“Senator Johnson knows that Joe Biden won a free and fair election. He is refusing to admit it […] because it would be ‘political suicide’ to oppose Trump.” — The Bulwark
Ranking officers of the Titanic, gather round.
We all know we’re on a sinking ship, but I ask you this: when the hull is breached, and the cabins are flooded, do you give up and accept defeat? No! And when the engineer who designed the Titanic tells us it’s “mathematically certain” that the ship will sink, do you trust his professional opinion? Hell no! And when we, as leaders on this ship, face the most dangerous test of our professional lives, do we rise to the challenge and do our jobs? Absolutely not!
Why? Because the captain still has a lot of sway in the transatlantic big ships industry, and one negative telegram from him could sink our careers faster than a democracy can crumble under a soft coup!
Have we ever let “facts” or “scientific evidence” tell us what we can and cannot do? No, we let the Captain tell us! And that’s why we’re gonna get back out there on the upper deck, and start telling any passenger who will listen that it’s “statistically impossible” for the ship to sink! It may be literal suicide to stick by the Captain, but it would be career suicide not to!
For those of you who are getting cold feet about remaining loyal to this Captain or from the water that’s just rushed onto the deck: face it, we’re in too deep. We made our beds and now we need to lie in them, just like we’re forcing the immigrant families to do on the lower decks, since we barricaded the gates and won’t let them up.
Let’s take inspiration from Sergeant Pompeo, who stripped himself of all remaining dignity when he told the passengers there “would be a smooth transition into the ice-cold water.” Let yourself be inspired by Lifeboat Director, Emily Murphy, who valiantly withheld the resources our passengers desperately needed — the life vests and lifeboats — just to appease the Captain for a few fleeting minutes. Or be inspired by yourselves, the 126 seamen whose false claims successfully convinced the violin quartet that everything’s fine — listen, you can still hear them playing!
And if all of that doesn’t manage to inspire you, then most of all, feel inspired by the Captain’s complete inability to remember previous acts of loyalty. Feel motivated by the fact that, if you abandon him now, it’ll be as though he’s always hated you. Near, far, wherever you are — if you suddenly grow a backbone and try to tell the passengers the truth — the Captain will see your betrayal, and he’ll tap out a career-ending sequence of dots and dashes faster than an iceberg can sink an unsinkable ship.
If you betray him, if at long last you start seeking redemption, then I suggest you also start seeking a particularly wide and buoyant door to float on, because you’re gonna need it.
But if you’re committed to this Captain, and if you’re even more committed to your own career, then you’ll get back out there and keep convincing 50% of the passengers that they’d rather die than leave this ship! Is it too harsh to put it that bluntly, men? No. It’s just boat politics. And if you can’t stand the heat, I suggest you get out of the part of the ship where the coal is.
(No, but seriously, don’t go down there, it’s completely filled with water.)
So get back out there and create chaos! Sow discord! But before you go, be sure to grab a bundle of money from the money pile so you can buy your way onto one of the lifeboats intended for women and children. Good luck to you men, and as always, thoughts and prayers to the passengers whose deaths we could have easily prevented.