That Infamous Memo

For years, I’ve seen references to the memorandum written by former Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, well before he joined the court, to the Education Committee of the national Chamber of Commerce. I was always curious about its contents, (but obviously not curious enough to google or otherwise research it).

Fortunately, Vernon Turner reproduced it in his new book, Why Angels Weep: America and Donald Trump.

It is important to recognize that this memo was written in 1971–when the country was still in the chaos of the tumultuous events we lump together as “the Sixties.” Powell was hardly the only privileged white guy who experienced the events of that era as a wholesale assault on everything America stood for. Nor was he entirely wrong: there were certainly people in the streets at that time who would have cheerfully brought the whole system down. They weren’t into nuance or careful distinctions.

That said, it is fascinating to see the panic in Powell’s analysis and the obvious long-term effects of his recommendations.

Powell is less concerned with the “sources” of what he perceives as a broad scale attack on (an undefined) “free enterprise” than with the fact that elements of society he considers “respectable” seem to agree with many of the criticisms leveled by the “Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries.”  He is especially critical of “the campuses”–and seems particularly aggrieved  that institutions receiving tax dollars and support from the business community are harboring people critical of capitalism.

Pardon the aside, but I’m really getting tired of this particular trope. For one thing, it isn’t accurate. It may be true  that faculty in elite institutions tend to be liberal, but most colleges in the U.S. are not Yale, Stanford, Harvard or the University of Chicago. This country has 629 public universities, 1,845 private four-year institutions (a significant number of which are affiliated with conservative religious denominations), and 1070 public and 596 private two-year colleges. They defy uniformity in everything from the quality of instruction to the political orientation of their faculties.

Of course, when respect for science and evidence are enough to make people “liberals,” I guess most educated people must plead guilty…

What really struck me about Powell’s memo, however, wasn’t his somewhat paranoid tone. It was this passage:

“The day is long past when the chief executive officer of a major corporation discharges his responsibility by maintaining a satisfactory growth of profits, with due regard to the corporation’s public and social responsibilities.

Think about that last sentence. Powell’s memo was written at a time when it was accepted that corporations and other business enterprises had “public and social responsibilities.”

Back in “the day,” I served on a number of civic boards with local businesspeople (okay, local businessmen) who considered civic and social participation an integral part of their jobs–who believed that making their communities better places to live was an important aspect of their business responsibility–whether it added anything to the bottom line or not.

To say things have changed would be an understatement.

Later in the memo, Powell laments that “few elements of American society have as little influence on government as the American businessman, the corporation or even the millions of stockholders.” Today, this elicits an out-loud laugh (it probably wasn’t very accurate in 1971, either).

In the years since Powell authored his memo, the world has changed dramatically–and a good deal of that change was triggered by his memo. Today–in the wake of Supreme Court cases (in some of which Powell participated) that laid the groundwork for Citizens United– corporations pretty much dictate government policy. It is workers and consumers who are currently unrepresented in the halls of Congress.

The ancient Greeks were right to seek out the “mean between extremes.” Business interests certainly deserve a place a the policy table. So does labor. So do consumers. When no element of the economic universe has the power to dictate public policy to the detriment of the others–when there is a genuine balance of power and a recognition of the legitimacy of the claims of all elements of our economic system–then, and only then, will markets work.

Lewis Powell was a (somewhat blinkered) product of his time. That time is long gone.

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The Next Generation

Amidst the gloom and doom that is today’s political environment, there are rays of hope.

I often tell people that I would turn the country over to my students in a heartbeat. They are inclusive, community-oriented and passionate about fairness and civic equality. (Granted, they have enrolled in a School of Public and Environmental Affairs, so they are arguably a self-selected group.)

In my graduate law and policy class, I give a take-home final. (This is an effort to make up for a difficult in-class midterm, a demanding group project and a 20-page research paper.) The final consists of three questions; students are to choose one of the three and write an essay addressing it.

Unlike that midterm, there are no right or wrong answers. I’m looking for thoughtful responses–answers that tell me that they have considered the strengths and weaknesses of American governance and have formed defensible policy positions.

Two of the questions on this year’s final elicited particularly interesting responses. Here’s one of them:

It is 2020, and you have been elected President of the United States. You are following an administration that has made significant—even monumental—changes to American public policies. Which of those changes would you accept and follow? Which would you change? (I am not looking for exhaustive lists; choose one or two areas to discuss and justify your decision to accept or reject the current administration’s approach.) For each policy you would retain or reverse, explain why it is or is not supportive of the common good and/or consistent with America’s Constitutional values.

The students who chose this question were uniformly critical of the current administration, and very specific in their critiques. They all faulted Trump on environmental policy. Several pointed out that the “Muslim ban” violated the First Amendment. Economic policy and the tax “reform” bill came in for considerable scorn, as did efforts to destroy the Affordable Care Act and failures to enact meaningful gun control or improve immigration policy.

I was particularly struck by essays from students addressing this question:

Earth has been destroyed in World War III. You and a few thousand others—representing a cross-section of Earth’s races, cultures and religions—are the only survivors. You have escaped to an earthlike planet and are preparing to establish a new society. You want to avoid the errors of the Earth governments that preceded you. What institutional choices do you make and why? Your essay should address:The type/structure of government you would create; the powers it will have; the limits on its powers, and how those limits will be enforced; how government officials will be chosen and policies enacted;the social and political values you intend to privilege, and the reasons for your choices.

When I’ve included a similar question in the past, most students have dutifully constructed a government patterned after that of the U.S. This year, there were more creative efforts, some borrowing from European and Canadian models, others proposing “from scratch” governance concepts. Three or four proposed to outlaw political parties, and all of them suggested mechanisms intended to prevent gridlock. A couple included stringent qualifications for holding public office.

All the responses included universal healthcare and other elements of a robust social safety net–including, in one case, a Universal Basic Income. All of them included mechanisms meant to eliminate or vastly reduce the role of money in politics. All of them provided for a rigorous civic education. All of them emphasized and protected the right to vote  (some made Election Day  a holiday, some allowed vote-by-mail and a couple made voting mandatory. One made vote suppression a felony.) All had laws protecting civil liberties and the environment.

All of them described legal systems protective of civic equality, and most suggested policies promoting respect for diversity.

The proposals weren’t uniformly practical, and there wasn’t a lot of space for details in any event, but virtually all of them showed that the writers had genuinely grappled with the question and considered the essential elements of a just society.

Needless to say, all of them came across as more thoughtful and informed than Donald Trump and his swamp.

If this country manages to survive the current administration, we’ll be in good hands.

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Reconsidering “Cultural Appropriation”

Speaking of tribalism, as I was yesterday….

As the discussions on this blog amply reveal, the United States is currently experiencing wrenching–even existential–social and governance problems. Most of those problems can be seen as a result of the transformation of the GOP from a traditional political party to an extremist organization I’ve likened to a cult, but you will forgive me if I find some of the preoccupations of the left equally “unnuanced” (aka rabid) and unhelpful.

I recently read about a controversy in Utah over–wait for it–a prom dress.

The high-school student in question had posted a photo modeling her choice of a prom dress–a Chinese cheongsam– to social media. A storm of criticism erupted, with accusations of “cultural appropriation.”

Keziah Daum said she won’t give in to pressure and delete an April 22 Twitter post showing her posing with her prom date in the red cheongsam, or qipao.

“To everyone causing so much negativity,” she tweeted. “I mean no disrespect to the Chinese culture. I’m simply showing my appreciation to their culture. I’m not deleting my post because I’ve done nothing but show my love for the culture. It’s a f***ing dress. And it’s beautiful.”

Daum told the Washington Post she found the dress in a vintage store in Salt Lake City and found it “absolutely beautiful” adding it gave her a “sense of appreciation and admiration for other cultures and their beauty.”

The critics of her choice insisted that, not being Chinese, she should not wear a recognizably Chinese dress, that doing so would amount to “cultural appropriation.”

According to Wikipedia, cultural appropriation occurs when a dominant culture adopts elements of a minority culture. It is distinguished from equal cultural exchange when there is the presence of a “colonial element” and an imbalance of power–in other words, when the adoption is for purposes of denigrating or mocking the original culture.

As the Guardian pointed out, in an article about the blowup, donning a Chinese prom dress hardly meets that criterion.

The original complainant’s instinct– to draw a line at a time when Chinese people are under siege from Trump-inspired China-bashers – is understandable, but in this case, completely mistargeted. If anything, the qipao represents power and class, not race, and certainly not the culture of some exploited underclass.

Criticisms of “cultural appropriation” raise some fairly profound issues. Have our politics become so tribal that any “crossover” is viewed as an attack, rather than a sign of appreciation? When is the adoption of an element of minority culture by members of the majority culture a compliment, and when is it an insult? When does such adoption advance intergroup understanding, and under what circumstances does it diminish appreciation of and respect for the “appropriated” culture?

I’m sure the White supremacists (aka Nazi sympathizers) who have become increasingly vocal since Herr Trump’s election disapprove of any adoption of any aspect of minority culture; for them,  it’s “mongrelization.” How is their call for “racial purity” any different from the criticisms that attended this teenager’s choice of a prom dress?

I don’t get it.

What ever happened to the old axiom that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

And what the hell happened to a sense of proportion?

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Voting Your Tribe

Anyone who’s ever taken Sociology 101–or history–understands that people react defensively in times of rapid social change. If they perceive the changes as threats to their world-views or economic prospects–and many people do–those defense mechanisms very often include an exaggerated tribalism, a stronger-than-usual identification with the racial or religious or political group to which the person belongs.

The worldwide wave of White Nationalism we are experiencing is one manifestation of this reaction. So is the animosity toward immigrants and the re-emergence of overt racial and religious prejudices.

The election of Donald Trump–itself a manifestation of these attitudes–has given people who harbor racial anxieties permission to be far more public about those attitudes; we’ve seen a spike in hate crimes and the public expression of appalling attitudes toward black and brown people, Muslims, Jews, immigrants…any and all people whose appearance and/or behavior suggests that they aren’t one of “us.”(Whoever “us” may be.)

Tribal attitudes are destructive of democracy in a country as diverse as ours, and they are a real minefield for progressive candidates for public office. 

A new study highlights the challenges politicians face trying to connect with a multilingual citizenry, including the intensely negative reaction voters who only speak English may have when they see Spanish-language political ads.

Two scholars from the University of Chicago and Yale University teamed up to investigate whether Spanish-language political ads can help Republican and Democratic candidates win over bilingual voters. The good news for candidates: These ads likely will help some of them win a little more support from bilinguals. The bad news: If a candidate’s Spanish ad is broadcast to an English-only audience, support could plummet.

The negative response to Spanish-language ads by viewers who spoke only English wasn’t limited to  Republicans or to more conservative voters; the study found the same response from Democrats. English-only participants generally responded negatively to the Spanish ads, with support for the candidate making the spot declining pretty substantially.

The study didn’t delve into motivation, but it is more than plausible that the Spanish-speaking candidates were viewed as somehow less American–as smarty-pants globalists willing to speak to “interlopers”–immigrants from Spanish speaking countries–in their native tongue, rather than demanding that they  speak English like “real” Americans.

Republican candidates, of course, are more willing to exploit and deepen such attitudes. A recent Washington Post article titled “The All-Consuming Tribalism of Trump’s Republican Party in One 30-Second Ad” features Indiana’s own–ugh–Todd Rokita, a perfect specimen of the GOP’s current cohort of despicables.

As metaphors for the Trump-led Republican Party go, it’s difficult to beat Rep. Todd Rokita’s new ad in the Indiana Senate race.

In 30 seconds, the Republican congressman from Indiana discusses no policy issues and says basically nothing besides “I will support Trump the most,” before throwing on a Make America Great Again hat for emphasis.

The ad, titled “MAGA,” is a remarkable little window into how at least one candidate thinks you win in today’s GOP, and Rokita hopes it’s his ticket to the Republican nomination to face Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) next month.

The article notes that Rokita and his opponents have basically turned the primary into a competition over which candidate is the Trumpiest.

Trump has rendered many policy positions negotiable — even with himself — and has turned a Republican Party that was all about conservative purity earlier this decade into one that is more about Trump purity. It’s a party built on personality whose base has stood by Trump, even as he has shrugged off an antagonistic foreign power’s incursion into U.S. elections. It’s a party that almost instantly and universally dismisses every Trump-inspired controversy as unimportant and a media creation — even “fake news.”

So here’s where we are: we’re being asked to vote for the candidate who is most entitled to tribal membership. Republicans are to base that determination not on an avowed commitment to the U.S. Constitution or the rule of law, not on a pledge to pursue the common good or provide ethical leadership, but on a fervent promise to be an obedient sycophant.

The GOP is no longer a political party. It isn’t even a tribe. It’s a cult, and Trump is its “Dear Leader.”

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Pay For Play

Note: For anyone who is interested, I’ll be conducting a blogging workshop next Thursday at the Indiana Writers’ Center. Here’s the information.

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I’m hesitant to attribute it to candor–it’s more likely a belief that they are untouchable–but members of the Trump Administration have evidently given up trying to hide their unethical behaviors. A recent example: Mick Mulvaney, the current director of OMB (whose second job is overseeing/dismantling Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) publicly admitted that the only people he willingly met with as a member of Congress were constituents and donors.

“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” Mulvaney said, according to a New York Times report this week. At the top of the hierarchy were his constituents, he explained, adding, “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.

According to the Daily Beast, Mulvaney no longer has constituents, so now he’s just taking meetings with lobbyists and companies who financed his past political campaigns.

Pay-for-play Mulvaney is right at home in today’s shameless GOP.

Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson is a millionaire. He recently told a group of high school students that healthcare and food are a privilege, not a right according to MSNBC, and quoted Rand Paul to the effect that if health care were a right, then doctors and other health providers would be “forced” to provide people with that right. (Sort of like slavery…)

And if you’ve wondered why so many Congressional Republicans have been downplaying Russia’s obvious influence on Trump, there’s this:

A close look at public campaign finance reports reveals a network of Russian oligarchs increasingly contributing to top Republican leadership in recent years, according to the Dallas News. And thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United in 2010, the donations are perfectly legal.

I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that McConnell is identified as one of those benefitting from Russian largesse.

Needless to say, these paragons of public service don’t take kindly to admonitions about their obligations to the “least of us.” Despite their near-constant insistence that they are pious Christians, and despite their efforts to impose their particular brand of Christianity on the rest of us, they sure get prickly when a genuine Christian engages in even the mildest biblical truth-telling.

Case in point: Ostentatiously Catholic Paul Ryan abruptly dismissed the Catholic House Chaplain–a job that James Madison didn’t think should exist–after the chaplain offered a prayer that offended Ryan during the tax “reform” debate.

The sudden resignation of the chaplain, the Rev. Patrick J. Conroy, shocked members of both parties. He had served in the role since he was nominated in 2011 by Speaker John A. Boehner, a fellow Catholic. In an interview, Father Conroy was categorical: His departure was not voluntary.

“I was asked to resign, that is clear,” Father Conroy said. As for why, he added, “that is unclear.”…Father Conroy said he received the news from Mr. Ryan’s chief of staff. “The speaker would like your resignation,” Father Conroy recalled being told. He complied.

Father Conroy’s prayer had included a line asking that legislators be mindful of the ways their actions might affect the poor–a despicable display of compassion that evidently incurred the wrath of Ayn Rand’s most devoted disciple.

Commenters to this blog frequently remind others to “follow the money.” It’s good advice when the question at hand requires determining why such-and-such happened, or why so-and-so is taking a particular position.

Today’s GOP makes it unnecessary to follow the money. It isn’t just Trump. These plutocrats and would-be plutocrats are utterly transparent about the role money plays in their deliberations, their policies and their behaviors.

It’s what they really worship.

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