Most of our political class - far too many Repubs and virtually all Democrats - is interested in "managing" problems, not SOLVING them. The rare get-er-done leader like Gov. Ron DeSantis really stands out because most of his colleagues see problems as opportunities for power.
The notion of quickly and efficiently SOLVING a problem is simply incomprehensible to the modern political class. Instead, they want to use the problem to grab giant bags of taxpayer cash and increase their power. "Managing" an issue means long-term profit.
For Dems, this mindset is baked deeply into their ideology. No Democrat would ever dream of actually SOLVING a problem they have identified, which is why their jurisdictions tend to be black holes of wasted money, graft, and titanic but utterly useless bureaucracies.
For Dems, the important thing is winning political arguments, locking in huge amounts of spending, and using much of that money to hire government employees who can serve as meat shields against future spending cuts. Every problem becomes a never-ending racket.
The giant bureaucracies formed by statists and socialists have a vested interest in never solving the problems they were hired to address. That would be utter madness to them. Making progress would get their budgets slashed, maybe even their agencies disbanded.
The key to managerial liberalism is treating every problem as intractable, forever getting worse and requiring ever higher levels of government spending - and this is NEVER the fault of the inept mega-State, but rather of the people. That's why they love "systemic" narratives.
You will search in vain for any example of a statist agency being castigated for failing to use its lavish funding and gigantic staff to actually resolve a problem, or at least make things better. Instead, the attitude is "you poor brave souls, clearly you need more funding!"
This doesn't just apply to perpetually "managed" social ills. For decades we've had the absurd spectacle of state and federal pols demanding titanic sums for "infrastructure" that never actually gets built - that CAN'T be built, because courts and bureaucracy block everything.
California's billion-dollar ghost train debacles are just the most ridiculous example - and notice nobody in the bureaucracy, in CA or elsewhere, seems to be trembling in fear at the wrath of the voters for wasting ten figures and getting nothing. Zero institutional remorse.
For too much of our political class - and FAR too many of our voters! - all that matters is the front-page drama around passing the spending bills, the big theatrical demands for money and power. What actually happens after the statists get their sacks of loot is an afterthought.
The electorate is just numb to it now. People can barely comprehend the size of the sums stolen from them and wasted. They've grown accustomed to the endless, extravagant, ever-growing failure of managerial liberalism. They no longer demand results or accountability.
When was the last time you saw any high-level member of the political class squirming uncomfortably while reporters, voters, or even their political opponents demanded to know what became of yesterday's squandered billions?
It's so rare to see a state or national leader make real, tangible accomplishments, ahead of schedule and/or under budget. It's like a unicorn walking across your front lawn. Mostly they just make excuses, blame the American people for their failures, and demand more money. /end
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