The Statesmanship Gap By Dave Puglia, President & CEO, Western Growers
As I write this, the passing of Sen. Dianne Feinstein is less than a week past, and the appointment of Laphonza Butler by Gov. Gavin Newsom to fill the remainder of Feinstein’s term has only been public for two days. While I have not worked with Sen. Butler before, and there is little in her experience that sheds light on her views on issues affecting agriculture, my team and I are hopeful that she will be accessible and open-minded.
That said, Senator Feinstein’s passing hazards the widening of an already-dangerous gap in America’s increasingly divided and uncompromising political discourse. She represented that increasingly rare politician who sought out opportunities for bipartisan problem-solving on tough issues, venturing confidently out from the safety of her own party’s dogma camps and into the desolate lands separating the warring parties as she searched for like-minded collaborators. When she succeeded, Dianne Feinstein engineered a cessation of hostilities, sometimes with lasting effect. In 2016, former Western Growers President & CEO Tom Nassif wrote in the pages of this magazine: “We need fewer politicians and more statesmen. We need individuals willing to set aside overriding personal ambition and political ideologies and take the kinds of risks that leadership demands. Central to the concept of leadership, at least in the American system of representative democracy, is the art of compromise. Nothing gets done without it. Does anyone believe our Constitution and Bill of Rights were drafted without statesmen making compromises they found exceedingly difficult?” I know Tom had two people foremost in mind when he wrote that. One was the late Sen. John McCain and the other was Dianne Feinstein. In re-reading that passage, and in thinking about whether and how we might reconstitute the principles of statesmanship in our politics, it seems to me there are some barriers to entry that must be acknowledged and breached. First among these, in my view, is the condition and conduct of our media outlets, not only the usual suspects—the broadcast and cable television networks, legacy newspapers, etc.—but also the newer players: Social media platforms, podcasters, bloggers and the like. From the sins of omission (information that clearly constitutes “news,” but is not reported) to biases in reported content both blatant and subtle, few engaged in politics and media today would claim that the pretense of objectivity that governed American journalism for decades remains intact. What ails our modern news media is a rabbit hole I can easily charge down, but anyone reading this is painfully aware of the issue. The real question is how to effect positive change—assuming we can at all?
Understanding media business models can be helpful. For media companies seeking to generate content that draws the easily distracted eyes and ears of the modern American citizen, the keys are conflict, drama and sensationalism, with constant projection of new content to keep us from drifting minute by minute to another media platform virtually tapping us on the shoulder and shouting, “Look at this outrage!” So, we are the problem. At least part of it. And to cure the problem, we need to actively encourage our political leaders to reject the easy path of unbending partisanship and clickbait politicking. They must know that we need, indeed demand, that they confront the tough issues dividing the parties, seek partners across the aisle, work toward balanced compromises, and drive them forward if possible. And we must step into the public arena when those legislators do all this, and fight to protect them from the inevitable savaging attacks from their own partisan-aligned allies. It is easy to become cynical these days, but there is reason for hope. In what is now a long career in public policy and politics, I have encountered politicians too numerous to recall. My less politically engaged friends often tell me it must be awful dealing with so many dishonest and self-serving people. But the truth is that many politicians seek office for the right reasons, and once elected more than a few of them preserve those good intentions. They struggle in a system that has been overtaken by partisan conflict as entertainment, and as the years go by, they may surrender to all of that. But not all do, and so it seems to me that our challenge is to surround and vigorously support those who sincerely want to accomplish something, those who see political compromise as a necessity rather than sin. Many in our industry did just that in our long relationship with Dianne Feinstein. She made it easier by placing herself in our arena—an unfamiliar place for a San Franciscan—and extending herself to create a partnership. Today, we must be the ones to place ourselves in unfamiliar situations, extending ourselves to motivate legislators to venture beyond the safety of their partisan camps and join with us in the tough work of seeking compromise solutions. None of it is easy, but with a commitment to the same determination that we admired in Dianne Feinstein, we can find new partners in public service.
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NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2023
Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com
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