Those Awful Ads

A couple of years ago, my children introduced me to the phrase “first world problems.” First world problems are irritants that annoy people who are privileged to be part of the affluent “first world”–a computer glitch, a bad hair day, a spoiled dinner…The sorts of problems that millions of people around the world would love to have.

One of my “first world” problems is the idiocy–and frequency–of the political ads for Indiana Governor and Congress.

My husband and I mostly escape ads of all sorts by streaming most of our television viewing, but as older folks, we watch “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” which come to us via live television. Given the demographics of the audience for those shows, they are prime venues for candidates hoping to reach elderly reliable voters, and as the primary election has drawn closer, we are inundated by claims and messages that appear to be aimed at uninformed intellectual cretins.

I’ve previously posted about Jefferson Shreve’s ads for Congress. (He barely had time to catch his breath after losing the race for Indianapolis Mayor before launching this campaign. Obviously, he wants to “be someone.”) Shreve’s ads are inane, misleading and arguably racist, but by far the most offensive messages come from a congressional candidate whose name escapes me (It’s Chuck something-or-other) who says the most important issue facing Indiana is “biological men playing women’s sports” and who brags that while serving in Indiana’s legislature, he sponsored “and passed” (all by yourself, Chuck?) a bill addressing that monumental issue. He ends by pooh-poohing opponents who think “international stuff” is more important than protecting real women athletes from those he labels “biological men.”

Then there are the interminable ads for the gubernatorial nomination.

One of the six candidates for governor–Eric Doden– proclaims that he is the only one who has “a plan” to address his selected issues–but he doesn’t bother to say what those “plans” are. He also proclaims that he’s the only candidate running for governor who will explicitly make his “faith” front and center (his ads prominently feature a bible and little white church)–an excellent reason for avoiding him, in my opinion.

All of the governor candidates save one have signed on to Trump’s MAGA party, and one–Mike Braun–boasts that he’s been endorsed by Trump. (The voice-over says “and we know why.” Yes, indeed we do, and a lot of us find that disqualifying.)  At least three of them claim to be “outsiders,” a claim that runs from ludicrous to factually dubious, and raises the question “why would I vote for someone who doesn’t have the background needed to understand the job?”

James Briggs is an opinion columnist for the Indianapolis Star, and recently responded to a question about those campaign ads, and why most of them ignore issues that are specific to the state.

Carl Gottlieb: Most of the campaign for governor commercials I have seen on TV seem to be campaigning against President Biden. I didn’t know he controlled the Indiana Statehouse? Where do these clowns stand on issues relevant to Indiana?

I agree it’s annoying how candidates operate like McDonald’s franchisees, offering templated menus to local communities. But, much like in the restaurant industry, political candidates are responding to market demands

You, me and (probably) most people reading this exist in a bubble where we want to see candidates offer policy-based discussion. But it’s a pretty small bubble!

record 3 million Indiana residents, or 65% of registered voters, cast ballots in the 2020 general election. Turnout for those elections is typically below 60% — and it falls to around 25% for primary elections, which is what you’re talking about here with the GOP gubernatorial race (which is probably going to determine our next governor).

Among the people who show up and vote, most are busy living their lives. They pick up fragments of election-related information and file it away according to preexisting (and nationally oriented) understandings of politics.

Given the fact that a depressingly small number of voters can even name the current governor, Briggs points out that candidates with enough money to blanket the airwaves try to do three things:

No. 1, make people remember their names through Election Day; No. 2, link the candidate to values shared by voters; and No. 3, brand opponents as unacceptably awful and depress people who otherwise might vote for them.

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A Chilling, Albeit Correct, Diagnosis

I don’t know who Thomas Zimmer is, nor do I recall how I came to read his February 8th “Democracy Americana” newsletter. 
It’s likely some reader shared it after one of my periodic rants about racism and MAGA’s takeover of the GOP, but that’s just a guess. The headline and subhead are pretty clear indications of the subject-matter: “Domination or Dissolution, Rule or Ruin: The Right is fantasizing about secession, ‘national divorce’ and civil war–because they will not, under any circumstances, accept pluralism.”

 
In short, they’re committed racists.
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Who Decides?

The Bill of Rights–as I repeatedly note– addresses areas of citizens’ lives that the Founders marked “off limits” to government authority, answering the question “who decides this?” in favor of individual citizens.

That framing is one way to look at today’s vicious culture war.

Those of us who want to maintain the constitutional line between matters government is authorized to decide and matters remitted to our individual consciences are under attack by the autocrats and theocrats who want to use the power of the state to impose their favored choices on everyone else. Nowhere is that clearer than in the persistent efforts to control what books we can read and what information we can access.

A recent article from Axios focused on that battle.

Attempts to ban books at public libraries have reached record levels, pitting right-wing parents and legislators against those who oppose censorship.

Driving the news: The culture war over books has become a legislative battle as well.

  • Last year, more than 150 bills in 35 states aimed to restrict access to library materials, and to punish library workers who do not comply,” per the New York Times.
  • As a counterpunch, legislators in blue and purple states are coming to the aid of librarians to help them fight efforts to remove books with certain racial, sexual or gender-related themes.
  • Last June, Illinois became the first state to pass a law penalizing libraries that ban books.

What they’re saying: “We have broadened the framing to refer to ‘intellectual freedom challenges'” rather than just book bans, AnnaLee Dragon, executive director of the New York Library Association, tells Axios.

The hypocrisy is obvious. As one librarian reportedly told Axios, “It’s the same people who are out touting the freedom to own a gun. But you don’t think I have the right to pick a book for my kid?”

The American Library Association has mounted a campaign, Unite Against Book Bans, to encourage people to take action locally, and it’s also selling a workbook for librarians about “navigating intellectual freedom challenges together.”

Libraries have long been seen as cradles of democracy; in the words of former U.S. Senator Wendell Ford, “If information is the currency of democracy, then libraries are its banks.”

The current attacks are coming from what the article calls “a small but vocal minority” that opposes libraries precisely because they are democratic– inclusive, affirming, and intentional. That minority sees access to information as a threat.

The current onslaught has come at a time when libraries are serving an expanding variety of community needs. Librarians have gotten used to tackling whatever tasks society demands of them, and those demands continue to broaden. As Time Magazine recently reported, 

Libraries are among the most visited public service institutions, totaling more than 1 billion visits annually with users turning to libraries for critical educational services in addition to books. In recent years, as many as 118 million participants have taken part in nearly 6 million programs focused on early and family literacy, digital literacy instruction, after-school homework support and summer reading programs for youth, adult literacy and basic education, career readiness, small business development, arts and humanities programming, English for Speakers of Other Languages instruction, and special programs for adults navigating memory loss and reentry after incarceration.

The effort to restrict what information other citizens can access has accelerated.

Last year there were 1,269 attempts to censor library books, the highest number of attempted book bans in the two decades that ALA has been compiling data about censorship in libraries. During this same period, 2,571 unique book titles were targeted for censorship, an astonishing 32% increase over 2021, with 40% of book challenges occurring in public libraries, while the remaining nearly 60% occurred in school libraries. As these threats to the right to read continue, in all too many cases, parents are being roped into banning books they haven’t even heard of before, let alone read, by extremist groups using book banning as a political tactic. At a school board meeting in Pennsylvania this year at which book censorship was being recommended, one parent supporting the banning of a title proclaimed, “I have not read the book myself, I don’t intend to read the book, but I have had portions distributed to me of this book.”

If we have come to a time in this country when parents can be successfully swayed into restricting access to books they haven’t read, what does that mean for our future as a nation? What other personal and constitutional rights might next be compromised?

Some constitutional questions are open to interpretation. This one isn’t.

The First Amendment protects our right to decide for ourselves what we and our children read.

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About That War On Women…

When women point out that “pro life” legislation and Court decisions are really “anti-woman,” far too many men respond with verbal pats on the head. “Tut tut, little woman–don’t you think you are being a bit hysterical?

Well, it appears that Talking Points Memo has “brought the receipts.” The site has acquired a trove of documents from a secretive group aiming to restore White Christian heterosexual men to their “rightful” dominance.

A secret, men-only right-wing society with members in influential positions around the country is on a crusade: to recruit a Christian government that will form after the right achieves regime change in the United States, potentially via a “national divorce.”

It sounds like the stuff of fantasy, but it’s real. The group is called the Society for American Civic Renewal (the acronym is pronounced “sacker” by its members). It is open to new recruits, provided you meet a few criteria: you are male, a “trinitarian” Christian, heterosexual, an “un-hyphenated American,” and can answer questions about Trump, the Republican Party, and Christian Nationalism in the right way. One chapter leader wrote to a prospective member that the group aimed to “secure a future for Christian families.”

The documents spell out the aims and objectives of what TPM calls “a shadowy network occupying the commanding heights of business, politics, and culture, open only to a select, elite few, committed to reshaping the United States to align it with the group’s radical values. ”

The members of this all-male organization are all White, well-to-do, devout Christian traditionalists engaged in politics.

Until TPM began reporting this story several weeks ago, the membership of the group had remained largely secret. Its existence was known and has been previously reported on by The Guardian, but the details of the group’s mission, membership criteria, board, and internal communications remained outside of public view. Beginning late Thursday, some of the leading members of the group identified by TPM through our reporting came forward publicly to acknowledge their memberships in the organization and published an internal document that TPM had already obtained. They said they were doing so in anticipation of another story by The Guardian.

These aren’t the pathetic “Proud Boys,” assorted Incels, or other misfits we’ve come to expect. TPM identified members: the president of the Claremont Institute, several Harvard Law School graduates, and leading businessmen in communities scattered across America. (Evidently, the man who incorporated the group nationally is an “Indiana shampoo tycoon who refers to himself as “maximum leader” and blogs about Rhodesian anti-guerilla tactics and how the must-read dystopian fiction novel for white supremacists, The Camp of the Saints, is actually a vision of America’s present.”)

Group members hold a distinct vision of America as a latter-day ancient Rome: a crumbling, decadent empire that could soon be replaced by a Christian theocracy. To join, the group demands faithfulness, virtue, and “alignment,” which it describes as “deference to and acceptance of the wisdom of our American and European Christian forebears in the political realm, a traditional understanding of patriarchal leadership in the household, and acceptance of traditional Natural Law in ethics more broadly.” More practically, members must be able to contribute either influence, capability, or wealth in helping SACR further its goals.

“Most of all, we seek those who understand the nature of authority and its legitimate forceful exercise in the temporal realm,” a mission statement reads.

And of course, in the time-honored tradition of “follow the money,”

Once in the group, the statement says, members can expect perks: “direct preferential treatment for members, especially in business,” and help in advancement “in all areas of life” from other members.

The report–which you really do need to read in its entirety–traces how TPM uncovered the group’s existence and origins, and confirmed its core mission: “to create a mini-state within a state, composed entirely of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian men. It’s explicitly patriarchal, demanding that group members assume a dominant role at home, and celebrates the use of force and existence of authority.”

Two paragraphs ought to alarm any non-male, non-White, non-Christian, non-straight person who reads the extensive, linked report:

What sets SACR apart is that its members come from and are recruited from the upper crust of American society. They are wealthy — independent wealth is a requirement for membership, per documents TPM obtained. And they are credentialed.

SACR offers a redoubt for powerful people who take the culture war extremely seriously and believe in their bones that hemorrhaging church membership, the Obergefell decision on same-sex marriage, and the ebbing status of Christian men in American society are an existential threat to their vision for America, and who have the means to build a society on a different path.

Katie Britt would fit right in…..

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Equal Protection? Or Discrimination?

Does the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment forbid the government to address problems caused by decades of unequal treatment? One off-the-tracks court apparently believes the answer is yes.

The Supreme Court has effectively ended most affirmative action programs, and now a federal judge has handed down what has been labeled a “White grievance ruling,” holding that the Minority Business Development Agency cannot focus on minorities, and must open its doors to every race–i.e., White guys.

I am not making this up.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Pittman (a Trump appointee) ruled that the Minority Business Development Agency (which has been working with minority-owned businesses for 55 years) must open its doors to “every race,” in a case brought by a group of White plaintiffs who argued that the agency’s focus on minority businesses constituted discrimination against White people.

Pittman is the judge who killed Joe Biden’s student debt relief, and ruled that Texas couldn’t ban teenagers between 18-20 from carrying concealed weapons.

As one relatively intemperate pundit reported (no link available and “F bomb” omitted):

In his 93-page opinion… the judge ruled that the agency’s presumption that businesses owned by Black, Latino, and other minorities are inherently disadvantaged violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Further, he permanently prohibited the agency’s business centers from extending services based on an applicant’s race. In one truly infuriating passage, Pittman wrote: “If courts mean what they say when they ascribe supreme importance to constitutional rights, the federal government may not flagrantly violate such rights with impunity. The MBDA has done so for years. Time’s up.” Rarely does diction in a judicial ruling trigger a Looney Toons-style reaction complete with steam coming out of my ears and my face turning red with rage but wow! That did it!

This ruling is the latest in a string of judgments that have blown up federal affirmative action programs following the precedent set by the conservative-majority Supreme Court ruled against Harvard and the University of North Carolina using race-conscious admissions last June. The conservative public interest law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, who represented the White plaintiffs, was naturally ecstatic about the ruling. One of the firm’s attorneys, Dan Lennington, said, while somehow keeping a straight face: “No longer can a federal agency only cater to certain races.” This man really said “cater”! About America’s relationship to minorities! I’m going to stop writing now before I have a stroke.

I’m not having a stroke, exactly, but it is clearly past time to address a profoundly important issue–does the Equal Protection Clause forbid lawmakers from trying to solve (or at least ameliorate) specific inequities?

Do government efforts to combat disease A constitute discrimination against diseases B and C? Was the (now eviscerated) Voting Rights Act unfair to the states required to get pre-clearances due to past misbehaviors, since states that hadn’t purposely prevented Black folks from voting weren’t required to get such permissions?

You can undoubtedly come up with other examples.

Do some efforts to address past inequities go too far? Absolutely. It is always appropriate to examine programs that are intended to remediate past misbehavior, to ensure that those programs aren’t themselves violating Equal Protection. There are lots of gray areas, lots of legitimate differences of opinion based upon the specifics of the program being examined.

But this opinion really does seem to be–in the words of the quoted pundit–an example of White grievance. How dare the government try to help minority businesses that have demonstrably been disadvantaged through slavery and Jim Crow? How dare the government concede the ongoing effects of years of White privilege, and try to even the playing field?

It is certainly possible that some aspects of the agency –some programs–go too far, but finding that the agency’s mission violates Equal Protection is–in my humble opinion–evidence of racism and a total lack of basic legal reasoning. (In law school, we learn that there is no right without a remedy...)

An old friend of mine–a Republican, from back in the days when “Republican” didn’t mean “member of a racist MAGA cult”–used a sports analogy to point out that government is supposed to be an umpire–not a player on the field. Umpires and referees are supposed to ensure fair play. I don’t know much about sports, but I’m pretty sure that in basketball, when a member of one team fouls a member of the other team, the one who was fouled gets a free throw or two. It’s an effort to compensate for harm done by the foul.

Judge Pittman would evidently label that free throw discriminatory …

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