A View from the Cliff

We’re Going to Overtime

Over the past 6 weeks (and really long before then), I’ve had the opportunity, or misfortune depending on your point of view, to wade in the perilous waters of the now concluded (but only temporarily if you’re keeping score) fiscal cliff negotiations. In fact, there were quite a few days and late evenings that my colleagues and I did a little more than wade, jumping in over our heads in a sea of tax and spending debates on Capitol Hill fighting to keep whole a tradition almost as old, but just as critical to the lifeline of our democratic priorities, as the tax code itself.

Late nights do make for great views

I won’t comment here on my personal feelings on the legislation except say that it is well-intentioned and imperfect, and that is almost universally the case with all compromises. If you haven’t seen the details, I strongly encourage you take a look at one of the many summaries available (here’s one). What you should know at the very least is that no matter your income level, your next paycheck will be affected, and the way our government conducts business is beginning to change. It also means that my colleagues and I will live to fight another day, which in my line of work is often the best outcome for which you can hope.

I will admit that the experience has given me what some might call a “crisis of confidence,” but the subject of and the reasons behind this private detour probably aren’t what you’d expect.

Fault Lines

We all watched as our elected officials pointed fingers, traded proposals, and used every media advantage at their disposal to try to gain the leverage of public opinion. It was annoying – perhaps even childish at times – but I was relatively nonplussed. If you look back at the annals of Congressional history, believe it or not, what you see on C-SPAN and read in the papers marks one of the more civil periods in the American political system (Speaker Boehner’s invitation to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for Reid to spend some “special” alone time with himself not withstanding).

In 1856, Representative Preston Brooks of my home state of South Carolina and staunch supporter of slavery savagely beat abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane on the Senate floor over an anti-slavery speech that devolved into an attack on Brooks’ uncle - and throughout much of the 19th and early 20th Centuries, members of Congress were regularly subject to public ridicule and humiliation by their peers and colleagues during legislative session. Many older Americans like to wax nostalgic about how their leaders were "men of conviction" and "honor" (and the use of 'men' is purposeful because let's be real, many of these fine champions of democracy weren't exactly beating down the doors to afford women more opportunities in the "good old days") - and there are certainly notable examples, but they belie the broader truth.

What we see today? That's progress - and it's not. We shouldn't act so surprised or indignant that our leaders spend more time publicly posturing than problem solving. Partisanship is a staple of the democratic process and while frustrating at times, it has the unique benefit of ensuring that minority opinions are represented. The simple truth is our way of doing things hasn't changed much at the core over the last 200 plus years - nor has the basic composition of the type of people we choose to represent our interests. Much like anything else in life, what we receive is based on what we give back - and what is projected by our leadership has always been a reflection of our own attitudes.

So, it would be easy to join the chorus of many others who are evaluating the current state of our union and place the blame squarely on those who have taken an oath to defend and preserve it, but that would be disingenuous. Doing so may treat the fever, but not the infection. And I can’t stomach any more Tylenol-critiques.

Yes, maybe the fight over the fiscal cliff exposed some glaring weaknesses in our leadership structure, and perhaps Congress’ record-low approval ratings have been completely justified, but these realities are symptomatic of a greater problem. If you are dissatisfied, troubled, angry, you have every right to be, but you must also understand that far more than half of the responsibility to change those feelings lies with you.

We do have a leadership problem in this country – and we are all complicit.

A crisis of confidence? Sure – but not in our elected officials. The crisis is us.

Observations from 30,000 Feet

We may feel that our leaders have failed us – but we fail them too, and just as routinely.

We now have access to more real time information from a variety of mediums than any other time in history – and yet we remain grossly uninformed and detached. The “bullet point generation,” expecting all of what we take in to be palatable and easily digestible for our particular sensitivities. Don’t get me wrong, the quick and easy transfer of information is revolutionary, and I for one enjoy the avenues available through social media – but there is a danger in moving too fast – in trying to reduce complexity to a single page or 140 characters. If we aren’t careful, our thought processes become just as automated as the vehicles on which we rely to share our opinions, and sometimes when that nuance is lost, so is the greater context of our true and best intentions.

We live in a world where we are supremely cautious about how we treat racial and ethnic diversity, while at the same time cavalierly throwing out words like “socialist” and “fascist” to describe people whose ideological makeup is different from our own. These words have meaning – and real consequences – and this is no more evident than in the way our elected officials react to our concerns.

By reducing our expectations to single-word epithets and sound bites, we invite our leaders to pander to the most base level of our impulses, fear and reward. So instead of responding in kind with our convictions, we get lost in our own attempts at cleverness and self-preservation.

And by doing so, we have become poor stewards of our leadership. Yes, we expect our elected officials to make difficult decisions, many of which we could never imagine having to make ourselves – that’s the faith of the electorate – yet we rarely offer guidance or meaningful instruction on how we can be best served. We are, effectively, their managers and the sole measuring stick of their job performance, but by and large we wield this power irresponsibly.

For those of us who have been in the workforce for a while, we’ve all encountered managers and supervisors like this. The kind that only seem to address you when they feel you’ve done something wrong – the kind that rarely utters an encouraging word – the kind that would readily throw you under the bus if it served their own interests – and the kind that understands that their greatest power over you is having the final say on whether or not you’re employed. How do you respond to such treatment? You do just enough to avoid losing your job – and nothing more.

This is our managerial relationship with our elected officials. Innovation, courage is not demanded nor expected, so we are left with “just enough.” We fail because we believe that our greatest civic responsibility begins and ends with the ballot box. We fail because we believe having the power to change leadership is enough to "fix" a greater systemic issue.

We fail because we hold our leaders to a higher standard than we hold ourselves.

Keep Moving

At this point some of you may be thinking – “What the hell makes this guy qualified to say anything?” or “Look in the mirror pal, if we’re the problem, so are you.”

To answer the second, you’re absolutely right. As for the first, I don’t know. I suppose there is nothing that makes me any more or less qualified to share these observations, but what I do know – beyond any doubt – is that we will see no change in our leadership or our broader political process until we first recognize our fundamental responsibility to engage.

And I recognize that this is not a new argument, scholars and civic leaders have been talking about the importance of civic engagement for years – at least as long as the basic concept of “society” has been a reality. But it wasn’t until I stepped closer to the cliff over the past few weeks and looked back to see the chasm between the negotiations teetering over the edge and the real world implications watching on with righteous indifference that I really began to understand just how much it matters.

Passion is important – but it isn’t enough to be passionate. Showing up, voting, participating – all critical, but still insufficient on their own. Engagement cannot be a passive, scheduled endeavor. It also cannot be, to borrow an interview phrase from a good friend (inside joke), "half-assed." Rather, it must be consistent, thoughtful, and a reflection of you.

Our definitions of engagement may differ, and that’s okay, but I promise you that no matter what, there will be common threads. If you are unhappy with the state of leadership in this country, now is your time to step up. For all of my blustering, I’m afraid I can’t tell you how to do it – that is a personal choice – but use your talents and your interests to your advantage.

Now is your time. It’s your time to be proactive, to demonstrate to our elected officials that the type of standards you set for them you are also willing to meet yourself. Help them to lead, and in turn they will raise the bar of their communications and interactions with you – with all of us. They won’t really have much choice. You’re their boss – and you need to be an effective one.

Maybe I’m just adding to the noise – the jury is out – but in the past few weeks and months I’ve recommitted myself to this notion of engagement. For me it means finding new ways to interact with my community - it means spending a little more time communicating to my representatives as private citizen rather than solely from the perspective of a political operative - and it means encouraging others to do much of the same. In part, it also means hopefully throwing my hat back into the ring for elected office in the not too distant future. Call it ego, delusions of grandeur, or whatever you want, but I believe I have something to contribute. Maybe I’m wrong, and I’m willing to accept it if so, but there’s only one way to know for sure.

Of what I am sure is that complacency leads to stasis, which leads to atrophy, which leads to complete inertia.

We all have a role to play – and it can’t be a part time gig – because you see, the thing about complacency is – if left untreated – it is nearly always fatal.