Time for a NEW ERA

The movie, “On the Basis of Sex…” illuminated a very important part of our system of government. While watching the movie, Professor Freund, in a lesson to Harvard law students states, “A court ought not be affected by the weather of the day, but will be by the climate of the era.” This struck me in how true it is and how we should apply this to all of the mechanisms of measuring our political and social norms.

Not only are our laws in need of this continual review, but we need to be mindful in all aspects of government and politics of the ever changing social and technological climate we have.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex (AOC)

When new members of Congress are elected, it is not because they posses some magic the other candidate didn’t have. It is because they were out-hustled, outworked or outsmarted with regards to what the constituency wants in that era. When I read stories where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex (AOC) is being told to get in line and pipe down with her ideas, due to the jealousy of Washington insiders, I realize this is the ultimate culmination of someone that not only out-hustled, outworked and outsmarted her opponent, she presents real challenges for even her own party, because she IS so in tune with her constituency, but she is so, due to her knowledge and leverage of mechanisms they are comfortable communicating and holding each other accountable in this ERA.

Google Hearings

Nowhere was the lack of knowledge on display more than in the Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. The lack of understanding about what the internet is and what the basics of something like Google search do was apparent, as was the lack of understanding of brands and how mobile phones actually work with location services. When Senators or Representatives have difficulty grasping the ERA we are in they are doomed to hold themselves and more importantly their constituency back. When their constituency realizes this, they will in some cases start to use the very technology which bears a lack of understanding by their representative to start the change in leadership, or more likely a challenger that DOES understand the ERA they are living in will come in to fill that void.

The Obama Campaign in the ERA of ecommerce

A good example of where an ERA was leveraged and utilized well is the 2008 presidential campaign, specifically the campaigns ability to generate so much fundraising from small amount donors. With embracing the new ERA of ecommerce, the Obama campaign was able to capitalize on the breadth of the Dmeocratic party and ask for such small amounts, even those making minimum wage felt like they could contribvute and have their voice heard. This was the Obamas capitalizing on the knowledge of the constituency within the ERA.

Trump Campaign in the ERA of Twitter and television news.

Another example of taking advantage (without any help from the Russians) was the ability to the Trump campaign to leverage every possible news outlet, including the most liberal, and getting loads of airtime (not ads, but stories) over the air and cable news networks. With a simple tweet (usually something provocative), Trump could incite hours of analysis on every network and even reach far left leaning liberals because of the knee-jerk reaction all of the networks had to his sometimes outrageous ideas or thoughts. When you see hours of Trump on MSNBC rather than Bernie or Hillary, and you see the same on FOX News, there is a campaign that new the ERA and whether right or not, leveraged that knowledge in both the Republican primaries and the presidential election. Even though I believe he was helped on the social media front, we have the sensationalist mongering media to thank for all of the promotion of the Trump campaign. The tradition or hard media outlets in some cases took on stories that were sensationalist in nature to just stay afloat in the news cycle.

Today

We have learned much from this latest ERA. We have learned that facts matter, words matter and telling the truth matters. I believe this is an ERA where having a grasp on how to connect with your constituency is important. Being up to date on technology and social media is important. Being in touch with businesses in your district matters. What we are up against now, and I believe the current presidency has ushered in, is an older ERA of intolerance. Gender, racial, global, federal law enforcement, and religious intolerance. We now need to figure out as a country where we land on these areas. What ERA do we WANT for these pillars of society?

We fell back in time to the 50s as far as I can tell and while some felt that was a good time, I much preferred the tolerance and civility of the 2000s.