My father often told me, “Tend to business and keep your eye on the ball.” I heard those words as a child and again as a young man, and I’ve come to understand how much wisdom they still carry. We live in a time when noise has replaced focus, and political theater has replaced governing. Too often, both in Washington, D.C. and here in Idaho, our leaders seem more preoccupied with performance than results.
Listening to congressional hearings—whether involving former Acting Attorney General Pam Bondi or any other high-profile figure—one can’t escape the feeling that these events are theater for cameras rather than exercises in oversight. The same holds true closer to home. The Idaho Legislature’s hearings on Medicaid or the Joint Finance–Appropriations Committee’s (JFAC) debates over state budgets too often sound like rehearsed scripts rather than deliberations about how to spend the hard-earned taxes of Idahoans.
When legislators meet, the questions they should be asking are direct and practical:
How are you going to cut costs? More importantly, how are you going to confront corruption within Medicaid and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW)?
Until independent, third-party audits are conducted of both Medicaid and the DHW, the citizens of Idaho—We the People—can only assume that our elected officials are more concerned with pleasing the lobbyists and corporate donors who fund their reelection campaigns than with tending to the business of the people.
Republicans and Democrats alike bear responsibility. We are short of adults in the room, those willing to engage in reasoned debate rather than resorting to political assassination. Anger and hatred now drive too much of our political discourse.
The Poison of Hate: Nowhere is this clearer than in Washington, D.C., where “Trump Derangement Syndrome” has become a kind of social pathology. Hatred of one man—Donald J. Trump—has consumed a large portion of the political left to the point of obsession. Hate, as Scripture tells us, is the tool of the devil. Nothing good comes from it.
Many progressives are so blinded by this hatred that they now reject not only debate but also personal connection. There are podcasts, social media campaigns, and newsletters urging people to cut off friends or family members who hold conservative views. This is not healthy political disagreement; it’s a kind of moral self-segregation that weakens the social fabric of our nation.
The irony is painful: much of this energy is spent by people who otherwise enjoy extraordinary privilege—educated, affluent, and articulate—standing on the streets of cities like Minneapolis to “protest” motives they barely seem to comprehend. Many such demonstrations, funded by out-of-state or even international groups, are organized not from love of justice but from hatred of America itself.
Policy and Performance: Whether one likes Donald Trump personally or not, his administration’s policies produced measurable success. Wages grew faster than inflation for the first time in many years. The stock market surged, lifting millions of retirement accounts. The military stood stronger, with renewed morale and purpose. These are not partisan talking points; they are verifiable outcomes.
The Democratic left, however, appears to have no positive vision to offer in response. Their central obsession remains power—and when they achieve it, as history shows, they squander it. Since the end of World War II, their policy record is littered with failed experiments and unintended consequences. The Great Society programs, once heralded as progress, have become bureaucratic burdens holding back millions.
It took leaders like Ronald Reagan—and later Donald Trump—to restore economic vitality and national confidence. Even Bill Clinton, to his credit, recognized the virtues of balanced budgets and enforceable immigration laws when he worked with a Republican Congress led by Newt Gingrich.
Today’s progressive movement, by contrast, drifts further into irrationality. Its intellectual leaders increasingly describe the founding of our country as an act of “patriarchy and colonial imperialism.” But if America is a mere illusion or mistake, where else in the past 250 years have freedom, prosperity, and human flourishing reached higher levels than under the constitutional and capitalist framework we inherited? The evidence points to a single answer: nowhere.
Energy, Reality, and Common Sense: I recently watched from the Oval Office as representatives from Peabody Industries—coal miners and energy producers—thanked President Trump for policies that gave their industry new life. That “clean coal” initiative may be politically unfashionable, but it helped sustain a reliable power grid.
Consider what might have happened under the heavy environmental restrictions proposed by the Biden administration during the recent polar vortex that threatened 200 million Americans with subzero temperatures. Coal and natural gas kept the lights and heat on. Wind turbines and solar panels didn’t. Even the mayor of New York should give thanks for that—though I’m not sure he prays to the same God who powers the human conscience.
Idaho Needs Its Own Reckoning: Donald Trump, for all his personal flaws—he has nearly as many as I do—remains focused and transparent. He says what he means and does what he says. That quality is painfully absent in Idaho’s political leadership, especially among Republicans who have enjoyed total dominance for decades.
It’s not Democrats who impede reform here; they are too few to influence much of anything. The problem lies with a complacent, self-protecting Republican establishment. Instead of scrutinizing how taxpayer dollars are spent, they busy themselves with “inside baseball”—maneuvering for committee posts, courting lobbyists, and managing public image.
Meanwhile, serious concerns about corruption and mismanagement in Idaho’s Medicaid system and the Department of Health and Welfare persist. While citizens struggle with rising healthcare costs and overburdened services, politically connected contractors and administrators thrive.
If the Republican supermajority wishes to justify its power, it should start by demanding thorough, independent audits of Medicaid and DHW. Sunshine and accountability are not partisan ideals; they’re Republican virtues—at least they used to be.
It’s time to take my father’s advice again: tend to business and keep your eye on the ball. For Idaho’s leaders, that means eliminating corruption, restoring transparency, and putting citizens before corporations. We don’t need more ribbon-cuttings, slogans, or self-congratulation. We need results.
Idaho could use a little of Donald Trump’s focus—his willingness to fight entrenched interests and say plainly what others avoid. It’s time to face the log in our own eye before lecturing anyone else. Until we do, the noise will continue, the theater will go on, and the people’s business will remain undone.
