Depending on the coach, a loss is either a nightmare or a teaching tool. Mediocre or poor coaches dread losses, seeing how they threaten job security, especially when they start piling up. Good coaches don’t fear losses, great coaches actually welcome them. Masters of the profession know early-season defeats are a coach’s best friend, exposing weaknesses papered over by victories. They open eyes, focus minds.
So it is in other facets of life, at home, at work, you name it.
As a husband and father, owning my missteps and shortcomings allow me to grow as a partner and parent. On the other side of the coin, every instance of childhood misbehavior is a teachable moment. Nothing to anguish over. An opportunity to do some especially useful parenting.
Managing foul-ups as a workplace supervisor taught me a foundational leadership principle, one I carried with me and made every effort to apply throughout my career. Give credit and take blame. When everything goes according to plan and endeavors are fruitful, recognize co-workers who were instrumental in making it happen. When things go sideways, take responsibility, don’t throw anyone under the bus.
It never ceases to amaze me how rarely the traits of a skilled coach, good parent or effective boss are put to use in the political arena. As a general rule, politicians want no part of owning missteps and shortcomings, they almost never see defeat as any kind of growth opportunity or cause for introspection. No profession talks more about leadership and does less leading. Leaders give credit and take blame; politicians routinely do the exact opposite.
In every election, someone’s going to win and someone’s got to lose. With public dissatisfaction with both major parties running as high as it is, Republicans and Democrats are taking turns getting spanked by voters. This year, Democrats got run out of town on a rail. Two years from now, it’s a good guess that it’ll be the Republicans’ turn. Such is the public’s mood.
This year, Democrats lost the working class and, with it, any chance of assembling a majority coalition. There’s little sign the trouncing is prompting much self-reflection. Democratic officials and the party faithful alike are pointing fingers in a lot of different directions, few are looking in the mirror. Most fingers are pointed at voters. Depending on which Democrats you listen to, you hear that broad swaths of the electorate must be racist, sexist, ill-informed, not paying attention or stupidly voting against their own interests.
Democrats love to dazzle with details, but when you strip this year’s Democratic message to its bare essence, what both candidates and loyal supporters were saying boils down to this: Things are better than you think. The economy, better than you think; the overall direction of the country, better than you think. I heard some variation on that basic theme over and over and over again.
Aside from coming across on the condescending side, that message just doesn’t ring true to a working class that’s feeling vulnerable economically, anxious about the future, convinced the country is generally on the wrong track.
Is there racism in America? Of course there is. But there was racism to be found in every part of the country in 2008 when the nation elected its first Black president and in 2012 when he was reelected. Are sexism and homophobia alive and well? Yes, absolutely. Yet my home state delivered its electoral votes for president to Donald Trump while also deciding it wanted to continue being represented in the U.S. Senate by an out lesbian.
Where the fingers are pointing, these are excuses not explanations. America’s middle class is shrinking, beleaguered workers are not misinformed about that. The real median wage of the bottom 90% is stuck close to where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large today. The working class can feel that.
Saying things are better than you think proved to be a losing message. The loss can either be written off as a nightmare or treated as a teaching tool. If it’s the latter, Democrats will zero in on answering one question over all others: How can a pathway to the middle class be created for every single American?
Mike McCabe is a Wisconsin native and has been a farmhand, journalist, educator and civic leader. He is the author of the novel, “Miracles Along County Q,” and keeps an online journal at mikemccabe.substack.com where he shares weekly essays.
