Category Archives: Random Blogging

Polarization as Strategy

Matt Yglesias had a very interesting post yesterday about the recent SOPA debate, and the success of opponents to that legislation. He made five points, and it would be hard to argue with any of them: money counts, but once you have enough resources to communicate, having more money doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win the battle; it is easier to stop change than it is to effectuate it. But I found his final two observations–reproduced below–particularly interesting.

Polarization is an illusion of agenda-control: SOPA/PIPA was a completely bipartisan endeavor, promoted by Republican Lamar Smith in the House and Democrat Pat Leahy in the Senate. The opposition was bipartisan too. Democrat Ron Wyden played the crucial role in delaying PIPA in the Senate, but Tea Partiers led the opposition in the House. Nancy Pelosi became a vocal opponent, and at last night’s debate all the Republican presidential candidates were suddenly in opposition. This is a stark contrast to the narrative of partisan polarization, but it illustrates that the parties are polarized in part because the leadership deliberately promotes a polarizing agenda. Leaders deliberately put issues that unite their caucuses on the agenda. When happenstance causes the agenda to be dominated by something outside the main structure of partisanship, the polarization dynamic breaks down.

Public engagement matters: One key difference between this and, say, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act is that SOPA/PIPA opponents actually got in the arena and did politics instead of complaining about how this showed that politics is corrupt and stupid. It was the whole boring dreary “call your congressman, sign this petition” rigamarole. Yes, often done in creative and innovating and webby ways. But still fundamentally about the idea that citizens need to communicate their views to elected officials. Members of congress, just like regular people, only have deep commitments to a few priorities. When they suddenly learn that they’ve mis-judged how many of their constituents care about something and which side they’re on, they’re happy to change positions.

The reminder that grass-roots political action can work is timely, but we’ve heard it before. The observation about polarization as a deliberate political tactic is new, at least to me, and certainly seems consistent with our contemporary political environment.

In the Indiana Statehouse–at least according to my lobbyist friends–you can find Rs and Ds on both sides of such issues as the public transportation referendum, or the smoking ban. Increasingly, you can even find a few Republicans defecting from the GOPs anti-gay agenda. But  propose measures that involve partisan power and party funding, like “Right to Work,” and fuzzy lines suddenly become sharp. As Yglesias points out, the same phenomenon occurs in Congress. Raising taxes on the wealthy is a good example.

Responsible legislative leaders would try to minimize the issues that create such stark divisions, so that the people’s business could get done in a thoughtful–or at least civil–fashion. (At this point, most citizens would settle for having our  business done at all.) They would try to establish and strengthen lines of communication, and build trust.

Irresponsible leaders who care only about political power, who don’t care about doing the people’s business, promote polarization and the demonization of the folks on the other side of the aisle.  Those tactics may help them solidify their control, but they undermine both democratic processes and public confidence in government.

There’s a reason Congress has an 11% approval rating. It’s probably just as well there’s no polling on approval of the Indiana General Assembly.

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Raining on Indianapolis’ Parade

I don’t care for sports–especially football–and I wasn’t all that thrilled when Indianapolis won the right to host the Super Bowl. But you would have to be even more testosterone-challenged than I am not to recognize the benefits to our City that come with the selection: the local infrastructure improvements, the civic spirit, the amount of money that will flow into the local economy, and most of all, the increased visibility.

One way or another, I’ve worked with civic organizations and/or local government my entire adult life. I still remember being part of a Hudnut Administration focused on creating Indianapolis from “India-no-place” and making it–in his words–“no mean city.”

The Super Bowl is an opportunity to show a billion people that we deserve urban respect. Hundreds of volunteers have been working hard for two years  to make the most of that opportunity.

Do the Governor and General Assembly care? Obviously not. They are willing to use their pissing match over “Right to Work” to give Indianapolis a black eye and diminish the value of hosting a world-class event.

The Republicans picked this fight, but the incredibly inept Democrats aren’t blameless.

Make no mistake: this battle isn’t about workers, or their rights. It’s all about politics and money; unions (even the pathetically weakened variety we have in Indiana) tend to support Democrats, so the Republicans want to weaken them while they have the votes to do so. The Democrats want to protect them for the same reason. And neither side appears to give a rat’s you-know-what about the consequences of raining on our city’s Super Bowl parade. Neither gives any evidence of concern that Indianapolis will once again be viewed as a minor-league city–a place with some nice sports facilities but hayseed politicians unable to see beyond their own narrow self-interest, unable to put Indianapolis’ long-term interests ahead of their own short-term political gratification.

When will we start electing grown-ups to govern us?

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Rooting for Santorum

As the interminable GOP Presidential contests proceeds, I’m rooting for Rick Santorum.

Now, I realize that statement requires some explanation.

With the probable exception of Ron Paul, all the other candidates can be counted on to moderate their current positions if and when they cinch the nomination—to pivot from the shameless pandering to the nut-job base that has characterized the primaries thus far—in an effort to woo the sane Republican and independent voters needed for success in a general election. Since the great majority of Americans don’t really focus on the Presidential campaign until a month or two before the election, candidates can usually distance themselves from much of their more intemperate primary rhetoric.

A Santorum primary victory, however, would provide voters with a candidate who is steadfast in his extremism. A Santorum candidacy would be a golden opportunity for the public to really see and understand the fundamentalist Christians who, for all intents and purposes, now control the GOP, and who have recently come together to endorse Santorum in a (probably futile) effort to derail Mitt Romney’s progress toward the nomination.

What do Santorum and his supporters believe? Well, there’s the obvious hatred of gays—a hatred that has often seemed more of an obsession with gay sex than a policy position. There are the well-known quotes comparing homosexuality to “man on dog sex,” the frequently repeated assertion that same-sex marriage will “destroy the fabric of society,” and the “slippery slope” argument that recognition of such marriages would necessarily be followed by legalization of polygamy and incest.

But it isn’t just gay sex. A cursory review of his quotations paints a picture of a man who—not to put too fine a point on it—doesn’t seem too comfortable in the 21st Century.  Consider a sampling of recent quotes:

  • “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country…It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” (October 18, 2011)
  • “In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don’t both need to…Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism.” (From his 2005 book, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good in which he decries working mothers).
  • “All the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis, they’re not Palestinians. There is no ‘Palestinian.’” (On the campaign trail in Iowa, Nov. 18, 2011). (Even the Israeli government doesn’t go this far!)
  • “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them someone else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.” (Iowa again, Jan. 2, 2012).

There is a lot more along the same lines.

Santorum is a poster child for the small but noisy segment of American society that is still fighting science and the Enlightenment—a spokesperson for the contemporary Puritans who reject evolution along with the idea that liberty means the right to live your life in accordance with your own conscience and beliefs. They believe instead that liberty means “doing the right thing” as they interpret their bibles to define the “right thing.”

They believe it is government’s job to legislate their version of  “Godly” behavior.

You have to give Santorum credit: unlike the other candidates, when he’s been challenged about his controversial views, he hasn’t evaded or backtracked. These are his beliefs and he’s forthright about them. He doesn’t “do” complexity, or nuance, and he obviously doesn’t see shades of gray. His views about the past may be ahistorical and retrograde, but he doesn’t let distractions like facts or evidence—or humility—shake his certainty in his own righteousness.

He’s the perfect representation of today’s Republican base.

Now, I don’t think Rick Santorum is going to be the Republican nominee, but what if he were? What if the American public had to choose between that black “elitist” Barack Obama, with his fancy Harvard education, and this anti-woman, anti-gay Christian Zionist who believes global warming and evolution are myths, and black people are taking “someone else’s money”?

Given the number of crackpots we’ve elected to public office, I’ve lost a lot of my previous faith in the wisdom of the American public. But I have enough left to believe that—given a choice between the 14th Century and the 21st—Americans would overwhelming choose the latter.

Wouldn’t we??

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Crying Wolf

Not being a fan of right-wing conspiracy blogs/commentators, it was only a couple of days ago that I became aware of the latest “outrage” perpetrated by the Obama Administration–a Halloween party kept secret until now, where liberal Hollywood stars mixed with costumed members of the First Family and Staff in an expensive, decadent party paid for by our tax dollars.

I saw a clip of Rush Limbaugh–red-faced and shouting, vein in neck throbbing (okay, that’s his normal look)–accusing the White House of cavorting at taxpayer expense while average Americans suffer through the recession, and darkly asking “If they hide these extravagant, indulgent parties from the American People, what else might they be hiding??”

I consulted the Google oracle to find out more, and discovered that those crafty Obamas managed to “hide” the fact of this party, which turned out to have been held for the children of veterans, by posting about it on the White House Web site, Facebook and Twitter, and inviting the media to attend.

Oh, those crafty Obamas–it’s the Purloined Letter all over again! Hiding in plain sight!

It’s tempting to simply dismiss this silliness as another manifestation of Obama Derangement Syndrome, but there’s a darker side to these constant attempts to demonize the administration. Remember the Boy Who Cried Wolf? He was a shepherd who kept insisting he saw a wolf menacing his flock. When the real wolf came, no one believed him.

When everything Obama does–including, apparently, breathing–prompts accusations of high crimes and misdemeanors, what happens if and when the administration actually does engage in behavior that we really should worry about?

When the level of outrage is set on maximum all the time, how do we distinguish between a Halloween party for the children of our fighting men and signing the Defense Authorization Act?

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