Simplicity versus Complexity

In crisis communications, there is a concept called “getting ahead of the story.” If you know something bad is going to come out, you want to get ahead of the story, lay the groundwork so that the “bad” doesn’t come across quite as bad and maybe the whole issue goes away.

Why is that? Because the accusation is almost always easier to make and to understand than the explanation that tries to eliminate or reduce the appearance of guild. “You did X” is a lot easier to comprehend than “No, I didn’t and here are the 3 1/2 reasons for why your allegation is incorrect.” We saw this play out many, many times during the height of the #MeToo movement. Accusations made and careers lost before any explanation could be offered in a lot of instances.

So, this week, with the news that the Biden Administration agreed to swap an arms dealer for Rebecca Griner, comes the accusations. Biden did that to appease black voters and the LGBTQ community. How could he leave the white male former Marine behind?!?! He’s just pandering to the Democratic base.

It’s an easy allegation to make because the basic evidence could seem to support the concept. Except for this. Administration representaties have stated they tried to hold out for Whelan being included in the deal also, but Russia was insistent that he was never going to be a part of the deal. As an American President, what was Biden supposed to do then? Leave both behind, even though they could get one of them out.

I’ve always struggled with this “need” that is forced upon Presidents to get Americans out of trouble when they get into it overseas. But that’s part of the world in which we live in. The other part of the world we live in is one that is complicated, messy, and screwed up.

When we act as the world’s policeman and insist on continuing to assert our dominance wherever we can, complicated, messy things are going to happen. And those events rarely have simple solutions. Donald Trump agreed to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in 2020; he had two years to try to get Whelan out of Russia and didn’t; he exchanged love letters with the North Korean dictator; and plenty of other things that appear to be … off. But, I don’t really hold any of those things against him because the world is complicated and sometimes we have to hold our noses and do things that look ugly in the moment.

Just like I don’t hold against Biden the messiness of our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Or Benghazi during Obama. These are all incredibly complicated things, most of which will never be accomplished with 100% success. Going back to Afghanistan — any withdrawal was going to be messy. No matter what. No matter how much planning. It was going to be messy. Why? Because the Taliban and their allies are simply not to be trusted. They wanted Americans out. That’s it. And what they’ve done since shows that their word could not be trusted.

It’s the same thing with prisoner swaps. Some are outraged that we released an arms dealer. What do you expect would be the swap? Mother Theresa? The Russians we hold are not good people. None of them are. So, it will always involve a bad person.

So now the right-wing is up in arms about leaving the Marine behind and bringing back the gay black woman. It’s easy. It’s simple to think that and yell that. But that doesn’t make it true or make it right. What we see on the news is a mere fraction of what actually happened and what went into this. That’s the other reality — besides getting ahead of the story. What we get from the media is always, always, only a fraction of what really happened. I have no doubt that the Biden Administration tried everything they could to get both Griner and Whelan out of Russia. No doubt. To think that an American President would only get the one, but not the other, to appease some of his voters is placing the simple approach over the more complicated reality of what is more likely to have happened.