Picture yourself as an ambitious young news producer, most likely on a temporary contract, digging for a news story that will shake things up and maybe, hopefully, shock people. The kind of piece that will get people talking, get lots of views, and probably get you your next gig.
Are you going to call the “moderate” member of Congress who has plans to increase consumer protections or cap drug prices? The kinds of stories, by the way, that would apply and appeal to the vast majority of your audience, but would certainly win you no awards.
Or, in a competitive marketplace for young news producers, would you gravitate to the charismatic zealot who refuses to compromise on blocking a mosque in their district?
You’d likely go for the zealot. At least, that seems to be the prevailing trend.
This self-serving tendency of the modern media to amplify extremes at the expense of everyone else is a major focus of former Governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rossello’s new memoir, The Reformer’s Dilemma and the Need for a Radical Middle. You may recall that Governor Rossello was forced to resign in the summer of 2019 following a scandal known as Telegramgate.
This sudden scandal came in the midst of historically high approval ratings for Rossello, who was both the youngest Governor in the U.S. and the only one with a Ph.D. Leaving a thriving career as a research scientist, he’d taken office in 2017 with a mandate to take a scientific approach to solving political and social problems. And he was highly effective. He’d released a “Plan for Puerto Rico” during the campaign that he began implementing on Day One, declaring a fiscal emergency and signing multiple executive orders aimed at stopping corruption in the government. He also took a blunt force to social issues, mandating equal pay and employment opportunities for women. He drastically reduced the size of government as part of an austerity effort aimed at eliminating decades-old debt. Sound familiar?
But these initiatives weren’t designed to serve billionaires – they mostly managed to serve the common good, creating programs and projects to streamline infrastructure and eliminate graft in government contracts. His policies were widely popular before the tragedy of Hurricane Maria in September 2017 absorbed everyone’s focus for the greater part of a year. However, the Governor emerged even more popular than before, managing to secure vital emergency funding from a reluctant federal government.
But Rossello, like many effective politicians, was targeted by corrupt interests – both internal and external — that he was working to regulate. The Telegramgate scandal in July 2019 revealed private texts between the Governor and members of his cabinet that, in his own words, “dehumanized” members of society that he had been working to protect. The resulting outrage forced his resignation – but a Special Independent Prosecutor’s Panel later concluded that the released transcript is “not an original, not a complete document, and has been modified.”
Rossello resumed his career as a research scientist, currently serving as the Chief Visionary Officer of a leading longevity lab, RMI Health. He has returned to politics as a shadow Congressional delegate to Congress, having won office as a write-in candidate, a first for Puerto Rico. But from his current vantage point, he can relate to the reluctance of highly qualified people to enter public service.
He points out that trust in government is currently at its lowest point in more than fifty years, meaning a huge amount of people assume that any public servant is corrupt and untrustworthy by default. Anyone on the other side is dehumanized. “If you can add value in government, you have to ask yourself the question: Why do it?” asks Rossello.
Many very capable would-be public servants have asked themselves that question. The polarization of politics deters the best of us from participating. And what are we left with? Either the single-issue zealots who crave political power to push their unpopular agendas, or the shameless scammers who push the will of the highest bidder. Politics will always have some of these, but when these elements take the reins with no restrictions on their power, any government is in trouble.
Rossello writes that more extreme people have “less translational skills to execute in government.” They “cling to soft thinking and use their words to provoke harm. This is the highway to losing our national talent for solving problems.”
With the business-led project of branding government “the problem” nearly complete, the “radical middle” that Rossello calls to action is left without much means of resistance.
