A former member of the White House transition team on what’s next
👋 Hello, we’re tired but we’re back
Issue #201: a media reckoning, a straw poll, and taking care of yourself
Good morning to everyone struggling to stay awake today (or just struggling, period).
Before I share a few of the stories deepening my understanding at this moment, I just wanted to take a sec to appreciate how unique Pennsylvania is, as a state. I grew up there. My parents voted in Montgomery County, and I have friends in Berks and Bucks — counties that reliably turn gray or very pale shades of red or blue on election night.
One thing I can tell you about PA after having driven through it several times: It’s… big. And wildly diverse. (Also, gorgeous.) Philly feels like Brooklyn to me, but if you drive one hour to Bucks it’s Blair Witch vibes. Anyway: PA is the largest and most populous swing state, which makes it so important. It’s the state that clinched Trump’s win last night.
Now that we know who the 47th President of the United States will be, I want to turn our attention to what’s next: the transition.
On Medium, Victor Garcia tells us what he witnessed when he served in the U.S. Digital Service at the White House as Trump first took office. After winning in 2016, Trump fired the head of his transition team and named Mike Pence its new leader. The Trump transition crew then reportedly ignored a “pandemic playbook” left by the Obama team and “[tossed] binders of prepared materials into the trash.” And, when Trump left office four years later, Garcia writes, “I experienced firsthand the canceled meetings, withheld data, and systematic refusals that risked national security and public health.”
I reached out to Garcia and asked him about this next transition. “Perhaps most importantly,” he told me, “it’s the unexpected crises that are most concerning. Any sudden event — like a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or financial crisis — would require an immediate and effective response from a new administration.”
What else we’re reading
- Useful tips for managers navigating a difficult day ahead, post-election, especially #4: “Take care of yourself…AKA ‘put your own oxygen mask on first, before you help others.’” (Ann Marie Lavigne)
- Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender member of Congress last night. A decade ago on Medium, she penned a personal tribute to her late husband, who passed away when McBride was 24 — days after they were married. McBride shares several lessons from that experience, including: “Life is too short for outdated dogmas to impede our own pursuit of happiness.”
- After this bruising election cycle, a reckoning is coming for the media industry. Trump has promised severe consequences for the media’s negative coverage, while Harris supporters, exhausted by hypocritical endorsement decisions and the decline of journalistic ethics in reporting, are funneling massive amounts of subscription dollars away from large liberal outlets, putting their future in serious jeopardy. (Jeremy Fassler)
- In the 1936 election, the Literary Digest — a popular magazine at the time — ran a straw poll. It was massive (targeting over 10 million people) but also wrongly predicted that Alfred Landon would win against Franklin D. Roosevelt. The resulting uproar sank the magazine, and provided an object lesson in a key part of understanding polling data: Non-response bias. (Sachin Date)
Your daily dose of practical wisdom about equanimity
Advice from the stoics might come in handy today: After you’ve done what you can, accept the things you can’t control.
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Co-written, edited, and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis
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