Dana Milbank’s campaign trail memoir, Smashmouth, is an illuminating look at the 2000 election, full of details you never knew you wanted, like how many pounds of pork and ribs the Lamar Alexander campaign ordered to feed supporters at the Ames Straw Poll.
Smashmouth is filled with humorous and humanizing details about many who, two decades later, are still major figures in our nation’s political life. As a student who picked up this book as a way to learn about the first election I’d ever cared about, one character is drawn in memorable detail: John Weaver, then lead strategist for John McCain’s insurgent campaign.
Milbank, no fan of George W. Bush, writes fairly sympathetically about the “McCainiacs.” Weaver is introduced as declaring himself “on the side of the angels.” Milbank, right off the bat, describes what staffers called a “Wrath of Weaver” moment.
“This is a man who has thrown at least two baseballs through office walls and regularly heaves a variety of consumer goods: pagers, a coffee table, even a television set … during this campaign alone, he has smashed three Nokia cell phones. One bit the dust while Weaver was screaming at a colleague in a parking lot.”
Rather than being portrayed as psychotic behavior, Weaver’s tantrums are held up as being somewhat useful in the workplace. “Weaver uses his volatile temper to motivate staff,” writes Milbank. Well, that’s one way to put it. Given that this was written two decades ago, consider me skeptical when some claim to be just shocked to hear that Weaver’s most recent initiative, the Lincoln Project, had a toxic workplace environment.
Abusive and reprehensible behavior from leaders has for too long been tolerated and held up as the price of doing business with someone who is simply a demanding hard worker and committed to their craft. Just take this quote from Fred Davis, a GOP media consultant, who said of Weaver this week, “He’s a genius, but that genius comes with a dark cloud.”
Hopefully, the norms around dismissing abusiveness seem to be changing. The last week alone has included two instances of powerful supposed “geniuses” being confronted with the consequences of their bad behavior: the culture inside the Lincoln Project and prominent Hollywood director and showrunner Joss Whedon.
Actress Charisma Carpenter of the hit shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel bravely spoke out this past week about her horrible experience working with Whedon, supporting Justice League actor Ray Fisher who had previously alleged abusive behavior. In Carpenter’s account, she describes Whedon as discovering she is pregnant only to ask if she was “going to keep it,” mocking her religious views and then firing her once she gave birth, betraying that Whedon’s vocal support of the pro-choice movement seemed more about ensuring pregnancy would never need to interfere with his bottom line. Other Buffy and Angel cast members, such as Michelle Trachtenberg, have come out in support of Carpenter’s accounts of the culture on set and Whedon’s treatment of women.
We’ve been undergoing an important reckoning in America in the last few years. Tough conversations about race and gender have accelerated and been amplified. The #MeToo movement empowered women to share their stories of experiencing misogyny and sexual harassment and exposed the scale of the rot in industries like media and entertainment, and aimed to shine light on things that could be changed.
Take, for instance, the harm nondisclosure agreements can have when used inappropriately to protect wrongdoers. Only weeks ago, courts approved a settlement releasing some women from NDAs in the case of Harvey Weinstein, and even then, the settlement does not “apply to women with allegations of misconduct solely before 2005.” In the case of Whedon, Ray Fisher said he was unable to speak more freely and with more detail about his issues with Whedon due to an NDA. The Lincoln Project, meanwhile, resisted requests to release those with accusations from their NDAs and then posted a statement that former Lincoln Project associates and employees say was woefully inadequate and narrow in scope, only granting former “staff” the freedom to discuss the “workplace environment.”
But there’s also the problem of people looking away when someone with the right politics does the wrong thing. Whedon’s ex-wife has noted that his vocal support of feminist causes inoculated him against criticism of his patently anti-woman behavior. And Weaver, of course, was long celebrated on cable news as a leader of the anti-Trump vanguard; he tried to deflect further criticism by claiming it was coming from “Donald Trump’s enablers” and therefore should be ignored.
The notion that talented “geniuses” should be excused for their bad behavior is ludicrous. Leaders should be held to the highest standards of behavior in any workplace or organization, not given a pass because they’re special or are doing work that people think is important. Hopefully, the pain of those who have spoken up in this last week can help continue to change the norms around what is considered acceptable behavior from those who are thought to have the right skills or the right politics.
