Dear Mayor Adler
Before the pandemic, Abbott was more popular in Austin than Adler. Here's why:
It seems like a long time ago when the top issue in Austin was homelessness. In fact, it was less than two weeks ago when the Zandan Poll came out of the field with the not-so-surprising news that Austin was more worried about the homeless than traffic or housing costs. That is to say, we were more worried about tent cities than the city as a whole. The political fight over homelessness in Austin pitted the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, against the Democratic mayor and my former boss, Steve Adler. The poll found that Abbott had become more popular in Austin than Adler, which offered up some lessons on leadership that I wrote up here for the Mayor.
Dear Mayor Adler,
Right now you’re living the first line of your obituary. People will remember you as the mayor who led Austin through the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. You could not have said the same thing last month when people in Austin were more worried about tent cities than traffic or housing prices, and the last thing you need right now is free advice from an ex-staffer, but we just did a poll that has a message for you about what kind of leadership Austin needs, especially now.
Keep in mind, this poll is not a snapshot. It’s a time machine. This is what we thought a few weeks ago in the Before Times:
When asked who they trusted to make the best decisions for Austin, Gov. Abbott came in first in the 2020 Zandan Poll, which was in the field Febuary 17 to March 4. Abbott looked pretty good. Three years ago, people around here rated him more negatively than positively by 7%. Just before the pandemic, he was +5%, and his favorable rating was 11% better than yours. You finished in a statistical tie for second with Willie Nelson. Even worse, a person taking the poll was as likely to think they were the right person to lead this city as they were to think the same of you, the actual mayor.
Three years ago, when the Zandan Poll last took Austin’s temperature, most people thought Austin was on the right track. Now the Zandan Poll, taken before you cancelled SXSW and people started hoarding toilet paper, says Austin is going in the wrong direction.
What happened between 2017 and earlier this month?
Tent cities happened. One day the homeless were camping in the woods or by the homeless shelter downtown. Then the City Council legalized homelessness, and the next day it seemed like they were everywhere. Now people would rather get rid of tent cities than anything else in town, including electric scooters, gentrification, and cedar fever. That’s right; people would rather (and literally) spite their noses to get the homeless out of their faces.
Why homelessness was Austin’s top priority before the coronavirus pandemic hit is admittedly no great mystery. How to respond to this information, though, is, because what you were doing wasn’t working and what you’re doing now is.
This is not about what people know but how they feel, and telling them that the homeless are far more likely to be victims of crime than to commit crimes only gave the impression that you thought people were wrong to feel the way they did. Those calling for your head felt scared because they were sharing public space with the homeless, causing all kinds of reactions (novelty, fear, and disgust) that trigger one’s fight-or-flight responses.
You can’t beat a lizard brain with a bigger brain. The smart thing to tell you would be that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Give voice to the fear and tell them what they want to hear so they’ll listen on the other stuff, like actually solving homelessness by finding them, you know, homes. All your messaging took the point of view of the homeless and those trying to help them, putting you in opposition to constituents of yours who were afraid for no other reason than their brains had working amygdalae.
But you know me. I’m not afraid to give you bad advice. Which is why I would tell you to revel in their opposition. Celebrate it. You did something so unpopular that it caused the right track-wrong from +17% to -8%. Why?
Because it was the right thing to do, full stop. And were this still the top issue, I’d tell you to stop trying to convince people and just say, “Yeah, I hear you. And it would be easy to do the popular thing here. I chose to do the right thing.” Don’t argue, declare. You weighed the evidence, heard all sides, and made the tough call, just like we all saw you do with SXSW two weeks ago and with yesterday’s stay-at-home order. People might like it when elected officials do what they like, but they respect when you make a difficult decision with full awareness that it’s going to piss them off.
The Mayor Adler Austin is seeing now is materially different now. You’re saying what needs to be said when it needs to be said and shutting the heck up. You’ve again become the voice Austin knows it can rely upon.
At some point, public opinion could shift. You shouldn’t. Be the Davy Crockett who said “Be sure you're right-then go ahead” and not the one who told his constituents to go to Hell. There are going to be many more hard decisions ahead of you this year. If it’s not the coronavirus, it’ll be writing a budget while we’re in a recession, figuring out how to pay for Project Connect, and, oh yeah, I hear the new land development code is super popular and everyone loves it. But that’s OK. You know by now that you can live with not making everyone happy if at the end of the day you know you did the right thing.
Best wishes,
Jason
PS: Not for nothing, but we’ve figured out how to solve traffic. If people get used to working from home…
Got comments? There is a comments section at the bottom of this newsletter. It’s for comments.
What I’m reading
Seven Silver Linings of what happened last week.
Get ready for “revenge pollution.”
Last month the Dow was approaching 30,000. This month we need an online toilet paper supply catalogue.
Online news is getting more readers.
Some of us miss live sports more than others, and for them, this hilarity.
Yale University won the internet. If you are stuck at home and unhappy, click this link now.
Ogilvy has some good advice on working from home, and my colleagues have some advice on managing people who are working remotely in seclusion, because there are real dangers here.
Seth Godin has some ideas about the future of online interaction.
Last word: Goes to Scott Kelly, an astronaut, on what being in space taught him about social distancing.
Got some reading suggestions? Post them in the comments section, and I might include them in the next newsletter.
What I’m watching
“Things to stream when you can't/won't leave the house: On Netflix, NCIS (no, really). There are 15 seasons online and I'm up to Season 7. Also Arrested Development, Cheers, and a bunch of OO7 movies. On Amazon Prime: Hunters with Al Pacino, Good Omens, and waiting for the next season of Bosch to start. Also a ton of really bad movies.” -David McLemore, who wrote about grief and isolation in the last Stanford Newsletter Experiment
S.N.V. and I have been watching a lot of duds lately. Hated Yesterday. She liked Madame until the end; I thought it was like all the actors were in different movies.
Danny Collins, though, was a gem.
Got suggestions? Post them in the comments section, and I might include them in the next newsletter.
What I’m listening to
If you want to support Austin music, I’m going to put up some asks. First up, Pelvis Wrestly’s new single, “Susanna,” sounds a little like Cock Robin. You can get their song for $1 on bandcamp. Dayglow, a happy fun times pop band, can’t tour to support the excellent “Fuzzybrain.” They even printed up a bunch of T-shirts for a tour that will never happen. Buy one here.
If you want a podcast with advice from a medical expert and a behavioral scientist talking about you-know-what, here you go. Here’s my friend R.H. with some good advice about how to handle, well, life these days. And Marc Maron went on Good One to talk about his turmeric joke.
Here are just some acts we missed seeing at SXSW:
Miss alt rock? Listen to Kill Bills.
“Beast” by Nico Vega is some fierce business.
“Shoulders” by Jonah Mutono puts the gee into LGBTQi.
Want to hear something weird that rocks? Black Country, New Road’s “Sunglasses” fills a need I didn’t know I had.
Miss ‘90s country? Check out Chelsea Williams’ “Red Flag,” which reminds me of my friend C.B. Seems like his jam, which means it’s an awesome ear worm.
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