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….

Comments

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….

Comments

Kinds of Inequality

I sometimes listen to a podcast called Persuasion, in which Yascha Mounk interviews prominent writers and thinkers on a variety of subjects relevant to government and policy. I was particularly intrigued by a recent conversation he had with philosopher Michael Walzer.

Walzer is a noted communitarian, and as someone of a more libertarian bent, I have disagreed with several of his positions. (My issues with communitarianism are for another day…) In this interview, however, he makes some fascinating and persuasive points about the nature–and the varieties–of inequality.

Walzer begins by distinguishing between equality and sameness, and between power and resources.

If you think about the political system we have, we have a mechanism called elections for reducing inequality—radical inequality. Some people win, some people lose. Some people have a lot of power, some people have far less, and many of us are just watching. And yet, in the distributive system—if the elections are free and fair, and if the right of opposition is safeguarded—the resulting inequality is okay. The distribution of medical care should go to the people who are sick or most sick. That seems a natural way of distributing medical care, even though it means that some people get more if they need it, and some people get less if they don’t. 

The most important caveat in the foregoing paragraph is this one: “if the elections are free and fair, and if the right of opposition is safeguarded.”

Walzer then considers the role of equality in achieving justice.

What makes for injustice is not inequality in political power or inequality in the distribution of health care or welfare or education. It is when these distributions don’t take place for the right reasons and through the right procedures. It’s when you get more health care than I do because you have more money than I do. You have taken success in the market and you have bought health care, or elite positions for your children in the country’s universities, or political influence. So it’s the use of one social good which may be rightly possessed to claim many other social goods that ought to be distributed differently. It’s an argument that depends on what the special goods we distribute mean to the people who make them and share them. And those meanings may be different in different societies.

In other words–as I used to tell my students–it depends. And it’s complicated.

Mounk responds to Walzer’s observations by referencing current criticisms of American capitalism, especially the dominance (not simply the possession) of money. As he says, it is one thing to buy yourself a nicer watch or car than your neighbor can afford. It is another thing entirely when your greater fiscal resources buy you “better healthcare, better access to education, better access to opportunities for your children, higher likelihood of winning political office.”  That is when we are rightfully concerned.

As Walzer puts it,

It doesn’t bother me if you can collect rare books and I can’t, or if you can take a month’s vacation and I just get two weeks. That doesn’t bother me. It’s when your wealth matters in every other sphere of activity—and right now, crucially, in politics. It’s when your wealth can buy a senator or a judge, or a law, or an exemption from a law—all of that I want to rule out. I don’t think it’s crucial to a socialist or social democratic society, that someone who has an economic green thumb or some entrepreneur who invents some machine that people enjoy using, that they make more money than I make. It’s what they can do with the money that matters.

The interview contains a number of very interesting exchanges, including Walzer’s description of himself as a liberal communitarian, and his criticism of the illiberal Left. I encourage you to click through and read it in its entirety–but I’ll end by highlighting Walzer’s observations on the “education wars” I often write about.

Walzer notes that, when it comes to conflicts between religious doctrines and public education, we’ve gone quite a long way in the direction of accommodating religion. As he says, we’ve allowed religious communities to create parochial schools. We’ve allowed the Amish to take their kids out of school before the established legal age. We’ve allowed the Haredim in Kiryas Joel to run a public school system. But these children are going to grow up to vote in our elections, and that fact gives citizens of the democratic state an important interest in their education. That interest leaves considerable room for parental decision-making, but–as Walzer says– it is too important to abandon.

A thought-provoking conversation.

Comments

Jim Banks–Hoosier Embarrassment

In November of 2024, Hoosiers will elect a U.S. Senator to fill a seat left open by the current occupant, who is running for Governor. The almost-certain GOP candidate will be current Congressperson and noted crackpot Jim Banks.

Lest you quibble with my “crackpot” designation, allow me to share a recent example, reported by Howey Political Report (paywall).

Indiana U.S. Reps. Jim Banks and Erin Houchin joined 68 fellow Republicans in voting to end U.S. military aid to Ukraine during debate on the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act.  They offered the following amendment (one of dozens offered by hard-Right Republicans): “Notwithstanding any provision of this or any other Act, no federal funds may be made available to provide security assistance to Ukraine.”

 It was defeated by a 358-70 margin, with all Democrats and a majority of Republicans (including U.S.Reps. Jim Baird, Larry Bucshon, Greg Pence, Victoria Spartz and Rudy Yakym) opposing the measure.

The misnamed Freedom Caucus believes that the United States should ignore Russia’s unprovoked invasion of another country and its subsequent commission of multiple war crimes. Why?

Well, according to Banks, we can’t afford it.

 “I don’t believe there was ever a parallel in American history where we’ve seen America decline as much as it has in two years with Joe Biden in the White House. So we’ve got to push the Biden administration to focus on our domestic weaknesses and the crisis in our own country before we grant billions and billions, $40 billion in this case to send to Ukraine. I looked through this bill and it was easy for me to vote against it. This bill gives every single person in Ukraine a ticket to come to the United States of America. That would be OK if we could afford it. To invite 44 million people to come here with no limits, we can’t afford it. Unlike Afghanistan, Ukraine is a wealthier country. We have to take that into account.”

Banks is one of the reliably hateful fringe that now controls  the grievance cult that used to be a political party. The fact that so demonstrably delusional a character represents an Indiana Congressional district is bad enough–allowing him to become a Senator would be immeasurably worse.

And as political strategists will affirm, if he becomes the incumbent –especially with an R next to his name in Red Indiana–he’ll be incredibly difficult to dislodge. 

One reason Republicans do well in Indiana is because Democrats have essentially thrown in the towel. They approach each race with the attitude: “what can we do? Indiana’s a lost cause.” But even in the most rural precincts of Indiana, I find it hard to believe that majorities of Hoosiers find Banks–a certified wing-nut and Trump lover who is pro-gun, anti-woman, and anti-LGBTQ–appealing.

A friend and I recently had lunch with Marc Carmichael, the former state legislator who  very recently decided to run for the Democratic nomination, after evaluating the political landscape. As he said, it’s rare in Indiana that Democrats face so promising a set of circumstances.

  • This is an open seat. Banks won’t have the advantages of incumbency.
  • It’s JimBanks–who is far, far to the Right of even very conservative Hoosiers.
  • Democrats are on the side of the majority of Hoosiers on the issues, especially  women’s rights and assault weapons.

Democrats have a candidate with political and legislative experience and the ability to run full-time. Carmichael has hit the ground running, and is in the process of putting together his website, social media strategy and fundraising plan.

What will defeat him–or another first-rate candidate, Jennifer McCormick, who is running for Governor– is the defeatist attitude of far too many progressive Hoosiers–an attitude that depresses both fundraising and turnout. 

If Carmichael raises enough money to get his message out, he can win.

 According to a Pew survey, 42% of Hoosiers are or lean Republican, 37% are or lean Democrat, and 20% report no lean. A poll (commissioned by Indiana Republicans!) found  63-percent of Hoosier voters are pro-choice. Another poll, this one from EveryTown for Gun Safety, found the overwhelming majority of Hoosiers support stronger gun laws: 56 percent of Hoosiers think gun laws should be made stronger, compared to just 8 percent who want weaker gun laws. (Support for individual gun safety laws was even higher.)

I wasn’t able to find polling on Hoosiers’ support for Ukraine, but I can’t imagine that many Indiana citizens think it’s “too expensive” to support a democratic ally–or who agree with TFG (and evidently Banks) that Vladimir Putin–currently trying to starve the world-– is a good guy.

Jim Banks is Indiana’s version of Margery Taylor Green. It’s bad enough that he continually embarrasses us in the House. We sure don’t need him in the Senate.

Comments

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.

Comments