Disarray of Relationships

I’m retired and 73 years old. I worked from 1962 (part time during college) to 2006 when health issues consumed my time and made full time work impractical.

During my career – mostly at non-profit entities and mission-oriented organizations – I noted the use and reliance on interpersonal relationships. Most were functional and workable. Others were faulty and dysfunctional. Still others were dynamic, synergistic and creative. These are the ones I recall most fondly. Those relationships engaged me in the organization and drew me into the 'foundries' where ideas were made, tweaked and launched within the organization.

Such ideas were seminal in pressing the organization’s mission forward. Programs and operations improved with these ideas. Outcomes of our work improved as well. At the university students experienced more relevant education and developed their adult selves purposely and effectively. Years later we heard from many of those same students as they moved through their own careers and personal lives with success and forward thinking.

I also worked in organizations that had narrow views of themselves. They were there to do a job, make some money so the jobs remained in place, and otherwise didn’t push the organization to higher levels of success or optimal output. In such organizations the customer or end user was often tolerated and not valued. That kind of working environment is crushingly uninviting and thwarts personal growth. Best to leave it behind as a lost cause.

Later in life I began organizations to fulfill a needed social function. These were mostly public service and charitable organizations. Their importance in this discussion is two-fold. They clearly have a social value or mission that is pre-eminent for them; and they also have an all-volunteer working staff. Coordinating activities and operations of such a group relies mainly on interpersonal relationships and mission centrist values shared by all involved. That should make the work easy. Decidedly it was not easy!

Interpersonal relationships are difficult to manage on a continuing basis. On a transactional basis – have a task, get it done; it’s over – is sort of easy. But when these tasks are on-going and require dedication and enrichment of the end users, transactional relationships don’t work well. On-going longitudinal relationships are the key to maintaining structural wholeness and maintenance of mission delivery. Such is the norm for most organizations and their operations.

In a sense we are hoping to acquire a 'career resident' attitude among the volunteers when clearly they have a short-term, transitory relationship with the organization based on many personal interests not necessarily focused on the mission of our organization. So relationships are the critical element in operating successfully.

This is true for churches, too, and schools, and educational support groups. It is very true of long-term public interest groups like the NRA, Abortion Rights associations and Pro-Life groups, too.

Just think of political parties! These are fraught with many complexities – local, regional and national issues; candidates of the same territorial significance; party mission and party philosophy; shared and unshared values that are in conflict; and elections won and power shared in the final analysis.  Political parties are still voluntary regardless of the financial scope of their operations.

The current condition of American political parties is woeful. Both of them – the majors (republican and Democrat) – are in disarray. The republicans are waging war within the party on whether conservatism or practical-ism is the focus of its mission. This is a very unsettled element within this party. There are many Americans who feel disenfranchised by their candidates and political party. So they are speaking out and supporting candidates who are out of the norm. Witness Donald Trump. But witness the other 19 candidates who competed with him for the nomination. Most of them were products of mainstream political processes, but they were mostly not of the national presidential timber dictated by past presidential election cycles. Maybe one or two were mainstream; the rest were not.

And the republicans have to live with that and wonder how they can return to a more normal operational format in the future. For now they must deal with the Trumpist phenomenon.

And the Democrats: with Bernie Sanders too old to prevail in a campaign to the White House, and too liberal to be taken seriously in the halls of Congress let alone the White House (remember compromise is key to success in politics), the Democrats had to figure out how to incorporate Bernie Sanders’ message because much of what he talked about and supported is good material for the party to work on going forward. Is it included and embraced? I think yes in the main, but it won’t be readily apparent for some time as the Democrats wage a campaign to get a candidate elected to the White House.

Meanwhile we learn that the organizational structure of the party took some short cuts in decision making, internal lobbying and strategic thinking that appears to favor one candidate over another. Of course it did! That’s the nature of the organization. Same for the republican party. Who’s positioned to best win the election in question, and how do we make that happen? Bernie was not going to win that discussion; no way. Hillary was the best candidate to do that. You can disagree with that conclusion but history will always clash with any decision to support Bernie. It was not in the cards at this time and party leadership understood that.

Rigged? Pshaw! Not the right term to use. There is a process and a logical one, to follow. The party did and Hillary came out the nominee. Get over it. Now, unless you think Trump is the best candidate overall, get behind Hillary and win this election for all of us!

That’s what is in the best interest of the nation. And deep down you know it.

Going forward the Democrats have to accommodate a broad range of issues. Bernie’s issues are very important. So are Hillary’s. And so are a host of other issues begging for attention in our nation. There is much to do. Trouble is there is not enough time or money to attend to everything all at one time.

We must settle for what we can do best now and move on. Later, we can choose more issues to champion and work on.

Republicans have the same job to do.

Outside the two parties the rest of us have a lot of work to do. The primary position at issue is this: Are we a conservative, liberal or middle of the road nation politically? This is an age old issue and it is not settled. But the act of working on it and deciding it should not make enemies of our neighbors. We should be big enough to discuss the issues of the day without needing a gun strapped to our hip to make the point of who has power. And who doesn’t.

For me it is ideas, relationships and human values. My party of choice needs to focus on those things to get my support. And now you see why I’m a Democrat these days and not ‘the other.’

Thank God for that!

July 28, 2016