Former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Wall Street Journal oped today has an insightful thesis in its headline: “This Political Fight Will Go Many More Rounds: Even if Trump retired quietly to Mar-a-Lago, a return to civility would be highly unlikely.” Jindal writes: “Democracy tends to give us the government we deserve. Bill Clinton wasn’t responsible for the rotting of personal morality; he reflected what was already there. Similarly, Mr. Trump did not create the polarization and politicization of everyday life; he’s simply great at riding a wave that was already coming ashore. Mr. Trump’s passing from the national scene will not automatically usher in a new era of comity and harmony.” Jindal’s words reminded me of the work of Dr. Ronald Heifetz, my former Harvard professor who identifies two major challenges in social change: adaptive vs. technical. A technical challenge is one that can be solved by the current knowledge of experts, and adaptive challenges requires new, deeper learning. What we’re seeing right now is old, technical paradigms in how we’ve approached government, yet what we need is a far deeper, new learning. One long-term adaptive challenge that Jindal rightly identifies is the creep of federal government: “As the federal government’s…
See original post: OP-ED: Jindal’s Right: Even If POTUS Retired Quietly, ‘A Return to Civility Would Be Unlikely’