The Pyramid Model of Politics

I hosted the 13th Republican Reset dinner last Wednesday at my home. One of the participants said: “You have to make things sexy. The message has to be spicy and rebellious.”

Indeed, you’ve got to get people’s attention! Spencer Pratt as Batman is spicy and rebellious. But there are other ways to get people’s attention. Zohran Mamdani is personal and authentic in Without the night shift, there is no morning. Patrick Wolff turns an abstract argument about competence into something concrete and intuitive in Fix It.

Success in politics requires pairing powerful communications with effective policy. Think of it as a two-layered pyramid.

The top part is “communications.” I look for three qualities in effective communications:

• Clarity. Does it grab people’s attention with a simple, effective message?

• Truth. Is the message true, pure propaganda, or somewhere in between?

• Vision. Does the communication offer a positive vision, or just bash the other side?

Pratt, Mamdani, and Wolff all make their cases through emotionally resonant images and language that capture attention and stick in the viewer’s mind. They all get an “A” for clarity.

Truth is harder to judge. Pratt’s video is trying to get at a larger truth about the failure of establishment politicians to deliver results. Its truth will be measured by viewers: do they feel that Karen Bass has been doing a good job keeping them safe and rebuilding fire-ravaged Los Angeles? Wolff’s fundamental claim that his predecessor and major opponents have no insurance experience is very true.

At least some of Nick Shirley’s videos fail the truth test in my view. Take his purported exposé of daycare fraud in Minnesota. He didn’t actually establish that the daycares he visited didn’t have children inside. Now you could say that he’s getting at a larger truth: there is substantial fraud in these kinds of government programs. Sure, but it’s a slippery slope. The Trump administration cancelled or postponed hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding to Minnesota following this video. Justified?

Like him or not, Mamdani’s video offers a vision for his stewardship of New York City. Marie Hurabiell, candidate for Congress in San Francisco, offers a vision of what “moderate” should mean in her campaign ads. And then there’s Graham Plattner, who sounds a lot like Donald Trump while he’s blasting Donald Trump. Vision is in the images and personality as well as in the words.

Communications is the sizzle. But you can’t eat sizzle.

Politics runs aground when powerful communication is not backed up by good ideas, sound judgment, and effective execution. It’s much easier to go viral by mocking opponents or generating outrage than it is to govern well.

My political views flow from my own vision of the good life and the good society. Life is an adventure. Results will vary. Victory is achieved not by reaching a particular end state but rather by running the race well. We are here to love and serve the people closest to us — our families, our neighbors, our communities. We are here to discover and pursue what is good and true and beautiful, rather than settling for what is merely self-gratifying or profitable. We are here to do useful work for our communities and to solve problems that burden our world.

Freedom is my first priority — so that individuals and communities have the latitude to pursue their vision of the good life. I want government to create the conditions that make freedom work for me and my fellow citizens: public safety, education, and infrastructure are among the critical building blocks. I want government to care for the vulnerable without collapsing into dependency, waste, or disorder. And I want government to do these things well.

Good policy should unleash human potential rather than smother it under bureaucracy, corruption, or concentrated political power. It should create room for people to experiment, build businesses, invent things, solve problems, and shape their own futures.

Of course, freedom means different things to different people. The Trump Administration emphasizes freedom from violence perpetrated by illegal immigrants. The Human Rights Campaign emphasizes freedom from discrimination perpetrated by the government. For all of our benefit, we need leaders committed to equal liberty under the rule of law. In a diverse society, citizens will disagree — sometimes profoundly — about morality, rights, and the meaning of freedom itself. The role of political leadership is not to eliminate those disagreements, but to help people live together peacefully despite them. A free society protects individual rights, applies laws fairly, maintains public order, and leaves wide room for people and communities to pursue different visions of the good life.

Character is my second priority — because a healthy society depends on citizens and leaders who can be trusted to do the right thing even when it’s difficult or unpopular. Responsibility, honesty, courage, self-control, and basic manners are the social infrastructure of a functioning republic. Families, schools, churches, volunteer organizations, and civic traditions all help shape the habits that make self-government possible.

Modern politics often undermines character instead of strengthening it. Compassion matters, but so do expectations, norms, and personal responsibility. Policies that ignore the importance of self-control, responsibility, and accountability may relieve immediate suffering while deepening long-term dysfunction. Too often, leaders encourage citizens to think of themselves primarily as victims, consumers, or members of competing identity groups rather than as neighbors who share responsibility for a common future. I want politics that calls people upward rather than downward — politics that encourages integrity, humility, and service.

Character matters in public life too. Leaders should see public office as a responsibility, not as a platform for self-promotion or personal enrichment. They should seek truth rather than simply telling supporters what they want to hear. They should strengthen institutions rather than hollowing them out for short-term political advantage. In an age of performative politics, seriousness is a kind of rebellion.

Finally, Opportunity is my third priority — because it is the promise that makes freedom meaningful for ordinary people. In a healthy society, hard-working people can afford housing, build businesses, and move up through talent and effort. Once again, individual results will vary, but upward mobility should remain attainable through effort, skill, and initiative.

A society with opportunity requires good schools, abundant housing, modern infrastructure, and an economy open to builders and strivers rather than dominated by insiders and gatekeepers. Opportunity is squelched by unnecessary regulatory barriers that make it harder to build homes, start businesses, or create jobs. Opportunity is enhanced when we build pathways — college, apprenticeships, technical training, and credentialing programs — that help people develop useful skills in a rapidly changing economy.

At its best, America is a country where people can take risks, invent things, create businesses, support families, and build better lives than the generations before them. That sense of upward possibility has weakened in many parts of California. Too many people experience government less as a source of opportunity than as a maze of costs, delays, dysfunction, and stagnation. Good policy — the foundation of the pyramid — should create the conditions for human flourishing and upward mobility. Without that foundation, the top of the pyramid collapses.