Like several recent posts, I really don’t want to write this one, because I know it will make some people angry, but I must. And I write not as someone who claims to have all the answers, but as a fellow seeker of the best future for our country.
The subject of this post has been building for months, but the trigger was a terrible event which happened recently to a friend of mine. She is originally from Moscow. When her husband was about to be drafted into Putin’s army for the front lines in Ukraine, they fled quickly with their young son and wound up in the U.S. For the last several years she has been a highly paid executive with a major international company based in Atlanta, and she just finished a huge, successful project for her employer.
One mid-week evening last month, upon arriving in Atlanta on a flight from New York with her boss, all passengers on their plane were told to remain seated while ICE agents boarded the plane and arrested her. They claimed she had overstayed her visa.
She tried to tell them it was a mistake, that she had all the correct papers legally filed and was in possession of a valid Work Permit, but they would not listen. All they would say is that her visa had expired, so they had to detain her. They put handcuffs on her behind her back and walked her through the airport.
She was driven, still cuffed behind her back, several hours south of Atlanta in a five-car caravan to a Detention Center in Irwin County, where she was placed in a room with twenty-five women and an insufficient number of bunk beds. She was allowed to make one phone call.
Her friends and employer rallied to get legal help and to send letters to the judge handling her bond hearing. Within three hours we had submitted twenty-five notarized letters of support.
But because of paperwork incompetence in the ICE system, it took until the following Wednesday to finally get her out on bond, even though the judge ruled on Monday to release her. They took her Driver’s License, but claimed they didn’t, so she can’t drive until she replaces it.
And she reports, contrary to what one might read, that the women detained with her were far from criminals – they were working as nurses, opening their own moving companies, journalists. Many of them were waiting for green cards and were married to US citizens, some even with husbands in the U.S. Military, and having children.
By coincidence, on August 5th the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article entitled “Airlines Push Back Against ICE Enforcement at Airports.” The article cites several cases with exactly the same details—an expired visa but also some other correctly and clearly documented form of legal status. The article states, “ICE leaders face growing pressure from the White House to increase the number of daily arrests they perform, to meet a quota of about 2,000 a day.” This is apparently one key way ICE is able to achieve that quota—by ignoring their own easily verifiable facts.
As someone who is genuinely and generally proud of my country, I am ashamed and embarrassed by this kind of over-the-top behavior in order to please the whim of the current leader. I told my friend that she should focus on the twenty-five good people who immediately stood up to help her, rather than on those who arrested her.
As I have written previously, our president’s over-large and constantly active personality undermines so much good that he has done, or could have 
done. It’s tragic, and could really hurt our nation if it helps elect lunatic Democratic Socialists in November, and someone like Gavin Newsome or AOC as president in 2028. It could happen. See https://parkerhudson.com/2026/02/trumped-at-the-midterms/.
So what’s to be done?
I have three suggestions.
First, recognize that politics and governing have degenerated into a focus on personalities and their most recent soundbites, not on policies, problem-solving or servant leadership. As an example, try to name five actual problem-solving programs on the agenda of either major party.
Second, come up with five to ten actual big-picture policies and programs from the middle of the political spectrum that will clearly benefit the majority of Americans, and communicate them clearly. The group No Labels has several (https://nolabels.org/). The Cato Institute has a treasure-trove of libertarian-yet-practical recommendations to reduce the overreaching role of government in all aspects of our lives (https://www.cato.org/). I proposed a list of my own top five game-changers last October: https://parkerhudson.com/2025/10/five-fabulous-fixes-for-president-trump/.
Third, realize that to win, we have to combine the first two. In today’s world, rightly or wrongly, we have to have actual people—personalities—who stand up and communicate the best policies and programs. Lists are boring. Articulation is key.
Who should those people—candidates—be? Hopefully experienced leaders in government and/or business who have demonstrated 1) genuine
servant-leadership and statesmanship, 2) practical, quiet problem solving across traditional boundaries, 3) a focus on others rather than on self-promotion.
And I will add that I want someone who acknowledges and lives by a strong personal Christian faith—the beliefs on which our nation is founded.
You didn’t ask, but here are five leaders whom I think fit that description. I chose the individuals, but Claude helped with the research to write the following summaries:
Marco Rubio has spent decades in public service — Florida legislature, U.S. Senate, now Secretary of State — and has shown a willingness to evolve his positions and work inside an administration rather than build a cult of personality around himself. His support draws more from moderates and libertarians than from the hardened conservative base, suggesting a coalition built on competence and steadiness rather than grievance politics. He represents institutional experience wedded to genuine ideological flexibility.
Nikki Haley built her career on a pattern of quiet, effective execution rather than spectacle — two terms as South Carolina governor focused on job growth and fiscal discipline, then UN Ambassador. She has been willing to publicly break with her own party’s loudest voices when she believed they were wrong, a costly stance that speaks to principle over ambition. She remains the clear second choice among likely Republican primary voters, evidence that a substantial share of the party still wants a leader defined by competence rather than combativeness.
Brian Kemp has repeatedly chosen the harder, less self-interested path over the safer political one. He stood up to enormous pressure to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, at real cost to himself within his own party — and more recently passed on a high-profile Senate run, saying simply it wasn’t “the right decision” for his family, while pledging to help elect whoever the party’s nominee turns out to be rather than clearing his own path. Chris Christie named him among the handful of Republicans who “come to mind really quickly” as a serious 2028 contender, a credential built on two terms of results in a critical swing state, not on national media presence.
Larry Hogan won and held the governorship of one of the bluest states in the country twice, which is only possible by governing for everyone rather than for a base. He has been willing to say plainly when he thought his own party was wrong, even at significant personal political cost, and has framed his public life around service to Maryland rather than positioning for higher office. That combination — proven cross-partisan governance plus a record of principled dissent — is rare in either party right now.
Glenn Youngkin came from a business career (Carlyle Group) rather than a lifetime in politics, and ran successfully in a blue-leaning state by focusing on cost of living, education, and everyday concerns rather than culture-war combat. Term-limited out of the Virginia governorship by law rather than choice, he’s been positioned by many in his party as proof that a calm, results-focused approach can still win outside deep-red territory.
If I could address those five (and of course others), I would say, “Please, pick-up your bullhorn. Start proposing policies and programs that make sense to the majority of us. Explain why your solution is important, for those who may at first be skeptical, with clear statements and examples. Encourage others to do the same. And do this because we need experienced voices like yours expressing policies to improve our nation, not because you expect some benefit to yourself.”
With good people clearly expressing the best policies maybe, just maybe, we can turn away from what otherwise appears to be a dark future. I hope and pray that strong voices like these with common sense policies will rise up and push the self-centered attention grabbers off the public stage.
I plan to pray and to be ready to help in some way when such leaders step forward.
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