Category Archives: Random Blogging

Beyond Cherry-Picking

A recent essay from The New Republic addressed a question that constantly bedevils me: why do people firmly believe things that are demonstrably false?

I’m not talking about questions that are simply unprovable, like “is there a God?” I’m talking about aspects of our common experience about which there is ample data from credible sources. The linked article, for example, looks into the widespread belief that America’s economy is struggling, when all of the data confirms the opposite.

In the article, Timothy Noah dubs the journalism tracking such unsupportable beliefs as the “Folklore Beat,” and provides examples:

Covid vaccines are unnecessary. Foreign aid constitutes two-thirds of the federal budget. Donald Trump won the election. Schoolteachers are trying to turn your children gay or trans. Little green men visited Area 51, and the military doesn’t want you to know.

Noah is impatient with the media’s tendency to report respectfully on the people espousing those beliefs.

I’ll grant that when misconceptions acquire a large following (though seldom a majority one), that’s news. But is it really necessary to hand a megaphone to every street-corner blowhard in America? News organizations don’t do this because they believe what the blowhards say. They do it because they’re sensitive—too sensitive, if you ask me—to any accusation that they’re out of touch with John Q. Public. And while it’s certainly necessary to document ways in which macroeconomic data fails to capture the complexities of everyday life, particularly with respect to economic inequality, how many times do I have to hear some uninformed fool expound on how President Joe Biden is mishandling the economy? He can’t prove it; he’s not trying to prove it; he just feels that way, and we mustn’t disrespect feelings.

When it comes to the economy, polling continues to show much of the public unhappy with Biden’s performance–although, as Noah notes, “the Wall Street titans on whom Biden wishes to raise taxes maintain a higher opinion of Biden’s economic stewardship than the public at large.”

Perhaps that’s because the rich watch economic matters more closely.

Speaking of the rich, Morgan Stanley recently quadrupled its prior estimate of GDP growth for the first six months of this year, and doubled its GDP growth prediction for October–December 2023, signaling that its economists no longer anticipate a recession. But only a paltry 20 percent of respondents to a CNBC  survey released the same week agreed that the economy was excellent or good. Other polls have returned similar results.

The New Republic essay enumerated the truly excellent economic facts of life–employment and paychecks up, inflation down, manufacturing returning to the U.S., etc.–and then considered reasons for the public’s evident dismissal of excellent economic news.

As with so many aspects of American life today, the answer turns out to be partisanship.

In 2016, Gallup polled voters on the economy one week before the election and one week after. During the week preceding the election, with President Obama in the White House and Hillary Clinton widely expected to win, only 16 percent of Republicans thought the economy was improving, compared to 61 percent of Democrats. One week after the election, fully 49 percent of Republicans suddenly thought the economy was improving, compared to only 46 percent of Democrats. Note how much greater this post-election swing was for Republicans: 33 percentage points, compared to 15 for Democrats….

How does voter opinion differ according to party identification on Biden’s handling of jobs and unemployment? So much so as to render the 47–48 percent figure meaningless. Among Democrats, 84 percent approve, in rough approximation to objective reality. Among Republicans, only 15 percent do.

Inflation? Only 5 percent of Republicans approve of how Biden handled that, as against 71 percent of Democrats. If the judgments of both remain less favorable than on jobs and unemployment, that’s because inflation, though greatly diminished, remains above the Fed’s target level of 2 percent (though if you ask me, 3 percent inflation is pretty low).

The inescapable conclusion is that when you ask somebody whether the economy is doing well, you won’t get an answer about the economy. You may not even get an answer about that individual’s personal experience (which may or may not reflect broader economic trends as compared to one, two, or 10 years ago). Most of the time, you’d be better off just asking, “Are you a Democrat or a Republican?” Because these days, that determines how people—especially Republicans—feel about pretty much everything. If the man on the street sounds like a blowhard, hyper-partisanship explains why. The rest is just noise.

Partisan polarization has overwhelmed reason. Tribalism now dictates interpretations of reality. And of course, thanks to the Internet and social media, it’s easy to find “evidence” to support your preferred version of even the most unlikely “facts.”

Welcome to Never-Never Land.

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And Close To Home…

A reader recently sent me a story from the Brownsburg Sentinel that illustrates the importance of local media–and at the same time, suggests its limitations in an age where so many of us have lost the very concept of  community and citizenship . Evidently, Americans are fixated on national news and/or America’s vicious culture wars, or–in the alternative–are unconcerned about their local governments, or are amusing themselves on social media…

The Sentinel covered two consecutive meetings of the Brownsburg Town Council, the second of which included the Council’s dissolution of the Brownsburg Park Board–a board that had served the residents of Brownsburg since 1959.

Prior to the first of those two meetings, the Council had published an agenda including the dissolution item; the day before the meeting, it eliminated that item from the agenda.

Town Council President Travis Tschaenn also refused questions from a resident on the ownership and modification of the council agenda. He had the resident escorted away from lectern and temporarily removed from the venue by a Brownsburg Police officer.

According to the Sentinel, the Parks board was informed of the impending dissolution late on the Friday prior to the Council meeting. The Sentinel also reported that approximately $368,000 in grant funding, intended for the construction of a local Park, would be jeopardized should the park board be dissolved.

The newspaper also reported on a lack of any evidence that Travis Tschaenn or anyone on the Council had conducted an investigation into the short and long term financial impact of such a dissolution, and that Tschaenn has refused to respond to multiple inquires  or to otherwise explain his conduct in this matter.

In the second of the two Council meetings, with virtually no discussion or fanfare, the Brownsburg Parks Board was dissolved.

Because the story at the link was formatted differently than most online newspapers (it included a number of videos posted to You Tube), I was curious to learn more about the Sentinel. An email exchange with the editor/publisher led to a lunch and fascinating conversation.

It turns out that the Sentinel began publication a couple of years after another local newspaper was discontinued (the publisher of that weekly newspaper died.) It is essentially the “hobby” of its current editor/publisher, David Weyant, and reaches several thousand of the some 50,000 residents in and around Brownsburg.

Weyant said he could only speculate about the motivation for eliminating the local Parks Board.  (The “official” reason–too much unnecessary bureaucracy–didn’t pass the smell test.) An Indianapolis development company is said to have its eye on a well-located parcel currently being used as a park…but there is no confirmatory evidence of that theory.

What isn’t speculative was the lack of public participation in the process, despite the coverage provided by the Sentinel.

Weyant told me that some ten years ago, during a fight over proposed annexation, hundreds of local residents had appeared and participated at public hearings. By the time the Council turned its attention to the Parks Board, most members of the community had stopped showing interest in the only ways that matter–appearing and speaking at public meetings and/or communicating directly with the officials entitled to vote on an issue.

Only three members of the public appeared at the Council meeting at which the Parks Board was dissolved.

Weyant shook his head, opining that local residents seemed to think they were exercising their civic responsibilities by venting on social media. Ten years ago,  he noted, social media was barely a thing–just beginning to emerge.

Needless to say, a diatribe delivered on Facebook or WhatsApp is equivalent to spitting in the wind; it certainly doesn’t constitute civic engagement and absent an avalanche of anger  that prompts actual engagement, it is extremely unlikely to change the minds or behaviors of public officials.

I would have expected more government/citizen interaction in a small community where people know each other and are likely to know their elected officials personally, especially because the community does have a local newspaper, however limited its reach.

Obviously, I was wrong–the information conveyed by a local newspaper is necessary, but evidently not sufficient.

It will be interesting–and probably depressing–to see what the Brownsburg City Council does with the land and funding sources it now directly controls without the “hassle” of an intervening source of checks and balances.

If it turns out that local folks don’t like those subsequent actions, maybe they can blame their diminishing exercise of democratic civic engagement on social media.

Bread and circuses…..

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A Personal Rant

Forgive me for foregoing the problems of the world in order to indulge a hissy fit, but what’s the use of having a blog if I can’t use it to vent?

Last week, my husband and I–together with several members of our extended family– took our annual vacation in South Carolina, where we’ve owned a beachfront time-share for some 40+ plus years. I usually drive, but it’s over 800 miles, and I’m getting “up there in years” as my kids point out, so we decided to fly.

We booked airfare to Myrtle Beach on Allegiant, which bills itself as a low-cost airline. (It is, if you don’t mind being charged extra for things like carry-on bags and printed boarding passes, and–oh, I don’t know–breathing.) Our vacation condominium is about 35 miles south of Myrtle Beach, and we rented a car. Typical vacation measures.

We hadn’t flown into Myrtle Beach Airport for several years, and found it had been greatly expanded; given that this was the height of the season, it was also a zoo. We hadn’t thought to order a wheelchair for my husband, who has mobility issues, because we remembered the airport as tiny, but my oldest son, who was traveling with us, “commandeered” one that had been abandoned on the concourse, and after an hour in the very long Alamo line to pick up our rental car, we drove to the beach.

A week later, we needed to come home. This time, my husband called Allegiant (which I will never, ever fly again) to reserve a wheelchair. (The airport website instructed us to call our airline.) We have done this with several other airlines, both in the U.S. and Europe, without incident. This time, we had what can only be described as an out-of-body experience.

The man who answered the customer service line had a very thick accent; it was difficult to understand him, and he clearly had difficulty understanding my husband. Much, much worse was the fact that–when my husband finally got him to understand what we wanted–he responded that he’d need credit card information to cover the wheelchair fee of 35.00! He also required an email address, and after several unsuccessful efforts to spell that URL, he finally got it right.

Then he said that the wheelchair fee would be 50.00.

My husband–who is usually pretty mild-mannered (after all, he has to live with me…)–said “No.” After some more back-and-forth, the agent said “Let me talk to my manager,” and put my husband on hold for an extended period of time–at least 15 minutes.( As long as I’m being bitchy anyway, I will report that the hold “music”was also awful.) He finally came back and said he’d convinced his manager to authorize a “credit” of $15, bringing the charge for the wheelchair to “only” $35, which my husband agreed to pay.

Evidently, Allegiant’s obligation to supply that wheelchair (which we were told to pick up at the reservation counter, although several were waiting at the airport curb) was contingent upon replying to the email we received with “I agree.”

The email began with an inappropriately cheery “Greetings for the day!”

As per our conversation and as agreed, we have confirmed your Allegiant Add-on service (wheelchair) under Confirmation No #CJZJSY, with a total charge of $35.00 USD  (Including Taxes & Fees).

The total cost for this service including all taxes and fees would be $35.00  USD.

Please Note: Your credit card may be billed in multiple charges not exceeding the above-mentioned total amount. One charge from AIRLINE & another charge (total might be) from our merchant partner TravoMonk LLC.

Your Credit/Debit Card/Bank statement will reflect charges authorized by Airline & TravoMonk  LLC but not exceeding the above-agreed amount.

All transaction service fees are 100% non-refundable.

The conversation reserving this wheelchair kept my husband on the telephone for over an hour–he had to repeat our flight information and his email address multiple times, and of course, we had to hold while he obtained that munificent $15 reduction authorization from his manager.

It was unreal.

We did get a wheelchair in Myrtle Beach, but when we got to the gate in Indianapolis, there was no wheelchair waiting. Despite the payment of $35.

We’re fortunate–we can afford an unanticipated fee of $35, but I can’t help thinking about people who book Allegiant because they want to save money, and then find that they have to pay extra for virtually everything. Not just snacks or drinks, not just boarding passes, not just the privilege of shlepping their carry-ons on board, but also–should they be unfortunate enough to require mobility assistance- wheelchairs.

Unconscionable. (And, I’m pretty sure, a violation of federal law…Any aviation lawyers out there who can confirm?)

Okay, I’m through. Tomorrow, back to the world’s problems….

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A Worldwide Cold Civil War

Like many Americans, I tend to focus on domestic issues, both national and local. America produces more than enough fodder to keep bloggers like me busy. But the fear and hysteria propelling the ever-more-radical Right isn’t confined to our shores.

Trumpism was accompanied by Brexit in England, powered by the same mix of anti-immigrant bias, racism and misinformation (aka blatant lying) that (barely) put TFG in the White House.

The reporting in the run-up to recent elections in Spain was filled with warnings about the strength of that country’s emergent Rightwing–fortunately, as it turned out, not strong enough to win control outright, but the Right’s strongest showing since Franco.

In just the past few weeks, Putin’s Russia has continued emulating America’s far-Right states, passing laws that target LGBTQ people–especially but certainly not exclusively trans Russians.

I needn’t report what is going on in Afghanistan, or Iran, where women are special targets of their governments’ return to religious fundamentalism.

And then there’s Israel, where Netanyahu’s far-Right coalition has rammed through a frontal assault on that country’s Supreme Court, and plunged Israel into a crisis that has fractured civic society and threatened the country’s security.

As the Washington Post has editorialized: 

For months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warned of the consequences. He was strongly urged to negotiate a deal over the proposal to emasculate the Israeli Supreme Court, a misguided power grab advanced by his far-right coalition. On Monday, the first part of the legislation was approved by the Knesset. It appears Mr. Netanyahu went over a cliff. What now?

 Mr. Netanyahu and his coalition have ignited a political crisis of immense proportions, perhaps the most consequential in Israel’s history. Massive protests against the judicial reform have filled Israel’s streets for months, and the vote brought open resistance from not only Israel’s progressive and secular Jews but also other bastions of the establishment.

Large businesses and unions are planning strikes and closures. A former head of Israel’s security service, the Shin Bet, was among those on the streets protesting after the vote. Nadav Argaman said he came to “mark the end” of Mr. Netanyahu’s rule. “Bibi has a coalition, but he doesn’t have the people. He’s lost the people,” he said. A letter signed by more than 1,100 air force reserve officers declared, “The legislation, which allows the government to act in an extremely unreasonable manner, will harm the security of the State of Israel, will break the trust and violate our consent to continue risking our lives — and will very sadly leave us with no choice but to refrain from volunteering for reserve duty.” Dozens of former top security officials — including former heads of the Israel Defense Forces, Mossad and Shin Bet — sent a letter declaring, “The legislation is shattering the common foundation of Israeli society, tearing the people apart, dismantling the IDF and causing grievous harm to Israel’s security.”

Messy–unlike in the US, where the Right has managed to take over state-level courts while staying under the radar…

Unless reversed, these moves by a government that is by far the most radical in Israel’s history will shatter what has always been a special bond between the US and Israel. That bond rests on what was seen as a common approach to democracy and the rule of law.  During Netanyahu’s “reign” (I use the word advisedly, as he has always been an autocrat), it has become more and more difficult for American Jews and pro-Israeli politicians to support Israeli tactics and ignore its mistreatment of the Palestinians.

As the Post–along with several Israeli newspapers–has warned, Netanyahu’s actions endanger Israel’s security, further splinter an already badly divided body politic and add to the strain on Israel’s  relationship with the United States.

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the entire globe is enmeshed in a complicated cold civil war. This one lacks geographical boundaries; instead, it’s a war between the people in every country who welcome social change and understand–however dimly– that the tribalism of the past impoverishes everyone, and a frantic minority clinging to comforting verities and the privileges they fear losing.

Cunning power-seekers like Netanyahu and TFG manipulate the fears and feed the bigotries of that latter group.

Here in Indiana, we joke about our pathetic legislature. Facebook posts frequently show some version of “Entering Indiana and 1950” signs. But fear of modernity and civic equality isn’t limited to Indiana. In fact, if there is any lesson to be gleaned from these worldwide struggles, it is that every group–every tribe–has its fundamentalists and those George W. Bush dubbed “evil-doers,” as well as good people who just want to live in civic peace and obey the rule of law.

I sure hope the good guys win….

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A Changing Electorate

You can get whiplash from reading the political news.

One story making the media rounds suggests that–despite the non-emergence of a “Red wave” in the 2022 midterms, Republican turnout was better than Democratic turnout. Hard to read that without despairing of the prospects for 2024, despite the fact that midterm turnout by the party that doesn’t hold the White House is almost always reliably bigger.

But then, I came across this article in the Washington Post. Talk about an upper!

The essay was co-authored by Celinda Lake, a Democratic Party strategist and one of two lead pollsters for Biden’s 2020 campaign, and Mac Heller, a documentary filmmaker. Here’s the part that lifted my spirits:

Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.

Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.

Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans.

And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes. Comparing the four federal elections since 2015 (when the first members of Gen Z turned 18) with the preceding nine (1998 to 2014), average turnout by young voters (defined here as voters under 30) in the Trump and post-Trump years has been 25 percent higher than that of older generations at the same age before Trump — 8 percent higher in presidential years and a whopping 46 percent higher in midterms.

Not as impressive–but not insignificant–has been the midterm increase of 7% in voter registration among under-30 voters since Gen Z joined the electorate. The authors report that, In midterm elections, “under-30s have seen a 20 percent increase in their share of the electorate, on average, since Trump and Gen Z entered the game.

Interestingly, reactions to Trump don’t turn out to be a major factor for these voters. Polls suggest that Gen Z voters are motivated by “strong passion” on one or more issues — “a much more policy-driven approach than the more partisan voting behavior of their elders.”

That policy-first approach, combined with the issues they care most about, have led young people in recent years to vote more frequently for Democrats and progressive policies than prior generations did when of similar age — as recent elections in Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin have shown.

Researchers have already demonstrated the fallacy of the long-held belief among political observers that American voters become more conservative as they age. Recent studies show that once political identities are formed, they tend to remain constant. And as the authors of this essay note, “about 48 percent of Gen Z voters identify as a person of color, while the boomers they’re replacing in the electorate are 72 percent White.”

Gen Z voters are on track to be the most educated group in our history, and the majority of college graduates are now female. Because voting participation correlates positively with education, expect women to speak with a bigger voice in our coming elections. Gen Z voters are much more likely to cite gender fluidity as a value, and they list racism among their greatest concerns. Further, they are the least religious generation in our history. No wonder there’s discussion in some parts of the GOP about raising the voting age to 25, and among some Democrats about lowering it to 16!

The fact that younger voters are more likely to be driven by issues rather than partisanship should be very good news for Democrats, since polling demonstrates that Democratic positions align with the policy preferences of a substantial majority of Americans.

But the news isn’t all good. There’s a danger there, too.

The importance of issues, rather than party ID, holds a warning:Both parties should worry about young voters embracing third-party candidates. Past elections show that Gen Z voters shop for candidates longer and respond favorably to new faces and issue-oriented candidates. They like combining their activism with their voting and don’t feel bound by party loyalty. And they can’t remember Ross Perot, Ralph Nader — or even Jill Stein.

GOP support for “No Labels” and RNK, Jr. are evidence that Republicans understand that danger. They know they can’t win a head-to-head campaign between Donald Trump and Biden (or for that matter, between Trump and pretty much any sentient Democrat). Their best hopes for victory lie with the Electoral College and third-party candidates who can peel off votes in selected states that would otherwise go to the Democrats.

Like I said–whiplash.

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