In the 1990s, I wanted my business to contribute more effectively to my community, so I invested a year in the Teams, Management and Leadership Program (TMLP). There, I learned that to succeed I needed clear goals, a plan to reach them and a “next step.” Although plans rarely go as planned, they provide focus, momentum and a problem-solving framework. When circumstances inevitably change, a good plan allows for new paths to the goals and at least one practical next step down one of those paths. I also learned that worthwhile plans are consistent with community values and aspirations.

TMLP worked for me in that community and continues doing so as I work with Age-Friendly Carbondale. I’ve seen the Town ask for and absorb resident input to update its Comprehensive Plan. The plan has many aspects, but, perhaps most importantly, it envisions the kind of town we want to be: small, environmentally responsible, accessible, walkable, age-friendly, etcetera. After adopting the Comp Plan, Carbondale developed selected sections into a detailed Mobility and Access Plan (MAP). Even before the MAP was fully developed, the Town took a “next step” towards accessibility by launching the Downtowner. A mere week after adopting the MAP (Jan. 28), trustees, commissioners, Town and CDOT staff and residents gathered to envision a safer, more attractive Highway 133 on nine-foot maps. On Feb. 25, the Town will consider a Complete Streets resolution. A March work session will explore financing these projects.

TMLP also taught me about olive trees, which take two human generations to bear fruit. Today’s farmers harvest what their grandparents planted, while planting new trees for their grandchildren. Sound politics often requires an olive farming perspective. Our large maps outlined projects that could take 20 or more years to complete. At 84, I expect to see a crosswalk that safely brings pedestrians to City Market this year, probably another crosswalk next year and maybe even one new roundabout. But 10 beautified roundabouts and crosswalks from one end of town to the other? That’s for my grandchildren.

Collaborative goal setting, planning and step-by-step actions may seem simple, but not every organization has the patience and skills to put this into practice as well as we do in Carbondale. Conservative and reactionary Republicans, however, do. Over 45 years in the making, they have written a series of nine sophisticated comprehensive plans to guide them. “The Conservative Promise” (aka Project 2025), the ninth volume of The Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership” series, was published in April 2023 in anticipation of a 2024 Republican victory. It clearly shows their current aims:

Enhance executive authority, including dismantling much of the current administrative state and exerting partisan control over key agencies.
Restructure the government to streamline necessary functions and cut everything considered unnecessary or counterproductive to conservative goals:
Implement financial policies that include reducing corporate and capital gains taxes, instituting a flat income tax and shrinking the social safety net, while reversing contrary policies from earlier administrations.
Strict immigration enforcement, including mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

At 900+ pages, this remarkable document, created by dozens of conservative intellectual leaders, provides solid rationales for its policy recommendations along with detailed strategies and tactics to guide the current administration as they implement them. Equally important, the Mandate for Leadership series has helped conservatives win elections by offering a coherent, detailed, intellectually rigorous and practical policy platform — a “vision,” if you will, on which to base their electioneering.

Our Founders also relied on great thinkers for their visions and practical guidance: the Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689), Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Montesquieu, Smith, Rousseau and the great philosopher of the American Revolution Thomas Paine to name a few. It’s fair to say that the Founders’ greatest achievement, our Constitution, is a product of nearly 600 years of thinking, talking and writing by some of Europe’s greatest minds.

While modern conservative and reactionary politicians still rely on an intellectual tradition as an important part of their operations, liberals and progressives do not. When Jon Stewart interviewed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (The Weekly Show podcast, Feb. 7), Stewart repeatedly asked for a coherent national vision. Jeffries repeatedly skirted the issue. Jen Psaki was equally unresponsive on the same podcast a week later. Unlike the Republican party, Carbondale and the Founders, today’s Democrats seem unable to articulate a coherent vision to guide their work. Small wonder, then, that they appear to have lost their way.

Ironically, Democrats, who (on average) have two to four more years of education than Republicans and hold more than twice as many advanced degrees per thousand, appear to lack intellectual leadership. Without clear visionary goals and a plan for achieving them, they offer little more than a series of isolated “next steps.” Some of those steps are impressive (The Affordable Care Act, The Inflation Reduction Act), but people also want a coherent vision of a future worth working for and a plan for getting there. In that regard, Democrats are going to flounder until they reconnect with an intellectual tradition.

Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale.