Author Archives: Sheila

Psychology and Autocracy

A recent op-ed in the New York Times warned that would-be autocrats–yes, Donald, we’re looking at you–get very dangerous when cornered. As Trump finds it more and more difficult to live in the fantasy-land he has constructed, there’s no telling what he might do.

This caution is similar to worries I’ve heard expressed about the time period between the election and January 21st, when (hopefully!) a new President assumes office. Both concerns are valid–and we all need to recognize that the feckless Republicans in Congress are responsible for whatever happens.

A reference in that same op-ed made me think about the blind obedience of those Republican elected officials.

After noting the departure of ethical Executive Branch officials and their replacement with “an army of pliant flunkies and toadies at the agencies, combined with the always-enabling Mitch McConnell and an increasingly emboldened attorney general, William Barr,”  the author wrote

Three years ago, a friend of mine shrewdly pointed out that Trump’s election would be like one long national Milgram experiment, the famous psychological study from the 1960s that revealed just how susceptible people are to authority, how depressingly willing they are to obey even the most horrifying commands.

Readers of this blog undoubtedly remember learning about the Milgram experiment, (initially undertaken to investigate why so many Germans had insisted that they had participated in genocide because they were “just following orders.”)

Volunteers were told that they were participating in an experiment in which they would be “teachers” administering electric shocks when “learners” gave incorrect answers. In reality, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram was studying the willingness of people from a variety of backgrounds and a diverse set of occupations to obey an authority figure who ordered them to perform acts that were in conflict with their personal morality.

The fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real. The experiment demonstrated that despite the discomfort and reluctance of most volunteers (and despite hearing the “learners” screaming in pain), a very high proportion of the volunteers continued to obey the authority figure’s instructions and administer the shocks..

Milgram himself summarized the experiment in 1974, in an article titled, “The Perils of Obedience”:

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ [participants’] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants’] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not.

The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation. Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

I’m still mulling over the applicability of the Milgram experiment to those we might consider Trump’s Republican “troops”–and what the results of the experiment might mean for America over the next few months.

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The More Things Change…?

It feels as if I’ve been on “lockdown” forever, and I know others are equally “over” a pandemic that is anything but over. There just aren’t that many rooms to be deep cleaned, that many books to be read, or–in my case–that many blogs to be written.

The rest of the time, then, becomes available for worrying.

I’ve been particularly concerned about what will happen to the center of my city in the wake of Covid-19. My husband and I moved to downtown Indianapolis in 1980, when things were still pretty sketchy, and we’ve celebrated the subsequent rebirth of a flourishing urban core. We’ve been excited to see new homes and apartments being built, we’ve marveled at our inability to patronize all of the new restaurants and bars (although we really tried!). We’ve worried as online retailing has reduced the number and variety of shops.  And we were heartbroken when we drove past all the boarded-up windows in the wake of the one protest that included such destruction.

Predictions about “what will come next” are everywhere. Most aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on (or the bytes they represent), but I tend to respect the scholars at the Brookings Institution, who’ve weighed in with their analysis.

The Brookings report suggests that COVID-19 will accelerate or intensify many trends that are already underway, which makes a lot of sense to me.

The report noted that retailers, along with their landlords and suppliers, were already “responding to multiple industry-wide  trends” (aka “in a world of hurt”) before the coronavirus. Trump’s tariffs hurt an industry that was already reeling from shifts in consumer demand from products to experiences, e-commerce, and the sharing economy. The pandemic is accelerating an already pressing need to embrace new models.

The report is light on specifics, but does predict that profit-sharing leases will be an “increasingly important tool to help new businesses get started, survive slowdowns, and provide a return to landlords who invest in their tenants’ success.”

The report’s predictions about food really comforted me. (Comfort food? Sorry…)

Convergence and hybridization will accelerate in food retail, which will return to be a “revitalizing force in urban life.” IKEA was already a furniture showroom, warehouse, and restaurant. High-end grocers were encouraging shoppers to have a beer. Restaurants were increasingly not just dine-in, but fast-casual or mobile food trucks. Whether through app-based delivery or prepared foods from wholesalers such as Costco, Americans will return to eating much of their food prepared outside the home. In 2017, jobs in leisure and hospitality (which includes all bars and restaurants) grew to outnumber jobs in retail trade. The pandemic is a setback, but not a reset.

On the negative side, the researchers expect that the 50- million- plus low wage workers will continue to face unsupportable housing costs– and that households that previously strained to pay rent will find it impossible. They also see worse labor market outcomes for older workers who lose their jobs.

So what does all of that portend for cities?

Some urban dwellers who have decamped to less dense areas will undoubtedly stay there permanently,  “irrespective of the many amenities and agglomeration economies urban centers have to offer.” But the researchers note that the period following the Great Recession saw major metros gain more population than their suburbs

Why was this happening in a tepidly recovering economy? A good deal was attributable to young adult millennials. Unable to find jobs and housing in large stretches of the country, they found urban centers attractive. Eventually, the economy rebounded, jobs dispersed and many young adults dispersed with them. But large metro areas still prospered even with slower growth, as Brookings’s Metro Monitor 2020 revealed.

What does this mean for the post-COVID-19 period? Much will depend on Gen Z, an educated and racially diverse generation with strong urban roots.

In other words, if Gen Z  wants and needs what urban life has to offer, they’ll opt to remain.

We will face huge challenges once the pandemic is over and Trump is (fingers crossed) a  horrific memory. We will need to restore a functioning and ethical federal government, address our enormous inequalities with social investment and a comprehensive, adequate social safety net–and continue the work of making our cities  vital, livable places to live and work.

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Guns And Protests

The pandemic, the economy and the Black Lives Matter Protests have dominated news coverage the past few months, joined by politics as the Presidential campaigns begin in earnest–but although long-simmering public policy debates have received less attention, that doesn’t mean those issues have gone away.

Which brings me to one of America’s longest, nastiest and most intractable standoffs: guns.

In January, Bartholomew County, Indiana’s gun rights activists asked that county’s commissioners to declare Bartholomew County a Second Amendment “sanctuary.” According to The Republic, the local newspaper, 

The group, called the Bartholomew County Indiana 2A United Sanctuary, has sent a draft of a proposed ordinance to the Bartholomew County commissioners, Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department and Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop, said Chris Imel of Ladoga in Montgomery County. Imel is the group’s organizer and a former Bartholomew County deputy coroner, serving in 2017.

As of mid-afternoon Tuesday, the private social media group had 4,471 members on Facebook. Imel said he created the Facebook page a week ago.

The group believes the “sanctuary” is necessary to prevent the enforcement of certain gun control measures that–in their opinions– violate the Second Amendment.

The measures that they assert “violate the 2d Amendment” include emergency protection orders, enforcement of gun background checks, and Red Flag laws. (Indiana’s Red Flag law allows authorities to disarm people who pose a danger to themselves or others; such laws typically include due process provisions allowing gun owners to retrieve their weapons through the courts if they can demonstrate they are mentally competent.)

The Bartholomew County Indiana 2A United Sanctuary group claims the proposed ordinance would allow local officials to “refuse to cooperate with state and federal firearm laws” perceived to violate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, including any future proposed restrictions on clip capacity, silencers, bump stocks, bayonet mounts, among other items, according to the proposed ordinance.

In other words, the desired “Sanctuary” would direct law enforcement in the county to ignore pretty much any state law limiting firearms in any way. (It did make an exception for federal law.)

The Bartholomew gun group  is not, unfortunately, just an isolated group of rural Hoosiers who don’t understand how laws work. They have lots of company.

As of Jan. 7, more than 418 counties, cities and towns in 21 states have passed Second Amendment sanctuary ordinances, including locations in Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington and Virginia, according to Gun Owners of America, a gun-rights group.

On Friday night, Jennings County officials signed a resolution stating the county is now a Second Amendment sanctuary. There is no indication that the resolution signed in Jennings County was approved by any county or city councils or boards before it was signed by the sheriff and others, including Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour.

If the sweep of this “Wild West” movement isn’t unsettling enough, the Brookings Institution recently issued a report titled “How Covid-19 is Changing the Gun Debate.

Starting in mid-April, anti-COVID-19 lockdown protestors stormed and shut down everything from statehouses to Subway restaurants with assault weapons and pipe wrenches. These protests are being framed around gun rights and free speech issues. Protests are allegedly about fully re-opening the economy following state-sanctioned shutdowns. Protestors appear to perceive that quarantine measures to keep them safe and reduce the spread of COVID-19 are violations of their civil liberties. In turn, they act out their frustrations through expressions of their 1st and 2nd Amendment rights. Anti-lockdown protests have now occurred in 31 states across the country and gun sales surged to nearly 2 million in March.

Not only have gun sales surged, but according to the report, they’ve surged in liberal states–despite the fact that the armed lockdown protestors are clearly Trump supporters. The researchers were unable to tell whether this data represents purchases by liberals (arming to protect themselves in the upcoming civil war?) or by conservatives living in liberal states (adding to their burgeoning armories?)

America is currently experiencing the simultaneous effects of the worst aspects of our cultural history: deeply-ingrained racism, an inadequate social safety net, a radical individualism that disdains even the slightest appeal to the common good, and the celebration of anti-intellectualism.

The racist and anti-intellectual elements gave us Trump–and his heavily-armed base.

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Equipping Voters

On this blog, I frequently share concerns that American levels of civic literacy are too low to sustain democratic self-government.

I’d like to expand on those concerns.

Civic knowledge–or more accurately, its lack– is also linked to two aspects of the broader unrest we are experiencing: we need to restore civility and honesty to our public debates; and we need to encourage not just voter turnout–important as that is– but to improve the number of Americans who cast informed ballots.

Americans will always argue, but my research has convinced me that civic ignorance– defined as inadequate knowledge of America’s history, Constitution and Bill of Rights—creates conflicts that are wholly unnecessary, and worse, encourages the partisan dishonesty and propaganda we see all around us.

When people don’t understand the structure of federalism or separation of powers (only 26% of Americans can name the 3 branches of government), when they don’t know that the Bill of Rights limits both government and popular majorities, it’s easy for partisans to generate suspicion that government is operating in ways that it shouldn’t, and to undermine trust in our governing institutions.

As we’ve seen, when people distrust their government, and are suspicious of its motives, disrespect and hostility infect public attitudes and intensify public debates.

And when government really isn’t operating properly, when–as now– there’s clear evidence of incompetence or corruption or both, it’s especially important that citizens be able to communicate–that we occupy a common reality and argue from the same basic premises. When Americans are faced with evidence that America has failed to live up to its ideals, it’s critically important that we all understand what those ideals were.

America was the first country in the world to base citizenship on behavior rather than identity—on how people act rather than who they are. Initially, of course, that ideal of equality was only extended to white guys with property, but the principle–the ideal– represented an important paradigm shift.

America also redefined liberty. Liberty was no longer the individual’s “freedom” to do whatever the monarch or the church decided was the “right thing.”

Instead, government was supposed to protect your ability to do your own thing, so long as you did not thereby harm the person or property of someone else, and so long as you were willing to respect others’ right to do likewise.  Of course, Americans still can and do argue about what harm looks like, and what kinds of harm justify government intervention (and we seem to have a particularly difficult time with that thing about respecting the rights of others to do their thing.)

Civility and civil peace would be significantly enhanced if more Americans understood that the Bill of Rights requires a lot of “live and let live” forbearance, and especially if they understood that the Bill of Rights restrains government from doing some of the things that majorities at any given time want government to do.

If–as I devoutly hope–we eject Trump and his horrendous administration in November–and we turn to the long-term project of “cleaning up” corruption, incompetence and racism in government, voter education writ large must be the first order of business.

Voter education includes more than how to register, and how and where to vote, as important as those practical instructions are. (Helpful websites like this one from the Indiana Citizen have that information.)

For voter education to facilitate the casting of informed ballots, it has to include a basic understanding of how government is structured and operates, and an understanding of the duties and responsibilities of the office being filled. What does the job entail? What are the constraints that limit the office, the checks and balances? Do the candidates (unlike Trump) understand those limits?

The ability to cast an informed ballot requires information about the candidates and their positions on the issues. It also requires knowing how the incumbent has performed, assuming that incumbent is running for re-election.

This is precisely where our local information environments are failing. There has been a massive loss of local newspapers (over 2000 in the last few years)—and we get very little information about local government from the hollowed-out ones that remain.(The Indianapolis Star, is a case in point.)

In the run-up to elections, local newspapers used to analyze and fact-check political ads. Today, the general public is left to get its information from mostly partisan sources. Citizens must decide which of those sources are trustworthy and which are irremediably biased. One of the most helpful tools a citizen can have in making those determinations is a solid understanding of American government.

In the era of Trump, an understanding of elementary logic would also be helpful….

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The Pandemic And The Constitution

Faculty at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, where I teach, decided to put together a special course addressing issues raised by the pandemic. Those of us involved will each teach one class session; mine, unsurprisingly, will look at the civil liberties issues involved. The question I will explore is whether and how much government can limit individual rights in order to discharge its duty to protect citizens’ health and lives.

When I began to do some research in preparation for the class, I found the pandemic raising a more significant number of constitutional issues than I had anticipated. Many of those issues lack clear answers.

One of the most visible—and contentious—of those issues involves federalism. Federalism, as readers of this blog know, is the structure under which government jurisdiction is divided between federal, state and local units of government. What does the law say about the role of the federal government in a pandemic? What powers are reserved to the states?

There has been a great deal of public and official confusion over where various responsibilities lie; the President has asserted his authority to over-rule governors on several matters, and at the same time has disclaimed responsibility for tasks that he says are state responsibilities. Several of his statements have been inconsistent with the Constitution (I know–you’re shocked), which vests primary responsibility with the states, and anticipates support, co-ordination and assistance from the federal government.

Other questions: Does a pandemic allow government to impose more stringent limits on the First Amendment right to assemble? This issue arises in several ways: citizens have  protested state orders requiring masks and social distancing (some of those protestors have been armed). Those eruptions have been much smaller (and weirder) than the massive  Black Lives Matter demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd–but both challenge efforts to control the pandemic.

Then there are the shutdowns, the “stay-in-place” orders. Here, the law seems pretty clear; ever since a 1905 case—Jacobsin v. Massachusetts—the Supreme Court has upheld the right of government to impose quarantines and require vaccinations. (Government does have to demonstrate the reasonableness of those measures and their utility in ameliorating the threat of contagion.)

What about interstate travel, which the Supreme Court has long held to be a fundamental right? We’ve seen some governors restricting people from entering their states from so-called “hot spots.” Can they do that?

We are hearing a lot about new cellphone apps being developed to permit “contact tracing.” That technology has been met with considerable alarm from privacy advocates and organizations concerned about increasing government surveillance. The potential for misuse is high–and limitations on use of these technologies remain legally ambiguous.

The right to vote is obviously a critically-important constitutional right (not to mention a necessary guarantor of democracy) and the pandemic has further enabled efforts at vote suppression. Conflicts about the availability of absentee ballots for people fearful of the Coronavirus have already erupted, and efforts to expand vote-by-mail are being frantically resisted by Republicans. (The debate is further complicated by the evident inability of many states to handle increased voting by mail.)

Several states have used pandemic restrictions to justify denying women access to abortion. There is considerable debate about the degree to which those restrictions can be imposed, and a case from Texas (of course!) has been appealed to the Supreme Court.

The First Amendment’s right of Assembly and its Free Exercise Clause have both been cited by religious organizations—primarily churches—that are challenging limitations on in-person gatherings. In the cases of which I’m aware, the churches have lost.

Incarcerated persons, and those being detained by ICE face hugely increased medical risks and unique constitutional questions: what about an inmate’s right to consult with his or her lawyer? At what point do the conditions of confinement–the likelihood of contagion– rise to the level of “cruel and unusual punishment”?

A fascinating case that has recently been filed raises an increasingly important First Amendment Free Speech/Free Press issue: can sources of deliberate disinformation be held liable for damages? The case is Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics v. Fox News .The complaint alleges that Fox News violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act and acted in bad faith, both by disseminating false information about the novel coronavirus through its television news broadcasts and by minimizing the danger posed by the virus as COVID-19 began to explode into a pandemic.

It is highly unlikely that the Washington League will prevail, but the lawsuit raises some profound questions about the nature of speech that might be considered the equivalent of “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater.”

And you thought the only thing to fear was the Coronavirus itself…

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