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Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive
Top of Mind Thursday – August 1st, 2024: Re-entry
I returned home this week after a three-week trip to Israel. How much could have happened to change the world in three short weeks?
Well, let’s see. . .
- There was an attempted assassination of former President (and current candidate) Donald Trump.
- JD Vance was named Trump’s running mate.
- President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.
- A major software snafu from CrowdStrike severely impacted Microsoft systems, bringing
down the world’s airlines, banks, and other critical infrastructure. - Vice President Kamala Harris gathered enough delegate pledges to be the new de facto
Democratic presidential nominee. - The Olympics kicked off in Paris, with warnings of Seine water too polluted for swimming and
major disruptions in high-speed train service in France due to sabotage. - A complex multinational agreement freed two Americans and others from Russian prisons while sending alleged Russian spies and gang leaders back to their mother country.
- A rocket fired by Hezbollah killed 12 Arab children in a Druze town in the Golan Heights, while
Israel eliminated three top terrorist leaders—one of who was personally responsible for the deaths of more than 200 US Marines decades ago.
Yet, some things don’t seem to have changed at all.
The divide between the left and the right in this country shows no signs of narrowing. JD Vance called Kamala Harris “a childless cat lady.” Donald Trump asked a conference of Black journalists when Harris had decided to be Black. (Gee, maybe when she was born?). A large number of Progressive Democrats boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, while protesters outside defaced government property and burned American flags.
And more than 100 hostages from 14 countries remain held in Gaza for 300 days—almost a year—with no clear progress on their release.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Independence
| Greetings!
Two hundred forty-eight years ago, America declared its independence from Great Britain. Could the Founding Fathers have ever envisioned what they were creating? Probably not. Too much has changed since then—from the understanding that people should not be judged by the color of their skin, their ethnicity, or their gender. . . to technological advances even our grandparents could not have imagined. But what has stayed the same for nearly two and a half centuries is this: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How we interpret these goals remains our challenge. We have not yet reached the state they envisioned back then. With great independence comes great responsibility. The world is watching. Will we rise to the occasion?
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Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
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Up for Debate
| Tonight, the two mainstream candidates for US president, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, face off in the first debate of the election season.
This event, sponsored by CNN, appears to be less of a debate and more of a series of back-and-forth interviews with the two men. There will be no audience, and in an effort to avoid some of the complications of the 2020 debates, a candidate’s mike will be turned off when he reaches the end of his allotted speaking time. With the race appearing to be neck-in-neck, there’s much speculation as to which candidate will manage to outmaneuver the other in this public forum. Will Biden hit Trump hard on his recent convictions? Will Trump bring up Hunter Biden’s recent conviction? Will Biden look old and feeble or vibrant and “jacked up”? Will Trump follow the rules or speak out of turn, as is his habit. We’ll know in a few hours. But what we probably won’t know from this spectacle is which of these two candidates will be a better choice to lead the country for the next four years. If it were an option, it appears most Americans would probably choose, None of the Above. Who will offer the best choice for America in November? After tonight, that question will likely still be up for debate.
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Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
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A Teachable Moment
| For the last week or so, hundreds of students have been protesting the war in Gaza by “occupying” university campuses at Ivy League universities and other schools.
In many cases, classes have been moved online, and some schools have even cancelled formal commencement ceremonies. Student protests against government policies are probably as old as universities themselves, but this is no ordinary protest. The students involved are not just against the war in Gaza or promoting the Palestinian cause, but are actually advocating violence against Jewish students and faculty as they glorify Hamas terrorists. Injuries have already occurred: it’s only a matter of time until there are fatalities. In some places, law enforcement has been called upon to help break up the encampments. But police can’t enter the grounds of private schools without permission of the administration. In the case of schools like Columbia in New York City, that has not been the case, and so the encampment there proliferates. This comes on the heels of similar protests that have shut down the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, closed roads to access major airports, and even attempted to close major medical centers where Jewish doctors were known to practice. The right to free speech does not include the right to incite or commit violence against those with whom you disagree. Educational institutions in particular are supposed to be places of higher learning—where one is exposed to varying schools of thought and opinions, and critical thinking is valued. Yet, this is where we see the worst offenders. It’s hard to imagine schools or local governments would have the same hands-off attitude if protesters were advocating death to other ethnic groups or minorities. It’s time to teach those who want to protest that there are actions and behaviors that are allowable—and those that go too far. The alternative would be a terrible lesson for all of us.
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Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
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