The word unity served as a theme for the Wednesday inauguration at a time when national politics feels defined chiefly but divisiveness. The term, of course, is one of those that tends to draw bipartisan laudits, like civility of finding consensus. Yet the words and actions through the political realm in the following days — and frankly from President Joe Biden himself — shows there may be more hunger for the word unity while there’s little appetite for anything resembling it in practice.

Maybe that’s as it should be. Democracy stands as a form of government built on the reality people will disagree. Otherwise, there would be no need for debates, elections or persuasion campaigns. As impassioned as we all may feel about the moral clarity of our most principled ideals, there’s always going to be reasonable people who disagree.

And so we have a lion of the Senate ascend to the presidency and immediately issue executive orders that undo much of his predecessors work and bypass the legislative branch. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio gave a Senate speech welcoming Biden to office, then two days later slammed the new Commander in Chief for enacting a “radical leftist agenda.”

Less than two days into the Biden era, a mini-scandal about treatment of National Guardsmen seemed to reduce rhetoric to its cheapest lows. Some order no one yet will claim to have made resulted in Guardsmen who rather famously had been guarding the Capitol 24-7 to start sleeping in an unsanitary parking garage.

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, tweeted “No wonder one Guardsman felt ‘incredibly betrayed.’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Schumer have a lot of questions to answer.” U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, posted “The level of disrespect towards our National Guardsmen is disgraceful.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis responded by calling Florida’s Guard home, making clear they are not Speaker “Nancy Pelosi’s servants.” That one prompted U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, to decry Florida Republicans for ignoring Biden’s aforementioned call for unity and greeting it with “fear-mongering.”

This rhetoric all occurred over an issue that seemed to be resolved within a couple hours; Guardsmen were not forced to sleep overnight in an exhaust-filled parking garage overnight.

And yet, it’s easy to see how the volume cranked up even as everyone preaches a need to turn the temperature down. The tribalism in America today leads many to view neighbors with different views not as political adversaries but as state enemies.

This happens, incidentally, at a moment when American voters have given Democrats control of both chambers of Congress but by margins that can’t mathematically be much closer. Democrats enjoy an 11-seat edge in the 435-member House. The Senate, with only the second 50-50 split in history, goes blue only thanks to a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President. Now, elections have consequences, and you can expect Democrats to exercise the likely limited time with full government control to advance a progressive agenda. But you better believe Republicans have a mandate to water it down to a level palatable to half the nation.

Policy differences will be hard fought, and true change hard to come by. Still, America’= has seen worse schisms than this. Maybe what we truly should ask of our elected leaders is not unity but respect, an acknowledgement of legitimate disagreements, no matter the level of emotion.

And hopefully, we can leave issues decided in Congress and directed from the ballot box to matters of policy, not to the "disgraceful" motives or perceived lack of patriotism when we dare to disagree with one another.

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor for SRQ MEDIA.   

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images

Few sectors were forced to respond to the Coronavirus pandemic more urgently than healthcare. Not historically known for its nimbleness – it takes an average of 12 years to bring a new drug to market – healthcare, like so many other sectors have done over these last 10 months, has had to act differently to meet the needs of patients and the public. As a result, healthcare has experienced a level and pace of adaptability, creativity and innovation never thought possible. As a November 2020 report by McKinsey and Company on healthcare innovation tells us, “a crisis can create an urgency that rallies collaborative effort, breaks through organizational silos, and overcomes institutional inertia.”

Adam Palanica, behavioral scientist at Klick Applied Sciences Labs, and Yan Fossat, vice president at Klick Applied Sciences Labs, explain “[u]nder normal circumstances, healthcare innovation is costly and time-consuming. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has produced the silver lining of inspiring healthcare innovation around the world, with collaboration across multiple disciplines all working toward the same goal of saving lives. Healthcare innovation can develop at unprecedented speed when individuals focus on solving real-world problems, and collaborate with cross-functional teams. Anyone can innovate, from anywhere, at any age, and this open-minded perspective allows innovation to occur at its finest when motivated to find solutions toward a well-defined problem.” Indeed, as Forbes contributor Sachin Jain notes, over the years we have convinced ourselves that change is necessarily slow. “COVID-19 is proving that we have always been capable of more,” he said, adding the secret to closing the change-reality gap lies in “creating a new post-COVID culture where innovation is not viewed as the domain of the few, but as the responsibility of the many.”

Richard Hytner, adjunct professor of marketing at the London Business School, tells us “it is intrinsic motivation that explains so much of the heroism and innovation we are seeing around the world, fueled by a desire – or sense of duty – to save lives. Problems are being solved precisely because people have an inner passion to apply their talents meaningfully. Constraints such as lack of time and money are more creatively overcome when the goal is certain."

Leveraging creative thinking with technical expertise has led to collaborations that have resulted in products aimed at supporting healthcare’s efforts to treat patients. South Korean health authorities, businesses and students, for example, created a body sterilizer that sprays people as they enter buildings and a mobile app to keep track of the health status of overseas visitors. Other collaborations saw the use of 3D printing to repurpose snorkeling masks to plug the shortage of emergency ventilators. “Like all skills,” Hytner says, “mastery of creative thinking requires practice and an encouragement to play, experiment, fail, and persevere.”

Another fast adaptation brought about by COVID-19 was the increased use of telehealth services. Insurance companies, long hesitant to fully embrace this method of delivery, found itself approving its broad use as a means to ensure continued patient care in the face of anxieties about in-person interactions. In fact, the adoption of telehealth was explosive, rising “from 11% of consumers using it in 2019 to 46% in April 2020, and well more than half of healthcare providers polled indicate higher comfort with this care-delivery method than before.”

Of course, the most-eagerly awaited innovation of the healthcare sector was the creation of COVID vaccines, which are being produced now and may mark the beginning of the end of this global pandemic. There, too, we have seen incredible changes to the speed of bringing this new treatment to market – less than 12 months, rather than the average 12 years.

I have long been saying creativity is crucial to every business in every sector across our economy and society. The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic we have seen in workplaces, in schools, in the arts, and in healthcare show us that the risk-taking, collaboration and imagination inherent to creativity are essential to addressing the most serious challenges we as humans will face.

Dr. Larry Thompson is president of the Ringling College of Art and Design. 

Image by Alexandra Koch

Merriam Webster declared “Truthiness” the Word of the Year in 2006, and defines it as “a truthful or seemingly truthful quality that is claimed for something not because of supporting facts or evidence but because of a feeling that it is true or a desire for it to be true.”

The Wikipedia definition elaborates “Truthiness can range from ignorant assertions of falsehoods to deliberate duplicity or propaganda intended to sway opinions.”  

Comedian Stephen Colbert says “truthiness” is ’What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.' It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.”
We’ve seen the impact of truthiness in local politics in recent years. A protected wetland is protected until the County Commission decides that it isn’t; they authorize a Whole Foods to be built over it (at University and Honore). Public roads adjacent to waterways are to remain in the public domain, until the County Commission decides Beach Road can be vacated. Adjacent landowners can then amass enough contiguous land to build more condos. There was the $600,00 County grant given to now-defunct Sanborn Studios, to create high paying jobs and make Sarasota a little Hollywood, despite all evidence against it. We know how that turned out.

But truthiness has taken a far uglier turn in Sarasota.

The Orlando Sentinel editorial board recently opined that “Florida’s radicalized GOP” shares responsibility for inciting [the January 6th] deadly insurrection. The publication includes Sarasota’s state senator and Florida GOP Chair Joe Gruters, a Florida elector, among the mentioned radicals. Joe Gruters retweeted the #StoptheSteal hashtag.  As the Sentinel explained, #StoptheSteal has been used to promote “the big lie about a stolen election” and to promote the Jan. 6 “Save America” rally against Congress certifying the presidential election.

Local Congressman Greg Stuebe voted against certifying electoral votes from Arizona, even after he condemned the violence of #StoptheSteal rioters.  

Congressman Vern Buchanan had signaled he could vote against certifying the election, but voted to certify after the deadly riot. He said in a statement that millions “expressed legitimate concern over voting procedures that were changed by several states… But after witnessing the sad spectacle that occurred (Wednesday), I voted to certify the results of the Electoral College because it’s time to move past this election. I supported President Trump and publicly backed his legal right to challenge the Nov. 3 results.”  

Lots of talk about a fraudulent election, but no evidence offered. Over 60 lawsuits claiming fraud failed.
Sarasota County Commissioner and Florida GOP Vice Chair Christian Ziegler also tweeted the #StoptheSteal hashtag and demonstrated on Jan. 6 against certifying the election. After the violence, Zeigler admitted to the Venice Gondolier that Joe Biden is the next president.  

Isn’t it time our local elected leaders stop talking out of both sides of their mouth?

#StoptheSteal election fraud fundraising has raised hundreds of millions for the GOP.  There’s that selfish aspect of truthiness. Remember?

Cathy Antunes is the host of The Detail. 

Atria bakery/Cafe raises the bar for artisanal bread and coffee. 

Click here to read the full article in SRQ's January 2021 edition.