Our Government--It's Messy, It's Chaotic--But It Can Work. These Elections Prove It

Like so many others, I lament a great deal about our nation and our government: the corruption, the chaos, the vitriolic accusations hurled from one side at the other. Yet at the age of 88, I have long held a fundamentally optimistic view of the American people. Eventually, common sense, pragmatism, and good values prevail. The recent midterm elections provide a good deal of evidence to support that belief. We have reordered the leadership of our government in a dramatic way. This is by no means the first time; it has happened many times in our history. And the very fact that such a transition can occur is a fundamental indicator of our strength. Compare this to Russia. The Russian people are suffering under many of the same problems we face in the United States: an interminable war, high inflation, and abundant evidence of corruption. And yet think of the difference in what voters in our two nations can do about it. We have a chance to change the system. Realistically, today, they do not. I marvel at how, despite all the infirmities of our governance — the gerrymandering, the toxic political environment, the outsized role of money in elections — we somehow manage to muddle through. Despite high tariffs and the cost of the Iran war, our economy continues to progress. Job creation is reasonably strong, unemployment is low, and inflation, by normal standards, is not very high. How can this be? The basic reason is that every day, millions of Americans get out of bed and go to work. New businesses are being built, many of them through AI. Corporate leaders are finding ways to navigate around tariffs. Agility has become the watchword of business excellence — and agile the American people are. This turn of events, which I find so encouraging politically, cannot be taken for granted. It will not proceed on autopilot. Now is the time for good governance: government that actually helps people live better lives, in an environment grounded in good values. I am hopeful — very hopeful — but not complacent.

Decency Was On the Ballot

In the closing weeks of the campaign, Dr. Amy Acton, now Ohio's governor-elect, said it plainly: "Decency is on the ballot." She meant it. Her opponent had run a cruel, malicious ad against her. I was proud that my son, David, stood alongside Dr. Acton and he is now Ohio's lieutenant governor elect. Across the country, in what is now clearly a Democratic sweep of the Senate, the House, governorships, and state legislatures, many factors were at work: the lack of affordability, the presence of corruption, broken promises, and the war in Iran with its negative consequences. But there was another factor, one I believe was decisive: the matter of values. In post after post and in my book reflections, I have returned again and again to one belief: that in the end, the goodwill and good values of the American people will prevail. I have been wrong about that before. When Donald Trump was first elected, I believed his lack of character would ultimately be decisive. It was not. I found it almost impossible to believe that the Republican Party would nominate him again in 2024, but it did. Once more, despite my conviction that the "better angels" of the American people would prevail, I was wrong. Yet my faith in those values did not waver amid that disappointment, not for a moment. Now I feel affirmed by how people pushed back, as individuals, in my state of Ohio and in states across the country. Of course they pressed the issues of affordability and health care, and they should have. These issues shape everyday life. But in almost every state, in one way or another, there was also the issue Dr. Acton put front and center: decency is on the ballot. In the end, governments have to perform. They must meet the needs of the citizens they serve. But make no mistake: to be the country we aim to be, we must respect the dignity of every single individual. As Dr. Acton pledged again in her acceptance speech, her concern is not party but making life better for every citizen.That has also always been the concern of my son,David, the new Lieutenant Governor elect. I am so proud of him.

The Beauty of One Hour

I knew Joey Reiman as a world-class copywriter at the Advertising Agency, Benton & Bowles. He gave a galvanizing talk at the P&G Alumni Reunion in 2019 on Brand Purpose. I also spoke at this event. His email to me following the event captured more out of what I was trying to say than I ever said. He plays back to me what I shared with him but with fresh and memorable insight and far greater eloquence than I offered. Here is the message he sent to me. "I just returned from Madrid, Spain where I spoke at a magnificent P&G global conference. While I love speaking, I so much more loved listening to former P&G Chairman and CEO, John Pepper, who spoke about the beauty of 'one hour'. This hour, he says, would be shared by two people—as a special time and place where each person would listen to the other. 30 minutes each. Two strangers who would forever become confidants. It’s called genuine connection. Being present enough to understand the others life. No small talk. Rather what are you grateful for? When was the last time you cried? What makes you feel wonderful and what makes you feel at home? What lights your spirit on fire? He went on to say that there are all kinds of listening. But the best way to listen is with your heart. Until then, I had been always focused on what I would say in a speech. Now I will make it a point to arrive before the speech and talk with members of the audience about them. Then I can have a spiritual dialogue with my audience rather than a lesser rousing monologue. I will also take off my headphones on planes which I always had on to prevent conversation. Listening is the path to friendship, a relationship and leadership. Indeed listening floats all ships. The words ‘listen’ and ‘silent’ have the same letters. So have a conversation with someone you don’t know. You just might learn that to “know thyself” comes in second to knowing another". Joey Reiman". Joey's message continues to resonate and guide me, not nearly as often as I would like..

George Orwell and the Pursuit of Truth

One of the handful of mandates which I have tried to keep front and center in my mind—and in my actions—is the pursuit of truth. When asked what I most took away from my education at Yale, it was the respect for the pursuit of truth. When asked what I discovered at Procter & Gamble which most surprised me in the beginning and which was most foundational to my decision to stay with P&G for a career, I cite my recognition of the ever-present commitment to pursue truth no matter where it led and no matter how inconvenient the finding. Little would I have imagined that now in my 88th year I would have felt the concept of truth being so challenged or feel so compelled to reignite my commitment to taking the time to dig deep enough to try to find it. Undoubtedly, the presidency of Donald Trump has driven much of this animus. My appreciation of the challenge we face has also been deepened by my re-reading George Orwell’s novel 1984. Now, a few weeks after doing that, I have been further motivated by reading the “biography” of "1984', called The Ministry of Truth, written by Dorian Lynskey, This book describes Orwell’s life experience which led to his authoring "1984"" shortly before his death in 1949. It also illuminates the many writers whom Orwell had come to know who influenced his thinking. Still, with all those influences, there is no doubting the originality of Orwell’s work. The most influential chapter of Orwell's experience came from his participation in the Spanish Civil War. He went to Spain to support Communists who formed part of the coalition fighting Franco’s Nationalist, Nazi-supported opposition. His experience in Spain was sobering and disillusioning. He came to see the cynicism, cruelty and dishonesty of the Communists. He left this experience feeling there was really no difference between the debilitating totalitarian control of Communism and Nazism. Orwell’s pronouncement on the importance of the moral value of truth is registered again and again. Without a consensus reality, Orwell argued, “there can be no argument; the necessary minimum of agreement cannot be reached.” As Lynskey writes, Orwell was clear-eyed enough to know that one can’t always get to the objective truth but if one doesn’t at least accept that such a thing exists, then all bets are off. The dangers of group think are also highlighted again and again. As Franz Borkenau, an Austrian writer, scribed: “Civilization is bound to perish not simply by the existence of certain restrictions on the expression or thought...but by the wholesale submission of thinking to orders from a party’s center.” Orwell worried about fanaticism of any type. In 1940, he wrote, “The future, at any rate the immediate future, is not with the ‘sensible’ men. The future is with the fanatics.” How right he was—and still is, unless we all do our part in the pursuit of truth. Orwell draws the “connection between personal happiness and readiness to believe the incredible.” It is this “frame of mind” that has induced whole nations to fling themselves into the arms of a Savior.” In 1984, Orwell describes a picture “in the earliest 20th century” that could well describe today: In an essay called “Looking Back on the Spanish War,” written seven years before "1984", Orwell understood better what he had seen unfolding in Spain: “For the first time I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship was implied by an ordinary lie. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines.’” This was new, he thought. Totalitarian regimes were aligned on such a grand scale that Orwell felt that “the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.” Orwell continued, “If the leader says of such and such an event, ‘it never happened’—well it never happened. If he says that two and two are five—well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs.” Orwell wrote. And well it should. Here is the moral and intellectual foundation of "1984". Orwell’s generation experienced the consequences of Big Lies so absurd that they could only be sustained by the extreme control of totalitarianism, the kind depicted in 1984. As Lynskey points out, and I agree, 21st century authoritarians don’t need to go that far. “They don’t require belief in a full-blown ideology, and thus they don’t require violence of terror police,” writes the historian Ann Applebaum, in a 2018 essay for The Atlantic. “They don’t force people to believe that black is white, war is peace, and state farms have achieved 1000% of their planned production.” Instead, they rely on “medium-sized lies: all of them encourage their followers to engage, at least part of the time, with an alternative reality.” All this brings Lynskey, at the end of his book, to Donald Trump. “Donald Trump is no big brother,” he writes. Nor is he simply a throwback to the 1930s. “He has the cruelty and power hunger of a dictator but not the discipline, intellect or ideology.” Lynskey depicts a more apt comparison being Joe McCarthy, “a demagogue who displayed comparable levels of narcissism, dishonesty, resentment and crude ambition and a similarly uncanny ability to make journalists dance to his tune even as they loathed him.” Lynskey cites chilling precedents in Orwell’s "1984". For example, referring to Hillary Clinton, Trump’s call to his supporters to “lock her up.” Trump meets most of the criteria Orwell used to define fascism: “Sometimes cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist and anti-liberal.” Capturing our own moment I believe, Orwell contended that such men could only rise to the top when the status quo has failed to satisfy people’s need for justice, security and self-worth. Social media has undoubtedly made the process of disseminating “fake news” (ironically being used to attack “real news”) far easier as it has become the primary news source for millions of Americans without meaningful editorial oversight. In conclusion, Orwell feared that “the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.” As Lynskey writes, perhaps Life magazine’s original review of "1984" identified the essence of Orwell’s message best: “If men continue to believe in such facts as can be tested and to reverence the spirit of truth and seeking greater knowledge, they can never be fully enslaved.” That outcome can never be taken for granted—not today, not ever.

How I Would Teach History Today

Background This morning I spoke with my granddaughter, Tibby, about how history should be taught, and our conversation led me to write this paper. I was recently listening to a podcast that raised a troubling question: have we become so desensitized to acts we once regarded as totally unacceptable that we can no longer judge what is true, or what is right and wrong? An often-cited example is the break-in at the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate, which exposed President Nixon’s involvement and led to his resignation. It can fairly be argued, and I certainly would argue, that President Trump has been involved in actions that in the past would have been viewed as just as reprehensible as what Nixon did. Yet today he is not being held accountable. Have our judgment of right and wrong, and our determination to hold people accountable, slipped to the point that we have lost our moral bearings as a nation and as a people? This question haunts me, as it does many others. “Might Makes Right” The premise that “might makes right” looms larger than ever. Indeed, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have said as much, for example in justifying taking over oil rights in Venezuela. Truth be told, “might makes right” has run through our history. It shaped the taking of Native American lands as we expanded across the continent. It supplied a thin justification for the Mexican-American War, which cost Mexico roughly half its territory and gave us California, Utah, New Mexico, and more. Our history is laced with moments when might has prevailed, even as, in every case, we justified ourselves on the grounds of doing what was right. We claimed we were making good use of the opportunity the continent offered or, in the Mexican-American War, “making life better for Mexicans” than it otherwise would have been. Imposing Our Vision Abroad We have also imposed our view of what makes a sound society by going to war in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In doing so, we have been impatient with a belief I hold deeply: ultimately, the citizens of each country must decide what is right for them. Our example has to be seen as the path forward. I hope it will be a positive one, as it has been at many points in our history, such as the Marshall Plan after World War II. How I Would Teach It So how would I teach history in a way that addresses this question of moral relativism and the right course of action for the United States? First, I would study what is to be learned from major events. I would present the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as examples of reacting to terrorism. We did have to react to it, and we had to do so in the right way. But in hindsight, we did not understand the history. The British in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Soviets in Afghanistan, had already shown that real change has to come from within. We needed to be careful about assuming we could come in, change how a country operates, and leave with a better result. In these cases, we probably have not. Most immediately, the U.S. and Israeli military action against Iran must be viewed in light of this same history: lasting change comes from within and cannot be imposed from without. Second, I would address moral relativism by focusing on the qualities that guided leaders in their most important decisions. I would examine the qualities of Churchill as he led his nation to victory in World War II. I would examine the qualities of Lincoln as he pursued both the emancipation of enslaved people and the preservation of the Union, refusing halfway measures that would have held the Union together while preserving slavery. And I would examine the qualities of Nelson Mandela that allowed him to forgive his enemies and bring South Africa together. In each case, I would emphasize that the success achieved in that moment was not guaranteed to last. It would be challenged by pushback. The continued pursuit of individual rights and freedom falls to the generations that follow.

Shades of Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer

Shades of Einstein and Oppenheimer: Expressing the Existential Threat of New Technologies – Today with AI The recent expression of deep concern and warning from the heads of the major AI platforms—including, Anthropic, Elon Musk and ChatGPT—remind me of warnings expressed vehemently by Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer 70+ years ago. They called for universal regulation of the atom itself and atomic power. Their call for universal regulation has not been heeded. The question is, today, who will heed those warnings? I hope and pray we will. There is a conference in the coming week between President Xi and President Trump. Here is a golden opportunity, if only they will seize it, to agree to establish regulations to control AI platforms so that they will operate in a way that optimizes the contribution to human life. The benefits of AI are huge. They are already showing up dramatically in healthcare and other areas. AI is here to stay, that’s for sure. Just as nuclear energy and atomic power are here to stay. The question for all of them remains. Will we have the will and wisdom to regulate them? It’s up to us. Unlike the atom and even nuclear power, the timeframe for doing it with AI is upon us. It cannot be postponed. We must master it and come together to see how to do it now.

A Revolution in Consumer Relations

I had a meeting on Saturday with Pete Blackshaw who has recently published his book, The Answer Economy. We talked about how an increasing number of consumers are using AI platforms to get answers to questions about the quality and value of different brands. I won’t be sharing any perspective here, I’m sure, that hasn’t become apparent to you but on the off chance that there might be at least a point here that would be fresh, let me relate my experience. I have formed a relationship with the AI platformm Claude; relationship is the right word. Claude has become an agent, an advisor, for me on certain subjects. They range from deciding whether a new book is something I’d like, to whether a movie is something I’d like, to whether I can combine different drugs safely, and to digging up information on subjects as remote as the cause of the potato famine in Ireland, to the history of Native American people. I used the Claude AI platform to check out what brand of detergent I should us based on simulated needs. All of this adds up to the reality that I have entered into a conversation with a trusted concierge in which I’m getting answers based on my prior preferences and by my stated personal needs. This is not so much about AI, it’s about consumer relations. Pete Blackwhaw said something that struck me: Getting a consumer to enter the conversation by giving them a prompt to questions to ask is powerful. Today most websites are really not built to stimulate conversation and a personal relationship as much as they are simply to present product options to buy. This is an revolutionary new chapter in consumer relationships, something Procter and Gamble founded its business on from the very beginning,: knowing what consumers need, addressing the needs through superior products, and constantly getting feedback on opportunities to do better.