Learn to ask meaningful questions

Few remember what economic plan Jimmy Carter tried to sell in 1980. They remember the misery index, inflation and unemployment climbing together, and the hostages in Iran. What they don’t remember are the policy details, because one question cut through all of it.

Ronald Reagan asked, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

That was it. Everything Carter wanted to argue for a second term had to pass through that question. Once it didn’t, the rest of the argument no longer mattered.

People escape accountability because we lack the will — or the courage — to let the question stand in the spotlight.

People remember questions like that, not because they were clever, but because they left nowhere to hide.

“What did the president know, and when did he know it?” —Howard Baker

“Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” —Senator Marsha Blackburn

“What’s your favorite type of abortion?” —Rep. Brandon Gill

And then there is the question God put to Job, not for information, but for perspective: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”

Some questions demand accountability from men, while one reminds man who he is. We used to understand this. Now we try to avoid it.

I have spent four decades in exam rooms, where polite conversation is useless when something goes wrong. You don’t ask questions to sound informed; you ask because something is at stake.

What happened? What changed? What are we doing now?

You don’t let the answer drift into language that sounds right but explains nothing. You bring it back, again and again, until something real emerges. No amount of expertise, credentials, or authority allows someone to evade accountability with a filibuster. You don’t have to know how to perform surgery to do that. You just have to care enough not to be brushed aside.

That discipline is rare in our public life.

A congresswoman recently echoed a talking point her party and much of the media have been pushing. She pressed Pete Hegseth about the 25th Amendment and Donald Trump. It sounded serious, but it wasn’t.

The world watched Joe Biden struggle in plain view. Where was this concern then?

The same thing shows up with Elizabeth Warren. She raised concerns about airline prices while opposing the JetBlue-Spirit Airlines merger that might have reshaped that market.

She is welcome to make the argument, but the question remains: “You opposed the merger, so how is this outcome not on you?”

That question doesn’t ask for a speech; it requires an answer.

The same pattern shows up on a much larger stage. For decades, leaders in both parties have said the same thing about Iran: It cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon, and it remains a leading state sponsor of terrorism.

That has been the consistent position, even as the policies have differed. Two Clintons, two Bushes, Obama, Schumer, Pelosi, Biden, and scores of others all said the same thing: Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.

Now, when Donald Trump takes steps he argues are aimed at achieving that outcome, many of the same voices object.

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Kent NISHIMURA/AFP/Getty Images

We have also lost the discipline to define the words we use. People throw around “fascist” as if saying it settles the argument, when all it does is raise another question: “What do you mean?”

Not the label, but the definition. If the word means something, it should withstand that question. If it can’t, then it is being used as a weapon or a prop, not a description. Ultimately, the question becomes the teaching moment.

God set that standard in the third chapter of Genesis: “Where are you?” “Who told you that you were naked?”

He didn’t ask because they needed information, but because they needed to see. That’s what a real question does. It brings clarity. It forces things into the open that people would rather leave covered.

Clarity doesn’t come from longer answers. It comes from better questions. And when the question is right, it leaves no room to hide behind time or language.

People escape accountability because we lack the will — or the courage — to let the question stand in the spotlight. The clock runs out. The filibuster works. And the question either goes unanswered or never gets asked at all.

And everyone retreats to their corner, waiting for the next performance.