Executive Bullies
Sometimes the only standard is what you can get away with
Trump’s current career and image were created in a reality TV show whose climax came when he ended someone’s hopes, dreams, and prospects with “You’re fired.” He then went on to prove that kind of corporate bullying doesn’t work well in democratic government. Scary as it is that 45 percent of the voting public still thinks he should be president, it’s scarier how much of his support is based on his thuggish behavior on that show.
The thug CEO may work well in some corporations. Put an authoritarian in charge and give him free rein. He can fire whomever he wants, so long as the employee is not related to a board member or major stockholder. His only job is to make money and, if not, the board can find a better bully. The impact on the employees is neither his problem nor his board’s.
That exaggerated model requires that the CEO have the exaggerated personality to make it work. Trump seems to have the lack of humaneness to make it work. Glenn Youngkin either has or can fake the same lack. Witness his willingness to increase suicides among LGBT youth in the name of some vague parents’ rights. I’m not saying the concept of parents’ rights is vague. I’m saying the right he’s protecting has never been made clear.
In government, the corporate bully model requires a willingness to ignore political and process norms. I was surprised as mayor of Harrisonburg 20 years ago to find I had the power to hoard bottled water in an emergency. I found this out when the remnants of a hurricane threatened to cross the Blue Ridge. I’m not sure whether I could have used it to hoard bottled water on behalf of a softball tournament, or if I could have used that power to keep bottled water away from teams opposing the one I’d bet on. The norm was that I knew the law wasn’t written to affect the outcome of ball games.
The norm among the corporate bully is generally whether something is illegal or not. Can the SEC stop you? What about the courts? If not, go for it. George W. Bush accelerated the process in government with his executive orders. The CEO is surprised to find what all he can do with just the stroke of a pen. Someone points out that the process was designed to facilitate carrying out laws passed by Congress, or to fill in gaps left by incomplete legislation. The CEO strokes his pen and does it anyway.
Oddly, keyboard warriors on the right called Obama a dictator when he signed executive orders. They were also horrified to learn of the budget reconciliation process, as if it had been invented purely for Obamacare, and not deployed eight years before for Bush’s ruinous tax cuts.
The latest example of the executive bully is Youngkin’s threat of legal action against School Board members if they don’t vote to adopt the LGBT policy he wants to impose on Virginia’s children or, more accurately, that he wants to force board members to impose. One parallel to this is Gov. Jim Gilmore’s car tax cut, the highlight of four years of budget gimmicks. Using a carrot that got eaten fairly quickly and the stick of mandated blame, he made it the fault of localities if they didn’t repeal the personal property tax on cars. (Look it up; it’s complicated.)
The difference was that Gilmore threatened political consequences for those localities that didn’t comply. Youngkin is threatening legal action.
One of the biggest blunders of my time on Harrisonburg’s City Council was the casual suggestion that we endorse a bond referendum. The story ended with me admitting that if government is going to tell people how to vote, there’s no need to hold elections. Taking that a step further, if the governor’s office is going to tell elected school boards how to vote, there’s not a hell of a lot of point to electing them.
But there’s power in being able to say your political opponents agree with you. That power should come from the strength of your arguments convincing them to agree. It shouldn’t come with the threat of jail or fines. That’s not the power of a leader. It’s the power of a bully.
(FYI, I’m married to the chair of the Harrisonburg School Board.)