There's a lot of talk going around about post-inauguration. A lot of anger about what our country has come to. I have mostly avoided discussing it because I'd rather we get through to the inauguration first, but I have some rather complicated thoughts on this and felt the urge to write about it.
I suppose, first, I want to emphasize that the ultimate goal
is to heal this country. It’s not about revenge, it’s not about punishment, and
if it’s not done in a manner widely seen as just and fair it’s far more likely
to deepen our divisions than it is to help. (This is part of why, for example,
the lack of bipartisanship with Trump’s impeachment hurt.)
There’s a concern, though, that in the interests of healing
we will overlook or ignore things that shouldn’t be – and that’s a fair point,
too.
Hence why I said my thoughts were ‘rather complicated’.
Holding people accountable is hard, but important… and also needs
to be done right. I think about my time as a people manager, for example. When
someone isn’t performing well it’s my job to tell them that. To sit down and
have the difficult conversation.
It’s not about being mean, or hurting them. (I’ve heard of
managers who actually liked firing people, and I rather think they shouldn’t be
in the job if it’s just so they can be on some sort of power trip)…
It’s because in the grand scheme of things, it hurts them
and everyone around them. That is, if you don’t have those sorts of talks then
all their coworkers see and know that someone on the team is slacking off… and
it hurts morale to feel like someone is getting paid the same amount to do
less.
It’s not good for the business, either… because you’re
keeping someone on who isn’t doing the job well.
And it hurts the employee, because they generally know when
they’re not doing well either… and don’t like feeling scared that they’ll lose
their job, or that they have to hide and cover up their inability. Hell, most
of them don’t like feeling incompetent or incapable in the first place.
So it’s essential to sit down and have those tough talks,
but there are ways and ways of doing so. (It’s sort of the difference between
saying ‘this is f***ed up’ and ‘you’re f***ed up’)
I kind of like Jim Collins’ point about having the right
people in the right position on the bus. Sometimes someone isn’t in the right
position. It doesn’t mean they’re bad, or untalented. It just means it’s not a
good fit.
In an ideal world, well. I wish I had the resources to get them
into a position that is the right fit. I don’t exactly like knowing the
fear and uncertainty people go through when they have to find a new job, after
all. I also don’t like knowing that healthcare benefits are tied to work, because
people will try harder to stay in jobs they aren’t suited for out of fear that
they’ll lose their health insurance. Especially if they or someone in their
family has medical problems, like juvenile diabetes. Like… I shouldn’t have to
even think about that, right? It should just be about whether or not they’re a good
fit for the position. But that’s the way our system works right now.
Anyways. Giving feedback is important, and can actually be a
good thing. It gives them the chance to do better, especially when you give them
the resources (i.e. training, time, etc) to succeed.
The problem is that it should come from a place of care. Of
wanting people to be their best self. And so giving feedback should be about
helping them do so, and not about making anyone feel bad or trying to say they’re
a failure.
I think, sometimes, of stuff I’ve heard about military
leadership. There’s some conventional wisdom about how the officers who get
promoted in peacetime do so for very different reasons, and with very different
skillsets, from wartime promotions. That generally a war will make a peacetime
army shake out some of the dead weight. (I forget the actual phrasing, and don’t
feel like looking it up right now. You get the gist).
I’ve also heard similar comments about holding generals
accountable. That they shouldn’t get ‘promoted up’ for failure, or protected
when they make bad decisions. There are stories about some of the general
officers relieved of command during World War II. Except that, iirc, those
general officers had a chance to also learn from their mistakes. They were able
to grow, and eventually get promoted again.
These things go hand in hand – if you want to hold people
accountable, and want harsh punishments for failure… there also has to be a way
for people to learn their lessons. To grow and succeed afterwards. If failure
is considered a lifelong sentence to suffering, then people have incentives to
try to hide their mistakes, shift blame, etc.
There’s more to it than that, even. Consider how
nation/states said ‘never again’ after the Holocaust, and created resolutions
against genocide…
But when it happened again, they didn’t really want to deal
with it. And so we call it ‘ethnic cleansing’, or something else. If we use the
word ‘genocide’ then we’re obligated to take action (or admit that we don’t
actually live up to our stated principles), and the action we’re obligated to
take is hard. Challenging.
It won’t be easy, may not be popular, and may lead to people
dying for things that seem outside our lane. Like, what was the national
interest of the United States in preventing Hutu from slaughtering Tutsi? If we
admitted it was a genocide, we’d have to actual do something about it. Send
troops probably. Some of which would die. It would cost money, and effort, and as
things got hard people would start questioning why we were risking our own over
something going on in an entirely different country. Better to just look the
other way. Pretend we aren’t aware.
Looking the other way has consequences. Deciding to actually
do something has consequences. It’s really about choosing which consequences
you’re most willing to deal with.
People, being not all that logical honestly, tend to push
these sorts of things to the back of their mind. It creates cognitive
dissonance, and it comes with a certain amount of self-deception. You hear
something bad going on, and it rather sucks… but then you forget about whatever
is going on in some place way the hell over there, and focus on all the more
immediate stuff going on in your life. (Ethiopia is currently at ‘stage 6’ of
the ten stages of genocide, but after a brief moment of upset how many of us
are going to just forget about that and worry more about our own problems.
Coronavirus, the 2020 election… all of it seems a bit more important than
stopping the genocide going on right now.)
I say this because I want people to think about what we
actually want to have happen, rather than pushing it to the back of our minds
and pretending the results were decided by forces outside our control. If you think
doing something about it isn’t the right answer, say so. Make the arguments. Admit
that this is something we’re not willing to do anything about. List out what
the reasons are. Same for the other side – if you think we should get involved,
explain why. Make your case. And discuss the ‘how’. Sanctions? Military force?
UN Peacekeepers? What tools in the diplomatic arsenal are you willing to pull,
and when/how/why will you use them?
And are you willing to accept the consequences of your
choice?
Bringing this back to our current situation – Gabriel
Sterling gave a hard-hitting speech that’s now gone viral, talking about death
threats and how it ‘has to stop’. Some people focus far more on why he hadn’t
said anything earlier, but I prefer to welcome and encourage anyone willing to
speak out at a time like this. (Especially in stark contrast to members of
Congress, who have been rather pathetic enablers.)
We have people taking out full ads demanding martial law.
One of Trump’s attorney’s has called for violence against a former cybersecurity
official for publicly rejecting Trump’s claims of voter fraud…
This is not normal, it’s not okay, and even though I’m far
more focused on getting to Biden’s inauguration, the problems creating this sort
of behavior won’t magically go away after 20 Jan.
There’s a reluctance to publicly admit what is going on, and
I get it. I’m rather reluctant to state it myself. It either sounds overblown and
melodramatic, or like admitting it will blow the fissures fracturing our nation
wide open.
In some ways it’s easier to pretend that these guys are ‘just
joking’ or ‘don’t really mean it’ or are doing it for ‘political theater’.
And yet there are a large number of people who sincerely
think Biden is the one trying to steal the election, and that any sort
of violence is justified. And, as Gabriel Sterling said (quite clearly and emphatically)
someone is going to get hurt.
It’s one thing when fringe elements say stuff like this. You
can easily ‘both sides’ the problem with a simple online search. But there is a
vast difference between Joe Schmoe or Karen or Chad on twitter calling for
people to take action…
And having POTUS say it. Or tweet it. Or do nothing to tell
his followers that they need to settle down and cut it out.
There’s also something deeply wrong in encouraging mob justice.
In forgetting due process. And for publicly arguing that various people should
be locked up, or arrested, or threatened – because why? They oppose you? You
have to have an actual crime, with actual evidence.
Our justice system has its flaws, and it’s not as blind as
it’s supposed to be… but there is an entire history of law, and due process,
and legislation, that are all meant to give us a trial and ensure a decision is
made for reasons that are a bit more than simply ‘they oppose me.’ (Even though
I’m not truly shocked by it, it still astounds me that anyone who calls
themselves a ‘libertarian’ is willing to overlook these sorts of things. It’s
okay when it’s your side doing it? Why are they ‘your side’ anyway? You
honestly think someone who comes into power in this fashion is going to care
about or protect your precious liberty? The cognitive dissonance of libertarian
Trump supporters has got to be off the charts.)
I am not sure what the answer is here. These sorts of things
shouldn’t be ignored or overlooked, but taking action will have consequences…
(Trump is apparently trying to pardon his children ahead of time, which seems
like a pretty big admission of guilt if you ask me. But it reminds me a bit of
a problem I’ve discussed before with Pablo Escobar and some of our foreign
policy stances on human rights. Namely that for people who don’t believe in
principles, or justice… they tend to disbelieve actions taken against them for
those reasons. Escobar didn’t believe the US was seriously after him for
running a drug cartel, and seemed to think it was a cover for something else.
Just like Russians never seem to accept that we really do care about human rights
– really! Honestly! Even if we’re pretty haphazard about what catches our
attention – and think it’s always a cover for something else. They don’t seem
to believe that you can actually rule a diverse nation without keeping
minorities and dissidents under an iron thumb. Idk, something like that. So
anyways, Trump trying to pardon his children does sound like an admission of
guilt… but someone said it was because he thought the following administration
would use its power against him. And, like… on the one hand no. It’s not like
that, nobody should be making stuff up in order to arrest him and his family.
Uncover actual offenses, sure. And if he and his did engage in illegal behavior
they really should worry… but not if they didn’t do anything illegal. On the
other hand – it’s kind of hard to prove they’re wrong to worry if they did do
something illegal, and we really do open up investigations. It’s all just… ugh.)
It would help if we had Republicans who did put country over
party, if we could trust that there would be a bipartisan investigation into
anything that needs investigating.
But that very trust is what seems so badly frayed right now.
It’s pretty bad… though I don’t know how much of that will
translate into things we actually need to worry about. (i.e. people on the left
have been muttering about stolen elections since 2000, a few people on the
right doing the same is not necessarily the end of the world. And protesting about it is their right as an
American, so that’s still not going to be a problem. The ones willing to do
more than that… well. That’s normally something for the FBI to worry about.)
Just saw a clip of Trump’s speech today, and that absolute fucker
is actually standing up there arguing that black is white and up is down! The
complete and utter nerve of him, to use his podium and say outright lies like
that!
I’m still focused more on getting to inauguration day than
anything else, but we have some serious problems here. Fixing them is going to take
a LOT of work.
