The Decline of Civic Leadership Culture
📚 Join us for an evening with Aaron Renn · TPUSA endorses Blackburn · New BNA nonstops added · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone. Join us for an evening with Aaron Renn this Wednesday... TPUSA endorses Blackburn... New nonstop flights out of BNA... And much more!
Join Us On December 10th for an evening with writer Aaron Renn. Renn's recent book, Life in the Negative World, talks about being a Christian in a culture hostile to Christianity. This is the first in a new series of monthly lectures we'll be hosting. Paying subscribers receive free access to this and future events. (Buy Tickets)
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Wednesday, Aaron Renn joins us to discuss the state of leadership in American cities.
From Davis Hunt
I’m just returning from my honeymoon and feeling virginal in my approach to local political affairs, so allow me to pull us back for a moment this afternoon. I want to ask a simple question: what is politics?
Wikipedia tells me politics is the “set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources.“
This is a broad definition. It describes the action of politicking more than it does the art of governance or the science of the state. But what the state should and should not do is what we are primarily concerned with when we discuss politics.
Our culture doesn’t allow for deliberations on this question though. While you’re puzzling over the political ramifications of this or that proposal, your opponents are busy politicking past you.
This is the primary divide between the voter and the average elected representative. While I sit at my keyboard and waste my precious time wrestling with arguments around housing policy, the politicians are busy ignoring me, working to get their housing bill – which was written by god knows who – passed so they can get a promotion.
I, the voter, try to think about politics while the elected representative thinks about politicking.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can elect representatives who think about their job in the classical sense, but these people are in shorter and shorter supply.
When I first started doing The Pamphleteer, this was a question that ate at me. Why are our local representatives the way they are?
There are many explanations for the rise of the “career politician,” but one explanation I hadn’t considered until I had him on our podcast two years ago came from Aaron Renn, our guest this Wednesday evening.
Aaron described the biggest challenge facing American cities as the “decline of civic leadership culture.” In the past, you’d have political leaders emerge naturally from the communities where they lived and worked.
Now, politicians seem to parachute out of nowhere with a photocopied list of policy ideas into low turnout cities like Nashville and receive immediate air support from a phalanx of well-endowed national foundations with no real connection to the city.
Much to say on this matter. You could write a book about it. This dynamic, which Aaron laid out lucidly for me, changed the way I viewed local governance.
Yes, this is a sales pitch.
Join us on Wednesday to hear about this and more. Events are the backbone of The Pamphleteer and how we support our operation. They are also how we avoid sending you desperate emails about how we’re going out of business next month if you don’t donate to us.
So, spare us the indignity, buy a ticket (or become a Bard-level paying subscriber to get free admission to all forthcoming events), and join us in our fight to make Nashville the best city in this country.
Join Us On December 10th for an evening with writer Aaron Renn. Renn's recent book, Life in the Negative World, talks about being a Christian in a culture hostile to Christianity.
At our event, he will discuss this in addition to the crisis of civic leadership plaguing cities like Nashville. Aaron runs a very popular Substack, has written for The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic and was recently profiled in the New York Times. Currently, he's a Senior Fellow at American Reformer.
This is the first in a new series of monthly lectures we'll be hosting. Paying subscribers receive free access to this and future events. (Buy Tickets)
HEADLINES
- 🇺🇸 TPUSA Action endorses Marsha Blackburn for Tennessee governor. (Blackburn)
- 🚍 Freddie’s Choose How You Move initiative has provided 6,200 people with free bus passes a month after launching the Journey Pass. (Axios)
- 🏈 The Vanderbilt Commodores will take on the Iowa Hawkeyes in Raymond James Stadium at the ReliaQuest Bowl on New Year’s Eve in Tampa. The Tennessee Volunteers will play in Nashville at the Liberty Mutual Music City Bowl on December 30 against the Fighting Illini.
- ✈️ Nashville International Airport to add new nonstop flights to Phoenix, Orlando, Cancun, Punta Cana, Concord, Knoxville, Little Rock, Montrose, Montego Bay, and San Jose. (Tennessean)
DEVELOPMENT
- Local developer seeks permits for long-eyed Printers Alley development (NBJ)
- Nashville-area residential sales slump: November sees 6 percent decrease year over year as homes require increased number of days to sell. (Post)
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🎸 OK Go @ Brooklyn Bowl Nashville, 8p, Info
🎙️ Erykah Badu @ The Pinnacle, 8p, $92+, Info
🪕 Bluegrass Monday w/ Sam Leslie & Friends @ Dee's Lounge, 6p, $10, Info
🪕 Val Storey, Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle & New Monday @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info
💀 Grateful Monday @ Acme Feed & Seed, 7p, Free, Info
🕺 Motown Monday @ The 5 Spot, 9p, $5, Info
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Today's newsletter is brought to you by Davis Hunt, Megan Podsiedlik and Camelia Brennan.