By Andy Smarick
Friday, October 02, 2026
Forget everything negative you’ve read about Nikole
Hannah-Jones’ viral essay about knowingly sending her daughter to bad
schools in the name of social justice. This is actually a moment for optimism.
For the time being, put aside the treatment of a child as an interchangeable
widget in a political struggle, put aside her daughter’s justified hurt and
anger, put aside the examples of classroom malpractice. Focus instead on one
word: “regret.”
Jones writes, “But now I felt overcome with regret. Najya
deserved better. They all did. But she was mine. This girl, my only child,
looked to me to protect her, to give her what she needed to thrive. And I had
not chosen her.”
Jones now knows she did wrong. All children should be
able to
trust that their parents will be their most tenacious advocates and
protectors. All parents should know that their most solemn duty is tenaciously
advocating for and protecting their children. Yes, Jones should have sensed
regret was coming when she wrote
a few years back, “My daughter is not worth more than any other child.” No,
it should not have taken example after example of her daughter falling behind
academically. It should not have taken her daughter’s heartfelt protests or
repeated complaints about chaotic lunchrooms and poor instruction.
Jones’ acknowledgment of her regret is a sliver of a
slice of a silver lining. Regret can be a powerful change agent: Realize your
error, admit its costs, and then commit to doing better.
Jones is not alone. In fact, regret seems to be in the
air on America’s political left. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently laughingly conceded that “Woke 1.0 was crazy.” Rahm Emanuel, a potential contender for the
Democratic presidential nomination, describes his party as “toxic,” “weak,” and “woke.” A major
left-leaning think tank created
a long list of words, including “privilege,” “othering,” and “safe space,”
that Democrats need to stop using. More and more Democratic officials
and writers admit that their side went haywire in recent years. Even
Malcolm Gladwell regrets being forced by the left to adopt insensible
political positions.
We’re witnessing the kind of contrition seldom seen in
public life outside of infidelity press conferences and courtroom allocutions:
Figures freely admitting, “I’m the problem.”
Why did this mass mea culpa become necessary? How
did the most influential thinkers and officials on the political left
simultaneously, over an entire decade, make the same decisions that many
now regret? Ferocious idealism. They embraced a crude but compelling view of
society, and it turned them single-minded and excessive.
Ideology isn’t all bad. It’s easier to make political
choices when you have a simple, coherent view of your surroundings. Whether
it’s “personal freedom must be maximized!” or “justice requires the collective
ownership of property and means of production!” or something else, a crisp
scripture can be a terrific guide. But ideology can also curdle the mind. When
real-life events don’t fit your framework or progress comes too slowly for your
liking, you start to believe brash reforms are obviously necessary. Deliberateness
and half measures become intolerable. Obstacles to your vision become villains.
Dramatic action becomes warranted because only dramatic action will deliver
justice. This is why extremism so often follows ideology.
Parts of the left came to believe that systemic
oppression of marginalized groups defined American society. Radical proposals
followed naturally. For instance: Prisons and police should be abolished.
Property crimes should not be prosecuted. Homework and standardized tests
should be ended. Defenders of oppressive colonial states should be named and
shamed. Rules regarding bathroom use and sports participation should be
rewritten. Public statements that hurt the underserved should be censored.
Language should be policed. Media outlets should advance social justice, not
“objectivity.”
Ideologies should be held lightly. They should encourage
us to ask probing questions, not force us to accept pat answers. They should
nudge us in a general direction, not demand we follow a dubious path. If you
allow any ideology to hold too much sway, it will almost always lead you toward
unreasonable conclusions. This is why principle and prudence—not ideology—have
generally been the standard of American leaders. We want officials who stand
for something and possess a coherent vision of governing. But we also want them
to exercise good judgment and address issues pragmatically. We don’t want
leaders who follow a dogma mechanically and ruthlessly.
The left is now recognizing the costs of following a
dogma, and the resulting regret could lead to better decisions ahead. In fact,
it probably explains why less ideological Democratic officials, like governors
Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland, and Josh Shapiro of
Pennsylvania, have seen their stocks rising. Those of us on the right should be
encouraged by the left’s possible new direction. But we should also recognize
that some regret is in order for our camp.
Corners of the right also fell victim to ferocious
idealism—and its consequences—over the last decade. Angered by the direction of
economic and social change, the left’s aggressive agenda, and the belief that
some conservative officials hadn’t fought hard enough, a tear-it-all-down,
anti-institutional ideology took over. It would’ve been one thing had that
ideology been lightly held. But it became a kind of creed and led to the
support for, or at least the toleration of, extremism.
Consider all of the shocking anti-institutional behavior
we have seen. From the president to members of Congress to state and local
officials to advocates and commentators, we’ve witnessed bashing of the courts
(and specific judges and justices), unsubstantiated claims about the insecurity
of elections, threats to the stability of NATO, whitewashing of the events of
January 6, and attacks on the credibility of the intelligence community.
Unqualified, inexperienced individuals with poor temperaments have ascended to
top positions in governing institutions, and tech-industry whiz kids with no or
little governing experience were put in charge of DOGE, which, unsurprisingly,
ended up as a massive impairment of government functions without meaningful
changes to federal spending.
An equally corrosive aspect of the era has been the
degradation of behavioral institutions—-honesty, civility, and integrity. The
casual cruelty, insults, mendacity, carelessness, self-dealing, and nepotism
have damaged our capacity to govern well and torpedoed citizens’ faith in
public life. The resulting aura of unseriousness can be seen in a Congress full
of wannabe pundits and pundits entirely more concerned with personal fame than
the public good.
Just like test scores showing your daughter hasn’t
learned what she should have, public life is now full of evidence—inept
domestic governing bodies, a bevy of foreign-policy errors, stubborn inflation,
growing distrust in institutions, a terribly unpopular president, perpetual
populism—that some on the right made bad decisions with awful consequences. And
just like those test scores, you can’t ignore the results and just hope things
get better. You need a course change.
Just about everyone on the right can play a constructive
role in this rehabilitation project. First, we need to stop empowering those
trafficking in over-the-top rhetoric and proposals. That means firmly mentoring
the young professionals engaging in extremism (e.g., no antisemitism, no
sexism, no flirting with authoritarians), telling advocacy organizations to
tone it down (e.g., if your language sounds like a Marxist revolutionary,
you’re not behaving conservatively), and encouraging those with platforms to
behave responsibly, not chase renown (e.g., you have a republican duty to put
our shared institutions above your media hits).
Second, we need to strengthen our institutions through
action. We need more people working honorably inside key organizations instead
of making a living commenting on them from the outside. So our work includes
encouraging good people to serve, developing a generation of young
professionals who think in terms of public service instead of personal
brand-building, stopping selfish people from using institutions for their own
purposes, and backing board members who protect their longstanding institutions
from unwise, destructive fads. But we must also recognize that customs and
norms are institutions, too. That means we all have a duty to act right: Cut
out the personal insults, watch your language, tell the truth, don’t cheat.
Third, high-ranking public officials set the tone. Their
words and behavior are taken seriously by millions of people; party loyalists
often form their views based on their leaders’ pronouncements. “Reaganism,”
“Nixonian,” “Jeffersonian,” “Jacksonian,” and “Lincolnian” became not just
policy agendas, but ways of seeing the world. Theodore Roosevelt’s “Big
Stick” influenced how millions understood foreign relations; Franklin
Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society shaped how millions saw
the role of Uncle Sam. To change course, change those at the helm. Sincere
personal regret means having a hard conversation with the person in the mirror.
Sincere political regret means finding new leaders.
Indeed, we’ll know that we’ve begun to put this dreadful
decade behind us once we see public support coalesce behind leaders who
prioritize sober-mindedness, service, and statesmanship and swear off rigid
ideologies and the ferocious idealism and extreme politics they beget.
