Tag Archives: red states

Telling The Truth About The War On Trans Children

Public Policy and Governance, , ,

Indiana isn’t the only state waging war on trans children, their parents and the medical providers trying to help them. At a time America (and the whole world, for that matter) is facing innumerable challenges–climate change, Putin’s war in Ukraine, a re-ordering of world power generally, etc.–today’s GOP has fixated on the “threat” posed by defenseless children.

About those claims that Republicans are defending “parental rights”– it seems the GOP only defends parents who share their constipated views of the world.

Want to ban some books? Make life difficult for LGBTQ children? The GOP will empower you! Want to allow educators and librarians to share books that other parents consider appropriate? Want to be supportive of your child struggling with gender dysphoria? Not so fast!

In Red Texas, being supportive of your child’s transition has actually been defined as child abuse.

Kentucky recently passed a bill not unlike a handful of hateful measures on their way to passing in Indiana. The bill limits medical care related to gender transition services for minors and punishes providers who assist their minor patients. It also prohibits “a public school counselor, school-based mental health services provider, or another public employee from aiding or assisting in the provision of gender transition services for a person under the age of 18 years.”

During the debate preceding Kentucky legislators’ lopsided vote to make life more difficult for trans children, a state representative named Pamela Stevenson gave an impassioned speech in which she told the ugly–but undeniable– truth.

 “I’m not even sure how we got here, but as a 27-year military veteran, I fought so that all people could have freedoms, not just the ones I liked,” said Stevenson, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel.

When a co-sponsor of the bill said she’d written it to “protect children from irreparable damage,” Stevenson had a withering response.

“Don’t tell me it’s about irreparable harm because you’re not doing anything for the children that are hungry,” Stevenson said.

“You’re not doing anything for the children that are in foster care being abused. You’re not doing what needs to be done for the little black kids who are experiencing racism every day. It is not for irreparable harm. It’s because they are not like you. And as a mother, how dare you interfere with one of the most intimate relationships.”…

If you were really, really concerned about children, I could give you 100 other things you could do to make sure that every kid in Kentucky thrives. Let’s try giving them water out in the rural areas, potable water. Let’s try Medicare and Medicaid, so they can go to the doctor. Let’s try getting the kids off the street that are homeless and sleeping with snow as a blanket. I was born at night, but not last night. This is not about what you say it is.”

What I find so depressing about these attacks on vulnerable children is the likely reason for this particular culture-war focus: America’s current acceptance of LGBTQ+ citizens and same-sex marriage. Polling regularly confirms that acceptance; Gallup fielded a 2022 poll that showed 71% of Americans agreeing that same-sex marriages should enjoy the same rights as opposite-sex ones.(That’s a staggering figure: These days, seventy-one percent of Americans probably don’t agree that the Earth is round.)

Since gay folks came out of the closet, most Americans have discovered that they know gay people and that they aren’t any different from the rest of us. Trans people, however, are rarer and still considered “exotic”–or in Republican-speak, fair game.

We no longer live in the “good old days” when Republicans could generate turnout with hysterical warnings about same-sex marriage or other attacks on LGBTQ folks generally–these days, such broad-based attacks are too likely to create backlash. But the GOP isn’t going to abandon its most effective strategy–generating fear and hatred of the “other”–so the party has narrowed its focus to Drag Queens and trans Americans.

Human Rights Watch  is just one of the organizations that has documented the extent of discrimination and violence experienced by the trans community. Those reports are depressing and sobering, but the viciousness of the attacks on children is particularly disgusting.

As Axios has explained, these bills are part of a larger, “carefully coordinated campaign by the far right and religious conservatives to attack trans people in the wake of their failures to stop marriage equality and pass anti-trans bathroom bills over the past decade.”

After all, if a few kids kill themselves as a result–tough. All’s fair in politics and culture war.

 

 

Health And Debt

Public Policy and Governance, , ,

I was fascinated by a recent column in which Paul Krugman examined the geographical clustering of low credit scores.

Krugman was deconstructing some recent research showing what he described as a “big band of credit-score calamity that stretches across the American South.” The research confirmed that, in virtually every part of the South and across all demographic groups– every race, every income bracket —  credit score are low.

Low credit scores penalize people in a number of ways. As Krugman notes,

The region’s poor credit means Southerners are paying more to borrow money, assuming they can qualify for loans at all. That sets them back in everything from car and home purchases to credit card rewards.

But why the South?

Many of us would suggest the influence of racism. But that turns out not to explain the phenomenon.

Our first guess about what might be happening here involves race. Almost 3 out of every 5 Black Americans live in the South, and they make up almost 20 percent of the region’s population. Centuries of slavery, sharecropping, apartheid and exclusion from many elite educational institutions left some Southern Black folks with little credit and even less collateral.

When researchers ran the numbers, the Blackest parts of the South had roughly the same credit scores as the least-Black areas. And their scores were far lower than places with similar Black populations outside the South. So while race may play a role, it’s clearly not a defining factor.

Well, what about poverty? The South has the highest poverty, lowest income and lowest education rates of any region in the U.S., and counties with lower income and lower college graduation rates are likely to have lower credit scores.

Nope.

Even some of the South’s biggest, most dynamic cities — think Atlanta or Dallas — have the same below-average credit scores as their more rural Southern neighbors. Within every income bracket, the typical Southerner has a lower credit score than someone who lives in the Northeast, Midwest or West.

So–if it isn’t racism and it isn’t poverty, what explains this phenomenon?

The answer, it turns out, is America’s refusal to follow virtually every other modern nation and offer national health care. Medical debt is the reason credit scores are so low in the South.

It turns out the South has the highest levels of medical debt in the country.

Of the 100 counties with the highest share of adults struggling to pay their medical debt, 92 are in the South, and the other eight are in neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri, according to credit data from the Urban Institute. (On the other side, 82 of the 100 counties with the least pervasive medical-debt problems are in the Midwest, with 45 in Minnesota alone.)

And sure enough, when you look at areas across the nation where adults are struggling to pay down medical debt, they have similar credit scores.

This raises an obvious question: why is this problem concentrated in the South?

One answer is that the South is simply less healthy than any other region. Data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shows that among Medicare recipients, the population for which we have the best data, those in the South are substantially more likely to suffer from four or more chronic conditions. And poor health tends to go hand in hand with people having overdue medical debt and poor credit scores.

Poor health isn’t the only factor–Red State policy choices are a huge contributor.A recent analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that medical debt “became more concentrated in lower-income communities in states that did not expand Medicaid. The share of residents with overdue medical debt is more strongly linked to a county’s credit score than any other factor– including debt related to car loans, credit cards and student loans.

Last year, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a scathing report finding that medical debt is “an unexpected, unwanted, and financially devastating expense” that is “far less reliable and predictive of people’s ability to pay their bills” than other kinds of borrowing.

The lack of national health insurance–or even Medicaid availability–means that folks in the South pay higher rates on mortgages and car loans, and have more trouble getting credit.

But there are social as well as individual costs involved.

Insecurity fosters anti-social behaviors. When a serious illness means you might lose your house or go bankrupt—you tend to take those worries out on others. Research shows that countries with better social safety nets are more tolerant of differences in race, religion and sexual orientation, and some studies have suggested that Canada’s lower rate of gun violence can be attributed to their stronger social safety net.

But national health insurance would be “socialist” and Southerners wouldn’t want that…

 

 

 

The Widening Gulf

Random Blogging, ,

A reader recently sent me a copy of a column from his local paper. (Congratulations on still having one of those…)

The column (behind a paywall) looked at the ever-widening gulf between legislatures controlled by Republicans and those in majority-democratic states. Those differences, the column suggested, can offer a lens on where the country is heading.

Given the rest of the column, I’d guess that we are heading for further polarization, if not a cold civil war…

The author identified three “big themes” playing out across state capitols this year. The first such theme is no surprise– the “continuing rise of hyper-polarized policies. Red and blue states will push further apart on everything from voting laws, abortion, gay rights, education and taxation. States under single-party dominance–the “trifecta states”– will  feel free to pursue their very divergent approaches to America’s culture wars.

This year there are 39 “trifecta” states, in which a single party controls all three branches of government (both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office). This allows states to “make decisions and make them relatively quickly,” says Peverill Squire of the University of Missouri, an expert on legislatures. “The contrast with Washington will be stark.”

The column gave examples, including Red Wyoming, where a bill that (mercifully) died in committee would have banned the sale of all new electric vehicles starting in 2035, in order to protect the state’s oil and gas industry.

Blue California is considering several new gun control proposals; while Florida and other Red states, are likely to legalize permitless carry.” (Red Indiana already passed this, over the dire and entirely accurate predications of law enforcement personnel.)

A second theme will be Red state governments taking aim at private companies that have the nerve to defy lawmakers’ partisan political agendas. Proposals currently pending in Republican states, including (of course!) Texas, would revoke firms’ tax incentives if they help employees get abortions.

What ever happened to the Republican Party that–according to Barry Goldwater–wanted to keep government out of both your boardroom and your bedroom? Ah–for the good old days…

Blue California is considering a cap on oil firms’ profits, while legislators in Arkansas, Missouri and South Carolina (and Indiana) want to prohibit state governments from doing business with firms that take environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles into account.

And of course,”some governors will use these legislative sessions as résumé-building for higher office.” Ron DeSantis is way out in front on that “theme”–staking out a coveted MAGA position as head of the White Nationalist movement. The column noted “DeSantis’s signature policies”–restricting what students can be taught about sex and sexuality, punishing Disney for inclusiveness, waging war on anything he can label “woke” and of course, gerrymandering and suppressing the votes of Black Floridians…

Constitution? What Constitution?

As the article pointed out, it isn’t just the big states that are political weather vanes.

smaller states that became Democratic trifectas in 2022, Michigan and Minnesota, will generate headlines too. If rumblings that Michigan is going to repeal its anti-union “right-to-work” law prove correct, it would be the first state to do so since 1965, says Chris Warshaw of George Washington University.

The column says that one way to think of these 2023 state legislative sessions is as a long-running television drama, featuring many of the “same characters and issues from last time: abortion, rights for LGBTQ people, and culture-war debates on curricula in public schools. Already, 202 LGBTQ-related bills have been introduced; a record, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. (Missouri, with 31, has the most, followed by Oklahoma’s 27.)”

Proposals include banning trans children from having surgery or anyone born male from taking part in girls’ sports. There is talk of banning and even criminalizing drag shows.

The author noted that more prosaic concerns–the actual work of government–are getting short shrift. But even there, the division between Red and Blue is stark: 
in numerous states that are still enjoying large surpluses, thanks to high tax receipts and federal money, Red state governors want to use the funds to cut taxes, not to improve decaying infrastructure or (heaven forbid!) pay teachers a living wage. 

As the column concluded, 

Most legislatures would be wise to squirrel away some of their surpluses for times of economic duress, says Justin Theal of Pew Charitable Trusts, which monitors states’ fiscal health.

But for politicians, saving has never generated as many headlines as raving.

And headlines are the name of the game when politics becomes performative….

OK, Let’s Talk About Mental Health

Public Policy and Governance, , ,

It’s so predictable. And maddening. After each horrific mass shooting, Republicans pandering to the NRA insist that the problem isn’t guns–it’s mental health.

The most obvious response is equally predictable (albeit far more intellectually honest):  these attacks are vanishingly rare in countries where there are similar proportions of  mentally ill citizens but far fewer guns.

Mental health professionals will also point out that the great majority of people diagnosed with a mental health problem are not violent, so pointing to an undifferentiated “mental health” crisis is simply an effort to distract from the role played by virtually unrestricted gun ownership.

I personally agree with a New Republic headline:“The Main Mental Health Issue in This Country Is in the Republican Party.”

That said, I also agree that, overall, America does a very poor job of diagnosing and treating mental illness. So if we were to ignore the immense hypocrisy of the Republicans who only respond to these massacres by advocating an increase in resources devoted to mental health, we might welcome their sudden attention to that scarcity and their apparently heartfelt efforts to address it. (Snark alert: If you believe those efforts are really heartfelt, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you…)

The linked article from the New Republic looked at the existing patchwork of state funding for mental health diagnosis and treatment.

Before you click, just hazard a guess: Of the top 10 states, how many are red? Likewise, how many of the bottom 10 are red? And where do you imagine Texas ranks?

If you don’t feel like floating down that rabbit hole, I’ll save you the trouble. The top 10 states are: Maine, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Montana, Vermont, California, Maryland. One red state in the bunch (yes, Arizona is borderline, but it went Democratic in 2020). The bottom 10, from forty-first to fiftieth, are: Florida, Wyoming, North Dakota, Delaware, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Idaho, West Virginia, Arkansas. One blue state.

And Texas—where that lying death cultist of a governor vows to attack the scourge of mental illness with a zeal unmatched since Wayne LaPierre took his last trip to Zegna—just misses the bottom 10, in fortieth place. I doubt I even need to point out (although for the record I will) that Greg Abbott and the state’s Republicans have been cutting mental health funding, by more than $200 million over the last two years.

The article noted that there has been one –and only one–major expansion of mental health spending and insurance coverage in recent American history–and it was part of the Affordable Care Act., aka Obamacare. According to a Commonwealth Fund report, the ACA’s impact on the country’s mental health has been salutary, particularly in states that accepted Medicaid funding.

And we all know how the GOP has reacted to that particular expansion of access to healthcare, including mental healthcare.

The GOP then spent years trying to repeal and “replace” it. Trump also wanted it repealed. So the sole major expansion of mental health coverage in this century was contained in a bill whose passage every Republican in Washington opposed and on which most Republican governors have refused to participate in the state-level implementation. Come to think of it, probably the sole reason the red state of Montana ranks in the top 10 on mental health spending is that the state took the Medicaid expansion money under former Democratic Governor Steve Bullock.

Republicans are not going to expand mental health funding. Mental health care is for sissies and liberals. The only thing they’re going to expand is access to guns. We know this because recent history tells us so. Last week in Vox, Zack Beauchamp posted a shocking but not surprising report on academic studies of legislative responses at the state level to mass shootings. The finding? The norm in this country has been that mass shootings have been used by state legislatures and governors as an excuse to loosen gun laws, not tighten them. This is our country.

We have a mental health problem, all right– but it’s primarily among Republican legislators.

 

A Cold Civil War

Random Blogging, , , ,

Back in high school when most of us studied the Civil War (usually briefly and superficially), it was hard to get our heads around the extent to which Americans held wildly different world-views. I remember my own inability to understand how so many Southerners (and not a few Northerners) fervently believed their skin color entitled them to own another human being.

At the time of the Civil War, a majority of people willing to defend the institution of slavery lived below the Mason-Dixon Line, a geographic reality that made it possible to take up arms against those who disagreed. Today, most of the divisions we face lack that geographic clarity. Although it’s true that we have Red States and Blue States, we also have bright blue cities in those Red States, and Blue States have pockets of rural Red voters. So our current Civil War–and I don’t think that is too strong a descriptor–is a “Cold War,” being fought primarily with propaganda, but threatening to erupt into assaults like the January 6th insurrection.

Most readers of this blog are well aware of the recent speech given by former General Michael Flynn, at an event for QAnon believers that featured other representatives of LaLaLand like Texas Representative Louis Gohmert.

As the New York Times reported,

Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser, suggested that a military coup was needed in the United States during a Memorial Day weekend conference organized by adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, drawing criticism from political scientists, veterans, Democrats and a handful of prominent Republicans.

I don’t know how many of the Southerners who ultimately took up arms in America’s first Civil War actually believed in the core precepts of slavery and “the White Man’s burden,” but thanks to advances in polling and survey research, we have a fairly accurate understanding of the percentage of our fellow-Americans who claim to believe QAnon nonsense.

A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core found that 14 percent of Americans, including about one in four Republicans, believed in three central tenets of the QAnon conspiracy theory: that the United States is being run by a cabal of Satanist pedophiles, that “American patriots may have to resort to violence” to get rid of that cabal, and that a “storm” will soon “restore the rightful leaders.”

In a robust democracy, fourteen percent of the population can be bat-shit crazy without endangering the Union–but we don’t have a robust democracy. As over one hundred political science scholars recently wrote, the attacks on voting underway in several states are transforming democratic decision-making into “political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections.” The scholars warn that “our entire democracy is now at risk.”

Ezra Klein recently reminded readers that Democrats face an unforgiving context:

Their coalition leans young, urban and diverse, while America’s turnout patterns and electoral geography favor the old, rural and white. According to FiveThirtyEight, Republicans hold a 3.5 point advantage in the Electoral College, a 5-point advantage in the Senate and a 2-point advantage in the House. Even after winning many more votes than Republicans in 2018 and 2020, they are at a 50-50 split in the Senate, and a bare 4-seat majority in the House. Odds are that they will lose the House and possibly the Senate in 2022.

This is the fundamental asymmetry of American politics right now: To hold national power, Democrats need to win voters who are right-of-center; Republicans do not need to win voters who are left-of-center. Even worse, Republicans control the election laws and redistricting processes in 23 states, while Democrats control 15. The ongoing effort by Texas Republicans to tilt the voting laws in their favor, even as national Republicans stonewall the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, is testament to the consequences of that imbalance.

This is how a Cold Civil War is conducted. Although there may be scattered bloodshed a la January 6th, the actual battles–the coups favored by crackpots like Flynn and Gohmert and numerous other Republicans– are taking place in state-level legislative bodies where the will of the majority has been neutered by gerrymandering and on media platforms where facts are twisted or sacrificed to feed the appetites–and generate the rage– of angry  old White guys. 

What is really terrifying is the likelihood that this current iteration of Civil War will be won or lost with most Americans totally unaware that it is even being fought….