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Loyalty
……Recently I was asked how my Notes are different from other political writing.…1. I write to get you to do something. Give money to a candidate. Call your Member of Congress. I am explicit about what I ask you to do. Others do analysis.…2. Many organizations urge you to give money to them. They will support candidates or do good works. I ask you to give money directly to candidates. Unless you tell me, I don’t know how much you give or who you give money to.…3. I write about candidates. Not as much as a full fledged magazine bio. More than most who encourage you to give them money.…4. My goal is to create a strong and unified Democratic Party. I have policy opinions, but rarely write about them. We need all the Democrats, all kinds of Democrats because the Republicans — led by Trump or without him — are a danger to freedom, equality, and democracy. …5. Today is different. The Letters will be different from the Notes. This Letter is about an issue, but not a policy issue. I will write a few of these. …6. I invite you to send me a contribution. Not money. A letter. If your contribution is consistent with my purposes. If you are willing to accept my editing. I will publish your contribution under Len’s Letters — attributed to you, of course. I write to get you to do something .
……Loyalty……Sheryl Sandberg is the most famous COO in the country. She wrote a book: Lean In. Was once Larry Summers Chief of Staff. Came to Facebook from Google ten years ago. She gets credit for Facebook’s success. She gets credit for Facebook’s current mess.
……She was dismayed by a lack of loyalty from Facebook’s head of security. You threw me under the bus, she told Alex Stamos. He told Facebook’s Board that they had not solved the problem of Russian infiltration of Facebook to affect US elections.
……Stamos has been fired before. From Yahoo. (Or maybe he quit both jobs.) At Yahoo, he objected to cooperating with the US government in reviewing people’s emails.
……Both places, he was doing his job. Making certain that customers were guaranteed security. Guaranteeing readers integrity. I could praise loyalty to the customers rather than to the business. I could complain about the CEOs and COOs who don’t have that same loyalty.
……I could make the explanation nuanced. Sheryl Sandberg, if she were honest about it, would have acknowledged that Facebook has not figured out how to balance its obligations to customers and the fundamental way that the business makes money — selling access to their customers and their information. She could have agreed with Stamos. And explained herself. That would have been loyalty to her security chief and her business. This is America. Hardly anyone is opposed to businesses making money. Certainly not Facebook’s Board.
……Donald Trump has a loyalty problem. He has a few fairly simple beliefs. If he hires someone, the employee should do what he tells him to do. His employees are responsible when things they oversee go wrong. His employees must protect him, not undermine him. His job security is paramount.
……Although he adds unusual abrasiveness, he is not so different from most CEOs in those expectations. His lawyers don’t meet those expectations. Ask James Comey for loyalty? At the expense of Comey’s commitment to the law? Not going to happen.
……Jeff Sessions and loyalty? Trump wanted Sessions to oversee Mueller. Not Rosentein. Mueller was and is an existential threat to Trump’s presidency. Sessions recused himself from that responsibility. Not because of his loyalty to the law. Sessions was looking out for himself. During the campaign, he had had more contacts with Russians than he had acknowledged. Sessions did not want to oversee an investigation that could be looking at him. That would have put him doubly in danger. Otherwise, Sessions’s work was consistent with his conscience and with Trump’s goals.
……Trump cares less about policy than about an investigation with potential adverse consequences for his presidency, to his wealth, even to his freedom. For Trump, a subordinate’s loyalty to the law or to his own interests is disloyalty. He could not be honest about his fear of the Mueller investigation. He fears his bad behavior would be exposed. Bad behavior that could jeopardize his presidency, his wealth, even his liberty.
……Not just the President. Nancy Pelosi demands loyalty. Stories about her quote an aide asking: What do you call someone who is 99% loyal? The aide answers: Disloyal.
……Others recall consequences for House Members who did not support early Pelosi leadership efforts. There is no statute of limitations for these people. Nor will there be for the Members of Congress who organized the recent letter signing against her.
……She exercises some flexibility. Representative Marcia Fudge allowed insurgents to talk about her as a possible Speaker. Fudge will Chair a subcommittee that is dear to her heart. Pelosi will be Speaker.
……Is Nancy Pelosi’s insistence on loyalty different from Donald Trump’s? She is not preventing the exposure of bad behavior. She understands that others have interests and ambitions. Her view of loyalty is different.
……Mine, too. I’ve been a CEO. A school superintendent. Twenty-five years in one tiny district. Multiple towns. Multiple school boards. One town had more challenges than others. Early in my career. After a negotiated settlement for a principal to leave and my hiring a new principal not the teachers’ choice. I was unpopular in school and town. The new principal needed to demonstrate independence from me. I understood. I needed that, too.
……Years later. Several principals later. An effective principal in that town and school still had to be and appear independent of me. That independence was an expression of loyalty. Loyalty to me as well as to the school and the job. A principal more loyal to me than to the school would have weakened us both.
……Stamos was loyal to Sandberg and to Facebook. Sandberg didn’t see it.
……Four school districts in one. 25 years. The equivalent of one hundred years experience with boards. A principal differing from me in a Board meeting was a gift. So long as we shared goals. So long as the difference was not too great. A harmonious duet is powerful. Dissonance resolving into harmony is more powerful. Two people singing the same note isnot compelling.
……Do you have something to say? Send it to me. Maybe it can be a Letter. ……One loss. Not a surprise. Mike Espy was not elected the first African American Senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction. 54%-46%. The South is changing. An eight point Democratic loss in Mississippi is a sign of better things to come.
……One race to to be decided. It is not too late to send John Barrow https://www.barrowforgeorgia.com/ some money. A Democratic Secretary of State in Georgia can reverse the voter suppression that prevented Georgia from having a Democratic governor. The run off election is December 4.
……One race decided. Businessman TJ Cox will be the Congressman from CA 21. The last undecided House race. Democrats have flipped 40 Republican seats, a net of 38 because two Democratic seats were flipped. ……The next two years.
…MInimize harm. Do some good. Plan for 2020.
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