239. The Accountability

On Monday, Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee posted the following message to his official congressional X account: "Homosexuality has no place in America."

The post was up for several hours. It was seen by several thousand people. It was then deleted.

Representative Ogles released a statement. The statement said that a member of his communications staff had written and posted the message without his authorization. He described the post as "stupid and hurtful." He said he was taking responsibility. He then fired the employee.

(I want to note that this is the entire statement. I have not paraphrased it. The words "stupid and hurtful" appear in the statement, as does the word "responsibility." They appear in the same paragraph.)

There is a version of this story in which a congressional staffer, acting alone, decided to publish the message "homosexuality has no place in America" to a congressman's official account, without asking, on a random Tuesday, for reasons that remain unclear. In this version, the staffer had strong views that differed from those of their employer. In this version, the employer was unaware those views were being expressed, in his voice, on his account, under his name, to his followers.

This is the version Representative Ogles has offered.

(I am not making this up. The phrase "a member of my comms team" appears verbatim in the statement released by the office of Representative Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee's 4th Congressional District, who serves on the House Oversight Committee and the House Budget Committee, and who has represented the people of Cookeville, Columbia, Fayetteville, and surrounding areas since 2023.)

The communications staff member's name has not been released. Their precise job responsibilities have not been described. Whether they posted the message after business hours, during business hours, from a personal device, from an office device, with the password Representative Ogles provided or one they had from a previous role — none of these details have been made public. What has been made public is that they are "no longer employed."

This is how the Ogles model of accountability works:

Step one: A message goes out on your account. Step two: You identify who sent it. Step three: You call it stupid and hurtful. Step four: You fire them. Step five: You describe step four as taking responsibility.

In most professional contexts, "taking responsibility" involves the person with the most authority accepting the consequences of what happened under their watch. In the Ogles model, "taking responsibility" involves identifying someone with less authority and ensuring they accept the consequences instead.

These are two different things. The words used to describe them are the same.

The voters of Tennessee's 4th Congressional District will have an opportunity to review Representative Ogles's accountability model in the 2026 midterm elections. In the meantime, he remains employed.

The comms team has an opening. The job involves posting to Representative Ogles's congressional accounts on behalf of Representative Ogles. Experience with X is required. Familiarity with the congressman's views is probably also helpful, though based on recent events, nobody can say for certain what those are.

Apply at the appropriate government website. I would not mention this column.