Look through the chaos? What chaos? Who is looking?

If you have found this page, you are undoubtedly wondering who is this Congressman John Campbell guy and what is this blog and podcast about?

 Well, as far as the “who” part of the question, my bio is on another page on this website. I will not repeat it here. But suffice it to say that I spent 14 years in full-time elected politics and held three different offices over that period. Therefore, I have a reasonable amount of experience in the field of public policy and politics at both the state and federal levels.

 I decided not to run for reelection to Congress in 2014 for a multiplicity of reasons many of which are not relevant here. But one of them was that I had observed the differences between the parties widening and the level of vitriol increasing to a point where making sustainable bipartisan legislation became nearly impossible.

 That was 2014. The conditions are much worse today.

 The divisions between Republicans and Democrats are wider now than they have been in my lifetime. Both parties used to want the same things and differed on how to get there. Now, they want entirely different things. There are few “moderates” left in either party because there is no “middle” between such vastly different ideologies. The country is increasingly divided socially and economically. I am not a fan of the term “income inequality” but the condition it attempts to describe does exist and is widening. Blue states get bluer and red states get redder. People of religious faith and those without it clash more than in the past. As a country we used to read the same news, watch the same TV, go to the same sporting events. Now, even those things have become socially or politically separated and we as a nation have fewer shared experiences. Even in the financial markets, we have not seen this kind of exuberance in centuries where decades long understandings of the value of assets have been seemingly overthrown. 

 And then there is the instability around the world whether in China, Korea, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Central America, Venezuela, Cuba and any number of other places.

 Eventually, all this will get resolved. History tells us it always does. But along the way to that resolution, there is usually a period of chaos. A period when the nation or the world has tumult on its way to settling these differences in one way or another. Following that, a new order emerges which then defines the decades that follow.

 I expect that we are on the cusp of entering that chaotic period. None of us know when it will come or how it will manifest itself or what the outcome will be. Certainly not me.

 In these writings, I will pontificate on the political, social and economic issues of the moment. This is something I have done with the written word and on radio for two decades. But, I will always have an eye on “looking through the chaos” to try and see what might be on the other side. There have been a number other chaotic periods in American history. Many people survived through those periods and quite a few of them prospered or contributed to the eventual resolution.

 In this blog and whatever related communications I may do, I hope to give some perspective on events to enable you and I to be amongst those people who survive, contribute and maybe even prosper through the years ahead.

 There is much more I could say. But it wouldn’t be much of a blog if I said it all now would it? Hopefully, this has whetted your appetite to read and listen more. And hopefully you will find meaning, inspiration, education, entertainment and perhaps some guidance from these writings. If just some of you find one of those things along the way, then my efforts will have been worthwhile.

 Now, let’s have a look through the chaos.