IU Northwest sponsored several lectures during its recent Public Affairs Month. I was asked to participate; here is the talk I gave, slightly edited for length. (Regular readers will notice considerable repetition of themes I revisit often.)
Americans talk a lot about civic engagement. What we don’t talk much about is civic literacy, and why effective engagement requires that we understand how our government is supposed to function.
In fact, in the wake of the last election, we are just beginning to understand the extent to which civic engagement depends upon two characteristics of the American polity that are currently in dangerously short supply: a basic understanding of the American constitution and legal system—what I call civic literacy—and the old-fashioned but essential virtue of civility.
Over the past several years, America’s political environment has become steadily more toxic. Partisan passions and previously suppressed bigotries have erupted, overwhelming reasoned analysis. Cable television and the Internet allow people to choose their news; it encourages citizens to indulge in confirmation bias and construct their own preferred realities. During the 2016 election cycle, voters often seemed more interested in scoring points than engaging in substantive conversation. Civility was scorned as “political correctness” and racist and misogynist expression was excused as “telling it like it is.”
As discouraging as today’s incivility is, I am firmly convinced that a significant amount of the rancor and partisan nastiness we see comes less from actual differences of opinion and more from a tribalism that is abetted by civic illiteracy—widespread ignorance of the history and basic premises of American government. Clearly, in our age of high-stakes testing, schools are shortchanging civic education.
Why does civic literacy matter?
For one thing, when citizens don’t understand America’s foundational values and legal system, they don’t share a standard by which to evaluate the promises of candidates or the performance of public officials. During Donald Trump’s campaign for President, for example, he promised to uphold “Article 12” of the Constitution—an article that doesn’t exist. He said he would “make all Muslims register,” which would be a blatant violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. He was going to institute a national “stop and frisk” program that would have violated the 4thAmendment, and he accused Clinton of planning to unilaterally “get rid of” the Second Amendment—something she couldn’t legally do. (There’s a constitutionally-prescribed process for changing the constitution.) Since the election, his ignorance of such constitutional basics as separation of powers, Executive pardons, and freedom of the press have become even more obvious. Recently, he suggested that Congress could pass a law to overturn a Supreme Court decision that the line-item veto was unconstitutional.
Competent citizens would recognize situations in which a public official is betraying a total lack of familiarity with the Constitution and legal system he is sworn to uphold. Clearly, millions of Americans didn’t recognize that incongruity and unfamiliarity. Citizens’ ignorance is especially corrosive in a country as diverse as the U.S., because commitment to our Constitutional system is what unites us—it is what makes us Americans, rather than a collection of constituencies contending for power.
Only 26 percent of Americans can name the three branches of government. Fewer than half of 12th graders can describe federalism. Only 35% can identify “We the People” as the first three words of the Constitution. Only five percent of high school seniors can identify or explain checks on presidential power.
We can’t fix what we don’t understand.
Productive civic engagement is based on a basic but accurate understanding of the “rules of the game,” especially but not exclusively the Constitution and Bill of Rights– the documents that frame and constrain policy choices in the American system.
Pundits and politicians have spent the last thirty plus years denigrating both government and public service to citizens who are increasingly ill-equipped to evaluate those criticisms. With the current administration, we are paying the price for our neglect of civic education—not to mention our unwillingness to defend the importance and legitimacy of government and collective action supporting the common good.
The American Constitution was a product of the 18thCentury cultural, intellectual and philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment. Many people know that the Enlightenment gave us science, empirical inquiry, and the “natural rights” and “social contract” theories of government, but what is less appreciated is that the Enlightenment also changed the way we understand and define human rights and individual liberty. Very few students—even graduate students—enter my classroom with any knowledge of the ways in which this enormously consequential period of intellectual history shaped the United States.
Students are taught in school that the Puritans and Pilgrims who settled the New World came to America for religious liberty; what they aren’t generally taught is how those settlers definedthat liberty. Puritans saw liberty as “freedom to do the right thing”—freedom to worship and obey the rightGod in thetruechurch, and their right to use the power of government to ensure that their neighbors toed the same line. The Founders who crafted our constitution some 150 years later were products of an intervening paradigm shift brought about by the Enlightenment, which ushered in a dramatically different definition of liberty: personal autonomy. Liberty became your right to do your ownthing, free of government interference, so long as you did not harm the person or property of someone else, and so long as you were willing to accord an equal liberty to others.
America’s constitutional system is based on an Enlightenment concept we call “negative liberty.” The Founders believed that fundamental rights are not given to us by government; instead, they believed that rights are “natural,” meaning that we are entitled to certain rights simply by virtue of being human (thus the term “human rights”) and that government has an obligation to respect and protect those inborn, inalienable rights.
Contrary to popular belief, the Bill of Rights does not grant us rights—it protectsthe rights to which we are entitled by virtue of being human against infringement by an overzealous government. The American Bill of Rights is essentially a list of things thatgovernment is forbidden to do.For example, the state can’t dictate our religious or political beliefs, search us without probable cause, or censor our expression—and government is forbidden from doing those things even whenpopular majorities favor such actions.
In our system, those constraints don’t apply to private, non-governmental actors. As I used to tell my kids, the government can’t control what you read, but your mother can. Public school officials can’t tell you to pray, but private or parochial school officials can. If government isn’t involved, neither is the Constitution. Private, non-governmental actors are subject to other laws, like civil rights laws, but since the Bill of Rights only restrains what government can do, only government can violate it. I’m constantly amazed by how many Americans don’t understand that. (It’s quite obvious that Donald Trump doesn’t.)
Unlike the liberties protected against government infringement by the Bill of Rights, civil rights laws represent our somewhat belated recognition that if we care about human rights, just preventing government from discriminating isn’t enough. If private employers can refuse to hire African-Americans or women, if landlords can refuse to rent units in multifamily buildings to LGBTQ folks, if restaurants can refuse to serve Jews or Muslims, then society is not respecting the rights of those citizens and we aren’t fulfilling the obligations of the social contract that was another major contribution of Enlightenment philosophy.
The Enlightenment concept of human rights and John Locke’s theory of a social contract between citizens and their government challenged longtime assumptions about the divine right of the kings. Gradually, people came to be seen as citizens, rather than subjects. This new approach helped to undermine the once-common practice of assigning social status on the basis of group identity. It also implied that citizens have an affirmative responsibility to participate in democratic decision-making.
The once-radical idea that each of us is born with an equal claim to fundamental rights has other consequences. For one thing, it means that governments have to treat their citizens as individuals, not as members of a group. America was the first country to base its concept of citizenship on an individual’s civic behavior,rather than gender, race, religion or other identity or affiliation. So long as we obey the laws, pay our taxes, and generally conduct ourselves in a way that doesn’t endanger or disadvantage others, we are all entitled to full civic equality, no matter what our race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other identity. When our country has lived up to that guarantee of equal civic rights, we have unleashed the productivity of previously marginalized groups and contributed significantly to American prosperity. And I think it is fair to say that—despite setbacks, and despite the stubborn persistence of racial resentment, religious intolerance and misogyny, we have made substantial progress toward creating a culture that acknowledges the equal humanity of the people who make up our diverse nation.
That brings us back to civic engagement, because in addition to equality before the law, respect for rights also requires democratic equality—an equal right to participate in the enterprise of self-government. We now recognize—or at least give lip service to—the proposition that every citizen’s vote should count, but on this dimension, we not only aren’t making progress, we’re regressing, as anyone who follows the news can attest.
One element of civic literacy that gets short shrift even among educators is the immense influence of systems in a society—an appreciation of the way in which institutions and conventions and laws shape how we understand our environments. Right now, a number of longstanding, systemic practices are obscuring the degree to which American democracy is becoming steadily less democratic—and the extent to which we are denying citizens the right to participate meaningfully in self-government.
Vote suppression has been on the rise, especially but not exclusively in Southern states that have not been required to get preclearance from the Justice Department since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Thanks to population shifts, the current operation of the Electoral College gives disproportionate weight to the votes of white, rural voters, and discounts the franchise of urban Americans. (Estimates are that each rural vote is worth 1 1/3 of each urban vote). Unequal resources have always been a political problem, but ever since Buckley v. Valeo, which equated money with speech,and especially since Citizens United, which essentially held that corporations are people, money spent by special interests has overwhelmed the votes and opinions of average citizens. The outsized influence of the NRA is a recently prominent example.
The most pernicious erosion of “one person, one vote” however, has come as a consequence of gerrymandering, or partisan redistricting. There are no “good guys” in this story—gerrymandering is a crime of opportunity, and both parties are guilty.
Those of you in this room know the drill; after each census, state governments redraw state and federal district lines to reflect population changes. The party in control of the state legislature at the time controls the redistricting process, and its legislators draw districts that maximize their own electoral prospects and minimize those of the opposing party. Partisan redistricting goes all the way back to Elbridge Gerry, who gave Gerrymandering its name—and he signed the Declaration of Independence—but the process became far more sophisticated and precise with the advent of computers, leading to a situation which has been aptly described as legislators choosing their voters, rather than the other way around.
Academic researchers and political reformers alike blame gerrymandering for electoral non-competitiveness and political polarization. A 2008 book co-authored by Norman Orenstein and Thomas Mann argued that the decline in competition fostered by gerrymandering has entrenched partisan behavior and diminished incentives for compromise and bipartisanship.
Mann and Orenstein are political scientists who have written extensively about redistricting, and about “packing” (creating districts with supermajorities of the opposing party) “cracking” (distributing members of the opposing party among several districts to ensure that they don’t have a majority in any of them) and “tacking” (expanding the boundaries of a district to include a desirable group from a neighboring district). They have tied redistricting to the advantages of incumbency, and they have also pointed out that the reliance by House candidates upon maps drawn by state-level politicians has reinforced what they call “partisan rigidity” –the increasing nationalization of the political parties.
Interestingly, one study they cited investigated whether representatives elected from districts drawn by independent commissions become less partisan. Contrary to the researchers’ initial expectations, they found that politically independent redistricting did reduce partisanship, and in statistically significant ways. Even when the same party maintained its majority, elected officials were more likely to co-operate across party lines.
Perhaps the most pernicious effect of gerrymandering is the proliferation of safe seats.The perception that some seats are “safe” for one party or another breeds voter apathy and reduces political participation. After all, why should citizens vote, or get involved, if the result is foreordained? Why donate to a sure loser? (For that matter, unless you are trying to buy political influence for some reason, why donate to a sure winner?) What is the incentive to volunteer or vote when it obviously won’t matter? It isn’t only voters who lack incentives for participation, either: it becomes increasingly difficult for the “sure loser” party to recruit credible candidates. As a result, in many of these races, voters are left with no genuine or meaningful choice—the perception of inevitability ends up creating the reality, because if everyone in a safe district were to vote, it probably wouldn’t be safe.
Ironically, the anemic voter turnout that gerrymandering produces leads to handwringing about citizen apathy, usually characterized as a civic or moral deficiency. But voter apathy may instead be a highly rational response to noncompetitive politics. People save their efforts for places where those efforts count, and thanks to the increasing lack of competitiveness in our electoral system, those places often do not include the voting booth.
If the ability to participate meaningfully in self-governance is a bedrock of democracy, partisan game-playing that makes elections meaningless should be seen as an assault on both democracy and the American system.
Safe districts do more than disenfranchise voters; they are the single greatest driver of governmental dysfunction. In safe districts, conventional wisdom has convinced us that the only way to oppose an incumbent is in the primary–and that almost always means that the challenge will come from the “flank” or extreme. When the primary is, in effect, the general election, the battle takes place among the party faithful, the so-called “base”—and they tend to be the most ideological voters. So Republican incumbents are challenged from the Right and Democratic incumbents are attacked from the Left. Even where those challenges fail, they create a powerful incentive for incumbents to “toe the line” in order to placate the most rigid elements of their respective parties. Instead of the system working as intended, with both parties nominating candidates they think will be able to appeal to the broad middle, the system produces nominees who represent the most extreme voters on each side of the philosophical divide. If you wonder why Republicans in Congress aren’t standing up to President Trump, the answer is that they are in effect being held hostage by that party “base”—a small group of empowered, rigidly ideological voters intent on punishing any deviation from orthodoxy and/or any hint of compromise.
Of course, vote suppression and civic ignorance aren’t the only reasons for a lack of civic engagement. There are other challenges to equal political participation. Poverty is one. A citizen working two or three jobs just to put food on the table doesn’t have much time for civic engagement, and in Indiana, that’s a lot of people.
Poverty and the growing gap between rich and poor threatens social stability and democratic decision-making in a number of ways, but one clear effect is that people engaged in a daily struggle for subsistence are unable to participate fully in the political activities that characterize democratic societies, and as a result, the national political conversation is skewed. The voices of the poor aren’t heard.
Poverty and inequality are huge problems in America right now, but they certainly aren’t our only challenges. Climate change, the loss of jobs to automation, the worrisome tribalism and racism that is tearing at our national fabric, inadequate funding of public education, the multiple, obvious flaws in our justice system…a majority of Americans realize that these and other major problems—far from being solved or even addressed—are being exacerbated by an administration that ranges from inept to corrupt.
Let me end by acknowledging that the 2016 election has also had positive consequences: for one thing, this administration’s bumbling is reminding the American people of the importance of competent government, and the damage that can be done when those in office have no idea what they are doing. The election has also rebutted—pretty conclusively— the widespread belief that any successful businessperson or celebrity can run the government. People who would never go to a dentist who hadn’t gone to dental school or filled a cavity were nevertheless perfectly willing to turn the nation and the nuclear codes over to someone who had absolutely no experience with or knowledge of government. We shouldn’t be surprised by the result.
Most important, however, the election unleashed more civic engagement and political activism than I’ve seen in my adult life.
The question is, can this impressive wave of civic engagement turn the tide? Can engaged Americans reverse the declines in civility and civic literacy, and reinvigorate the American idea?
Reviving America’s democratic norms, turning back the assaults on the rule of law and equal access to the ballot box, fixing the gerrymandering that feeds apathy and makes too many votes meaningless…the list of needed repairs to the system is long, and it will require political action and persistent civic engagement by an informed,civically-literate citizenry.
I’m hopeful, but the jury is still out.
To be honest, I could only make it through half way but the civic illiteracy point is absolutely on target. If I posted half of this on Facebook, it would be called “liberal trash”. Muncie Voice which holds all elected officials accountable and the private sector who corrupts it is called just another “Trump bashing site”.
I also contend that tribalism is a faulty solution for Americans because they are not being told the truth about anything. Including our history. I’ve read more about our junk history in the last five years than ever before. The whitewash is fading away. We’ve learned the truth about wars like Vietnam and Iraq.
All with one common theme: our government lied to us.
In Einstein’s excellent piece in the 50’s, he already saw it. We are individuals but also part of a much larger WE. Unity is the message but tribalism keeps us apart.
Oppressors know this as well. In fact, much of the divisive strategy comes from the military and intelligentsia.
As long as they can keep republicans and democrats bashing each other, the oppressors win. Why in a country as diverse as the USA do we only have two political parties? How many does our parent now have?
I contend the one strategy employed long ago by the oppressors was killing off the unions. Why?
It got us much closer to unity. We all came together for a common cause – our livelihoods. Communities were stronger and neighbors knew neighbors. We need a Labour Party. If more Americans could hear Jeremy Corbyn speak, they’d want a Labour Party.
While we are both individual and social creatures, we crave for unity whether we are conscious of it or not.
“Over the past several years, America’s political environment has become steadily more toxic. Partisan passions and previously suppressed bigotries have erupted, overwhelming reasoned analysis.”
The above quote from Sheila’s speech summarizes why she has the repeated theme of the need for civic knowledge to be taught in our education systems and the need to stress this knowledge on students. Yesterday’s blog, “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Privilege” regarding Executive Privilege and Attorney-Client Privilege and the quote “The limits of the two may determine the future of the Trump presidency.” give us a “reasoned analysis” of the scope and limitation of our civil rights under the Constitution. Her blog the day before yesterday, “The Call Of Moral Duty”, in my estimation brings us to her speech in today’s blog and the above copied and past assessment of our current toxic political environment, making these blogs a trilogy to be referred to again and again.
Because I do not remember if I even had a civics class prior to dropping out of high school, I keep copies of The Constitution on my coffee table and next to my computer for immediate reference. Next to my computer I also keep my Bible for reference purposes due to the lack of reasoned religious usage which has sucked in the element with lesser knowledge and released the suppressed bigotries because they are now deemed acceptable and necessary by the Trump administration.
“Reviving America’s democratic norms, turning back the assaults on the rule of law and equal access to the ballot box, fixing the gerrymandering that feeds apathy and makes too many votes meaningless…the list of needed repairs to the system is long, and it will require political action and persistent civic engagement by an informed,civically-literate citizenry.”
The “jury may still be out” on these issues but we need to hope the jury doesn’t send the case to SCOTUS!
Amen.
To your point about the fringes controlling who gets elected – have any of you watched the debates between the R candidates for Senator?
They each repeatedly make it clear that they are for: 1) 2nd Amendment 2) Pro life 3) Pro Trump. If those declarations aren’t about asking for the votes of the R extremists, then I don’t know what else could be.
My hope is that there will be enough intelligent voters in November to re-elect Donnelly. Rokita and Messer need to be kicked out of DC and Braun shouldn’t be sent there.
On a positive note, the 2nd Congressional IN District has three intelligent and viable Democratic candidates who are running to oust Rep. Jackie Walorski. They are all working very hard and not one of them is an extremist. Walorski must go! She is owned by the Koch brothers and their ilk and she has never had any intention of representing her constituents.
As a former educator, I couldn’t agree more with the “civic literacy” portion of this speech. From a sinister point of view, ideological movements all have an insidious attack portion directed at children. From churches inculcating the children in “Sunday School” to Hitler’s “Jungedeutsch” program, getting the kids’ heads “right” at the beginning perpetuates the tribalism, divisiveness and the worship elements that either work for or against the betterment of the people.
Now, go try and sell this to the 40% who still support Republicans and the Trump phenomenon. Be prepared for blank faces or angry, knee-jerk responses. The United States is about one – maybe two – generations from outright collapse as a society. That “shining light on the hill” will turn out to be the entrance to our oblivion as a democratic republic. And, as Marx suggested, we did it to ourselves. Capitalism will have destroyed itself from within.
Vernon,
“Now, go try and sell this to the 40% who still support Republicans and the Trump phenomenon. Be prepared for blank faces or angry, knee-jerk responses.”
Good advice. They understand one thing and one thing only, WHITE POWER. If you want to change their minds, you better be ready to convince them otherwise. And because of this phenomenon, if the Democratic Party doesn’t adopt a platform of equality for all, then they can forget the African-American vote. They are making their position clear as day. And I don’t blame them.
By Rebecca Ruiz
http://www.Mashable.com
“The Trump voter is often portrayed in media and pop culture as a working-class white person, down on their luck and desperate for change. These voters were — and remain — willing to look past Trump’s erratic and unorthodox behavior and “politically incorrect” commentary if his presidency brings better jobs. These voters, the narrative goes, are in pursuit of a noble life, even if the man they chose to be commander-in-chief is neither generous or honorable.
But a new study, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, argues that a segment of these voters was motivated partly by a far less righteous cause: to protect their own dominant status in American culture and politics.
The study looks at a nationally representative group of the same voters who cast ballots in 2012 and 2016. In particular, it focuses on those who voted for Barack Obama and then, four years later, supported Trump. Instead of finding voters nervous about their family’s finances, it uncovered deep concern related to America’s declining global power and the projected demographic changes that will put people of color and ethnic minorities in the majority by 2045.
“What we find is this sense of threat,” says Diana C. Mutz, the study’s author and professor of political science and communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mutz found no evidence that personal economic anxiety, represented by indicators like worry about retirement savings, medical bills, and education expenses, predicted greater support for Trump. She also asked about the state of voters’ personal finances and whether their community had high unemployment and a concentration of manufacturing jobs. Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters favored a smaller safety net, which suggests they’re less concerned about how people will fare when they face dire financial straits.
One particularly telling factor did increase the likelihood of support for Trump: believing that white people are more discriminated against than people of color, and believing that Christians and men experience more discrimination than Muslims and women.
Mutz also found that the people who switched their vote from Democrat to Republican between 2012 and 2016 were more aligned with Trump’s aggressive stance on free trade and China’s ascendance as a global superpower. And they expressed a desire for group hierarchy instead of equality, with their group on top.
Other studies since the election found that racial attitudes played a role in Trump’s election. Mutz says her analysis, which uses high-quality panel data as opposed to cross-section survey data, suggests that people are more threatened by the accelerating achievements of black people rather than the negative stereotypes they may hold.
Her findings should provoke uncomfortable conversations about the complicated ideas and beliefs that motivated people to vote for Trump. In fact, these are debates many people of color, including those in the media, have engaged in since well before Trump was elected.
But for the past year-and-a-half, many reporters and pundits have crafted the prevailing narrative, which is rooted in sympathy for Trump voters. Roseanne Barr, for example, has taken this campaign into people’s living rooms with the reboot of her show, which tacitly defends its support of Trump based on the economic salvation he represents for white working-class Americans. This idea was front-and-center in Sen. Ted Cruz’s recent tribute to the president in Time: “President Trump is a flash-bang grenade thrown into Washington by the forgotten men and women of America.”
Imagine instead, though, a media narrative that took seriously the notion that voters chose Trump as a way to protect their own dominant status — not as an act of noble rebellion. It might help explain, for instance, the shockingly high approval rating the president still has with evangelical Christians. And yet, that debate is fraught because it points to deep-seated bias and prejudice.
“It’s a really difficult conversation for people to have. Most people don’t want to perceive themselves as racist.”
“It causes people to confront things that are uncomfortable and unflattering,” says Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University who was not involved in Mutz’s research. “It’s a really difficult conversation for people to have. Most people don’t want to perceive themselves as racist.”
It is indeed easier to point to just about any other thesis for Trump’s victory, including Hillary Clinton’s various weaknesses as a candidate and her campaign’s mistakes. And while Mutz’s findings represent one aspect of Clinton’s loss, they are arguably the hardest to face.
They also present a daunting challenge for liberal activists hoping to mobilize support for Democrats in this year’s midterm elections. There are certainly ways Democrats could strategically tailor their message to address people’s concerns about China and globalization, but there’s no realistic way for the party to reassure voters interested in protecting their status without betraying its base: black people and progressive allies, who believe that nothing short of full equality and equity will suffice in the 21st century.
Even if the Democrats nominate a flawless presidential candidate in 2020 — as if such a thing exists — it’s entirely possible certain voters will still be eager to march to the polls, ready to defend their place on top. No matter how easy it is to pretend that fight is about pocketbook anxieties, it’s increasingly clear it’s instead over who gets to wield the most power in America. THAT IS A BATTLE WE SIMPLY CANNOT IGNORE.”
SK:” Climate change, the loss of jobs to automation, the worrisome tribalism and racism that is tearing at our national fabric, inadequate funding of public education, the multiple, obvious flaws in our justice system”..
I have nothing to digress from today’s topic except the “Climate change” reference. I believe it was JoAnn in a post awhile back who mentioned that”climate change” is no longer the correct moniker for what’s happening wrt to our planet’s reaction to man-made emissions,et al. In fact,according to her,in her words,we cannot act upon “climate change”.
JoAnn:”We cannot ACT ON Climate Change as it is nature; the terms are NOT interchangeable.”
https://www.sheilakennedy.net/2017/10/the-roads-not-taken/
Sheila’s speech was excellent and should be read by all Americans from whatever tribe. When I write about civic literacy I almost always mention the Texas State School Board’s removal of civics from the high school curriculum in what seems to be a deliberate attempt to keep ’em dumb – and, of course, easy prey for subsequent political manipulation whether the tools for such manipulation include race, gender, class etc. Removing civic literacy from the schoolhouse joins gerrymandering, NRA and Russian disruption of our elections which, among others, tears at our version of Athenian democracy. Vern is right that we are doing it to ourselves and Sheila has identified the culprits, so the question is now > What are we going to do about it?
If we are to salvage what is left from current assaults on our democracy and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it comes down to winning the election this fall, followed by real attempts to end gerrymandering both legislatively and judicially, election of local and state school boards who establish and expand civic literacy curricula etc., since, as Sheila wisely notes: We cannot fix what we don’t understand. Sheila covered all the bases, and now we are up to bat, so let’s hit a homer this November!
Speaking of Climate Change. I think there was a post last week about Christian hypocrisy wrt The Trumpster.The question was raised; How can evangelicals support a man with a hedonistic lifestyle?
Easy,hypocrisy is a solid fabric firmly permeated in American life. Let’s take Climate Change,that’s great to be concerned about our environment,however if you’re unwilling to change your lifestyle to ameliorate the effects of carbons…..Then just stop complaining. Frankly,nothing will be done because no one is willing to change their lifestyle to accommodate such changes. Secondly,the burden upon business is too great to lessen the effects of climate change by the business community. The business community is the donor class. As the empirical evidence has proven and is plenty,they’re not going to give in at all to the changes needed…..just like the public.
Attributions are not certain and wording approximate: Jefferson “A people cannot be both ignorant and free.” Mussolini”I love democracy! A government ofcounting of heads. The more empty the better!”
A very recent example of the pernicious effects of the most ideological voters, i.e., the “base,” attacking from the flank. In this case: Utah. As most of the well informed followers of Professor Kennedy’s blog surely know, Mitt Romney is currently running to be the Republican candidate to hopefully replace the retiring Orrin Hatch in the U.S. Senate in a mostly red, socially conservative state.
Whatever you might think of Ol’ Mitt, he’s hardly a liberal. For only one thing, remember his “self-deportation plan” and the “takers.” And, of course, he is a prominent Mormon in a state that is socially and culturally dominated by the Mormon Church.
But over the weekend, the Utah Republican Party, controlled by the most rabid Trump/Tea Party right-wingers refused to endorse Mitt as “their” candidate for the U.S. Senate because he wasn’t sufficiently conservative enough, or perhaps not on the “Trump Train” enough. So now Mitt will have to suffer another indignity; this time having to run in a primary to obtain the “Republican” nomination. The moral of the story is not to feel sorry for Ol’ Mitt. He will likely win the primary and go on to become the next Senator from Utah.
Responses to William and David F – The answer to the problem you pose is exclusive public financing of elections, William, and David F, Mitt isn’t running for the Senate; he is running for president – a deja vu experience – running for the Senate is designed to keep him in the limelight until 2020.
As to costs of public financing of elections, consider the costs of elections and policy bought and paid for by the Kochs, Mercers and their ilk. Such “costs” would not only be cheaper but would also restore the peoples’ rights over the (Citizens United’s) rights of Big Money to control our political choices.
I find it convenient some times to separate politics from government. The politics include the running or preparing to run for office while the governing includes actions taken by those in government doing the jobs that they were elected to do. From that perspective one of our problems is that we have too much politicking and not enough governing. Why?
For one thing because of our campaigning laws the politicking is the overwhelming time demand of the job and because of our lobbying laws the financial stakes of politicking which results in governing are huge. That’s all quite different from the perspective of our founders whereby people who could afford to devoted some of their time to give back to the society that they were part of.
Both problems are relatively straight forward to solve from the perspective of what could be done to mitigate them. Both are apparently impossible to solve from the perspective of it would require people who are greatly benefiting from the current system giving up the financial benefits.
The only way to me it’s even conceivable that they get solved is from a very strong committed President leaning from the bully pulpit on Congress and the public.
It’s impossible to even state how far we are currently from that condition.
Pete,
“The only way to ME it’s even conceivable that they get solved is from a very strong committed President leaning from the bully pulpit on Congress and the public.
It’s impossible to even state how far we are currently from that condition.”
You are left with that one alternative since to YOU all solutions are solely INTELLECTUAL. Hopefully, for the good of the country, some of us are not that limited.
Marv,
Per your request, my latest book is now available on Amazon.com and The Kindle Store.
Why Angels Weep: America and Donald Trump
Authored by Vernon Turner
List Price: $20.00
6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm)
Black & White on White paper
212 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1717207043 (CreateSpace-Assigned)
ISBN-10: 1717207049
BISAC: Political Science / Political Process / Campaigns & Elections
When angels weep, something is terribly wrong. The election of Donald Trump, a minority President, has shaken the foundations of democracies around the world. This is a man with no governing experience, a massive ego, and a bullying attitude who also possesses the nuclear codes that could destroy all life on Earth.
How did we come to this place? Who allowed themselves to be conned by a New York real estate hustler such that our very Constitution is attacked by a dictatorial agenda? How did subterranean pundits suddenly have the ear of this president?
Ask yourself these and any other question you like, because “Why Angels Weep: America and Donald Trump” seeks to answer them all and suggest how we might fix the causes of such a frightening and disturbing occurrence.
It’s time for each of us who claim to be true patriots to examine our own and others’ motives that made us so susceptible to the long con game of Donald Trump.
Fasten your seat belt and enjoy the ride, the lessons and the possibilities for our future in this compelling book.
Vernon Turner is a retired industrial engineer and science educator who currently publishes columns for specialty outlets. Vernon has traveled to all the continents except Antarctica and learned the wonderful things the good people around the globe have to offer.
He started writing a political column in Marble Falls, TX in 2009, and watched it lead to a third career and four published books; this one being the fifth. Vernon’s hobbies include model replica building and following his favorite baseball and hockey teams.
Vernon,
Great! Thanks for letting me know. I had previously failed to find it on Amazon.
Vernon,
I should have a copy of “Why Angels Weep” by Friday. I’ll read it over the weekend and write-up a review for Amazon next week.
And here I thought “Public Affairs Month” was something evangelicals uniformly condemned as hedonistic until POTUS 45 revised the calendar.
If Romney is running again,I wonder if he’ll use the ACA as an example of his positive influence upon the country during his campaign?
Marv, my experience in life is that liberalism is the triumph of intellectualism over emotionalism. A product of the Great Enlightment.
Gerrymandering has had another effect. The polarization has heightened confirmation bias in our consumption of news. There are many who refuse to watch traditional news programs because they feel objective news is biased against them.
I am continually amazed at the viewers of Fox news who are completely unaware of major news stories. When made aware, they become furious. They have no tolerance for news that isn’t biased their direction.
Voters also have very faulty memories. A friend yesterday thought all the media attention to Trump’s comments was unprecedented. This viewer was old enough to remember all the negative news that ultimately forced LBJ and Richard Nixon from office and Bill Clinton to be impeached and Ronald Reagan to be on the receiving end of Iran-Contra news. Anyone who runs for office and especially for President should be prepared for microscopic examination. Why someone of Trump’s background would invite such close scrutiny is a huge question. While his candidacy and presidency did and does gain more attention to Trump and the Trump brand, they’re also evidence that narcissism and greed can overwhelm judgment.
Pete,
“Marv, my experience in life is that liberalism is the triumph of intellectualism over emotionalism. A product of the Great Enlightment.”
I believe you. You’re stuck in the late 17th and early 18th Century. The problem with that orientation is that there wasn’t a Joseph Goebbels or a Steve Bannon clone back then to contend with.
Pete: “my experience in life is that liberalism is the triumph of intellectualism over emotionalism”
Not any more. The triumph of emotionalism over intellectualism occurred during the tenure of Bill Clinton’s first term. In fact,at the moment,that’s the only thing (besides fumes) the DNC and DCCC are using against the Republicans;Emotionalism–nothing more.
i.e.
We’re Not Trump!
OMG!! Russia!
We’re Suing Russia and We’re Going To Get Em! Win One For The Gipper—-Er, for Hillary!
You Have To Vote For Us,If you Don’t You’re a Moron!
We Caved wrt DACA!
We Have Not Proffered ANY Solutions wrt Electronic Voting (such as Paper Balloting) Because We’re Stuck At 2016!
Are We Even Relevant Anymore? Thank Republican Mitt Romney For The ACA! Are There Any Other Republican Programs We Can Pass With Enthusiasm and Aplomb!?
Virtue Signaling and Daily Outrage Has gotten old.
Apparently some are happier with the Trump regime and his toady Congress than I am. Here’s what I am counting on to end it. Everyone who is unhappy with it voting D this year.
One of the dangers I see us facing are people overthinking the problem and fracturing the resistance to it.
Pete,
“One of the dangers I see us facing are people overthinking the problem and fracturing the resistance to it.”
Can’t argue with you on that one.
It seems this long article has 1/3rd of the problem well described–civic literacy. (I think the Tea Party people carried copies of US constitution in their pockets. Other people have trouble knowing where afghanistan is, or iraq, or syria, or lybia, or Mt Whitney) .
1/3rd missing is the part defined by the equation (General Literacy-Civic Literacy ) or GL-CL = L(G-C). We’ll call that L2. and L=L1+L2. L=General Literacy.
So this person is promoting L1—civic literacy. She doesn’t know much about nor care much about the other parts of literacy (sciences, mathematics, economics, psychology, anthropology, etc.) She promotes half literacy. (And by logical implication, half illiteracy, ignorance or stupidity.)
as noted on this blog, the author of OP (which means ‘original post’ in case you aren’t a law prof) doesnt do the web site–her son does that. She gets 100% on test for CL or L1; 0% for L2 (everything she left out).
So grade is 50%. (Many numbers even after complex calculations turn into 1/2).