Public Policy and Governance – Page 18

It’s All About Race

I’ve been working my way through the numerous books–both the physical ones and the ones on my Kindle–that have been piling up on my nightstand, and I’ve just finished How Democracies Die. It’s a book that has generated a lot of discussion, for obvious reasons. The two scholars who wrote it in 2018, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Zimblatt, have spent their academic careers focusing on the ups and downs of democratic governments around the globe. That focus has allowed them to draw conclusions about the normative elements that serve as guardrails protecting democratic institutions, and about the signs warning of democratic collapse.

There’s a lot to absorb from the book’s copious descriptions of democratic failures in a wide variety of countries–and the authors make no bones about the reality of the threat to American institutions posed by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. It’s all pretty grim–and entirely persuasive.

That said, I was particularly struck by one of the book’s central observations–probably because it confirms my strong belief that support for Trump/MAGA is almost entirely rooted in racism.

About halfway through the book, the authors identified two democratic norms that are essential to a functioning democracy: mutual toleration and institutional forbearance. In other words, acknowledging the legitimacy of one’s political opponents, and “forbearing” to abuse or over-use institutional weapons like the filibuster or Mitch McConnell’s legal but shockingly undemocratic theft of a Supreme Court seat. Extreme polarization erodes those norms; as they write, when societies sort themselves into political camps whose world-views aren’t just different but mutually exclusive, toleration becomes harder to sustain.

When the authors analyzed what had allowed America’s politicians to sustain basic democratic norms for a period running roughly from the collapse of Reconstruction through the 1980s, they came to a very troubling conclusion–that during that time period, “The norms sustaining our political system rested, to a considerable degree, on racial exclusion.” To the extent that America operated with bipartisanship and experienced reduced polarization during that extended time period, those outcomes “came at the cost of keeping civil rights off the political agenda.”

In the final paragraph of Chapter Six, they write

America’s democratic norms, then, were born in a context of exclusion. As long as the political community was restricted largely to whites, Democrats and Republicans had much in common. Neither party was likely to view the other as an existential threat. The process of racial inclusion that began after World War II and culminated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act would, at long last, fully democratize the United States. But it would also polarize it, posing the greatest challenge to established forms of mutual toleration and forbearance since Reconstruction.

That paragraph confirms what a growing body of research has verified–and what any semi-sentient observer can see. The election of Barack Obama unleashed the overt expression of formerly-suppressed hatreds. It seeded the growth of White Christian nationalism, the huge reaction against anything seen as “woke,” the efforts to de-legitimatize efforts at inclusion–and explains the utter inability of most reasonable, non-racist Americans to understand the animus and fury of the MAGA movement.

That paragraph explains so much–as does a sentence in the final chapter, in which the authors concede that it is “difficult to find examples of societies in which shrinking ethnic majorities give up their dominant status without a fight.”

Even a cursory look at the current crop of GOP nominees up and down the various state ballots shows them publicly expressing opinions that would have been met with horror not all that long ago. Anti-Black, anti-Semitic, homophobic…meanwhile, the numerous Republican campaigns expressing hostility to immigration from the south hardly bother to veil their racism.

It’s been a long time since the Civil War. It’s been a long time since the South was able to dismantle Reconstruction. These days, the country’s accelerating social and demographic changes are making it increasingly difficult to maintain the dominance of White Christians. It’s the recognition of–and hysterical reaction to– that reality that explains Trump and MAGA. How Democracies Die warns us of the way that movement threatens not just social peace/tolerance, but the continued operation of America’s democratic institutions.

I keep thinking about that slogan “The South will rise again.”

It did. It’s now called the Republican Party, and How Democracies Die documents a lesson we have yet to learn: the persistence of this country’s deep-seated racism poses an existential threat to human decency, civic equality and the continuation of American democracy.

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A Civics Lesson, Or Why I Love Jamie Raskin

Watching today’s House of Representatives too often reminds me of farce: Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk are so lacking in gravitas, so proudly ignorant, so strident as they parade their various prejudices and display their utter unfitness for elective office, the show they put on tends to overpower recognition of their more serious and/or able colleagues.

One of my favorites in that latter group is Jamin Raskin. I’ve followed Congressman Raskin since before he was first elected, actually–many years ago, my husband and I were in Washington, D.C., catching up with former Mayor Bill Hudnut and his wife Beverly. Bev was then in law school, and introduced me to her Constitutional Law professor, who–among other things– shared my obsession with civic literacy, and had produced a book for use by high school government teachers. That professor was Jamin Raskin.

During his tenure in Congress, Raskin has frequently called upon his academic background to explain America to his dimmer colleagues. One of my favorite examples was when he told an excessively pious lawmaker, “When you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.” (He recently repeated this to Mike Johnson, the current Speaker, who has frequently opined that “the bible comes first, before the Constitution.”)

He taught another lesson when he spoke out against the censure of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who had made remarks that echoed long-time anti-Semitic tropes. In a press release, Raskin–who is Jewish–

urged the House to respect and protect the right to political free speech granted under the First Amendment and the Speech or Debate Clause by not using the House disciplinary process to punish Members’ political speech; warned of the chilling effects that politicizing and weaponizing the House’s censure mechanism would have on the speech of all Members; and noted that, in the history of the House of Representatives, the overwhelming number of censures have been for conduct, like taking bribes, embezzling funds, assaulting other Members, engaging in mail fraud, and having sex with pages, and that the only kinds of speech that have ever been punished have been true threats of violence, fighting words on the floor towards other Members, and incitement to insurrection and secession, none of which are protected by the Constitution and none of which are implicated here.

Raskin’s legal skills were evident when he managed Trump’s second impeachment.

And recently, when Congressman Glenn Grothman attempted to lecture Raskin on a perceived distinction between a “republic” and a “democracy,” Raskin outdid himself, providing Grothman with a history lesson.

The link is to CSpann, and I urge you to click through and watch Raskin deliver that brief but powerful lesson.

Raskin’s work ethic has been obvious, as he has continued to work during a recent bout with cancer and the unimaginable pain of losing a son to suicide.

There are undoubtedly other Jamie Raskins in “the people’s House,” with whom I’m unfamiliar. I focus on him because I’ve met him, because he actively defends important constitutional values, and because his wit and intellect and work ethic have all been particularly impressive, but I am confident that for every MTG, Jim Jordan, Paul Gosar and Jim Banks there are two or three serious elected Representatives trying to do a good job for their constituents at a particularly contentious time. (The recent bipartisan booing of MTG on the House floor was a welcome indicator that those individuals are as tired of performative politics as I am.)

Perhaps–if and when Americans tire of confusing political gravitas and legislative capacity with celebrity–we will be able to replace the Christian Nationalist “God squad” and other self-important know-nothings with people who are actually familiar with the Constitution and serious about producing legislation to improve Americans’ lives, and strengthen democratic values.

Like Jamie Raskin.

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Can We Spell “Quid Pro Quo”?

A number of media sources have reported on a recent meeting between Donald Trump and fossil fuel company executives, at which Trump–often described as a “transactional” personality–offered a deal: if the industry would put a billion dollars into his campaign, once elected, he’d get rid of government efforts to combat climate change.

These reports triggered a couple of immediate reactions for me: (1) “Transactional” is a nice word for acting like a mob boss. And (2) the reports should ease Democratic anxieties about young people potentially deserting Biden; the younger generation is (quite properly) the population most concerned with climate change.

Even the New York Times–which has been the traditional news source most likely to normalize Trump’s behaviors– reported on the proposed “transaction.”

Former President Donald J. Trump told a group of oil executives and lobbyists gathered at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month that they should donate $1 billion to his presidential campaign because, if elected, he would roll back environmental rules that he said hampered their industry, according to two people who were there.

The executives who attended were from ExxonMobil, EQT Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry. According to the Washington Post, the dinner was organized by oil billionaire Harold Hamm, who has for years helped shape Republican energy policies.

Mr. Trump has publicly railed for months against President Biden’s energy and environmental agenda, as Mr. Biden has raced to restore and strengthen dozens of climate and conservation rules that Mr. Trump had weakened or erased while in office. In particular, Mr. Trump has promised to eliminate Mr. Biden’s new climate rules intended to accelerate the nation’s transition to electric vehicles, and to push a “drill, baby, drill” agenda aimed at opening up more public lands to oil and gas exploration.

Over a dinner of chopped steak, Mr. Trump repeated his public promises to delete Mr. Biden’s pollution controls, telling the attendees that they should donate heavily to help him beat Mr. Biden because his policies would help their industries.

“That has been his pitch to everybody,” said Michael McKenna, who worked in the Trump White House but did not attend the event in Florida.

Mr. McKenna said the former president’s appeal to the fossil fuel industry could be summed up as: “Look, you want me to win. You might not even like me, but your other choice is four more years of these guys,” referring to the Biden administration. He added, “The uniform sentiment of guys in the business community is ‘We don’t want four more years of Team Biden.’”

When asked for comment, a Trump spokesperson attacked President Biden, accusing him of being controlled “by environmental extremists” and “forcing Americans to purchase electric vehicles they can’t afford.” Actually, although Biden has pursued a robust climate agenda, he has balanced climate concerns with accommodation of America’s energy needs.

Mr. Biden has frustrated the fossil fuel industry by pursuing the most ambitious climate agenda in the nation’s history. He has signed a sweeping law that pumps $370 billion into incentives for clean energy and electric vehicles and has enacted a suite of tough regulations designed to sharply reduce emissions from the burning of oil, gas and coal.

This year, the Biden administration paused the permitting process for new facilities that export liquefied natural gas in order to study their impact on climate change, the economy and national security.

But the fossil fuel industry has also enjoyed record profits under the Biden administration. Last year, the United States produced record amounts of oil. And even with the pause in new permits for gas export terminals, the United States is the world’s leading exporter of natural gas and is still on track to nearly double its export capacity by 2027 because of projects already permitted and under construction.

Mr. Biden has also approved several oil and gas projects sought by the fossil fuel industry.

He has authorized an enormous $8 billion oil development in Alaska known as the Willow project. He also granted a crucial permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project championed by Senator Joe Manchin III, a West Virginia Democrat, despite opposition from climate experts and environmental groups. Last month, undeterred by opposition from climate activists, the Biden administration also gave approval for an oil export project in Texas known as the Sea Port Oil Terminal.

That’s clearly not enough for our fossil fuel overlords, who may well accept the “deal” Trump is offering. As one wag posted on X (formerly Twitter):

A second Trump term may involve suspension of the Constitution, the purging of the civil service, and the military deployed in American streets. But what will it mean for gas prices?

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Words Have Meanings

Last week, a reader contacted me to ask that I address the GOP’s ever-more frequent portrayals of Democratic policy positions as “communist” and/or “fascist.” This particular variety of propaganda–the use of words to label and confuse rather than communicate–assumes (probably correctly) voters’ ignorance of the differences between socialism, communism and National Socialism, aka fascism.

Permit me to provide a “cheat sheet.”

Socialism is the collective provision of goods and services– a decision to pay for certain services collectively rather than leaving their production and consumption to the free market. There are some goods that free markets cannot or will not produce, making collective provision necessary. Economists call them public goods, and define them as both “non-excludable” –meaning that individuals who haven’t paid for them cannot be effectively kept from using them—and “non-rivalrous,” meaning that use by one person does not reduce the availability of that good to others. Examples of public goods include fresh air, knowledge, lighthouses, national defense, flood control systems and street lighting. If we are to have these goods, they must be supplied by government, and paid for with tax dollars.

Of course, policymakers also socialize non-public goods: we socialize police and fire protection because doing so is generally more efficient and cost-effective, and because most of us believe that limiting such services only to people who can afford to pay for them would be immoral. We socialize garbage collection in more densely populated urban areas in order to enhance the livability of our cities and to prevent disease transmission.

Getting the “mix” right between goods that we provide collectively and those we leave to the free market is important, because too much socialism hampers economic health. Just as unrestrained capitalism can become corporatism, socializing the provision of goods that the market can supply reduces innovation and incentives to produce. During the 20^th Century, many countries experimented with efforts to socialize major areas of their economies, and even implement socialism’s extreme, communism, with uniformly poor results. Not only did economic productivity suffer, so did political freedom. (When governments have too much control over the means of production and distribution, they can easily become authoritarian.)

Virtually all countries today have mixed economies. The challenge is getting the right balance between socialized and free market provision of goods and services.

In our highly polarized politics today, however, words like Socialism, Fascism and Communism are used more as insults than descriptions. Socialism may be the least precise of these terms. It is generally applied to mixed economies where the social safety net is much broader and the tax burden is somewhat higher than in the U.S.—Scandinavian countries are an example.

Communism begins with the belief that equality is defined by equal results; this is summed up in the well-known adage “From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs.” All property is owned communally, by everyone (hence the term “communism”). In practice, this meant that all property was owned by the government, ostensibly on behalf of the people. In theory, communism erases all class distinctions, and wealth is redistributed so that everyone gets the same share. In practice, the government controls the means of production and most individual decisions are made by the state. Since the quality and quantity of work is divorced from reward, there is less incentive to innovate or produce, and ultimately, countries that have tried to create a communist system have collapsed (the USSR) or moved toward a more mixed economy (China).

Fascism is sometimes called “national Socialism,” but it differs very significantly from socialism. The most striking aspect of fascist systems is the elevation of the nation—a fervent nationalism is central to fascist philosophy. There is a union between business and the state; although there is nominally private property, government controls business decisions. Fascist regimes tend to be focused upon a (glorious) past, and to uphold traditional class structures and gender roles as necessary to maintain the social order.

Three elements commonly identified with Fascism are 1) a national identity fused with racial/ethnic identity and concepts of racial superiority; 2) rejection of civil liberties and democracy in favor of authoritarian government; and 3) aggressive militarism. Fascists seek to unify the nation through the elevation of the state over the individual, and the mass mobilization of the national community through discipline, indoctrination, and physical training. (Think Nazi Germany.)

Politicians of both parties use these terms indiscriminately as epithets, secure in the knowledge that very few in their target audiences hear anything other than “bad!!”

Next time a MAGA person calls you a communist, you can share this little exercise in definition–but it probably won’t help. Communication isn’t the point.

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The Election And Sally Bowles

Last weekend, my husband and I joined a group of supporters and staff of Indianapolis’ Cabaret Theater on a weekend trip to New York. It was the first time we’d participated in these annual outings to Broadway to enjoy musical theater. This year, the entire group had tickets to the revival of “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club.” Participants could choose from a wide variety of other shows as well, but the Cabaret revival was the common denominator.

Most Americans are familiar with previous iterations of Cabaret, but I will readily admit that this particular production had a new and concerning resonance for me.

It had been at least eight years since my husband and I had been in Manhattan, and several things seemed different on this particular trip. On a personal note, I was struck–and impressed–by how much cleaner Midtown was, and how kind and helpful people were. My husband has mobility issues that require the use of a mobility scooter, and doormen, restaurant personnel, theater ushers–even people on the streets– were unfailingly solicitous and helpful. These are not, I will note, adjectives I might have used to describe such folks on past visits.

As we braved the crowds on the streets in the theater district, it also occurred to me that the faces I encountered were the faces that upset and enrage the predominantly rural folks who make up the bulk of the MAGA movement. Native or tourist, the people we passed reflected a cosmopolitan universe: young people with purple hair on bikes or scooters, Black, brown and White men and women talking on their phones, women with hijabs, Hasidic men with fur hats… the wildly diverse America that MAGA does not want to recognize.

What really made an impression on me, however, was the performance of Cabaret. The music and staging of this particular revival were exceptional, but what really gave me chills were the similarities between Germany just before the Nazis assumed power and the United States poised on the brink of November’s election.

Let me be clear: I’m not referring to the cruelty of the Nazi assault on Jewish Germans, although it was heartbreaking to see the naiveté of the Jewish character, Herr Schultz, who insisted that “this will all blow over. After all, I am as German as they are.” Those of us who know what came later are aware of the prevalence of the sad belief of so many German Jews that it “couldn’t happen” in such a civilized, culturally-advanced country.

No, the character who summed up the nature of the real threat–then and now–was Sally Bowles, who insisted to her lover Cliff that “politics has nothing to do with us.”

Sally wasn’t the only character to dismiss so-called “political differences” as irrelevant to the lives people live. The young operative who had befriended Sally’s lover was astonished when the swastika on his armband made Cliff recoil (after all, that’s just politics, and we’re friends). But it was Sally’s utter incomprehension about why national politics should matter to her at all–why the events consuming Berlin should cause her to rethink a return to performing at the Kit Kat Club–that forced me to consider the millions of Americans who simply go about their daily lives without paying any attention to the national news or the daily revelations about the plans being made for a second Trump term.

It’s a political truth that most Americans pay little or no attention to national political campaigns until after Labor Day. (Until the expenditure of truly obscene amounts of money on electronic ads in the primaries, primary elections were low-key events interesting mostly to party insiders.)

That disengagement from politics may have been harmless when America’s two major political parties shared a basic understanding of their responsibilities–when their disputes were primarily about how to go about achieving broadly agreed-upon goals. But–just as in the Germany of Cabaret’s time–that is no longer the case. MAGA Republicans, aka Christian Nationalists, want to utterly transform what it means to be an American, just as Hitler’s Nazis wanted to redefine what it meant to be a German.

We’ve seen this play before. We know how it comes out–and how many innocent people were sacrificed to its madness.

I have repeatedly posted about the importance of turnout in the upcoming election. Unless the millions of Americans who are America’s version of Sally Bowles wake up to the fact that their lives and the lives of their children will be irreparably altered if Trump and his ilk win, America in 2024 will repeat the tragedy of 1929-30 Germany.

It could happen here.

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