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The Libertarian Party’s Shallow Bench

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee for President, had his second major gaffe recently. Johnson did not have an answer when asked to name a foreign leader he admires. Josh Barro wants to know, “who are these people who lost to Gary Johnson?”

Barro has a point. While Johnson has some great qualifications, including serving as Governor of New Mexico and successfully starting a construction company, he has not done a great job with the opportunities granted to him such as town hall specials on CNN. How was Johnson picked for this?

Johnson has been the clear choice for the Libertarian Party since he dropped out of the Republican Party for the Libertarians in the 2012 election. I wonder if this decision is similar to what happened to the Democratic Party, who have protected Hillary Clinton as the clear choice candidate for years leading up to this election. Even just 18 months ago, it would have been hard to predict the opportunity for a libertarian candidate to get so much attention thanks to the deep unpopularity of the Republican and Democratic nominees.

A mentor of mine likes to talk about keeping a strong bench. The analogy here is to a sports team. Even if you currently have a strong lineup, you want to make sure you have strong backups to call upon if something happens to your stars or if you need additional assets.

The Libertarian Party has a shallow bench. Well the Libertarian Party has lots of problems, including that our political system is designed to keep out third parties. But I think it’s clear there was little thought or time spent on growing the potential pool of people to make the most of the opportunity put before the Libertarian Party this cycle.

One of the most exciting aspects of my job at Students For Liberty is that we are growing that bench. I think it is only a matter of time before a nominee for President is a Students For Liberty alumni. But as someone deeply skeptical of politics and the potential for any one person, even the American President, to create lasting change for liberty, I am even more excited about how we are growing other benches. We at Students For Liberty are seeking to support new superstars and grow benches in academia, business, civil society, and many other arenas.

By the way, even with his embarrassing moments I think Johnson is clearly a superior choice to Clinton and Trump. I’m excited to vote for Johnson this November. But, I can’t help but wonder if there are other people out there who could have done a better job this cycle than Johnson…

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Trump Troubled By Police Misconduct?

Donald Trump has said he is “very troubled” by a recent incident in which an unarmed black man (with his hands up) was shot by Oklahoma police. Some may find this surprising given Trump’s previous choices to condemn Black Lives Matter and strongly support American police forces.

It seems to me that, at least on this issue, Trump has nailed the median voter’s position. Make a point of unconditionally supporting the police, and when forced with evidence so heinous you can’t deny, admit there’s a problem. And the solution? The police “will just have to get better and better and better”. 

This sure sounds like the median voters I have encountered discussing this issue.

I’m not opposed to a societal expectation of respecting the police. If I had to guess it’s probably essential to an orderly and peaceful society*. But if “respecting the police” is used as a way to stop the conversation then it’s a problem. There are really important policy changes we need to prevent bad cops and to help good cops do a better job.

Some of these changes are best described by Radley Balko in his book Rise of the Warrior Cop. They include:

  1. Rolling back or ending the War on Drugs
  2. Transparency, such as the filming of police conduct and records of police officers engaged in violent encounters 
  3. Community policing (“taking cops out of patrol cars to walk beats and become a part of the communities they serve”, p. 325)
  4. Accountability. As like most public sector unions, police unions have been very successful at shielding officers from being held accountable for their misconduct by passing “law enforcement bill of rights” which restrict their liability on the job. 
  5. Last but not least, changing police culture. This is of course a tall order, but it is just as essential as any policy change. 

If implemented, I think these policy changes can reduce violence, improve societal respect for the police, and reduce grievances of activist groups.

*Of course, so is an expectation that police officers follow the rule of law

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Tools

Tools are meant to be used.

Let’s say you spend a lot of time setting up a new tool, making it look nice, and laying the groundwork for how you think you will use it. But then you don’t use the tool. You’ve wasted a lot of time.

Even if you use the tool a little but it doesn’t improve what you are doing greater than the time you put into setting up and using the tool then you are not better off.

The obvious case here is that of a flashy tool with exciting features. But if the output isn’t going to make you better, or if the necessary upkeep doesn’t fit with your workflow, you’re not going to benefit from it.

Sometimes people use the busywork of setting up and maintaining a tool as a way to avoid their real work.

Right now I’m feeling the challenge of collaboration tools. These tools are intended to improve work in which multiple team members collaborate. The challenge is that different people have different workstyles. Some prefer digital, some prefer analog. Some prefer pictures, some prefer text.

It is really tempting to set up a collaboration tool that will allow a team, a department, an organization to better work together. If you have the right tool in the right situation it can take you to a whole new level of success.

But if not…

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Feedback

In my short time managing employees, I have learned people want feedback. In fact, I think they crave it.

Delivering feedback is easy. Say “good job, keep it up”. There, you delivered feedback!

Delivering good feedback is not so easy. What characterizes good feedback? In my experience:

  • Accurate (don’t say “good job” if that’s a lie)
  • Actionable (don’t dwell on mistakes; what can be done for the future?)
  • Concrete (back up feedback with specific examples)

The most common reason I don’t deliver important feedback is because I fear how the receiving individual will react. This is a bad habit I should break. Upon reflection, I tend to overestimate emotional blowups to negative feedback and underestimate the power of delivering feedback.

PS: I wonder if this is true of the population at large or if this is only true of the sample I work with (American libertarian millennials). Maybe this is a millennial trend in which we don’t know whether or not we are succeeding without direct feedback from an authority figure…and my reluctance to give feedback is a millennial fear of hurting someone’s feelings…