Disclaimer: this “political ramble” is about process, not political opinion. My friends and family members often hold wildly divergent opinions, and I have no intention of precipitating or participating in a flame war.
Many years ago, fairly early in my managerial career, I was involved in a commander’s tour of our production lines. As was my habit, I wandered about shaking hands and chatting with the line-workers.
One of them said something that struck and stuck with me, to the extent I always tried to keep it as a principle of my life and work.
He told me while shaking my hand, “You know, you are the only manager or big-wig that ever shakes our hands and talks to us like we were real people . . .”
I don’t mention this to toot my own horn, but to reflect on how easy it is to stove-pipe within our own group or clique. We tend talk mainly to those with whom we easily hold discourse and can establish a meeting of the minds.
The problem, we don’t all share the same issues and world view. The person aboard a sinking ship with too few lifeboats has a drastically different view and imperative than the one lost and wandering in a desert. To ignore that, to subconsciously assume we all see current events through the same lens, renders us incapable of fathoming the cultural undertow that has allowed Trump to blossom and prosper politically.
Pundits talk incessantly to each other, and at us, while relying on scientific surveys to mine the minds and opinions of ‘voters’. Unfortunately for them, there is no such creature as a ‘voter’, there are only people, with car payments, sick children and crabby bosses. You can’t find out or understand what they truly think with opinion research.
If you want to understand you have to talk to them (and let them talk) about fishing and family, about petty annoyances and triumphs. In essence, what truly matters in their world. People on the basic level are far more concerned about paying their bills and feeding their kids, than whether a proposal is unconstitutional or politically incorrect.
Polls cannot nor will they ever reflect the complexity of how we see issues.
For, example, if certain family members were to ask me if I wanted to go out with them to eat pizza, I would decline and suggest something else. Why? Even though I love pizza, I know that to them, Pizza equals Imo’s Pizza, the vilest and most cruel culinary charade ever perpetrated upon pizza lovers.
So, rather than provoke argument, or enter into a lengthy discussion, I take the easy ‘pizza-less’ route. The same happens in polls, people politely lie because it is convenient and impersonal.
We don’t decide based on True/False questions, nor do we vote that way.
I will close with something that may sound self-promoting, but isn’t intended as such.
When Donald Trump announced his candidacy, I didn’t give it much credence, and laughed when I read the pundits reviews on his first speech, then I listened to it.
Afterward, I told my wife, “They are wrong! What Trump just said will resonate with a large portion of the electorate. The pundits blew it!”
Which they wouldn’t have done (or continue to do) if they spent less time talking among themselves, and more time listening where it really counts . . .
End of ramble
