Tag: friendships

Ethics in Politics: Holding grudges won’t help win races, or maintain political management

Social interactions are at the heart of human discourse, and I speak from the perspective of someone who has spent a long time building relationships—not always easily, and certainly not always with universal approval. People often talk about love and unity, but I wouldn’t say I’m universally loved. In fact, I’m probably excessively hated by many, and I understand why. It’s not something I wake up hoping to change. I don’t start my day thinking, “I want people to love me today.” That’s not the goal. The goal is to make things work, and sometimes that means doing things others aren’t willing to accept. That’s when people get mad.

Recently, I’ve been vocal about supporting Ben Nguyen for the Lakota School Board. That’s stirred up some discussion. Lynda O’Connor has supported him, the former Lakota school board member who a lot of people are still very angry with.  I was at Ben’s fundraiser at Nancy Nix’s house, and Isaac Adi, another Lakota school board member was there too. I’ve seen Isaac at a few events, and we’ve had the opportunity to talk a bit. There has been tension between us, especially with the way his relationship with Darbi Boddy evolved, and how our policies got tangled up. That situation has many layers behind the scenes. If you want to talk ethics, you can justify being mad at people for what they do to each other.  I’ve been married for 37 years and have learned a lot about dealing with other people. I’ve dealt with all kinds of people—kids, grandkids, colleagues—and not everyone aligns with your goals. You have to find a way to make it work.

If you draw a hard line and say, “It’s my way or the highway,” you might be ethically correct, but you’ll lose people. And if you’re trying to influence something, losing people means losing effectiveness. Politics isn’t about making friends. When you’re trying to bring groups together, you can’t fall into the trap of friendship-based peer pressure. You have to rely on the strength of your ideas in a competitive environment. Politics isn’t a branding exercise. You can either withdraw from society or face the challenge of building teams to accomplish a task. It becomes dicey when political affiliations are based on relationships rather than ideas.

You want the best ideas to emerge. You want a competitive atmosphere where ideas collide. That’s the way you get an authentic system. You have to trust people to vote correctly, but only if you articulate your ideas properly. Sheriff Jones and I have supported other candidates within the Republican Party, and recently we have talked about the things we have in common. We want to help the Trump administration achieve its goals, even if there’s controversy—like the situation at the county jail over immigration policy. We agree on some things and disagree on others. We joke about it when we see each other to stay on ground we can work with. But ultimately, it’s not about building friendships or consensus. It’s about who can make the best argument.

Politics should be about argument, not popularity. If feelings get hurt in the process, that’s part of the election cycle. Politicians often use likability as a tool—they kiss babies, shake hands, and make themselves accessible to the public. But that’s just the first layer. You have to be confident in your ability to articulate a message. Many politicians get elected but don’t raise money or debate effectively. If you can’t engage with people who disagree with you, things fall apart. People get mad. I’ve had people mad at me just for being in a picture with Isaac. They say, “You know what he did to Darbi Boddy?” and assume that by being seen with him, I’m supporting him over her.

That kind of division doesn’t help a party win. There are all kinds of people with different thoughts. Isaac and I are not going to the movies together any time soon, but he represents a vote on the school board. He has opinions about how things should be done. I think he cares about kids and schools, even if I disagree with his methods. That’s what political faith is—believing in the process. If you base everything on popularity—“If you like me, vote my way”—you’re not making a real argument. You have to go further. If you can’t, things fall apart.

It’s essential to communicate with one another. Political candidates need to engage, not isolate. You don’t have to be best friends, but you need common ground. On immigration enforcement, for example, we can sit down and have a great discussion. It’s about positioning your statement and believing in what you’re saying. If you can’t win people over with your argument, people often fall back on popularity. That’s dangerous. You’re using your elected position to steer people through peer pressure, not persuasion.

That’s not sustainable. It’s why political parties struggle to work together. If you do that in your family, you’ll have a broken Thanksgiving dinner where people show up, but nobody likes each other. You might have money, but no real friends, they just hang around you for what they can get out of you. How you handle relationships determines your success in politics. Shared opinion has to go through the funnel of the party system. You can’t have 30% of people on one side and expect unity. You need at least 50% alignment. Even if you’re 40% apart on issues, you can still be on the same side of the line. Democrats are on the other side, and you have to be willing to work with people of different opinions.  Republicans might be at the center line of 50% and others are at 90%.  But their Democrat opposition might be at 40% on the other side of the line, and those kinds of Democrats and Republicans are closer together ideologically than the hard-core Republican at 90%.  But Republicans have to find a way to work with other Republicans if the party is going to do the work voters need. 

That doesn’t mean you abandon ethics or break promises. But you can’t get caught in “It’s either me or them.” That’s not a good place to make articulate arguments. Politics should be about fulfilling voter objectives. That’s the goal. I’ve disagreed strongly with how Isaac and Darbi’s relationship on the school board collapsed. It made me reluctant to get involved in school board issues again. But it’s not fair to someone like Ben Nguyen—a good young man who wants to make a difference. He’s trying to partner with other people to build something positive.

Looking at Isaac during Ben’s fundraiser, I  thought, “Maybe we can get another vote. Maybe we have a chance.” Not right away, but in the near future, we can build something. That’s how I’ve survived—by staying true to myself, relying on my ability to make an argument, and letting public debate shape opinion. It’s good to stay away from popularity contests. Fights don’t help anyone. They create a disjointed approach, and then Democrats win their spots because they unify—even if their ideas are really far apart.

Republicans need to figure this out, especially in school board races. When people see me in pictures with other political people they don’t like, they hold grudges. But that doesn’t solve problems. I want progress. I don’t care if people want to get a corn dog with me. What matters is whether they consider the arguments and make informed decisions. That’s what we’re trying to do—get the correct arguments into the public arena and give voters choices that reflect their lives.

Most people have excuses and fights along the way. However, it’s all aimed at uncovering the truth about what the public wants in representation. You have to trust that process. Make your case with confidence. Don’t rely on popularity. Don’t expect people to vote your way just because they like you. Win the argument. Let the best ideas rise. Let people make their own choices. That’s how things work out for the better and you get a civil society.  And much better political teamwork.

Rich Hoffman

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Time Management and Friendships: Being productive is fun but not very socially accomidating

To answer the question all at once, because many people have been reaching out for friendship, and I give them quick one-sentence texts and very short emails, it’s not personal. I have many friendships, and I like that I do. But I don’t traditionally maintain them. In my life, there isn’t a lot of time to ask about how the dogs and cats are doing, and I certainly am not one who spends time standing around the grill in the backyard with friends sipping beer and talking about lawnmowers. There is nothing wrong with that; many people enjoy that kind of thing. I might if I didn’t otherwise have the type of life I enjoy. But it’s certainly not a rejection of friendship that I express to all those who have reached out, and it’s been happening so frequently that I do want to put things in context a bit. If I can avoid some hurt feelings, I care enough to at least do that. I try to answer all the emails I get from people. For instance, my Gmail account is so out of control that if anybody sends me an email there, it’s highly likely that I will not see it. There are over 500,000 emails there that I will never have time to open, so I have other email accounts that are much more manageable that I use for the needed correspondence. It’s an interesting problem to use technology to reach as many people as possible and not lose touch with the personal relationships that can quickly saturate life with too much interaction. As I came to think about it recently, it really is an astonishing number of correspondence, and managing them all might otherwise make each of them feel disenfranchised, which certainly isn’t the intention. 

Professionally, I apply about 70 hours per week toward those objectives, which by itself is a lot. Then beyond that, I put in about 30 hours a week, usually between the hours of 2 AM and 6 AM, toward political endeavors, which I view not as a networking opportunity but purely as community maintenance. I want to live in a good world, so I spend that kind of time each week to do so. Some people actually move into elected office, and many have asked me about doing so in many positions. But the truth is, I can do the most with the time I have available in the way that I do because I am interested in so many community functions. Even though I talk about it a lot in specific formats, education issues are less than 1% of what I spend my time on. There are actually many more topics that I am much more passionate about, but public education is a predecessor to them. So, you must do one thing before you can do the other thing kind of thing. So, if you are doing math, you can quickly see that there are only about 68 hours of sleep left for the week, which would be about 9 hours per day. But then there is spending time with family, which I do a lot. And I have a lot of interests and read many books. I read an average of 3 books per week. I manage that by utilizing reading time during meals. I answer emails usually while walking from one place to another. And there certainly isn’t much time to talk about lawnmowers and smoking meat in the backyard. 

The truth is, I love the pace of my life and all the things I do in it. It’s a hyperactive life, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Many people believe that we are supposed to sit around meditating all the time, centering ourselves with quiet. To take time and find peace in our lives. I think that is a bunch of garbage. Life is meant to be productive. Quiet time is boring. I would go as far as to say that it’s lazy. And people who say such things are just trying to justify their own lack of ambition. If I had more hours in the day, I would quickly fill them with every possible opportunity to do something productive. They would not be filled with more sleep. I think only a few hours per night in the form of power naps is needed, and I’ve been doing this kind of pace for several decades, and it’s enjoyable. Not a burden the way many might think of it. There are occasions when hostile perpetrators came to my house at 2 AM hoping to find me asleep, only to be caught by me as I was walking around my yard at that hour with books in both hands and me reading them with a flashlight. Needless to say, they were quite surprised and frustrated by that reality. Being busy has its benefits, you might say it that way, depending on what a person values in life. And for me, it’s productivity. The more productive I am, the happier I am. But I do expect to accomplish things quickly. I don’t have much time for traffic or to get to things. I drive fast. I avoid crowds that might slow me down. And I expect to be doing multiple things all at the same time. My wife thinks it’s funny; we recently went to the grocery to get my mom some Mother’s Day flowers; I expected to be in and out in under 7 minutes. She wanted to look at the various breads and snacks, so she slowed us down and laughed at how fast I moved. She’s used to it, but she always manages to draw a joke when she has to experience my pace, which is so different from her. 

Usually, especially regarding family things, she coordinates where everything happens. I show up where she says and do what needs to be done. I love family stuff, but like the grocery visit, I usually have an hourglass I’m looking at before the next thing needs to happen. So, without a relationship with my wife, it’s pretty hard to get me to be somewhere unless she arranges it. I appreciate when frineds send me texts telling me about something important, even if I don’t answer right away. Those reminders keep me plugged in where I might otherwise miss it. Reminders of big events are very useful as news stories. I don’t waste much time on gossiping in the newspapers or the nightly news. But I do appreciate it when people point things out that are useful. From trusted friends, it helps me manage chaos better and still get to the essence of a problem. But taking time for small talk and smelling the roses that are just not for me. And I don’t intend for people who would like to spend more time to get frustrated with the lack of effort on my part. It’s certainly not intentional. It’s just clock management. You get just so much time per day, and I literally work to make every second of every minute of every hour matter to the most efficient utilization. And it’s fun. But certainly not normal. 

Rich Hoffman

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