Two Different Worlds

I keep thinking about that old song that began “Two different worlds, we live in two different worlds….” I don’t remember most of the lyrics, but it ended with something to the effect that the singer was longing for the day when “our two different worlds are one.”

Yeah–me too.

In the wake of the election, in addition to the usual recriminations and finger pointing, there has been a wave of “petitions” to the White House, demanding the right of states to secede.  The conspiracy nuts have been working overtime, generating dark, brooding theories about Obama’s plans to destroy America. Evidently, his incomprehensible victory at the polls is the sign of the apocalypse. Or something.

Meanwhile, in that other world–the one I thankfully inhabit–there are signs that the fever has broken. Congressional Republicans are sending grudging signals that they may consider cooperating to do the public’s business. Rightwing pundits are sounding a bit less intransigent–Hannity is “evolving” on immigration, and Bill Kristol concedes that a small increase in millionaires’ tax rate probably won’t kill the economy. Janesville, Wisconsin–home of Ryan the Rigid–just passed a ordinance extending domestic partner benefits to city and library employees. (It passed 6-1.) Little by little, inhabitants of the real world are going about the business of reconciliation.

What does that say about the “other” world? The one where the Kenyan Socialist Muslim is plotting to confiscate all the guns and destroy liberty as we know it?

There’s a theory that during periods of rapid social change, when societies are experiencing “paradigm shifts” to accommodate those changes, significant numbers of people are unable to make the conceptual change. As their existing worldviews get more and more “out of sync” with the world around them, their behaviors become more and more “maladaptive.” They are less and less able to cope with the world as it is, and their response to that cognitive dissonance gets more bizarre.

Eventually, of course, those who cannot adapt–disproportionately folks in my own advancing age bracket–will die off.  And for a while–at least until the next paradigm shift–those two different worlds will be one.

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A Lesson from David Frum

Since he left the Bush Administration, David Frum has consistently offered good sense to a political party increasingly disinclined to listen. Yesterday, I happened upon a column he wrote in the run-up to Tuesday’s election that should be heeded by every American–Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green…whatever. All of us who have navigated the partisan mine-field in order to cast a vote should embrace his message.

When the polls close in most other democracies, the results are known almost instantly. Ballots are usually counted accurately and rapidly, and nobody disputes the result. Complaints of voter fraud are rare; complaints of voter suppression are rarer still.

The kind of battle we are seeing in Florida — where Democrats and Republicans will go to court over whether early voting should span 14 days or eight — simply does not happen in Germany, Canada, Britain or France. The ballot uncertainty that convulsed the nation after Florida’s vote in 2000 could not happen in Mexico or Brazil.

Frum explains that in most other democratic countries, elections are run by independent, nonpartisan agencies. As a consequence,

Politicians of one party do not set voting schedules to favor their side and harm the other. Politicians do not move around voting places to gain advantages for themselves or to disadvantage their opponents. In fact, in almost no other country do politicians have any say in the administration of elections at all.

In those countries, ballots and voting machines are standardized nationally. Everyone votes the same way, meaning–among other things–that you don’t need to figure out a new system when you move to another state or even to an adjoining county.

The United States is an exceptional nation, but it is not always exceptional for good. The American voting system too is an exception: It is the most error-prone, the most susceptible to fraud, the most vulnerable to unfairness and one of the least technologically sophisticated on earth. After the 2000 fiasco, Americans resolved to do better. Isn’t it past time to make good on that resolution?

I couldn’t agree more.

Frum doesn’t mention it, but such an independent, nonpartisan agency should also be vested with redistricting, under strict rules about respecting geographic and community boundaries and drawing compact districts with equivalent numbers of voters.

There’s a substantial body of evidence to the effect that people are more willing to abide by the results of an election–or any contest–if they believe the fight was fair. Conspiracy theories take root when systems are or appear to be rigged. We know that partisans will engage in “dirty tricks” when operating in systems that offer the opportunity; when the playing field is not seen as level, even rational citizens become paranoid about campaigns and cynical about government.

In sports, we don’t allow the players to be their own referees and umpires; the integrity of the game requires impartial supervision.

Aren’t elections at least as important?

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The Urge to Demonize

One really unfortunate element of every election I can recall is the trashing of the opposing candidate. It’s easy to fall into the trap–I’ve found myself doing it on more than one occasion. I still recall, with some shame, expressing my low opinion of Larry Conrad during his run for Governor (youngsters reading this can google him). When I met Larry later, and worked on civic projects with him, I found him to be entirely admirable. Campaigns are notoriously bad at conveying the “real person,” and somehow, in the heat of battle, it’s not enough to disagree with a candidate’s policies or worldview. He or she must be a sub-optimal human as well.

I thought about this when I read a recent screed about President Obama, darkly suggesting–among other things–that his failure to release his Harvard grade transcript was probable evidence of substandard performance. (This is a pretty standard way of raising the issue of race–after all, aren’t all black people beneficiaries of affirmative action?)

I happened to attend an academic conference a few years ago where one of Obama’s professors shared his opinion that then-newly-minted Senator Obama was one of the best students he’d ever taught, and that he expected him to go far. Of course, it isn’t necessary to rely on a former instructor’s offhand comment–as any law school graduate knows, it takes superior grades to earn even a lowly position on a Law Review. Dummies simply don’t become Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Law Review. They also don’t hold adjunct professorships at the intellectually rigorous University of Chicago Law School.

The problem with these sorts of gratuitous slurs is that they debase political debate. The liberals who questioned Romney’s business accomplishments were similarly out of line. I opposed Romney and Ryan not because I thought their experience and talents were exaggerated, but because I believed they drew dramatically wrong lessons from those experiences, and that their policies would be very damaging to the country. I also opposed their views on women’s rights and gay rights.

I have friends who opposed Obama because they wanted him to wage war against Iran, or were opposed to the Affordable Care Act or to progressive taxation (aka “redistribution”).  I find their positions illogical and wrongheaded, but entirely legitimate. More important, those are the sort of disagreements we need to discuss, they are the contending prescriptions campaigns should debate and defend–the kinds of arguments that can be illuminated by history and empirical evidence.

Accusing an officeholder of doing a bad job is fair. Accusing him of being a bad or substandard person simply because we dislike his policies or the “team” he plays for is not.

Such ad hominem attacks are an admission by those who level them that they can’t argue the merits of the issues.

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Forget the Alamo…..

A friend who shares my concerns about Indiana’s governance for the next few years sent me a news link intended to cheer me up–sort of. His point was that it could be worse. We could live in Texas.

Over the years, when I have needed examples of truly bad policies as illustrations in my Law and Policy classes, Texas has often supplied those examples. I’d begun to think that the Texan fixation with secession may not be so misplaced; in fact, an amicable divorce was beginning to look pretty attractive. My friend’s link reinforced that  opinion.

Peter Morrison, treasurer of the Hardin County Republican Party in Texas, suggests in his newsletter that the state should have an “amicable divorce” from the “maggots” who re-elected Obama.

Morrison posted on his Facebook page his post-election thoughts: “We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity. But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity.”

“Texas was once its own country, and many Texans already think in nationalist terms about their state,” Morrison continued. “We need to do everything possible to encourage a long-term shift in thinking on this issue. Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government? Let each go her own way in peace, sign a free trade agreement among the states and we can avoid this gut-wrenching spectacle every four years.”

Reached for comment by Bud Kennedy at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Kent Batman, the chairman of the Hardin County Republican Party, said: “Wow.”

“OK, well — I guess I need to start taking a look at his newsletters,” Batman said.

This guy is an official of the Texas Republican Party. That’s bad enough. But even worse, the Chairman of the State Board of Education picked Morrison to screen the state’s public-school textbooks.

Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

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Pluribus, Working Toward Unum

There have always been dueling American “myths” about who we are as a nation, and those national self-images clashed mightily during this year’s election. On the one hand, we had the “Christian Nation” folks and their enablers, the pundits and politicians whose appeal for our votes could be summed up by the often-intoned promise to “take back” the country.

From whom? They never said, but the implication was clear: from those Others. The non-white, non-native-born, non-Jesus-loving, non “real” Americans.

On the other hand, there were the growing percentages of the electorate who fell into those categories. As Eugene Robinson described in his column this morning:

Nationwide, roughly three of every 10 voters Tuesday were minorities. African-Americans chose Obama by 93 percent, Latinos by 71 percent, and Asian-Americans, the nation’s fastest-growing minority, by 73 percent.

These are astounding margins, and I think they have less to do with specific policies than with broader issues of identity and privilege. I think that when black Americans saw Republicans treat President Obama with open disrespect and try their best to undermine his legitimacy, they were offended. When Latinos heard Republicans insist there should be no compassion for undocumented immigrants, I believe they were angered. When Asian-Americans heard Republicans speak of China in almost “Yellow Peril” terms, I imagine they were insulted.

On Tuesday, the America of today asserted itself. Four years ago, the presidential election was about Barack Obama and history. This time, it was about us — who we are as a nation — and a multihued, multicultural future.

Power doesn’t pass easily. Very few people yield privilege willingly. Change of any sort is disruptive and unsettling. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised at the ugliness that has emerged during this period of social and political evolution, but it’s hard not to wish for a more graceful, even enthusiastic, acceptance of change. After all, our diversity–and our professed willingness to forge the “many” into “one”–has been a constant point of American pride.

However reluctantly, the nation is in the process of living up to that motto. We’ve chosen our myth.

There are plenty of Americans who aren’t happy with our multi-cultural reality.  They’ll need to get over it.

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