#the performative helplessness of social media doesn't accomplish anything

[leupagus]

On being a boss

Piggybacking off my earlier comment about how politicians are employees; I don’t think enough people realize that that means we are their bosses. And while I know many folks who are reading this have never thought of themselves has being in a position of authority over anyone, the minute you become an eligible voter, that’s literally what you are. There are different names for it—voter, constituent, stakeholder—but it all means the same thing. You’re a boss, baby.

And that means you need to be an effective boss.

Think about how authority figures in your life have influenced you, either well or badly. Did the PTA meeting between your parents and your teachers always fill you with dread? That’s how politicians feel about polls. Do you hate getting summoned into a boss’s office to get reamed over something you did wrong? That’s how politicians feel about town halls. Did you get absolutely devastated over losing a job or not getting a job you really wanted? That’s how politicians feel when they get beaten in elections.

I’m not saying this to encourage you to have empathy for politicians—although honestly maybe remembering that they’re human beings once in a while wouldn’t kill some of you—but rather to show you how to be effective at getting your employee to do what you want.

Now, obviously there are some big differences in terms of scale; you are, please remember, not this politician’s only boss and almost certainly not their most influential. And politicians also listen to people who aren’t their bosses, like their donors or their family or their friends or their party leaders or the companies they came from pre-political career or the ones they want to join post-political career (they call it the revolving door for a reason). Those people aren’t their bosses, but they have pull all the same. So there’s that.

But even though the scale is different, all of us, no matter how young (including the 12-year-old who’s stumbled on this post) have had to deal with the pressures of multiple authority figures wanting us to do completely different things RIGHT NOW. So think back on those situations and consider what choices you made in those moments. Whose “orders” did you follow: was it the boss who would be most upset if you disappointed them, was it the boss who would retaliate the most harshly if you crossed them, was it the boss who would reward you if you pleased them, was it the boss who wanted you to do something that you yourself already wanted to do/planned to do anyway?

That’s not a trick question, I promise; chances are that your answer changes based on a shitton of variables. And because politicians are human beings, they also have different answers to that question. Sometimes they go with the people who gave them the most money in the last election (although that happens less often than you think, and way less often the more powerful a politician gets, for obvious reasons). Sometimes they go with the people who agree with them. Sometimes they go with the people who voted for them. Sometimes they even go with what they sincerely believe is right (anybody rolling their eyes at this wasn’t paying attention during the political massacre that took place after Dems rammed through the ACA in 2009; there are a dozen or so people whose political careers ended because they voted for it).

So as your politician’s boss, you have to figure out what tactic is most effective to get your employee to do what you want, because as nice as it sounds, you can’t just fire them every time they piss you off. So think about a politician whose mind you want to change—your Congressman doesn’t want to support climate legislation, let’s say. Look at her record and her interviews and past elections: what’s influenced her over the years and what’s changed her mind. Then you know where the pressure points are.

Of course you, by yourself, can’t make your politicians do whatever you want every time; not even whatever boogeyman people conjure up like the Koch brothers or Bill Gates or George Soros can do that (and believe me, a lot of them have tried). But, you do have more power than you think: you can attend a town hall and confront your wayward politician, you can volunteer for promising opponents, you can call her office and find out if her staff take in-person meetings (less common these days but my mayor does do zoom calls, lol). You can even run for something yourself; it’s really not as stupid as it sounds, especially if you’re not the only one in the field, because more people running is always a good thing. These are all time-consuming and energy-consuming options, and I know we’re all exhausted. But we’re also bosses, and we’ve got to do what we can to ensure our employees do the best job they can.

Besides, politicians change their minds based on their voters’ influence all the time—Bernie Sanders, for example, is a principled opponent of the US’s foreign policy and believes we should withdraw from the “forever wars” that we’ve been embroiled in for decades. But he also championed the construction of the... uh, not-exactly-practical F-35 fighter jet, which over the years has cost almost as much as the entire COVID relief bill that just passed. Sanders didn’t support it because he’s a hypocrite or a warmonger in disguise; he supported it because it brought crucial, desperately-needed jobs to Vermont, and he genuinely cares about his constituents. Sanders has also credited the influence of his constituents on his championing of queer rights and gay marriage, before most other politicians were sticking their necks out in support, because the people who spoke with him changed his mind. And while you can argue that Sanders is unique amongst politicians, he really isn’t; Biden himself came out in support of gay marriage just a couple years afterward—in an election year, no less, and I remember the absolute panic that set in about whether or not his radical notions would cost Obama reelection. (It’s weird thinking that it’s been a little under six years since Obergefell, isn’t it???)

Every day we’re seeing politicians getting pushed one way or another by their voters; the mayor of Austin had to go to court to defend his city’s mask mandate, for example, and Florida cities are fighting to keep their own mandates going despite their shitty governor doing everything he can to undermine them. (There are other examples but it’s Saturday morning, what do you want from me.) They can be pushed, and they should be.

To write politicians off as evil monsters who are doing a bad job because they’re just amoral is to ignore your job as their boss; if you want your employee to work for you, you’ve got to figure out why they aren’t (or if they aren’t, which: I could go into that whole thing but this is already longer than my dick). And then you can decide whether to push your influence, which you do in fact have, to either change them or replace them. It’s up to you. Go be a boss, baby.