What Anyone Can Do: Leo & Randy On Politics (1048)

Welcome to the What Anyone Can Do podcast with Leo Battari and me, Randy Cantrell. This show picks up where our previous show, You're the Peer, left off, highlighting the simple truth that who you surround yourself with matters, and that if we enlist the support of others, give back to those who give to us, and pay it forward for the next generation, we can do anything. Author and keynote speaker Leo Battari and I talk with a diverse group of thought leaders who will share stories and insights that will help you succeed in business and in life.

How?

By doing the things anyone can do, but most of us never will. Welcome back to another episode of What Anyone Can Do, the podcast coming to you from Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. My name is Randy Cantrell. He in Southern California, Leo Bottari. The website is L-E-O-B-O-T-T-A-R-Y, leobottari.com. Morning, Leo.

Morning.

We got a lot to talk about.

Yeah. Um, I thought it'd be maybe an interesting day. Particularly as we hear about the 2020 presidential election in the news constantly. And, you know, we hear about the fact that we at the same time get to send at least a third of the Senate either back to the Senate or take them out. We get to elect or not all 435 members of Congress on top of other elections around the world and yet— or in the country, excuse me. And yet it never ceases to amaze me how we go through this process every 2 years, every 4 years, and we continually elect people who are basically unwilling to work with one another, unwilling to go across the aisle, unwilling to do what William Ury talks about, and that is consider the third side, right? This idea that it isn't just about me, it just isn't about party politics, it just isn't about get reelected, it's actually, huh, maybe we're supposed to be here to serve the American people. Like, what would that look like if we actually did that? If we didn't just decide to dig our heels into partisan politics and decide to actually see the best in one another, see the best in one another's arguments, and try actually to come together to do something good. And there was a time in our history where that did happen. There was always partisan politics. It's kind of meant to be that way. I think the kind of fierce debate and challenging one another is an essential part of getting to some really good solutions and doing some really positive things. So the debate is excellent. The obstruction— and this is not a partisan conversation today. I want to be clear about that. This is both parties, and this is media that also likes to stoke the fire. They like to cover politics like it's sports. And it's about who wins and who loses and who caves. And, you know, so the idea of anyone actually coming together and actually producing something for the good of the country, what good is that? Because the ratings are in the fight and the more they fight, the better. And, you know, I mean, that's just a small piece of kind of what we're kind of witnessing. And I'm just wondering, when is there going to be a point where we finally kind of wake up and decide that, huh, you know, we— that it's the Ryan Folan cartoon, right? The collaboration beats competition every time. You know, we've got to get people working together. I just don't— it's difficult to see a pathway toward that unless we get to a place absolute crisis.

Well, here in Dallas, the famous Amber Guyger trial just concluded. And for those that don't know the story, here you've got a police officer. She had a long shift. She goes home. She ended— she ends up in the wrong apartment, and she kills the guy who lived in the apartment as he was coming toward her. She got convicted of murder. The jury comes back and of course everybody, you know, I say everybody, you know, the pundits and everybody was quite pleased that she got convicted of murder. The jury comes back and they give her, they've got the opportunity to give her 2 to 10 years based on some kind of a passion argument, and they give her 10 years. The 18-year-old brother of the victim gets on the stand after the sentencing And just a really terrific presentation that— go to YouTube and watch it. Amber Guyger trial. This 18-year-old kid gets up and he talks about how, you know, his brother would want the family to forgive her. He is a human. He loves her. He doesn't want her to go to jail. He doesn't want her life to be ruined. He clearly sees that she didn't go in intending to murder his brother, and asks if he can hug her. Comes down from the stand, they embrace. Of course, a bailiff is over there. Judge is crying the whole— I mean, you can hear sobs all throughout the courtroom. And then within hours, the 18-year-old brother is absolutely barbecued in social media, is absolutely lambasted in social media because he showed any degree of compassion.

Wow.

And I'm sitting here thinking, we've lost our minds. We have absolutely lost our collective minds. But here you've got a court system that is built on adverse— sure, adversarial argumentation, much like you're talking about with partisan politics. It's the pushback that we need, hopefully, to get better decisions. And if empathy is understanding, and I believe it is, But the horsepower is compassion, you know, and empathy without compassion, what good is it? I don't— we can't even get to empathy though, especially with politics.

Well, I think what you speak to also isn't just necessarily, um, you know, our legal system is certainly always set up in that, you know, adversarial way. But I think it speaks to kind of when you consider the, uh, the backlash on social media, which to me is shocking. You know, it should have been more support in that regard. And I don't say that with any, you know, nearly the understanding of the case, but I think when you see that expression of compassion and forgiveness, and that's something that we all would probably like to have a little more of. But where I think we've gotten away from that, and I think why the backlash happened is that, And I think this is where politics has been a really bad influence here, is that we don't take people's intent into consideration anymore. If someone— think about it, right? You or I, whether it's in this podcast or whatever, but think about being in a position where every word you say about anything is scrutinized I mean, all of us, I mean, everybody misspeaks. Everyone says something that just comes out wrong. It's just whatever it is. You get these candidates, for God's sake, they work in 16-hour days, you know, and then it's like, and some off-the-cuff remark now all of a sudden labels them as something because, and we know that that is not who that person is. We know, but we don't, or someone might intend to say something and someone is inadvertently offended.

You and I know when we've hit the record button, these people are being recorded all the time.

Sure. And people are inadvertently offended. And the point isn't to— I think to point that out, that whatever they said may have been offensive in some way, and I think that's an education for people, but to double down and go after that individual for anything other than that they just, you know, they didn't mean it, you know, that really wasn't what that was about. But we don't do that. Boy, we are all over everybody's case in ways that are so unfair and so extraordinary. And it's just, it's a little bit hard to watch, you know. I know we talked a little bit, one of the other things that obviously impacts politics other than the media covering it like sports is everyone blames all those lobbyists, those Washington lobbyists, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, last time I read the Constitution, none of them get to cast any votes in Congress from what I understand. Maybe we should start looking at the people who are absolutely influenced by these players, you know, the major lobbying groups in Washington and, you know, have somebody— this is where, talk about the power of peers, right? What if all 435 members of Congress said to the— I'm just picking this because it's an obviously powerful lobby that everyone knows about. What if someone decided tomorrow that political donations from the NRA, no, not doing it. You'd completely basically suck all the power away, at least from a legislative standpoint, right? I know the NRA does a lot of things regarding gun safety and all this other stuff, right? But at least you wouldn't have people in Congress feel like crippled with regard to putting the most common sense gun laws in place. Not to take away people's guns, not to do anything like that. But I'm sorry, I'm just not excited about giving access to military-grade weapons basically to people for no reason. They're not about hunting. They're not about any of that. Again, just, just common sense stuff.

Just conversations always just seem to devolve into— I mean, I'm going to use a word, I'm thinking, you know, just tomfoolery. I mean, just absolute moronic. No evidence, no understanding, not trying, not trying to understand. Just this, this Quantum Leap. I mean, this Amber Guyger case, there was another episode. It leapt to my mind. So the judge gives this woman who's been convicted— gives her— goes back to her chamber and gives her her Bible. Oh well, she was absolutely barbecued. Okay, well, now the courtroom attorneys come out and say she asked for it. Amber Guyger, the 18-year-old brother of the deceased you know, I hope you find God, blah blah blah. I mean, he had his Christian faith, that's fine, whatever. And Amber Guyger made some comment that she didn't have a Bible. The judge goes, gets her own, gives it to her, and the judge is absolutely lambasted like she's trying to impose— the woman made some comment, so all the attorneys in the courtroom are like, now this is not at all what you, you know, Right. We get that, you know, we connect these dots that we've talked about before and we fill in these gaps. And in politics, we really do it well.

And we do it in a way, um, the other day it was funny, someone, um, literally was asking me the difference between, um, something that's ambiguous versus something that's equivocal. And, you know, ambiguity is just you know, essentially a lack of clarity, but without any purpose behind it. But when people equivocate, you know, there's intent there. There's, there's, there's, there's deceitful intent usually. And, uh, that's, you know, and this is kind of what, you know, we have going on all the time. But I, I, I do want to go back to this whole idea of just trying to get to a point where there's something larger. I, you know, if you, if you remember, for example, back in the, uh, Bush v. Gore with the recount, right? Where neither candidate— and I particularly fault Gore for this, I think it was a terrible strategic mistake when they decide they want to cherry-pick which counties get recounted versus not. I mean, it's the most absurd thing, right? But neither of them, and I think it would have been for either one of them, how great it would have been to say, you know what, we think that the people of Florida, you know, they voted, their votes should be counted, their voices should be heard. And, you know, this is kind of what elections are all about. This isn't about I won, you won. But, you know, they said the other thing, nobody in that whole process ever appeared presidential to me. No one ever— they wanted to be president, but no one was actually prepared to act like one in a moment in time where it would have been nice if they just said, you know, this is about the American voter getting to speak and decide who becomes president of the United States. And I am going to be comfortable with that decision, you know, and live with that decision. You know, it's been a long campaign. We've worked hard. We've all stayed our case. We did what we needed to do. But Nobody was willing to do that. And I think that really said something. And I think it set a tone going forward. Here we are nearly 20 years later, and it's hard to imagine a time where, at least in modern times, where the partisanship has been so bitter to the point where I think I mentioned to you, Afir, if you remember, I think it was when Truman was running for reelection, or actually for election, because obviously he was vice president when he first became president. But when he ran for election, part of the campaign was against the do-nothing Congress. And you should see how much legislation the, quote, do-nothing Congress passed back in the day compared to what is done today. You know, they would, because our Congresses today are the do less than nothing Congress, essentially, you know, by comparison. And it's just, you know, we do kind of, you know, get what we tolerate. And I guess what I'd like to think that we could start doing in the spirit of working together, doing what's good for the country, doing what's what's right, I think, in trying to really move forward is not to be caught in gridlock, you know, but to actually get people to reach across, to have a media that doesn't view this as sports but views it as serious, you know, and that it isn't about winning and losing elections, it's about governing. And I don't know.

What do you say to people that To your point that you just made, we pretty much get the government we deserve. And yet there are circles of people, you and I both move in them, you are much more interested in politics than I ever will be, which is fine. I'm very apolitical. I'm interested, I'm a citizen in the country and I care, but I don't know the The cynicism and all the other labels that you can stick to it, I don't know how you overcome that until or unless there is enough of a groundswell and enough of a movement and enough people decide that they're just not going to sit on their hands anymore.

Yeah, I think so. One of the things that is very common is if you pull Americans about what they think of Congress, it votes, it polls really low. If you ask them typically what they think of their congressperson, that number goes up substantially. And so I think that's one thing. I think that's one thing that kind of keeps people just kind of, you've got people in a district and in many respects these are often very gerrymandered districts, you know, for, for set up basically in terms of party affiliation to reelect the person.

Do you think they are— and this is a generalization— but do you think that they are mostly satisfied with that leadership, or do you think that they are so siloed in their own— I mean, they care about what's going on right here, right now. You know, you're 2 states over.

I don't think they're sure. You know, the other thing, the other misnomer is that we don't live in a democracy. We live in a republic. You know, we don't have elections or we don't vote on ballot propositions and foreign policy and do all these other things. Right. We pay people, elect people who are charged to study those issues and the kind of depth and complexity that they are so that they can, um, you know, vote on our behalf. You know, so I think sometimes it's difficult to know, um, whether it's my person is ineffective or my person would love to work with other people, but they're up against a brick wall. Um, and they don't always blame their, their own person for that. You know, um, And I think on the media side of things, the other real difficulty is we watch what media best aligns with our worldview. So we've come to a place now where we're going to watch MSNBC, we're going to watch Fox News, and we usually don't watch both. And we don't— I actually love watching both. I love watching both. I love getting completely different lenses on the exact same situation. Oftentimes you're not normal, really, like watching, you know, people at different parts of the street corner watching a car accident, you know. I mean, it is really, um, yeah, but you know that's not normal.

I mean, we feed our own demons.

Yeah, yeah. But I, I think it would be great if we either, um, watched more of both, but then we also saw see a lot of what is just generally covered, or at least just get a number of different news sources that inform our thinking about things. And then basically challenge our folks. We reelect people, for example, members of Congress every 2 years who come back to us and say, well, didn't get a whole lot done, but I really tried. I fought for you, and I did this, that, and the other. I think most of us in our jobs, you know, in private sector, go back to my CEO, said, man, I worked hard this year. I didn't really deliver any value to the company and really do anything in particular, but boy, and I was up against a lot of obstacles. Boy, I had a lot of stuff out there, but I think not only should you hire me for next year, but I definitely deserve a 5% raise or whatever raise I'm going to ask for, right? This is, this is what we do. The absurdity of that when I talk about it in the private sector is actually what we do all the time with many people, not all. There are certainly some incredible public servants out there who are doing their best and who put themselves, you know, in situations publicly that most of us would never, you know, want to be in. You have to applaud that at a certain level. But at the same time, when keeping your job— and by the way, keeping a job where you're barely allowed to do your job is one of the, you know, bit of a conundrum for me when I think about that. But, um, but when keeping your job starts to become paramount, that's when we all lose. We all lose for that. And I think if nothing else, our litmus test, if you will, for people shouldn't be about what position you hold on this issue, this issue, and this issue. It's what can you do to actually get something done that will be beneficial to our district and beneficial to the American people next year? How are you going to reach out to people who disagree with you, see the best in them, trust their intent that they are trying to do good for the country just as you are, And maybe you'll find common ground and be able to do things that we can all celebrate and all should be worthy of you actually getting reelected. Wouldn't that be nice? So I think the whole point of just maybe sitting down and talking politics today again wasn't about partisanship more than it is just about getting people who have honest policy differences on the Republican and Democratic side and among other parties that are in this country and taking the best of those ideas and being willing to work together and then celebrate together and not having it be all about somebody's personal credit and all of the kinds of things that people are after. And, um, you know, I think when, you know, we start looking at that, uh, it's what anyone can do, you know, but, uh, what we know is it's not happening right now.

No. You know, and I think about our, our fathers. My dad just turned 96 this past weekend, you know, World War II guy, that generation. And, you know, your dad, my dad, that, that generation. I just think about the monumental shift in journalism and the way journalism looked some years ago. You know, when I was a kid who grew up watching the Vietnam War on television and listening to Walter Cronkite, um, you know, the scrutiny. And I'm not saying they, they didn't have a bias. We're humans, we're gonna have, we're gonna have a bias.

Everybody's got one. Yeah, no non-biased. That's right. Right.

But the scrutiny, the scrutiny and the integrity of the scrutiny has been somewhat lost in that this, you know, this wide open Wild West kind of a, kind of a frontier of just, I can pick up a rock and throw anything. And now you've got all this, all this talk about, you know, deepfake technology where somebody could take this video and make you appear to be saying something that you never said. And humans at least aren't going to be able to discern, right? Did Leo say that? Did Randy say that? Or did they not say it? And we just take it on, on face value. So I, I mean, I— technology has a, has a part. Journalism has a part. There's a ton of moving parts to this, which is what makes it, I think, so so stinking difficult to get past.

Well, but I think that, um, this just shows where all the power lies though. And no one ever believes it. Everyone looks to the top and they look to leaders and all, but you know, when you think about any, any great movement that ever took place in this country or anywhere else, for that matter, comes from the ground up. It doesn't come from the top down. And you know, until we, you know, decide to turn off news channels that we don't think are being particularly honest and fair, until we don't reelect people who aren't really getting anything done, this is going to continue. And we do have that power.

So it seems to me, maybe it's merely anecdotal evidence, that I'm hoping that enough people are getting sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Well, let's face it, that's really what happened in the 2016 election. I mean, just really think about it. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and all the hangover that went with that, by 2016, look at how well establishment politicians did, right? Hillary Clinton got a challenge she never imagined that she would get from Bernie Sanders. You know, people were looking for something different. It doesn't— you know, in both parties, 17 candidates, by the way, who started to get the Republican nomination. You know, Donald Trump emerges as the guy who's obviously the least establishment candidate of any one of them. The country was looking for something different because the system wasn't working for them and they know it. And, you know, and here we are at a White House now that, you know, people again, now it's very divided. People either are very supportive or they can't stand, you know, what's going on right now. But we're at an inflection point, I hope, where when we start going forward in some way, shape, or form, whether it's this coming election or the one after that, where there's going to have to be, I think, a coming together of the country and an expectation of our politicians that it's no longer who shouts the loudest and who digs in the most and who pulls whatever legislative maneuver to keep something from happening. And we start saying, don't tell me what you stopped, tell me what you did. And don't tell me what you fought for, tell me what you actually succeeded at. And now let's have a conversation about moving the country forward. And so my hope is that we're going to get there. It may take a little while, but I think we almost have to pivot back. Um, and I'm hopeful that we will, because I think, um, I think there's enormous benefits to us if we kind of come together. And I think anytime we've ever come together as a country, um, you know, in our brief history as a nation, um, that's always served us well.

Yeah. Well, it is what anyone can do.

That's what anyone can do. And I just, you know, it was nice just to, you know, riff on that a little bit today because it is so in our face. And I think to ignore, you know, what's so prevalent right now in politics would not be the right thing to do. So I'm glad we got to chat about that. Hopefully no one will manipulate the video and have us say something we didn't. And if that's— true, then just trust that our intent was, was good. Yeah. But anyway, hey, with that, um, yeah, let's, um, let's, um, you know, we're going to, uh, Brian Solis on soon. Yeah.

I'm pushing forward. Thanks for listening. Thanks for clicking play. We hope you'll subscribe to the podcast. If you don't do that, visit the website, L-E-O-B-O-T-T-A-R-Y. There's a link there that you can click. All kinds of ways that you can subscribe to the podcast. If you're so disposed, we'd love for you to leave us a 5-star review. No, we don't want a 4-star, we want a 5-star review over at Apple iTunes, anywhere else that you can review the podcast. Greatly appreciate it. Appreciate you. Have a great day. Thanks, Leo.

Have a great day, everyone.

To learn more about our show and what we do, to submit questions to us, and to subscribe to What Anyone Can Do Podcast, please visit our website, whatanyonecandopodcast.com. What Anyone Can Do Podcast is hosted Produced by Leo Battari and me, Randy Cantrell. Music provided by Kevin MacLeod is Vibe Ace, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 license. Thanks for watching or listening. We hope you'll share the podcast.