Losing the Wedge

Oh Ted! I hate to break it to you, but tapping a female culture warrior as your VP–even one who manages to be nearly as repulsive as you– isn’t going to get you the nomination.

Not even close.

There have been a number of signs during this unending primary season that the GOP’s “old reliable” tactic of focusing on social issues is no longer the sure-fire bet it was when George W. Bush won his second term with the help of fear of/hate for “the gays.” Part of the reason is demographic: fear of LGBT folks, hatred of immigrants, belief that women should stay in the kitchen (barefoot and most definitely pregnant), even racism are all attitudes more plentiful among older, whiter Americans–and they’re dying out.

Partly, of course, the lack of focus on social issues this time around is the flip side of the 24/7 focus on the strange orange candidate. Donald Trump doesn’t fixate on social issues. Or any issues, actually–he mostly focuses on himself, and his YUGE business ability. And large “hands.”

Actually, Trump is preferable to Cruz, in much the same way that a merciful death is preferable to an agonizing one….At any rate, according to the Boston Globe, Cruz is counting on a re-invigorated appeal to social conservatives in Indiana and elsewhere:

Over the past month, as the primary wove through Wisconsin, New York, and the socially moderate states that voted on Tuesday, the GOP candidates focused on issues like trade, jobs, and the economy. But the next contests on the calendar are in Indiana, West Virginia, and Nebraska, where evangelical voters make up more of the Republican electorate. That trend might even continue in California, which awards most of its large number of delegates by congressional district, some of which are very conservative.

It’s the first time social issues — such as abortion, gay marriage, and transgender rights — could take center stage in the primary since early March, when a swath of Southern states voted in the primary. That’s mostly good news for Cruz, who has already touted his social conservative credentials on the stump in Indiana, which holds its primary on Tuesday.

I may be wrong (wouldn’t be the first time!), but I think it’s too late for “fear of God” wedge issues. America has had same-sex marriage for a year now, and the apocalypse hasn’t occurred. Young people are more irate about their student loans than about who’s peeing in the next stall. The population keeps moving into cities, where there tend to be gay people and black people and brown people, and women in executive positions, and Americans have gotten used to the idea that the diversity is sort of nice.

Cruz isn’t going to win Indianapolis, for sure (and if he thinks Carly on the ticket is a great idea, he’s even nuttier than I previously thought), but he may win Indiana. In our more rural precincts, culture war wedge issues can still be pretty salient. And he is running against the Donald.

If Cruz does win the state, however, I really, really, REALLY need to move.

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Thanks, Obama!

Yesterday, I got another one of those emails explaining why President Obama has been the worst President in all of human history.

For people who have managed to retain a sense of humor during the seven-plus years of the Obama Administration, there has been plenty of similar material to keep them chuckling. (Now, granted, my own reaction to some of the crazy has been to beat my head against the nearest wall, but people more stable than I am just laugh a lot. And have fewer headaches….)

I do like the Facebook entries making fun of this tsunami of blame: “On this date in [whatever year], the Titanic sank [Or the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Or insert your preferred historical calamity here]. People died. Thanks, Obama.”

The Rightwing crazies have blamed everything from Kim Kardashian to El Nino on our first black President. ( I’m sure the fact that he is the first black President is entirely co-incidental. Also, if you are interested, I have some swampland in Florida for sale….)

At the bottom of all of the Obama blaming is an irony that has evidently escaped most of our President’s determined critics: on the one hand, we are constantly harangued from the Right with accusations about Obama’s deficiencies: what he doesn’t understand, hasn’t accomplished, doesn’t have sufficient experience to appreciate….in other words, we are constantly told how utterly feckless he is.

At the very same time, we are treated to constant admonitions about this President’s absolutely amazing prowess: he has singlehandedly lost wars, destroyed economies, created racial tensions in hitherto loving and peaceful neighborhoods, interfered with your gallstones….I mean, you name it, this dude’s super-powers are up to the task.

I thought about this disconnect (okay, haters gotta hate) when I read about an O’Reilly accusation over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

Did you know that it’s Obama’s fault that people use hard drugs? I didn’t either. And do you know why it’s his fault? Because he apparently knows what words mean.

Here’s the quote from O’Reilly in support of this….um ….interesting thesis..

President Obama’s leading the way on this, classifying drug dealing, hard drug dealing, as a, quote, “nonviolent crime.” That sends a signal to the country that, you know what, it may be illegal to sell drugs, but it’s not all that bad. And the left is generally supporting the madness.

As Ed Brayton notes, classifying a transaction as “non-violent” (assuming no violence occurred) is generally seen as–what’s that called?– using words to convey information.

 If I sell you a bag of dope and you pay for it and we both drive away without any physical confrontation, then that transaction was — by definition — non-violent. Still illegal. Still might be very bad for the person who takes the drugs, depending on the drug. But it isn’t violent. Thus ends our lesson in using a dictionary.

What Ed has obviously missed is the central lesson of the past seven years: everything bad is Obama’s fault.

Come to think of it, just where were the Obamas when Prince died…??

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Fine! Now I Have to Shop at Target!

I tell you, voting with my wallet gets tiring. And expensive. That said, however, I’m damned if I’ll stop until they do.

What am I talking about, you ask? Why Target, and who are “they” anyway?

Well, according to USA Today, Target announced a sensible bathroom policy. Evidently, if you need to pee–or give in to other bodily urges that require the facility popularly known as the bathroom (or, if you’re in Merrie Old England, the “Loo”)–Target suggests you choose the one that seems correct to you, use it, and (implicitly) flush before leaving.

While this announcement seems perfectly appropriate (albeit unnecessary) to sane human beings, there are–as I know my readers have noticed–a lot of not-so-sane people who, for reasons I will never, ever understand, fixate on the identity of the other people who may be relieving themselves in the same restroom.

It’s not like there have been incidents involving trans folks in bathrooms. (Republican officeholders, yes, but no trans persons.) It’s not like most of us haven’t shared public toilets with everyone from screaming infants (of both presumed genders) to potheads and drunks to perfectly nice people who nevertheless really made the place smell bad.

Comes with the damn territory.

But not according to the crazies at the American Family Association.

The petition started by the American Family Association on Wednesday raises concerns that Target’s inclusive stance on transgender rights encourages sexual predators and puts women and young girls in danger, because “a man can simply say he ‘feels like a woman today’ and enter the women’s restroom.”

The boycott has more than 517,000 signatures as of Monday afternoon, marking it as one of AFA’s most popular campaigns.

Now, the rest of America has a choice. We can yield the field–leave the loo to the bigots mischaracterizing the policy and trying to intimidate Target (although it doesn’t sound like the company will back down), or we can show merchants who do the right thing that we have their back.

I’d tell these fearful fannies to go to their churches to pray for humility and understanding, but they’re statistically more likely to run into a child molester there than at Target, and then it would be my fault.

So despite the fact that the nearest Target is 8 miles away, I’m going shopping.

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I Guess This Doesn’t Include Indiana

Macleans has identified cities it dubs a “new brain belt.”

These are the places where they think the greatest innovation is happening today. Sometimes they are classic rust-belt cities but mostly they are university or hospital towns in the vicinity: Waterloo, Ont., instead of Windsor.

They identify characteristics of such places: high-tech facilities, quality educational institutions, taxpayer support for research, appealing living conditions and, most important for them, cultures of free thinking, in contrast to the “hierarchical, regimented thinking so prevalent in Asian and MIST [Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey] countries.”

Or states like Indiana.

We have had several robust discussions on this blog about my theory of “paradigm shift.” Call it that, or focus on the narrower question (posed by MacLeans) whether your own city or state is “innovative” or “future oriented”–the question is one with which every Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development organization is wrestling: how does my city/ metropolitan area/state continue to compete and thrive in a world that is constantly changing? How do we get from here (wherever that is) to there (wherever that is)?

I was struck by the list of characteristics identified by MacLeans: of the five, four focused on human capital–more precisely, the development of an intellectual culture.

  • High tech facilities are built in places having workforces that can operate and manage them, places where both technical skills and comfort with technical innovation are plentiful.
  • The phrase “quality educational institutions” suggests the sort of yeasty and challenging environment that deals in questions, not answers–the sort of educational environment that produces new ideas and new ways of thinking about the traditional ones. (Quality is not defined by job placement statistics–sorry, Indiana Commission on Higher Education.)
  • “Taxpayer support for research” certainly doesn’t call to mind the penny-pinching, “I’ve got mine, Jack, and I’m holding onto it” attitude that has long characterized my own state of Indiana. It certainly doesn’t describe a state that would constitutionalize a cap on property taxes, lest those taxes somehow get raised and then–horrors!–spent on a common civic good like education. Or a better quality of life.
  • When you think about it, a culture of “free thinking”–the fourth intellectual attribute of forward-looking places–really leads to the only characteristic listed that doesn’t immediately connect to the life of the mind: a good quality of life. I don’t think you can have a good quality of life without such a “free thinking” culture.

People who enjoy engaging with ideas, with the arts, with people unlike themselves–people interested not only in acquiring new skills but in using those skills to improve their communities–are people who understand the organic nature and human importance of those communities, and the importance of their own connections to them.

There are people in my city–and I’d wager in yours–who are working hard to create a community that looks like that.

But at this point, my city– and most definitely my state— have a long way to go.

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What Is WRONG With These People?

It’s spring! Finally!

And if a recent jaunt around the Internet is to be believed, America seems to be growing more bigots than tulips this year.

In Virginia, supporters of “religious freedom” have prevented a group of local Muslims from building a mosque, demonstrating once again that “religious freedom” bills should be labeled “Christian privilege” bills, since they sure aren’t about extending religious liberty to anyone else.

Speaking of Muslims, a student at UC Berkeley who was returning from an academic conference had the bad judgment to call his uncle on his cellphone while he was in his seat waiting for the plane to load. His uncle lives in Iraq, so he spoke to him in Arabic. This evidently was all the evidence of terrorism required by Southwest Air, which removed him from the plane and called police to interrogate him.

Then there’s Mississippi.

I’m not sure who these good “Christians” are gunning for, but according to news reports, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant has signed into law something called the Church Protection Act. It allows churches to empower designated members of their congregation as part of a security team with a “shoot to kill” authority equivalent to a police officer but with less government oversight. Who Would Jesus Shoot? (What could possibly go wrong…??)

And of course, in Mississippi, North Carolina and elsewhere, there is the (to me, at least) inexplicable paranoia about bathroom use. Evidently, males are more susceptible to this condition–at least, according to a recent article in Slate:

For many men, taking a piss at the office is apparently a “nightmarish” experience. That’s one of the many fascinating things we learn in Julie Beck’s engrossing essay on the psychological minefield that is the public bathroom, published today in the Atlantic. We all know people who do their best to avoid defecating outside the privacy of home, but the fears and fantasies that Beck explores in her piece are almost Sadeian in detail—paranoia about seeing and being seen, elaborate attempts to construct sonic shields, and most of all, a deep sense that the perils of humiliation and social opprobrium waiting on the other side of the restroom door may very well outweigh the relief of relieving oneself.

If there is one thread connecting these depressingly regular eruptions of insanity, it would seem to be fear–fear of “the other”–fear of people who are perceived as different from “normal” (i.e., from “me.”) People who speak a different language, pray to a different god, love differently, pee differently…

For people who see difference as threatening and dangerous, the world must be a really scary (and uninteresting) place. I’d feel sorry for them, but the incredible stupidity of it all makes sympathy awfully hard to summon up.

I’m going to go water my tulips…..

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