By: AIF Staff
On March 27, American Idea Foundation President and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan delivered a keynote address on the State of American Politics. As part of OU’s Presidential Speakers Series, Ryan was invited to share his thoughts on the challenges facing the next generation of American leaders and to discuss how we can overcome them in a way that reflects our nation’s timeless principles.
Ryan’s entire speech is accessible via the following link. Excerpts from his address (edited lightly for clarity) are included below.
A personal connection to the University of Oklahoma:
“I was in this room not even a year ago for the Owl Ceremony for my late mother-in-law, Prudence Little, who was inducted (posthumously) in the Order of the Owl. I have lots of deep roots here that span the length of my marriage and so, I call myself a kissing cousin to Oklahomans… I’ve been coming to your ball games every other year during deer season, which some people around here also call Thanksgiving.
I’ve been coming here since 1999 and to give you a sense of the appreciation that I’ve developed over the years for not just this particular institution, but for this community, this network of people, this tight state of people who care deeply for one another – my father-in law, Dan Little, is here. Our cousin, Dan Boren, is here. And just to give you a sense of how the decisions get made in my house, as many of you are, we are big bird hunters where I come from. I import cheese to your state, and I export venison and ducks from your state and so, my wife and I decided to get a couple of bird dogs. And as a lifelong Wisconsinite, whose parents lived in Madison, I thought naturally our dogs are going to be named “Bucky” and “Badger.” Long story short, our dogs are named “Boomer” and “Sooner”, so you understand how we make decisions in my family!”
The State of American Politics & Tests facing our Democracy
“The state of American Politics today is under duress. It’s easy to identify where and how and under what circumstances, it’s a little hard to identify what we do about it but… it’s not just America. Democracy itself is being tested around the world in two basic ways: From without and from within….
We are being tested by our adversaries – the illiberal, anti-democracies like the Communist dictatorship of China, the thugocracy of Russia and Iran and North Korea. We are being tested by autocrats where one man makes a decision, and they get stuff done…. [These adversaries are hoping their form of government] will be better than democracy. It will perform better than democracies. It will be faster and leaner and meaner, and they’ll get to the finish line faster than we do. That’s their bet and that’s a serious test.
The good news in this – and I think Stephanie Bice and Tom Cole will agree with me – the one basically bipartisan thing in Congress today is this mutual bipartisan agreement that this is a challenge. We have got a China challenge on our hands and the House Select Committee on China has been remarkably bipartisan. They put together a huge vote the other day on tactics and theories and things we need to do to address [TikTok]. So, I think our political system is rising to the occasion to take on this challenge from “without,” to take on this challenge from tyrannies trying to undermine democracy and poking and prodding at us in many different ways….
The bigger test of democracy is from within ourselves. It’s this polarization. These tyrannies are betting that America cannot get this job done. They are betting that we will so polarize ourselves and tear ourselves apart and relativize ourselves into self-immolation. We will be so polarized that we will render ourselves incapable of solving big problems, of coming together and achieving consensus and solving the things in front of us. They are betting we’ll be too slow to act versus their lean, mean, efficient, one-guy-makes-a-decision system.
We’ve been at each other’s throats [in America before] but we really haven’t had this level of digitization and a new wrinkle in this story is this idea of moral relativism. This idea that there are no fixed truths. It’s your truth, his truth, her truth, my truth, whatever your truth…. And the challenge with this type of relativism is we’re not putting any premium on actual facts and actual truth.”
Overcoming the “zero sum” mindset to solve America’s problems:
“When you have politics designed to divide, when you have a digital system where the incentive structure is to tap into emotions of fear, envy, anger, hatred, and differentness – not hope, inclusion, and inspiration, when you have a political system with that center structure baked into it, we end up with a type of politics that has all of us playing a “zero sum” game.
“There are a lot of games that are zero sum. We have static games all the time right over there in that football stadium. I love watching OU beat OSU, but a football game is “zero sum” where there’s one winner and one loser. This is, frankly, not how the game of life works. It’s not how individual personal relationships work; it’s not how economics works; it doesn’t need to be how national alliances work. You can have “positive sum” games. You can have win-win situations.
My whole management philosophy in Congress was to set as many “positive sum” games as you can possibly have so that legislators – men and women who came from districts with individual passions, with different political stripes and parties – can play a “positive sum” game. I wanted them to find that Venn Diagram where things overlap and can move forward so we get things done.
It’s why you are so blessed here in Oklahoma. You have legislators. You have do-ers. Tom Cole is the manifestation of someone who works…. really hard, who knows his stuff, who is respected by the other side of the aisle, who looks for the Venn Diagram of “positive sum games” daily and gets things done. Tom is about to become one of the most powerful guys in Congress, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee…. The only thing that has to get done every year is writing the federal budget and Tom Cole is about to be named Chairman of that Committee. It’s really a high honor and we need more Tom Cole’s coming to Congress…. That’s also why you’re blessed to have Stephanie Bice…”
Reasons for Optimism that America will meet its challenges:
“The thing that makes me excited and happy and hopeful is the afternoon I spent with students here at OU. They had amazing questions and were such thoughtful people who are really interested in learning about the world, making a difference, and finding their path in life. I’m trying to find the happy ending here – and there is a happy ending here – which is America is known for regenerating itself….
We’ve got adversaries trying to take out democracy and replace democracy. We have problems internally where we are at each other’s throats and we’re sending people to represent us who are going at people’s throats, but we know we can regenerate and get ourselves past these problems. That’s the one amazing thing about America and that’s the upside of all of this.
We have some serious problems. We’ve got big fiscal problems. We have all these foreign policy challenges. But every one of America’s problems are totally within our own capacity to solve. What I think we’re going to go through — and it probably won’t be in this election cycle – is polarization fatigue where people are unsatisfied and sick and tired of problems going unsolved. And when that polarization fatigue sets in and when the pile of unresolved problems gets high enough, I believe, just like we have always done in the past, the American people are going to demand results. They are going to demand we stop this and actually solve problems.”
Channeling Winston Churchill:
“Winston Churchill said two things that I think are so appropriate for today. The first thing he said is democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all the other forms of government.
Democracy is messy and sloppy but when it resolves itself, when the consensus occurs, nothing can stop it because it is the true power of a self-determining people. We are a free society and the things that come out of free societies – the innovation, the private property rights, the freedoms – are going to beat the tyrants. They can’t centrally plan the kind of things that democracies can do and that’s why we will win the 21st century. These are things that only a free people can do and that’s why I am so bullish about it.
The other thing that Churchill said, and this is where the entire world is looking to us, is the American people can be counted upon to do the right thing, but only after they’ve exhausted all of the other possibilities.
I think we are going through that churn now. This is going to be one ugly election. We all know it. It will be [one of the longest] general elections we’ve had in modern history but at the end of this thing, because you’re electing people like Tom Cole and bright rising stars like Stephanie Bice, we are going to get through it.”
To read more about Speaker Ryan’s visit to the University of Oklahoma, check out these articles from the Norman Transcript, the Journal Record, and theOU Daily.