We Need More Regret in Our Politics

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.