McElravy is an associate professor of leadership at the University of Nebraska and a member of Scholars Strategy Network.
Gov. Jim Pillen’s recent decision to accept $18 million in federal funds for the state’s summer food program demonstrates the type of leadership rural Nebraskans are demanding from our state’s political leaders. As the Nebraska legislative session unfolds, our state leaders should follow in his steps and continue to compromise and find common ground.
In the most recent Nebraska Rural Poll, 86 percent of respondents agree or strongly agree that “compromise and common ground should be a goal for state political leaders.” However, given the polarized political environment across Nebraska and the country, there is political risk in changing course after taking a stance, referred to as flip-flopping, because politicians may be seen as incompetent. The courage to change course after initially refusing to apply for the summer food funding should be called out and applauded because this is the type of leadership that rural Nebraskans want to see from leaders.
Specifically, the governor’s actions seem to represent “ Both/And ” leadership, which requires that people recognize the complexity of issues and the tensions associated with different points of view. Those engaging in Both/And leadership will work to bridge the gaps in perspectives to find solutions that accommodate multiple stakeholders.
In this case, the governor was able to balance his stance of not supporting welfare while also meeting the needs of kids across the state, earning bipartisan praise for his efforts. Thanks to his decision, an estimated 150,000 kids will consistently have food on the table this summer.
Importantly, this type of leadership is not an individual endeavor and underscores the need to shift focus away from leaders and toward the broader idea of leadership. When we limit our focus to individual leaders, we ignore the reality that leadership is a process, involving leaders, followers and situational context.
A letter sent to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services by a bipartisan group of legislators in December, urging the executive branch to apply for this type of funding, illustrates the role of “followers,” or those not directly involved in the executive decision. By openly articulating their stance and providing clarity on the potential impact of the decision, they provided critical information to facilitate a more nuanced decision-making process. These legislators demonstrated courage to work across political boundaries, and these efforts, too, should be applauded as part of the leadership process.
Unfortunately, it seems all too often we retreat to political strongholds. Other data in the Nebraska Rural Poll demonstrated how polarized civil discourse feels today.
When asked, “Do you think Americans are more divided over politics than they were 10 years ago, less divided or are they about the same?” 94 percent of respondents indicated they thought we are much more or more divided today. That level of agreement on any topic is surprising.
A potential bright spot did emerge from the poll. Specifically, rural Nebraskans have significantly more faith that Nebraska’s political leaders will overcome differences to get things done at least moderately well (40 percent of respondents) than national political leaders (9 percent of respondents).
In 2021, both metropolitan and rural Nebraskans expressed moderate levels of confidence in the governor and the state Legislature in the Rural and Metro polls. It seems encouraging when collaboration and common ground can be established across these branches of government, and it may help improve confidence in these institutions.
The emerging hope is that more effective and efficient decisions lie ahead. Building trust takes time and effort, and perhaps the governor’s recent decision can serve as a foundation for trusting relationships that can facilitate more effective collaborations.
Nebraska is a big, diverse state with a variety of priorities. The’s state political leaders are charged with helping facilitate a prosperous future for all Nebraskans. To that end, our political leadership should continue to engage in compromise and common ground. It’s what constituents want, and our state will be best served by these efforts.
This article was first published in the Nebraska Examiner on March 6.
Eric Trump, the newly appointed ALT5 board director of World Liberty Financial, walks outside of the NASDAQ in Times Square as they mark the $1.5- billion partnership between World Liberty Financial and ALT5 Sigma with the ringing of the NASDAQ opening bell, on Aug. 13, 2025, in New York City.
Why does the Trump family always get a pass?
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche joined ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday to defend or explain a lot of controversies for the Trump administration: the Epstein files release, the events in Minneapolis, etc. He was also asked about possible conflicts of interest between President Trump’s family business and his job. Specifically, Blanche was asked about a very sketchy deal Trump’s son Eric signed with the UAE’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon.
Shortly before Trump was inaugurated in early 2025, Tahnoon invested $500 million in the Trump-owned World Liberty, a then newly launched cryptocurrency outfit. A few months later, UAE was granted permission to purchase sensitive American AI chips. According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, “the deal marks something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president’s company.”
“How do you respond to those who say this is a serious conflict of interest?” ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked.
“I love it when these papers talk about something being unprecedented or never happening before,” Blanche replied, “as if the Biden family and the Biden administration didn’t do exactly the same thing, and they were just in office.”
Blanche went on to boast about how the president is utterly transparent regarding his questionable business practices: “I don’t have a comment on it beyond Trump has been completely transparent when his family travels for business reasons. They don’t do so in secret. We don’t learn about it when we find a laptop a few years later. We learn about it when it’s happening.”
Sadly, Stephanopoulos didn’t offer the obvious response, which may have gone something like this: “OK, but the president and countless leading Republicans insisted that President Biden was the head of what they dubbed ‘the Biden Crime family’ and insisted his business dealings were corrupt, and indeed that his corruption merited impeachment. So how is being ‘transparent’ about similar corruption a defense?”
Now, I should be clear that I do think the Biden family’s business dealings were corrupt, whether or not laws were broken. Others disagree. I also think Trump’s business dealings appear to be worse in many ways than even what Biden was alleged to have done. But none of that is relevant. The standard set by Trump and Republicans is the relevant political standard, and by the deputy attorney general’s own account, the Trump administration is doing “exactly the same thing,” just more openly.
Since when is being more transparent about wrongdoing a defense? Try telling a cop or judge, “Yes, I robbed that bank. I’ve been completely transparent about that. So, what’s the big deal?”
This is just a small example of the broader dysfunction in the way we talk about politics.
Americans have a special hatred for hypocrisy. I think it goes back to the founding era. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in “Democracy In America,” the old world had a different way of dealing with the moral shortcomings of leaders. Rank had its privileges. Nobles, never mind kings, were entitled to behave in ways that were forbidden to the little people.
In America, titles of nobility were banned in the Constitution and in our democratic culture. In a society built on notions of equality (the obvious exceptions of Black people, women, Native Americans notwithstanding) no one has access to special carve-outs or exemptions as to what is right and wrong. Claiming them, particularly in secret, feels like a betrayal against the whole idea of equality.
The problem in the modern era is that elites — of all ideological stripes — have violated that bargain. The result isn’t that we’ve abandoned any notion of right and wrong. Instead, by elevating hypocrisy to the greatest of sins, we end up weaponizing the principles, using them as a cudgel against the other side but not against our own.
Pick an issue: violent rhetoric by politicians, sexual misconduct, corruption and so on. With every revelation, almost immediately the debate becomes a riot of whataboutism. Team A says that Team B has no right to criticize because they did the same thing. Team B points out that Team A has switched positions. Everyone has a point. And everyone is missing the point.
Sure, hypocrisy is a moral failing, and partisan inconsistency is an intellectual one. But neither changes the objective facts. This is something you’re supposed to learn as a child: It doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing or saying, wrong is wrong. It’s also something lawyers like Mr. Blanche are supposed to know. Telling a judge that the hypocrisy of the prosecutor — or your client’s transparency — means your client did nothing wrong would earn you nothing but a laugh.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.