Something’s stirring within me and I don’t think I’m alone. The last 2 weeks of the Kavanagh hearings have been incredibly stressful, embarrassing and quite disturbing to me — and I’m not even involved! I’m just watching at a distance.
It’s been quite an education.
I don’t like what I’ve seen. It’s scary to me and I’m afraid for this country. It’s been a cumulative experience over the past few years and an accelerating downward spiral of incivility and blatant disrespect. If this were happening in corporate America, HR would be all over it!
But, we’re not in corporate America. Its OUR government.
Bad behavior is bad behavior. Immaturity is immaturity. Politics over working together for the greater good is unacceptable. I don’t support disrespect on any level. I don’t support violence in any way. I don’t believe one person speaks for all people in any situation. I believe we need term limits on all politicians.
I do support freedom of speech. I do support the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. I do believe we can be mature enough to have meaningful discussion on important matters and facilitate a solution that’s best for this country, not a political party. I do believe we must do better and be better. I do believe there should be no career politicians.
I am not impressed by our current political environment or how our leaders have chosen to work or not work with each other. They work for us, not their party. “Washington” is a geographic location, not an employer. Representatives should represent the constituents who elected them. Where did that get lost in their job description?
My vote matters.
I don’t want anyone taking my vote for granted based on a party affiliation. I decide based on the issues, not the party, who and what I want to cast my vote for.
So, yesterday I changed my party affiliation to “Other” which means I’m now an independent voter. No one can count on my vote. My vote must be earned.
Today, I’ll share my decision with my US senators and let them know how they influenced it.
This is bold for me. Never done anything like this before. I was happy being on the sidelines and talking (or debating) with friends. But something’s stirring in me and I know what it is. It’s like when you’re in a meeting and you know you have to speak up because something’s wrong. Your heart starts racing and you really don’t want to speak up, but you know you have to. It’s like that.
We’re in a place in this country where the silent majority needs to speak up and stand up in a respectful and impactful way. We need to show politicians how to be respectful of differences and how to engage in meaning discussion that benefits us all. There are no sides. There is no aisle to cross over. It’s pretty basic. Do the work of the people.
And the media needs to get back to reporting the news, not creating it, not sensationalizing, and not telling us what to think. I am an adult. Just report the new please. And, by the way, can we hear about some of the good things that are happening? Who would we be as a country if we focused more on what we’re doing right and did more of that?
We have allowed the ugly to reign for far too long and I for one, am tired of being complicit in this.
We don’t have to be on the sidelines. We vote our politicians in and we can vote them out. The media lives on ratings and we have everything to do with that. We can be more vocal and tell the media what we want to see more of. We can tell their advertisers what’s important to us through our spending. We can change our viewing habits if we need to. We have choices. We don’t have to accept this!
I’m stepping up! I hope you will too!
Terri D. Wilson Founder and CEO, Doing HR Differently