We offer up two Steve’s today, Steve Schmidt, ex campaign manager of John McCain’s presidential campaign, and Steven Schmidt, founder/editor of Strategic Demands & global GreenPolicy360. Political juxtaposition beginning with a Wikipedia ‘disambiguation’…
Today & Tomorrow
The US and World news has once again, the past two days, arrived furiously on every platform and digi-device within reach or eyesight.
War in the Middle East. No pause, no ceasefire, no agreements, broader conflicts, continued deaths, increased costs and unreported deeper costs of war.
Deep Cost, Costs of War / Failed Policies, ‘Perpetual War’
These are times that call for truth telling.
The news this week about a threatened demise of the most famed facts & truth news show on US broadcast TV for the past fifty years, 60 Minutes, set the stage for this week.
Let’s take the resignations and firings at 60 Minutes as a point of departure on this June day at Strategic Demands.
We first highlight a post from the ‘younger Steve Schmidt’, as posted to Substack.
Here’s how the McCain Steve introduces his Substack today —
“Courage usually finds consequences. That’s why it’s rare. The defining story of the Trump era is often described as a story about power. It isn’t. It’s a story about fear. The fear of losing access. The fear of losing status. The fear of losing money. The fear of losing influence. The fear of becoming unpopular. The fear of standing alone.”
The voice of the ‘young Steve’ rings true here.
This is an all too true version of the axiom — ‘Go along to get along’…
And going along to get along,
In business, we almost need to call up Willy Loman. Salesmen understand about getting along and making sales, not causing waves, but going along to get along, the sales, the sales, the money is the road to success.
So in his memory, here’s Willy speaking of being ‘the sales man’, this before the collapse:
Well, I got on the road, and I went north to Providence. Met the Mayor… He said, “Morning!” And I said, “You got a fine city here, Mayor.” And then he had coffee with me.
In business, fear of failure is ever present and the 1949 drama of Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’ captured the every day feelings of Americans at work. Be careful, fear was afoot. One year after the play’s premiere, a 1950 showdown with McCarthyism cast a light on what it takes to deal with fear.
Today, young Steve is telling a story of those who confront dark times and are courageous enough to stand up when the times call for standing up and telling it like it is…
Take a moment and read Steve on Substack — https://substack.com/@steveschmidt/note/c-270498718
Steve’s Substack of a Last Man Standing story begins with CBS and 60 Minutes, with Scott Pelley, then transitions to the dark days of Joseph McCarthy (and Roy Cohn) and the question and challenge Joseph Nye Welch delivered dramatically to Senator McCarthy — “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Steve also speaks of Margaret Chase Smith, of her exceptional courage in the public arena… in an era when just being a woman in the US Senate was a daily challenge… a Woman Senator from Maine stands up, tall and brave — https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/SmithDeclaration.pdf
Others stand up, as the McCain campaign Steve speaks of Freedom Riders, and threats to life, health and well-being.
I can say that this Steve, as an older Steve and editor here at Strategic Demands, is pointing to the younger Steve, especially today, about facts and needs of democracy.
Steve is addressing the big issues of the day, courageously.
I add my voice here to “the other Steve Schmidt”, my namesake, a Doppelgänger and today his keyboard rings very true.
It’s a Two for Today day.
The letter firing Scott Pelley from ‘60 Minutes’ — and his response
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