Pulling Ourselves Away from Moral Catastrophe—Marilynne Robinson—Syria

It would be challenging to identify the single act which most exposes President Trump's moral corruption, but if I had to choose one today it would be the decision to pull our approximately thousand troops out of Syria. 

I cannot recall a decision made by a President that is at once so diabolical in abandoning an ally, doing something so counter to our own Nation's interest (i.e. fighting ISIS) and forcing an ally to join up with an adversary. All of this being done by a President not consulting with the State Department of military or his most important supporters. 

And then, witnessing the killing of thousands and displacement of many more people, the President cruelly dismisses our former allies, the Kurds, thousands of whom died in the fight ISIS,  as not being "angels" 

This horrific turn of events reminded me of a passage in Marilynne Robinsons book of essays, "The Givenness of Things."

" I had always thought that the one thing I could assume about my country was that it was generous.  Instinctively and reflexively generous.  In our history, we have demonstrated fallibilities that are highly recognizable as human sin and error, sometimes colossal in scale, magnified by our relative size and strength.  But our saving grace was always generosity, material and, often, intellectual and spiritual.  To the extent that we have realized or even aspire to democracy, we have made a generous estimate of the integrity and good will of people in general and a generous reckoning of their just deserts.  I do believe we stand at a threshold that obliges me to speak about the gravity of our historical moment as I see it, in the knowledge that no society is at any time immune to moral catastrophe". 

At this late stage of my life, I hope and pray the American people will have the wisdom to pull our Nation away from the moral catastrophe which Trump's presidency represents in the election of 2020 if not before.   

 

Insights and Encouragement for Our Tumultuous Moment

I’m reading a splendid little book, on democracy by E.B. White.  I’ve read his essays collected in The Points of My Compass decades ago.  I’ve always appreciated his fresh thinking—and did again here.  

Writing this before entry into World War II, as Hitler’s reign creeped across Europe, he wrote:  “I just want to tell you, before I get slowed down, that I am in love with Freedom and that it is an affair of longstanding and that it is a fine state to be in, and that I am deeply suspicious of people who are beginning to adjust to fascism and dictators merely because they are succeeding in war.  From such adaptable natures, a smell rises.  I pinch my nose.”

  

What an apt description of how I feel about the Trump presidency and much that surrounds it.  

Writing in 1943, advocating the world coming together in a government, White writes:  “Were we ever to get one (a world government), it would impose on the individual the curious burden of taking the entire globe to his bosom—although not in any sense depriving him of the love of his front yard.”

“A world made one by the political union of its parts, would not only require of its citizen a shift of allegiance, but it would also deprive him of an enormous personal satisfaction of distrusting what he doesn’t know and despising what he hasn’t seen.  This would be a severe depravation, perhaps an intolerable one.  The awful truth is, a world government would lack an enemy and that is a deficiency not to be lightly dismissed.  It will take a yet undiscovered vitamin to supply the blood of man with a substitute for national ambition and racial antipathy; but (White optimistically concludes) we are discovering new vitamins all the time, and I am aware of that, too.” 

 (Unfortunately, his optimism on this point has so far proved to only be a dream. But we must never give up on this dream. The future of our planet depends on realizing it, I believe)

Eerily anticipating our own time, and commenting on the FCC’s regulation of radio, White writes, “This country is on the verge of getting news-drunk; the democracy cannot survive merely by being well informed, it must also be contemplative, and wise.” 

In October 1952, White writes, “We doubt that there ever was a time in this country when so many people tried to discredit so many other people.” 

Well, he ought to be around today. 

“About a year ago, we started to compile a handbook of defamation, but the list got too big for us and we abandoned the project as both unwieldy and unlovely.  Discreditation has become a national sickness for which no cure has so far been found, and there is a strong likelihood that we will all wake up some morning to learn that, in the whole land, there is not one decent man.  Vilification, condemnation, revelation—these supply a huge part of the columns of the papers, and the story of life in the United States dissolves into a novel of perfidy, rascality, iniquity and misbehavior.  The writing of this lurid tale commands more and more of the time of the citizens.”

In an essay titled on democracy, written in June 1960 in the midst of that presidential campaign, White writes that he has read the books and published speeches of many of the candidates for president, including Kennedy, Chester Bowles, Nixon, Stevenson and Rockefeller.  He observes something that I’ve felt for at least the last eight years.  “They speak of new principles for a new age, but for the most part, I find old principles for a time that has passed.  Most of the special matters they discuss are pressing, but taken singly or added together, they do not point in a steady direction, they do not name a destination that gets me up in the morning to pull on my marching boots.  Once in a while, I try a little march on my own, stepping out briskly toward a reputable hill, but when I do I feel that I am alone, and that I am on a treadmill.”

For my money, President Obama described a vision worthy of “pulling on my marching boots.”  It was a vision of inclusiveness, of living our nation’s highest values embedded in living to a fuller degree our nation’s founding principles embedded in the Declaration of Independence.  But sadly his administration, impeded by Republican opposition aimed at making him a one-term president, didn’t in the end fulfill that vision.  We were not united as a country.  And President Trump has divided this nation more than ever.  

Therein lies the greatest need for our next president.  We can’t just be driven by what we’re against even though the commitment to ensure that Trump doesn’t have another four years is correct.  We must anchor our vision and the plans to carry it out on the future, together united. 

The Risk and Danger of Turning Nations Who Are Competitors Into Existential Enemies

The Risk and  Danger of Turning Nations Who Are Competitors into Existential Enemies

What  Are We To Do Now

It was December, 1989.  I had just assumed responsibility for Procter & Gamble’s International business.  I was excited about the future opportunities, for P&G and for the world and personally.  Francie and I had always loved going to and understanding other countries and their cultures.  It was an exciting time.  

Eastern and Central Europe were opening for business as the Berlin Wall came down.  Presidents Bush and Gorbachev pledged mutual cooperation in reducing conventional arms and limiting the future development of new arms. 

At the same time, for P&G, China was opening for business at a rapidly accelerating pace.  

In hindsight, I, like most of the world, carried overly optimistic expectations into the transition underway in China and what was still the Soviet Union.

I hoped, and rather expected that, as China grew economically and standards of living increased, which they did far faster than we ever expected, it would bring increasing democratization and the freedom for people to speak out openly for their own interests and beliefs.

In Russia, I realized as the 1990s unfolded, that the country and its people faced enormous challenges.  Everything was changing.  How businesses operated.  People’s lives.  How they worked.  How they shopped.  Prices were set free.  Better products emerged.  But prices exploded.  The press opened to different views.  People could say what was on their minds.  It was liberating but for many frightening.  Long familiar support systems were eroding or vanishing.

Leaders, some eloquently pronouncing democratic values, emerged, none more so than where P&G began its business, in St. Petersburg, with its charismatic, brave mayor, Anatoly Sobchak. We knew the times were tough for people.  But we—at least I—didn't know the half of it. 

I didn’t know then, no one did, where Russia would come to stand.  It was clear to me that Russia would need to re-establish its identity.  I knew that Russia possessed too distinct and "grand" a history and too rich a culture and had too large a global presence to become just another Western European country.  But I did hope it would gravitate toward the West to which many of its leaders had a  strong affinity.

There were options which we hoped would not come to pass in Russia.  We realized we could have had a far right Nationalistic leader who opposed the U.S.  We welcomed the election of Yeltsin.  We saw him as a strong and brave successor to Gorbachev, fitting the mold of the strong leader Russians have always followed.  I did not realize then how Yeltsin’s life would be decimated by alcoholism.  And how weak a leader he would prove to be, especially during the last years of his presidency.

I had high hopes for Vladimir Putin.  He was smart.  I knew he was a Nationalist, but I thought Russia needed a Nationalist.  But I also believed he would lean toward being integrated in some way with the West. And in fact just as was the case with Gorbachev, this was also Putin's first instinct as well. An instinct pursued I am sure with some hesitation given Putin's background but pursued I believe it might have been if we had had leadership of the temperament of George H.S. Bush. 

That was not to be.  The chasm between Putin and the West grew, starting in 2003, to this very day.  It is a chasm marked by distrust on our part and by an increasing feeling on Putin’s part that “the West is out to get us.”  A Cold War view of each other as existential enemies has reemerged, bringing with it great risk to the world.

In reasserting its identity, Russia has returned in many ways to its past, even as it has come through a period of “gold-rush,” frenzied, all-too-often corrupt pursuit of capitalism.  As in the past, it has positioned itself ideologically as a pillar against overly-permissive, neo-left liberal values, even as a narrowing minority of Russians benefit from the pursuit of these values. It has positioned itself as a protector of established leaders, and increasingly as an opponent of what has proven to be the United States over-reach, even with the best of intentions, to help nations like Iraq and Libya and Egypt “change for the better.”

What we see today is that Russia is not only viewed as having certain ideological convictions that differ from the United States and the West but as a country that has become a dangerous existential enemy.  There are, of course, reasons for this.  The annexation of Crimea.  Russia’s military support of opponents to Ukraine’s central government in Eastern Europe.  Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections and evidence that that interference is continuing.  The alleged murder of Russia dissidents.  Russia’s incursion into Syria to support the Assad regime.  

Russia counters with its grievances. And many of them have strong foundations  The expansion of NATO to its very borders, even though  Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that having  agreed to the reuniting of Germany, NATO would not be expanded east of Germany.  Then there was our unilateral decision to invade Iraq and drive Hussein out of office. And there was the overthrow of Qaddafi and cavalier dismissal of mutual nuclear control treaties. Increasing  sanctions in response Russia's incursion into Ukraine.

Taken altogether, there are real issues, compounding what are genuine ideological differences. 

Still we face the central question.  Are we right to conclude that Russia has become an existential enemy?  

I would argue strongly that the answer is no.

The only basis for reaching that conclusion is if we believe these actions and the ideological differences are forerunners and drivers of Russia’s strategic intent to expand its territorial domain or otherwise threaten the existence of the sovereignty or form of government of the United States or other free nations.

We have to ask ourselves:  Is this a credible scenario?  I see no evidence that it is—either in an objective analysis of what is in the interest of the Russian nation or in the pronouncements or actions by Russia leadership.

There can be no question that Ukraine has formed a uniquely historic part of Russia and that, within Ukraine, Crimea has and is today overwhelmingly populated by people of Russian extraction.  

On Crimea, we are where we are. I believe history will record that it was a mistake for Russia to annex Crimea. They could have protected Russian citizens without dong that, with all its negative consequences for Russia and the rest of the world.

However , what I believe is of no consequence.  There will be no going back.  Crimea will remain part of Russia.

 As to the nation of  Ukraine, any thought that Russia would seek to conquer it  it by force lacks any semblance of credibility. Russian leadership knows that Ukrainians would overwhelmingly reject and resist this.  Russia doesn’t need Ukraine.  It poses no threat.  We should face it:  Ukraine and Crimea are “one-off” situations.  

I believe Syria, too, is a “one-off” situation.  It provides the only access to the Mediterraean which Russia has.  The decision to support Assad, a horrible tyrant if there ever was one, was taken by Russia with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Mubarak and Ghaddafi fresh in their minds and without any evident alternative government that would have avoided the trauma that now exists throughout most of the Middle East.

I believe Russia and Putin clearly understand that economically they must be part of a multi-polar world, including Europe and the United States.

I believe  Putin means what he said: “Respect for the people’s national, state, spiritual and cultural identity is an indispensable condition for steady international environment that Europe and the world now need to cross the historic watershed and attain a new period of peace”.

Over the past fifteen years, I have seen Russia and Putin personally presented more and more as an existential threat and enemy.  This is being fueled by the media and Democratic and Republican leadership speaking with virtually one voice.  Only President Trump, for reasons which are hard to fully explain, advocates building a constructive relationship with Russia.  This message, which I embrace, could not have a less credible messenger. 

What worries me deeply is that this conception of Russia as an existential enemy will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I worry that it will lead to our not having the tough but constructive conversations and negotiations necessary to ensure we and the world do not enter into potentially catastrophic armed conflict; conversations and ultimately cooperation to avoid nuclear proliferation, to combat terrorism and combat the threat of climate change.  

We are allowing legitimate ideological differences to morph into a perception of threat that has created a chasm of trust and creation of expectations that risk creating the very cataclysm now portrayed that never should happen.

The China story is in many ways similar to Russia’s, although the path to getting here has been very different. Thirty years ago, very few people, certainly not I, would have conceived of China’s becoming a threatening global economic and geo-political competitor, let alone an existential threat.  I, of course, appreciated the grandeur and uniqueness of China’s history and culture and appreciation of the significance of its almost one and a half billion people. I also came to quickly appreciate the superior caliber of China’s political leaders.  They were the strongest I had ever encountered in their intellect and focus on building partnerships and achieving economic growth. 

For me and many other business leaders, these strengths were exemplified in Vice Premier, Zhu Rongji. I would describe his stance as “a-political,” focused on doing what was needed to promote strong domestic growth needed to create jobs and lift people out of poverty. 

To that end and believing it was in the interest of the entire developed world, we supported and lobbied hard to have China brought within the global trading system, including through “most favored nation” status. 

Little did we anticipate the speed with which China’s economy has grown: decade after decade of close to double-digit growth in GNP.  It is not surprising that along with this has come increasing consciousness of China’s global presence and the desire for external influence and involvement especially as a means of driving the continued economic growth seen as essential to avoid unrest by its people. 

Like Russia, China has reverted to its past historical roots in important ways, including the tendency for strong centralized, autocratic leadership to keep this complex enormous country together.  That has been the story of China’s history.  China has always looked to strong central leadership to control the often warring factions that divided China over centuries.  Security, economic well-being and safety are dominant values for the great majority of people.  Most are willing to sacrifice a greater degree of privacy and independence to achieve these ends than we in the Western world would.  China’s massive expansion of economic investment in the world and the growth of its military and the flexing of its near-China territorial ambitions, e.g., in the South China Sea, have raised the specter of China as a military geo-political threat.

Let me return to this vital question.  Do the ideologies and economic and territorial interests of Russia and China have the potential to challenge and threaten the very existence and current way of life of the United States and the West?

In assessing whether Russia’s and China’s ideologies today are projectable to other countries, including our own, as Communism once was,  I believe we need to weigh two elements:  the inherent appeal of the ideologies and the intent of the leaders to expand these ideologies to other countries.  

Before weighing in on these two factors, let me differentiate between two dimensions of a country’s ideology.  

The first dimension concerns its governance philosophy—more specifically the position it occupies between the choice of very strong central control by a more or less autocratic leader on the one hand and, on the other, a highly distributed balance of power similar to what exists in the United States and most free countries.  

As I’ve written, the leadership of China and Russia (as well as countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia), attach far greater weight to maintaining tight central control than do countries such as the United States and the nations of Western Europe and Japan.  For historical reasons, this is not likely to change.   

The other dimension of a country’s ideology is cultural.  How do people live in the country day to day?  How attractive and aspirational is their way of life to people outside the country?  This is influenced by many factors, including what are perceived to be the opportunities for growth individually and as families?  What is the degree of personal freedom?

The appeal of a nation’s cultural identify is subject to change over time.  It can shift.  Different perceptions can emerge on how people live and the overall quality of their lives.  

The external view of the U.S. culture was different, for example, in the Great Depression of the 1930s than during the “Roaring” 1920s.  And race riots and the Civil Rights movement probably had an influence, as likely the plethora of mass killings do today.  Still, over time, I think it’s safe to say that the consistent prominent view of the U.S. culture has been one of being open, committed to the rule of law and self-expression and spontaneous in offering a relatively high degree of individual opportunity and freedom.

This is all background to address the question:  How attractive are the governance and cultural ideologies of China and Russia to the leaders and the people of other nations?  

I find the answers to this question to be clear.

The governance ideology which characterizes China and Russia is of definite appeal to leaders of other countries who, for whatever reason, aspire to exercise strong autocratic control.  They seek to create a political structure in their countries which enables them to achieve strong control.  Erdogan’s Turkey, Maduro’s Venezuela, Kim Jung’s North Korea are examples.

Russia and China have and I believe will continue to support and defend leaders of this ilk and the sovereignties of the nations they represent.  They will use social media to support such leaders and try to denigrate their opponents.  

But will they use military force to expand or sustain success of autocratic governments?

I believe they might, but only in  very qualified circumstances, including believing doing so is not in conflict with their long-term economic interests.  Russia’s involvement in Syria is probably a case in point.  Russia’s motivation in preventing Assad’s overthrow stems from such a motivation, and it appears to have worked.  I believe Putin’s decision to do this was particularly motivated by his having witnessed the downfall of Gaddafi in Libya, Mubarak in Egypt and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.  

As I have written, I believe Russia’s incursion into Eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, as well as Putin’s military support of Assad, are one-off situations driven importantly by the historical strategic importance and geographical proximity of Ukraine to Russia and Syria’s providing the only Russian access to the Mediterranean Sea.

I do not believe this constitutes evidence of a broad inclination by Russia to intervene militarily in support of autocratic rulers broadly. Nor do I believe China’s leaders have any such inclination. 

In this connection, I would underscore how any decision to intervene militarily, by either Russia or China, will be constrained by the embedded global economic system in which they are an integral part.  

The constraint on military action imposed by Russia’s and China’s economic health being inextricably tied to the global system of commerce is demonstrated—to date, thankfully—by Mainland China’s hesitancy in strongly intervening to combat the freedom movement in Hong Kong.   

The other consideration which rules against China’s and Russia’s being an existential threat is the lack of appeal of their ideological culture.  My appraisal could be challenged as being too high-handed.  But facts support it.  Ask yourself:  How does the number of people seeking to move to the United States compare to the number seeking to emigrate to China and Russia?  To be sure, many people have gone to China because of its economic opportunities.  But how many have gone because this is where they wanted their family to live and their children to grow up culturally?

I wouldn’t want this statement to belittle the culture of these two countries.  I have spent a lot of time in Russia and a considerable amount in China.  There is an enormous amount in their cultures and their people which I resonate to and deeply appreciate:  the history, the arts, the courage and stamina of the people, and strength and inspiration to be gained from friendships which, if not always quickly formed, can be deep and long-lasting if built on trust.

With all of this—where do we end up?

I have tried to convey my belief that, while China and Russia are and will remain competitors, in some ways very serious competitors of the United States and West, with important differences in ideologies, they are not existential enemies and should not be treated as such.  

This is not a semantic issue.  There is an enormous danger in approaching and dealing with these countries as existential enemies as opposed to competitors whom we should engage on the world stage to advance our mutual interests and those of the entire world. What is the danger I refer to?

To repeat for emphasis, it  is the risk that we will not enter into the necessary negotiations with these nations in order to minimize the planet-threatening risk of nuclear annihilation and terrorism and failed states and to advance preservation of the environment. We simply cannot come to grips with resolving these issues if we are not working to address them together, in concert with other nations. 

Our goal should be to establish a sustained, trust-based relationship at the highest level of government that will allow the identification of common interests and competing interests and how the latter can be best resolved.  Our preeminent objective should be to avoid military conflict and achieve policies which balance the interests of both countries. 

Our underlying mindset must recognize that we must go beyond co-existence to active cooperation in areas of common interest in order to achieve the peace and prosperity in the world that we seek. 

This will require a long-term view (10+ years, not 1 or 2 years).  It will require the willingness to share different views on issues such as human rights without crossing over into an attack on the other nation’s sovereignty. It will require a joint determination to make decisions based insofar as possible on a win-win and expand the pie view of what is possible rather than a lose-lose or zero-sum view. 

How do we proceed?

For starters, deep discussions within the leadership of the United States, China and Russia, in concert with our allies, should lead to a joint statement that the relationship among these countries will not be based on the premise that they are existential enemies but rather are competitors.  It would acknowledge nations’ differing ideologies but forcefully commit to collaborating to advance the interests and safety of the countries and the entire world.

The statement would explain the basis for this conclusion.  

This statement, in and of itself, would be huge news, comparable in impact to the announcements in the late 1980s from Presidents Reagan and Bush and Gorbachev that we would no longer regard each other as enemies.  That was an astounding conclusion to announce then.  It would, if anything, be more astounding today.  

This statement would be accompanied by a listing of common interests that bring the countries together and competing interests which remain and which would be the subject of ongoing negotiation.  

While far beyond my capability to identify, today these issues might include:

• For Russia and the United States – Resolution of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and Syria.

Russia’s involvement in tampering with U.S. elections through the use of social media and other means.  Similarly, their involvement in what is seen as efforts to undermine democracy in Western Europe.  

• For China and the U.S. – Reaching a constructive agreement on the ongoing trade war, including the honoring of intellectual property.  Negotiation on the trade and intellectual property issues, of course, are ongoing.  However, the likelihood of reaching agreement on a path forward is far more likely to occur if the discussion were taking place in a context that we are not dealing with each other as existential enemies.  

• For all these countries, the control of nuclear weapons would be subjects for negotiation, with the understanding that this process would be a long and continuing one.

Some will say even trying to undertake this effort is a fool’s errand, for either of two reasons. First, because they believe that Russia (and perhaps China as well) is out to fundamentally undermine our form of governance, much as communism did. They will point to election interference as primary evidence. I agree Russia at some level has done this.and it needs to be confronted directly and strongly and actions taken to defuse whatever attempst are made. However, without claiming to be sure I have the right answer, I believe this is more a defensive reaction than a concerted strategic plan and most importantly I see it most unlikely to have a decisive impact on election outcomes.

The other reason for considering this a proverbial fools errand is that so many other efforts to do what I am advocating—the League of Nations and United Nations being two--have failed to achieve lasting peace. My proposal here could easily be looked at as another ill fated venture into Wilsonian utopianism.

I acknowledge this possibility.  I have lived longer than long enough to come to appreciate man's darker instincts including the quest for power and tragic instinct to see the "other' as an "enemy".  While previous efforts to prevent the outbreak of devastating global warfare though united action have failed, should we not keep open the possibility that now knowing the world-ending potential of nuclear weapons, and learning from failed previous efforts, we will be motivated to put in place a process that will work?

Really, what choice to we have? The alternative is sobering and frightening:   The three major powers of the world viewing ourselves as existential enemies, building up unending defense budgets, increasing the risk of accidental conflict, arguing from a win-lose frame of mind, cooperating only on the margin without established trust based on deep channels of negotiation.  That is an alternative we cannot and should not accept. Conscious of the possibility of failure but even more conscious of the importance of doing it right, we must try. We owe if to the generations of the future. 

*****

Even if we concede that Russia and China do not represent existential threats  the question presents itself: are there are other nations—or movements—that do represent existential  threats in terms of intent and capability.  Yes, I believe there are. The most significant threat I see comes from states or movements committed to the expansion of radical Muslim ideology and way of living. ISIS is such a movement and it has expansionary ambitions. I believe Iran is such a nation. Failed states, like Iraq and Syria, represent the natural prey of this threat and so does Pakistan. 

 What must be avoided at all costs is allowing these entities to gain access to weapons of mass destruction. The containment of this threat must be joined by the all theleading nations of the world. 

This should take place within multi-national networks such as the G-7 and United Nations.

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Use of nuclear weapons should be renounced and treaties established to reduce the number of nuclear weapons which now exist and their delivery systems. The most important concrete objective which must be met to preserve the world as we know it is to minimize insofar as possible the risk of nuclear war, including by accident and long term deterioration of the earth’s environment by adopting protocols as the Paris Accord did informed by continuing learning and development of technology. 

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A Short Course on the Essence of Leadership

A SHORT COURSE ON THE ESSENCE OF LEADERSHIP FROM THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY’S CEO, BOB IGER, AND A SHOP STEWARD AT THE YALE UNIVERSITY GOLF COURSE

Disney’s CEO Bob Iger’s superb new book, The Ride of a Lifetime, provides the reader with a mine of leadership lessons all embedded in experiences and stories that are engaging and meaningful.  

One of these lessons took me back to a lesson taught to me by a shop steward at the Yale University golf course more than a decade ago.

The lesson from Bob Iger I refer to is the importance of “being present” for your people.  Present physically.  Present viscerally.  Present in laying out where we want to go and how we’re going to get there.  Present in listening to people’s ideas and acting on them where they’re appropriate. 

I saw Bob Iger do that again and again as I served on the Walt Disney Company board.  I’ve heard cast members at Disney World talk about how Bob had visited them, communicating, listening, just as if he were another cast member which, of course, he is.

It took me back to a visit with the shop steward at the Yale University golf course.  I was the senior leader in charge of facilities, including the golf course.  I had come to Yale after retiring from P&G out of love for the place and with a particular objective in mind:  overcoming the rift that had developed between management and union workers.  It was a rare student who hadn’t experienced at least one strike during their four years at Yale.

Shortly after arriving on campus, I was presented with a proposal to outsource the upkeep of the golf course from the union to an outside contractor.  My reaction:  “That doesn’t seem like the best way to start healing this relationship!”

I received a lot of pushback.  I was told the golf course, once rated #1 in the country among college courses, had dropped to #75.  Despite repeated efforts, I was told, the union workers simply aren’t up to the task.  

I wasn’t ready to give up.  “We’re going to give it one more try,” I said.  And we did.  

To cut a long story short, several years later, with the golf course now being led by a new supervisor committed to engaging the union workers, the golf course had jumped to #2 in the nation.  Its goal was to become #1, which it subsequently did.  

I decided to go out to the golf course to try to learn what had accounted for this turnaround.  I met with the shop steward, a burly, no-nonsense man.  I knew he’d give me straight talk.  

I asked him how he was liking his job.  “We’re loving it, Mr. Pepper.”

There was deep enthusiasm in his voice.  I asked him what accounted for it. 

I’ll never forget his answer.

Referring to his new boss, he said:  “He knows how to cut grass; and he listens to us.”  That was it. 

Here was a leader who was “present.”  Present in knowing how to help his team do the job better, actually contributing to the result.  And being present in listening to his team, getting their ideas, and being ready to implement them.  

And I knew we had implemented them.  Thanks to their ideas, we had saved hundreds of thousands of dollars as union members repaired equipment which before we had simply gone out and replaced with a new purchase.

Yes, being present.  Being involved.  Intimately.  Caring about the result.  Caring about the people who make it happen.  The essence of strong leadership.

Doing the Best We Can for the Cause of Justice—Plain Spoken Wisdom for Our Times

In the closing pages of his book, Segregation, Pulitzer prize recipient and Poet Laureate, Robet PennWarren offered this sober, plain spoken wisdom:

  “We have to deal with the problem our historical moment proposes, the burden of our time. We all live with a thousand unsolved problems of justice all the time…All we can do for posterity is to try to plug along in a way to make them think we—the old folks—did the best we could for justice, as we could understand it.” 

  I find  great realism and wisdom in this modest counsel.   It reeminds me of the words from the Talmud:  “We are not required to complete the task, but nor are we permitted to desist from it.”

Should I Speak Up? Should I Say What I Am Thinking?

We  all face these questions. Probably almost every day. In a conversation with our spouse or one of our children or a friend, or a subordinate at work, or a peer or our boss.

Something is on your mind. A concern. It could be sensitive.

Should you bring it up?

Here is a template of considerations which I try to keep in mind  (not always with success) in answering that question

1. Is it the truth-- to the best of my knowledge.

2. Is it essential— to reach the outcome we seek.

3. Is it likely to be constructive—in  reaching the outcome we seek.

4. Is it conveyed respectfully—not in way that demeans the other person.

5. And finally, is this the right moment and the  right setting to speak up? Or might there be another setting—perhaps more private and personal—where the issue on your mind could be presented and discussed with a better prospect of achieving a good outcome.

Looking back, there have been times I have said something motivated primarily by "just wanting to get it off my chest".  There is nothing wrong with that instinct, indeed it is an instinct to be honored.  However, I have found it pays big dividends to quickly check that instinct against the five considerations  listed above.

"How Democracies Die" and The Unprecedented Polarization of Our Nation

I recently read two galvanizing books: "How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, and "These Truths: A History of  the United States" by Jill Lepore.

In a surprisingly complementary way, they gave me powerful insights on challenges we face in our Nation today.

 I’ll start with the highlights of How Democracies Die.  Drawing on their broad knowledge of worldwide democracies and their failure, and sometimes recovery, Levitsky and Ziblatt identify four controlling factors:

1. A leader practicing authoritarian behavior comes to power.  They are characterized by four things:

a.     Rejection of or weak commitment to democratic rules of the game;

b.     Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents;

c.     Toleration or encouragement of violence;

d.     Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including media.

The authors persuasively identify behaviors of President Trump that match with these characteristics.

2. The deepening polarization between the ruling parties; in the case of our nation, the Republicans and Democrats.  While there has always been a legitimate (and necessary) debate on policies, that contest today has morphed into a contest of individual and party moral correctness and integrity, leading to mutual disdain and destruction.  

This development didn’t start with President Trump, but his character and behavior have sharply accentuated it.

As the authors of How Democracies Die observe:  In 1960, political scientists asked Americans how they would feel if their child married someone who identified with another political party.  Four percent of Democrats and five % of Republicans reported that they would be “displeased.”  In 2010, by contrast, 33%of Democrats and 49% of Republicans reported feeling “somewhat or very unhappy” at the prospect of inter-party marriage.  Being a Democrat or Republican has become not only a matter of a political affiliation but an "existential identity."  A 2016 survey (by the Pew Foundation) found that 49% of Republicans and 55% of Democrats say the other party makes them “afraid.”  Among politically engaged Americans, the numbers are even higher—70% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans say they live in fear of the other party.  I’ll return to this issue below.

3. The importance of “guardrails.”  Countries can be shielded from the negative impact of an authoritarian leader by what the authors describe as “guardrails.”  They include, most importantly, members of the leaders’ own party pushing back on the authoritarian leader, the press, the judicial/court system, other arms of the government (e.g., CIA, FBI) and existing "norms and points of mutual accommodation.”

Today, all of these guardrails are under pressure and, in some cases, direct attack by President Trump.  Overall, encouragingly, they are holding so far.  While Republican establishment leaders have, with few exceptions, fallen in line with Trump, the judiciary and press are holding the line.  One has to note, however, that the Trump administration is working hard to appoint judges sympathetic to the administration’s views, though history  reveals that judges in many, if not most, cases are going to be guided by their own instincts and often that will not be what the leader who put them in placed expected or wanted them to be.

The authors note that authoritarian leaders in other counties (e.g., Venezuela, Poland) have taken steps to change the judiciary and, even, the constitution.

Successful delivery from the leadership of an authoritarian ruler has typically depended on:  a) the entry of a strong unifying leader, and/or b) previously opposing parties coming together against a common cause—often to confront an external threat (war) or to escape a crisis seeking social peace and economic normalcy.

History shows that the return to relative “peace and normalcy" has sometimes depended on papering over and putting aside a divisive issue which shouldn't have been put aside. For example that characterized the two parties coming together after the period of Reconstruction in 1877, setting aside the issue of race relations which to this very day cannot be put aside. 

4. Broadcast and, to a lesser extent, print media and social media like Facebook and cable television have become not only echo chambers of one’s own views and biases, but they add fuel to these views and biases.  What a contrast with 50 years ago when people typically got their news then from 3-4 television channels.  In order to survive, these channels had to appeal to a broad audience, which led inevitably to a much more balanced presentation of the news. 

As Jill Lepore aptly notes, the internet now functions as a “polarization machine:  fast, efficient and deep and all but automated.”

*****

I will now return to the polarization of the nation’s electorate—a polarization deepened by party identification taking on a moral dimension bearing on the perceived moral worth of the individual.  This is persuasively illustrated by the statistics I have cited above on the attitude of parents to the prospect of their child's marrying a person of the opposite party.  

I’ve asked myself what has accounted for this sharply widened polarization:

1. Gerrymandering, with its outcome of most elections being decided based on the primary. This has led to the ascendance of candidates competing on key issues on the far right and far left of their parties.

2. Big money, particularly but not exclusively on the Republican side, has fueled think-tanks and supported candidates with policies and positions often far right or left of center.   

3. Most importantly I believe, polarized views on particular issues such as abortion and gun safety have morphed from what, in the past, were policy and political disagreements and debates into issues of moral integrity.  Notably, and I find encouragement in this, the current sharply polarized views on a number of "litmus test" issues have not always been that way.  Here are a few examples:

1. On abortion, we now see a woman’s "right to choose" being pitted against a fetus's "right to live”.

Before the 1980s, women’s health was not a partisan issue.  Planned Parenthood, founded by Margaret Sanger in 1916, found many conservatives, indeed more Republicans than Democrats, leading it.  For example, Barry Goldwater and his wife served on the board of Planned Parenthood of Phoenix.

Efforts to legalize abortion were begun in the 1960s not by women’s rights activists but by the doctors, lawyers and clergymen who ran Planned Parenthood.  In 1965, former Presidents Eisenhower and Truman, Republican and Democrat, together served as co-chairmen of a Planned Parenthood committee, signaling an across-the-aisle commitment to contraception.  Between 1967 and 1970, under pressure from doctors and lawyers, often supported by clergy, legislators began lifting restrictions on abortion in 16 states, including California, where the law was signed by Governor Reagan.

Roe v. Wade changed this.  Following the Court's decision by the Supreme Court in 1973, abortion became a political wedge prominently in the hands of President Nixon as he sought re-election.  Jerry Falwell rallied fellow Protestant Evangelicals to oppose abortion, fueled by the broader opposition to ERA and women’s rights.  Nixon, who previously had supported liberalization of abortion laws, changed course to capture the votes of Catholics and Evangelicals.  This represented a major change for many religious leaders.

Southern Baptists, for example, had earlier fought for the liberalization of abortion laws.  In 1971, the church’s national convention passed this resolution:  “We call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental and physical health of the mother.”

A strong majority of the American electorate would support this position today.  

2. Much like the issue of abortion, gun ownership and gun regulation were not historically partisan issues, nor had they been matters of extensive constitutional debate.  

The National Rifle Association, founded in 1871, had fought for state and federal gun safety measures in the 1920s and 1930s.  The NRA supported the 1968 Gun Control Act, passed after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., banning mail order sales, restricting certain high-risk people from purchasing guns, and prohibiting the importation of military surplus firearms.  During this debate, the Second Amendment played little role, since it had generally been understood to protect the right of citizens to bear arms for the common defense.  In the two centuries since the nation’s founding, Lepore writes, no amendment had received less attention in the courts than the Second, except the Third, which concerns the quartering of troops.  Republicans at that time were as likely as Democrats to support gun safety measures as part of law and order campaigns.

In 1972, Nixon, who had expressed the view that guns were “an abomination,” urged Congress to pass a ban on “Saturday night specials” and privately wished Congress would ban all handguns. He confessed he found the idea that gun ownership as a constitutional right to be absurd.

The idea that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to carry a gun rather than the people’s right to form armed militias to provide for the common defense became the official position of the NRA only in the 1970s. Gun rights became a conservative political movement, a "rights" fight especially for white men.

Lepore opines that the gun rights movement was tightly bound to anti-immigrant animus, which was building at the same time.  By 1970, somewhat less than 10 million American, less than 5% of the U.S. population, were foreign-born, the lowest percentage in more than a century and most of these immigrants had come from Europe.  Thirty years later, by 2000, the number of foreign-born Americans had risen to 28 million, constituting 29% of U.S. population, with most of the newer immigrants coming from Latin American and East Asia.

So now, women’s rights and the related issue of abortion, and gun rights—two previously bipartisan policy issues—have become ones defining moral identity. The moral dimension of the polarized views on these cuts deeper than the issues alone.  For many, they come to define the very moral worth of individuals.  Nothing could be more divisive than that.

So, what are we to do?  What should political leaders do to narrow the partisan divide which draws so much animus from the perceived or alleged moral convictions of the holder? What should each of us do?

I have to begin by underscoring the reality that some issues carry an irreconcilable moral choice which cannot and should not be ducked. There is no better example than slavery.  Today, slavery is viewed as an abomination.  It would be impossible to imagine a strong abolitionist in the 1840s and 1850s not characterizing a slave-holder as immoral in his belief. But make no mistake: many if not most slave holders felt their position was morally correct.  Looked at today, we would not see any way to compromise on the issue of slavery.  After all, you can’t say that some people should be enslaved, and others not, without denying the intrinsic right of everyone to personal freedom.

And yet, historically, we spent more than a century in our nation compromising on this issue of slavery.  Compromise was embedded in our constitution to begin with; compromises were legislated in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas and Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed the decision on slavery to be a matter of popular sovereignty in each territory. . Even Lincoln, while hating slavery and convinced that it would eventually be eradicated, agreed to its continuation in the Confederate states up to the midpoint of the Civil War.

Nazism is another example of an “-ism” that was inherently immoral, with its belief in the purity and sanctity of one “pure” race, and the attendant genocide of the Jews.  Hitler made no secret of his beliefs. They were writ large in Mein Kampf. Yet, for years, a host of German and leaders of other nations attempted to negotiate and compromise with Hitler, prepared to live with this abomination. 

 I write this is to express the obvious truth that man is capable of inherently immoral beliefs and bringing them to life through actions that deny the basic right to individual freedom and dignity to every human being.  These issues do not brook compromise.

However, there have been, and today there remain issues which have assumed the aura of an unbridgeable moral certitude so that a search for legitimate and constructive compromise is not even considered.

That is a mistake.

To take an example—prohibition.  In the 1920s in the United States, the abhorrence of drinking of any kind reached the point of being seen by many as an existential moral abomination that had to be outlawed.  A constitutional amendment was passed which forbid drinking of any kind in any place by any person (other than for medicinal purposes).  In time, common sense prevailed.  A person’s right to drink was recognized, but it had limitations—in age and point of distribution.

I have found that the biggest challenge we face is on those issues which pose two opposing rights. This presents the need to choose how to best balance those rights.  I doubt if we will find one simple everlasting answer to what that balance should be. .  New facts can modify the balance. A change in demographics and understanding of history can too. 

Take regulation of the right to smoke. With increasing knowledge of the impact of secondary smoke on other people, the need to limit smoking assumed a much greater priority; hence, the prohibition of smoking on airplanes and in other public places.  

On gun safety, we have the competing rights of hunting responsibly and protecting one’s self in self-defense alongside the right to be free of the violence caused by guns in irresponsible hands.  This is a classic case on which responsible leaders, aware of existing facts, should be able to reach a common-sense compromise which reduces the carnage we sugar from today. Leaders in other countries have done that. So can we.

Abortion is a particularly challenging issue.  You have a women’s right to choose whether to have a baby or not (this lies at the very heart of the right for contraception) and a fetus’ right to life.  How do you balance the right to safety and health for the mother and the right to life for the fetus? That it seems to me describes the task at hand.

Easy to write this. But, how do we attempt to reach a sound compromise on issues like these which involve conflicting rights but which on inspection fall short of involving a non-negotiable moral issue. 

  

1. Let me start with the easy response—“what not to do.”  You don't start out by simply characterizing another other person as "immoral."  While that may be your view, it is not likely to get you anywhere. You must address the issue—not the person's entire character.  

2. Seek first to understand one another, personally and their position on the issue at hand.   Get to know one another, really.  Be able to speak and understand each other’s language.  Only in this way will the magic elixir of mutual trust—the elixir to gaining agreement—start to be built.  

3. Identify those bedrock values and beliefs which almost all of us hold in common.  I believe you can start with our Declaration of Independence, affirming that whatever its source (God or simply human nature) everyone is entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Everyone.  No exception.  All people are entitled to justice and the opportunity through good education and health to fulfill their native abilities.

4. Turning to specific issues like abortion, gun rights and immigration that today deeply divide the nation, start by honestly recognizing that the challenge of resolving these issues grows from our allowing differences to morph into a moral judgment on other people's very character without genuinely attempting to understand and respond to the convictions of the other party, reaching a compromise that honors the bedrock values and beliefs on which our Nation was founded. 

While it will clearly be challenging, I think there is hope to be taken from the fact that the electorate’s position on many of these issues in the past was non-partisan.  I see no reason why well-intentioned leaders representing both sets of views can't achieve a non-partisan resolution that the great majority of people would agree to.

How to do that? Let me briefly, take gun safety regulation as an example:

1. Agree on relevant facts.  Get alignment on the incidence of deaths being caused by guns and their related cause (e.g., suicide, accidents).

2. Gain a common understanding of what other countries and some of our own States have done to regulate gun safety and what has been the impact on gun related deaths and injuries. 

3. Learning from this, identify concrete steps that can be taken to reduce the number of deaths and injuries while preserving the right to own and use guns by responsible gun owners.

It sounds basic. I can be accused of oversimplifying the process, I know. But as I have noted above, we have followed this path in confronting conflicting rights in regulating smoking and drinking in the past. We eventually negotiated consensus positions, even if not easily or quickly.  That must be our goal. 

*****

Still, stepping back, I need to be honest with myself.  Healing the deep social rupture, which is both a symptom and an outcome of the polarization of views which have taken on moral significance, will take much more than arriving at a common sense set of gun regulations.  For the rupture, which has grown not over a year or two but over several decades, goes very deep and affects almost every part of our life.

The moral dimension of how differences in views are held now gets in the way of conversations among people of almost every type.  Roger Putnam, among others, has commented, indeed has lamented, the decline of civil discourse and participation in community organizations over the past several decades.  It now occurs to me:  this should not be surprising, given the difficulty of having conversations with people who may be offended by what you say or who may offend you by what they say.  For many, this concern has grown so deep that you won’t begin the conversation in the first place.

This same phenomenon has affected what happens in our churches, at least many of them.  I belong to an Episcopalian church which I greatly value and whose pastor has greatly influenced my life.  It is a multi-ethnic church devoted to diversity of all kinds.  However, I have to confess that I don’t feel a person who believed in President Trump and his policies would feel comfortable coming to our church and hearing most of our pastor’s homilies.  To be sure, no one preaches the importance of love and of supporting one another more genuinely and with more passion.   But the rejection of what Trump stands for (and I share it) would be unmistakable and off-putting to a Trump supporter.

Obviously, the depth of the moral divide which separates our two parties has sharply curtailed the comradeship and willingness to work together of Congress members who would work together before.  There have been other causes of this.  People traveling home more, enabled by more convenient transportation.  Less time getting together informally.  But the basic cause is how people are viewing the other, morally.

Most sadly, this chasm has even affected family life.  It’s affected my family life and our conversations.  Try as we might, there are certain conversations that some of us feel unwilling to bring up with another member of our family because it will resolve nothing and lead to acrimony.

So what is to be done about this chasm in how we view and  regard  one another?  What will it take for us to make at least a small step to realizing that we’re in this together, that we share a common heritage, that there are values embedded in our Declaration of Independence and in our most fundamental religious beliefs that should unite us?  What will it take to bring us together, not fully, but far more than we are today?

In the short-term, I believe our greatest hope is to elect a new president who embodies the spirit of being together.  Who can communicate this reality credibly, avoiding the sense that it’s just “more politics.”  This has been done before.  Never for everyone.  Indeed sometimes, for what, in hindsight, was a small majority.  

More often than not, this coming together came in response to a gut-wrenching crisis. Never so prominently, as Lincoln's calling on the people of our Nation to come together after the still-not-ended Civil War in his stirring Second Inaugural.  But even then, we have to remember that many, particularly in the South, did not share this vision.  No, they had been raped and pillaged, as they saw it.  

Franklin Roosevelt rallied the country in 1932 to a unified vision in the midst of the depression.  But still, even then, a large number of people rejected it.

So we have to be realistic.  But equally we have to recognize that we do have a common vision and set of values in this country calling for justice and equal opportunity and a fair chance for all.  We were founded on this vision and, while never lived perfectly, we have never lost sight of it.  We need a leader who can enunciate and rally a majority of our people to it today.   

Do we have such a leader as we approach the 2020 election?  I'm not sure. 

Nothing Donald Trump has said or done offers me hope.  What about the Democratic candidates?  I believe that Joe Biden holds this belief and vision in his head and in his heart but whether he can credibly present it, I’m not yet sure. 

What about the other candidates?  We’ll have to wait and see. I don't write that devoid of hope. I remind myself the country had to “wait and see” with Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and President Obama, too.  Without any doubt, I felt Barack had this unifying vision in his mind and heart.  And he expressed it eloquently on many occasions.  But he had a Republican Party which, from the very beginning, was dedicated to ensuring that Obama didn’t have a second term and, though he tried hard, I think he could have tried harder, especially in the early part of his administration, to reach across the aisle and bring people together as only a president can.

In the end though, healing the rupture I have tried to describe will not be resolved by the president. No, it will fall on each of us and it will take time. It will depend on our being willing and sufficiently courageous to make the effort (and the effort will need to be intentional) to come to know another person as an individual, not as a preconceived member of a stylized class.

  It will depend on our seeking to understand each other's points of view and why we hold them.

 It will depend on our identifying, recognizing and honoring our common values.

 It will depend on appreciating that we are on this journey of life together, basically seeking and deserving the same things—peace, safely and opportunity among them…and that, in some important measure, we have the choice to help one another on this journey in our everyday life.