The Two Groups Who *Do* Need to Do More, Stat

If I’m going to stick to my original plan to publish only once every two weeks, things are going to have to calm the f*** down. Shouting matches in the Oval Office are the complete opposite.

My point on Tuesday was that the wrong people—regular citizens who are already over-extended performing essential roles—are feeling compelled to somehow do more. Meanwhile, two groups are coming up short:

1. Congress. While a small handful of senators and representatives have been spectacular—see Seth Moulton today—we are 40 days into the energetic dismantling of our democracy, and the opposition remains underground and splintered. Watch the first 50 seconds of Moulton talking directly to the camera and convince me there shouldn't be a daily YouTube briefing from Democrats. Our elected reps don’t have to have everything worked out, and they don’t have to be in lockstep on every issue—but they do have to have a daily presence, sharing what they believe, what they are doing, and what they need the rest of us to do. In the crisis comms world we called this…um, leadership.

2. Public company CEOs. So far, the silence from big business has been deafening. Fiduciary duty to shareholders is real, but it can also be used as an excuse for inaction. These CEOs get paid the (very) big bucks to make hard calls, and the reality is: they’re likely to be sued no matter what they do. Back in my crisis comms days, when an executive team was deciding, for example, whether to do a product recall, the question was: do we want to be sued by people who lost a family member due to a problem with our product or do we want to be sued by shareholders who will claim the recall was unnecessarily costly? In 1982, after cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules were discovered in the Chicago area, Johnson & Johnson set the gold standard for corporate behavior with a massive—and massively expensive—recall. Why? Because it was the right thing to do.

Back to today: is it risky for a high-profile CEO to cross a vindictive and petty president by standing up for our core principles? Sure. But if your firm has benefited from the stability of rule of law—and from generations of investment in alliances, education, infrastructure, and science—isn't it arguably very much in your shareholders' best interests to defend the system that supported your success? And, even if you don’t think your teams of lawyers can prevail with that argument, so what? As a leader, don’t you feel compelled to stand up for what is right?

I hope by the time the sun sets tonight—at least all the way over here on the West Coast—that more if not most of Congress is standing shoulder to shoulder with Seth Moulton. I also hope that at least two (dare I hope for three?) high-profile CEOs have gone on camera to call today’s Oval Office beatdown exactly what it was: a national disgrace.

Kate