All politics is civilizational

I have never been able to work up much passion for local politics. The issues involved are rarely hills for anybody to die on. There are rarely immutable principles at stake. Most often, it amounts to various power blocs defending turf and vested interests (which actually characterizes national politics way too often).

There is a mayoral race underway in the city where I live, and it has intrigued me, espeically since the primary winnowed the candidates down to two. Both the Republican and the Democrat candidate are unlike any that either party has put forth for that office in the community's history. I have a feeling that its march toward something that doesn't bode well on a cultural level is inexorable, however. The things one might say that make one a skunk at the garden party in social settings generally, or in Facebook comment threads, have personal implications if uttered in a small municipality that has made up its mind to attain a certain kind of identity.

Both candidates are women. The Republican was gone for many years, earning a Harvard MBA and then working as an executive in the software and banking fields on both coasts. She's never been married and has no children. The Democrat is divorced with two grown children. She is on good terms with her ex-husband and the whole family is politically active, with a track record of serving on campaigns for offices from the local to the national. She is the director of a "community center" in a lower-income part of town.

Our city is about an hour south of Indianapolis and is home to the corporate headquarters of the world's premier diesel-engine maker. The local economy has been driven by manufacturing since the second half of the nineteenth century. A robust economic-development effort has brought plants of several international companies to town over the last thirty years.

While it's a publicly traded Fortune 500 firm, that diesel maker's biggest shareholders have always been members of a local family that first made its money in banking. The dynasty's patriarchal scion in the 1950s through the 80s was, in addition to being the diesel maker's board chairman, the first lay president of the National Council of Churches, a board member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an art and architecture patron. Martin Luther King, Jr. called him the most progressive businessman in America. He was on the list of Richard Nixon's enemies that John Dean read aloud at the Watergate hearings. He deliberately set out to foster an environment in our city that someone with his curriculum vitae could be presumed to be passionate about. He passed away a few years ago and the family's influence is now waning.

I attended a debate between the mayoral candidates today. I was able to quickly make a few observations about personal style. The Pub seemed much more comfortable in her own skin, responding to questions extemporaneously and looking relaxed. Her tone of voice and facial expressions exuded an air of one organizationally seasoned. The Dem read from prepared notes no matter what the question was, indulged in far more platitudes, and seemed stiff by comparison.

I had my preconceptions about why I don't pay much attention to local politics confirmed. Much of their exchange was a matter of splitting hairs over budget, transparency, training for first responders, zoning, quality education and quality of life. As I say, one rarely finds hills on which it's worth dying in local races.

The diesel patriarch's Rockefeller-esque (and he was personal friends with David R) legacy lives, though. What did cause my ears to perk up a bit was the point at which "diversity" came into the discussion. The Pub has been accused in street rumors of wanting to dismantle our city government's human rights council. It was clear that she was eager to address the matter when a question about whether to increase its funding came up. The Dem didn't come right out and say she was for increased funding - our city, like everthing and everyone these days, is financially strapped - but she she waxed floridly about "making the LGBT community feel like it belongs" and the like. The Pub didn't make a big show over denying the rumor, but very noncahalantly said she didn't see the need to increase the human rights council's funding. She mentioned the possibility of instituting a "diversity council" in passing.

I realized something at that moment. Our city is irreversibly "inclusive" now.

Again, a major form of evidence of this came down the pike a few months ago when the worldwide HR person for the diesel maker said that the company would probably not create new jobs in Indiana if the state legislature legally defined marriage as between a man and a woman. She said that in such circumstances the comany would not be able to recruit the kind of sharp and cosmopolitan workforce it needs to be globally competitive.

And I realized that, for their noteworthy differences, these two mayoral candidates both know what the score is. In our close-knit city, where it doesn't take a great deal to become well-known in one way or another, there are now parameters on what is polite to hold as a viewpoint. There will be no breaching those parameters if one wishes to have any civic impact. The new post-family, post-defined-gender, oh-so-inclusive era is upon us.

It's pretty much that way for all things "green" as well. A few months ago, I interviewed the sharp young economic-development director for a local business magazine, and he was quick to tell me that his agency is very upfront about working to bring "green" businesses to town. So I'm quite sure that, if anyone ever had the temerity to ask either of those vying to be mayor something as inappropriate as "Will you end any and all green initiatives of the city government since you are so interested in sound fiscal practices?" the response would be a dance of obfuscation at best.

It's probably this way all over America now. You can't stand up at a town meeting and say that the centuries-old notion of a family is under assault in today's society, or that this nation is wasting billions of dollars by operating under a scientific fraud for fear of running into those who heard you a few days later at a restaurant, or the hardware store. Or church.

So it looks like any massive cultural and political shift has to start at the top and work its way down. Otherwise, all politics is indeed local and there's no reversing our fundamental transformation.