Hi friends. It's Super Tuesday, and things are getting *het up*, but there's a particular thread in the discourse that's been chewing at me for a while. Specifically, the sense that Trump represents a kind of threat so unique that we don't have the luxury of our values.
I hate "civility arguments," and this is not one of those. But even four years ago, there was a lot of talk about how to "take things back" we'd all have to give up on antiracism, or let sexism slide, or bail on trans rights or disability rights or whatever. Just WIN first.
One of the ideas that goes hand in hand with that is the impulse to get OUR OWN bully who can be mean and cruel like 45, or to elevate our OWN vulgar reactionaries not because we agree with them but because they're MEAN and they're OURS, etc.
I struggle with that, too. (And, believe it or not, it's what I listened to many of my fellow travelers *in movement conservatism* struggle with back in the 80s and 90s before I got better™. Spoiler: they gave in, and it eventually got them 45.)
I don't have a magic solution to the whole problem of "feeling like you're fighting a losing battle" and I don't think it's fair to stomp on people who are FIRED UP because they're being harmed and endangered by the current political shifts.
But I do have an experience that is… analogous, at least? It's stuck with me over the past few years of shitstorming. (Warning: the story is work/tech related. If you don't have the patience for tech analogies, it's totally cool to mute me and go back to watching NYT needles)
Quite a few years ago, the company I worked for was a fledgling consulting/dev shop with no sales team. We were doing well, but we were in an ecosystem dominated by fellow FLOSS implementors. Nobody was making a hard sell, because no one needed to at the time.
A new VC-funded company entered the mix, though, and things started to change rapidly. They hired and staffed up a sales team — small by tech industry standards, but an 800lb gorilla in our little niche.
It was a rough stretch for us, both financially and psychologically. There was the sense that we would inevitably be swamped and our low-pressure, consultative style of engagement with potential clients would kill us. We believed in it, but… Enough to go under?
One of the hardest decisions the founders made at the time was to hire a shark of our own. A traditional coastal-networking commissioned sales guy who'd play hardball FOR us instead of against. Maybe this is just what growing up looks like, we thought. Will it really be so bad?
Reader, it was so bad.
He chased vanity gigs with big name clients that were terrible fits. He badmouthed other companies in our small, tight-knit ecosystem. He pressured engineers into shutting up about red flags. He tried to convince the company to go into porn hosting.
We did not go into porn hosting.
After a mercifully short trial period, the co-founders pulled the plug. Even if it meant our clients rejected us for a well-funded sales army, it would be *US* they were rejecting, not a shitty, fast-talking alpha-dog dominance game with our headshots slapped onto it.
Lots of soul searching followed, and lots of heart to heart conversations with the sales guy that replaced The Shark. The new guy shared our values, and was willing to take a short-term hit if it meant being straight with clients and protecting our team. It was the right choice.
He's been part of the company for nearly a decade, now. Today, he's the president. He and the small but like-minded sales team he built have protected us from a lot of bad choices, and fueled the slow, steady tripling of the company. I can't overstate how critical they have been.
Circling back to the Big Theme™, I want to be clear that there are lots of differences between business and politics, between sales and society. Trying to stop kids from being put in cages? Those stakes are a lot higher than who makes a particular web site.
But I'll always remember the specific words I heard my friend and colleague say when that the choice was being forced on him: "Maybe we need OUR shark."
If the only thing in your way is pointless chivalry and decorum, well, sure. Fuck it. But trading fundamental values to get on top NEVER ends with picking the values back up because "the fight is over."
I'm not saying that to lecture anyone, or to subtweet anyone into backing My Candidate™ or something like that. It's something I have to keep reminding myself, every day, because it's hard and it's scary. But it does matter.
