls committee assignments, legislative priorities, and much of what ever reaches the floor for a vote. To the extent individual senators can chart their own course, that independence is generally earned through seniority, relationships, and accumulated political capital. Neither Hyde-Smith nor Colom will be setting the national agenda.

Whichever wins will largely be projected to advance the priorities of the national party they represent.

That means Mississippians are choosing more than a senator. They're choosing between two competing visions for the future of the country.

Meanwhile, the difficulty is that neither political party seems particularly certain of what that future should look like.

In 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered a speech on behalf of Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater that would become known as "A Time for Choosing." It supported launch Reagan's political career and articulated a fundamental choice between individual liberty and an increasingly powerful central administration.

More than six decades afterwards, Americans again face a time for choosing. Only now, the choices aren't almost as clear. Two Parties That Have Lost Their Way.

Notably, the modern Democratic Party has increasingly embraced an ideology that views American society through the lens of competing identity groups, systemic oppression, and historical grievances.

For context, the rise of democratic socialism within the party is real. So, too, is the influence of intellectual traditions traceable to Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, and afterwards critical theorists who frame politics as a struggle between those who wield power and those subjected to it.

There is an significant distinction between addressing historical injustice and constructing an entire political worldview around permanent divisions between oppressors and oppressed. One is fair introspection, the other is a cynical and dangerous exploitation.

Meanwhile, the former is necessary for a just society. The latter risks destroying the particularly social fabric that binds communities together.

Teaching Americans to see themselves primarily as victims, and their neighbors primarily as oppressors, is not a recipe for national unity or shared prosperity. It is a recipe for resentment.

It additionally cuts against the values that have produced America exceptional: individual responsibility, equality under the law, opportunity, merit, and the belief that our destinies need not be determined by the circumstances of our birth.

Notably, the track record of these ideologies the world over is abysmal and bankrupt. But Republicans should be careful regarding congratulating themselves.

It's increasingly tough to articulate what the Republican Party stands for, beyond opposition to whatever Democrats happen to be doing.

There was a time when the Republican Party offered a clear philosophical alternative to progressivism.

It stood for constitutional limitations on administration, fiscal restraint, free enterprise, individual liberty, and the proposition that administration exists to serve the individuals, not the other way around. Those principles offered a coherent framework for governing.

Today, the party too often seems consumed with niche cultural controversies that generate enormous emotional responses but do little to address the everyday challenges facing American families.

Worse, an entire political movement has allowed much of its identity to become inseparable from one man.

Donald Trump will not be president forever. A political philosophy worthy of governing the greatest nation on earth ought to be capable of surviving any single political personality.

And whatever happened to fiscal conservatism? Both parties have participated in an explosion of federal debt, seemingly content to leave the bill for our children and grandchildren.

Neither party appears particularly interested in the basic blocking and tackling of responsible administration.

Making administration work better. Spending within our means. Protecting constitutional freedoms. Creating conditions for economic expansion. Solving challenges instead of merely assigning blame.

Instead, Americans are treated to a never-ending political spectacle in which outrage substitutes for substance, performance substitutes for accomplishment, and the next viral confrontation matters more than the next generation. A Record Republicans Have Struggled to Explain.

Notably, the irony is that Republicans entered this election cycle with a governing record they could have spent considerably more time explaining and defending. Consider the One Major Beautiful Bill.

For all its imperfections, including legitimate reservations concerning its impact on federal deficits, the legislation prevented substantial tax increases that otherwise would have hit working Americans throughout the income spectrum.

Without congressional action, the individual income tax provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would have expired. Marginal tax rates would have rose for millions of taxpayers. The standard deduction asserted by most Americans would have been slashed in half. The child tax credit would have similarly been cut. These were not tax provisions benefiting millionaires and billionaires. They directly affected middle-class families, working parents, and ordinary wage earners.

While still a real burden on household budgets, has fallen by almost 2/3rds from its 9.1 percent peak under President Joe Biden, inflation. And the administration's border enforcement policies have produced a significant reduction in unlawful crossings. For the first time in decades, we have a genuinely secure border. Those are tangible policy developments that deserve serious discussion.

Instead, Republicans have often seemed more comfortable fighting the culture war of the week than explaining how their policies affect the lives of ordinary Americans.

Good administration is not a television performance. It is not a social media engagement strategy. It is the often unglamorous work of making tough decisions, weighing tradeoffs, and accepting responsibility for the results. We could employ a lot more of it. Meanwhile, the Lesson of Rome.

Speaking of bread and circuses, I lately returned from a trip to Europe that included a number of days in Rome.

Standing in the Colosseum, walking through the Roman Forum, and taking in structures built almost 2, 000 years ago, I was struck by the extraordinary achievements of a civilization that once dominated much of the known world.

For centuries, Rome was the center of military, economic, political, and cultural power.

Its citizens built roads, aqueducts, institutions, and monuments that have survived millennia. Its influence on law, administration, architecture, and language remains with us today. And yet, for all its greatness, Rome fell.

I suspect there were plenty of Romans at the height of the empire's power who could scarcely imagine a world in which Rome was no longer dominant.

What remains today are magnificent reminders of past glory. Monuments to a civilization that accomplished extraordinary things, but could not sustain its supremacy indefinitely. There is a lesson in that for Americans.

Our republic is celebrating its 250th birthday. In the grand sweep of history, the American experiment is still remarkably young.

Yet we have grown accustomed to our position in the world. We take for granted our prosperity, our freedom, our military strength, and the institutions that have created those things feasible.

In short, a time for choosing: America's future is bigger than one election is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.