Geoff Duncan: Where are the honest umpires in Republican, Democratic parties?

My three sons routinely go out of their way to remind me how painfully late in the draft I was selected. At which point I sarcastically ask them, “What round did you get drafted in?”

Despite being a late draft pick, I managed to stick around for six seasons and pitched in 200-plus games in minor league cities all across the country. It was a great first job out of college!

I learned a lot of great life lessons playing the game of baseball, including the value of an honest umpire. Just imagine balls and strike calls solely influenced by who the umpire’s favorite team was growing up or close plays at first base always going to the home team.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how quickly things can go off the rails without an umpire committed to acting on the truth.

Isn’t that the problem we have in politics these days? We only want the home team to win, even if it’s a terrible idea.

Both sides of the aisle have fallen into the trap of caring more about short-term political successes than long-term national successes. This herd mentality thinking has led too many mainstream Democrats to rubber-stamp open borders and a list of other far left ideologies of recent.

In the same damaging vein, Republicans in mass have allowed the intellectually honest parts of their brain to be sucked out and have blindly supported tariffs and a host of other nonsensical ideas in President Donald Trump’s first 100 days.

Let’s be honest: Being an honest umpire inside the world of politics these days is not a highly rewarded position. “We the people” only want to hear what we want to hear. This behavior is clearly reflective in how we consume our news every day and leads to the massive partisan divides in viewership of cable news channels.

In my 2021 book “GOP 2.0,” I talk about the “Power of 3” and encourage everyone to consume their daily news from at least three sources to give them a three-dimensional view of the issues of the day. If you don’t disagree with at least one thing on your TV every day, you’re probably not going to be a very honest umpire.

Let’s look through the lens of an honest umpire at some of the most divisive national issues we face as a country.

Immigration is a two-part issue; border security and immigration reform are equally important to the long-term success of our country. We should all agree border security is an absolute must, and we should never again take our eyes off how important a controlled and orderly process is at the border.

With an equal sense of duty, we need to work across the aisle and develop an amnesty program that recognizes those who deserve to stay and those who need to go.

Yes, I just used the word amnesty.

A good place to start the conversation would be centered on a 2-5-10 plan. Someone who has been in this country 10 years without committing a crime, has paid taxes for the last five years and has two U.S. citizens willing to sponsor them is obviously chasing the American dream, not a handout.

We should all embrace cutting the size and scope of government for no less than $36 trillion reasons.

With that being said, DOGE has been a bombastic disaster that will equate to the birthing of a mouse instead of the beautiful baby Elon promised us. Musk and his disciples have walked into government agencies with zero institutional knowledge and created more unintended consequences than savings.

An honest umpire would request each agency head to turn in a revised budget within 90 days that cuts 5% of their overall spending. These savings would be measured in the hundreds of billions and would kick-start the process of fiscal sanity without destroying the effectiveness of the federal government.

It will take decades to fix our nation’s spending addiction, not minutes.

Closer to home here in Georgia, an honest umpire would avoid the lure of national politics and look for ways to pass commonsense gun safety gun legislation. They would also look for ways to responsibly expand Medicaid to reinforce Gov. Kemp’s Georgia Pathways program.

These are both policy layups in the public’s eye when looking outside of the partisan lens of national politics.

Umpires served as a constant thorn in my side during my baseball days because they didn’t always give me my way. They also served as a thorn in my side as lieutenant governor, but they always seemed to make me better over the long term.

Let’s be honest: Nobody likes an honest umpire in the heat of the moment, but we all know deep down we need them — especially now.

Credit: Geoff Duncan

Credit: Geoff Duncan

Geoff Duncan, a contributing columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, served as Georgia’s lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2023. He is a former professional baseball player and the author of “GOP 2.0: How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America’s Conservative Party.” He is also a contributor to CNN.