Category: Federal/National Politics

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(Hey, look at this! I’m blogging!)

So I finished Hillbilly Elegy today.

I figured I should read it, as my beloved wife is a native of Middletown, OH and a good hunk of her family still lives there. I have a few thoughts.

In many ways, this is an inspiring narrative, and one that resonates with me, though – and I want to make this absolutely clear – I am not from a broken home. Indeed, for whatever issues I have had with my family (and it would be intellectually and morally dishonest to say that we have not had issues), I am forever grateful that my home life was so stable. It really does make a difference. We may have been rural, but my parents would never let us be “rednecks.” This is one of the reasons I so often ask why it is necessary to conflate the two, and why so many people (both within and without the rural community) encourage such conflating.

But, as is said in Revelation, I have a few things against thee, JD Vance.

First of all, I don’t entirely agree with your characterization of several sections of Middletown. This is a minor point, but there is more going on than you state. Downtown, for example, has some neat things underway, even if it’s not there yet. I am willing to attribute this to two things. A) We have a tendency – and clearly I am guilty of this – to either overromanticize our hometowns or exaggerate the perceived awfulness, and; B) It sounds like you haven’t been back in a few years. Completely understandable, and I am willing to concede this particular point to these two ideas.

My second point consists of a sharper criticism, one that I believe is linked to Mr. Vance’s current situation. Mr. Vance rightfully points out several flaws with the culture that produced him, and indeed you must change the culture to change the situation for the greatest number of people. But apart from some perfunctory slaps on the wrist, Mr. Vance is almost completely unwilling to assign any of the blame to corporate and financial practices that contribute to the problems. There was a telling moment when he describes working for former Ohio state senator Bob Schuler, who was opposed to further payday lending regulations. Vance says that these predatory loan places were the only place people from his background could go to get financial assistance, and that if more people from his background were part of the system, governments would not be so quick to impose further regulations on these institutions.

As Joe Biden might say, that’s malarkey. There are other ways to get assistance without having to resort to near-usury.

Keep in mind that, no matter Vance’s beginnings (and it is an inspiring narrative), he cut his legislative teeth working for a state senator determined to protect predatory lenders, and he is currently the principal for a major financial firm in the Bay Area, one which is founded by Peter Thiel. I am not so blind as to not understand the importance of both capital and the ability to move capital in our current system (indeed, it is why I cannot endorse the idea of wholesale destruction of the financial sector), but Vance is not exactly a disinterested party. By shifting the blame away from financial policies that could have mitigated the situation, and from corporations and investors that intentionally drained money from communities, Vance is able to maximize his otherwise just criticism of his native culture while signaling that he is – to use a phrase that I have heard many times in different circumstances – “one of the good ones.”

This same idea permeates my third criticism, that he is too dismissive of the social contract. Throughout the work, there is almost no mention of the role of government and political structures in assistance, except to say that Child Protective Services is often viewed by Appalachian culture as “the enemy.” There are moments of criticism for the government programs that provided assistance, but – in keeping in line with someone published regularly in Bill Buckley’s National Review – the ideology of the book is rooted in encouraging bootstrap-pulling among those who are bootless.

I am not completely against the book. Vance has clearly overcome many obstacles, and he makes a compelling argument for transcending one’s limitations and beginnings. He does, to his credit, consider arguments from all over the political spectrum, and is as quick to blame conservative fake news as he is liberal snootiness. I just wish he wasn’t so determined to maintain the Horatio Alger narrative, as it doesn’t tell the full story and in some cases deliberately shifts blame. I would still recommend it, approving quotes from David Brooks and all, because unlike other conservative writers, Vance is at least trying to figure it out.

(This review, by Alex MacGillis in The Atlantic, hits on similar points.)

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“I haven’t seen him. But I suppose he will be a pain. A birth-pain, perhaps, but a pain.”
“Birth-pain? You really believe we’re going to have a new Renaissance, as some say?”
“Hmmm-hnnn.”

– Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

INTRODUCTION

Tomorrow marks the 238th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence; today is the 151st anniversary of the conclusion of the Battle of Gettysburg. I have always been a Civil War buff – you may recall my meditation upon the Burnside Bridge at Antietam – so I like to filter American history through that conflict.

So much has happened this past week that I am only now able to process it. Part of this is due to some personal things (which remain nobody’s business but ours, though I will say that I think we’re on the far side of it now), and part of it is because it, on the surface, seems so antithetical to everything I hold dear. We’ve seen the Supreme Court of the United States decide that corporations are not only people, they have more rights than actual people. This same SCOTUS has created the possibility that any non-tax law can be ignored or broken if the person – well, in actuality, the corporation – has “sincerely-held” beliefs on a topic. As if to rub it in, the same decision attempted to vacate that possibility by claiming only one belief was subject to this ruling.

Essentially, the majority of Justices have proclaimed that religious freedom only truly applies to one issue, and even then only if you take the most conservative stance on that issue. At the same time, they have left the door open to allow corporations the right to (a) refuse fair compensation if the corporation feels the money is supporting a cause in which the corporation does not believe, and (b) ignore or disobey laws that do not take the most conservative viewpoint on a religious issue. This is not “freedom of religion.” This is a clear favoring – perhaps the term “establishment” might be more appropriate – of one particular religion over others. I am neither a lawyer nor a Constitutional scholar, but I tend to recall one of the early Amendments to the Constitution frowned on that sort of thing. And as we’ve seen, it’s already gone way past just Hobby Lobby.

Here’s the thing: this actually has nothing to do with religion, much as everyone – including the victors – is trying to make it about religion. It’s about the expansion of corporate power and money at the expense of regular citizens. It started with Citizens United…no, it started with Buckley v. Valeo…no, it started with the Santa Clara cases and the misbegotten and ill-applied doctrine of corporate personhood. Others have written more informatively about the effects of corporate personhood, both intentional and otherwise, and I will defer to their words. Rather, I choose to focus on what can and should be done.

WE CANNOT HALLOW THIS GROUND

The line of American history can be read as one of expansion. We can easily visualize this in terms of territory, as we’ve all seen the sixth-grade maps showing how first we were just at the crest of the Appalachians, then to the Mississippi, then the Pacific, then our noncontiguous lands. We called this Manifest Destiny, and to be sure, it didn’t end well for a lot of people who deserved way better. The expansion of which I speak, however, is an expansion of the rights contained in the Constitution to all of us. This expansion began almost immediately, and continues to this day. Sometimes, it’s a fairly smooth process. Other times, blood is spilled – as mentioned above, this is the 151st anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

There are always those who fight the expansion. I am reminded of Sen. Richard Russell (D-Georgia), who, when told he was fighting nothing more than a delaying action against civil rights, replied “I know, but I am trying to delay it – ten years if I’m not lucky, two hundred years if I am.” We have seen this fight before – in the marches of Susan B. Anthony and over the Equal Rights Amendment (a still-incomplete battle). We saw it in the factories of Pullman and Detroit, in the front of the bus in Montgomery, in the farms of the Central Valley of California, in the streets of Greenwich Village, and anywhere one person has stood up to say, “I count.” Now we have seen the beginning of a new fight. The pushback against the expansion is coming from a different sector this time – corporate personhood. In an attempt to limit the rights of actual human beings, those who have always opposed the expansion have found a new path. They can claim the mantle of expansion for themselves (for are they not giving rights to a new class of “people?”), and wrap themselves in the Bill of Rights and in the flag, while in truth they are doing their level best – as they always have – to limit the rights of the rest of us. In this cause, they have been ably assisted by a network of organizations devoted single-mindedly to the limitation of our rights as citizens in the name of acquiring ever more of our shared inheritance. And, like Sen. Russell, they know that delay can turn into denial; we, however, know that delay can turn into victory, when the outcry is strong enough. My job – our job – is to raise that battle cry: “I count.”

I honor the memory of those who gave blood, toil, tears, and sweat to rally around that battle cry. Our words alone can never do proper justice to their memory. Our actions will show how we honor them, by taking up their fights as our own. And even though we may not win every battle – this week was proof of that – I maintain faith that Dr. King’s arc still bends toward justice. So we must keep fighting, even though the odds are overwhelming, even though we are tired, and saddened, and angry, and hurt.

OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE

I fight because the story does not end. Each generation remakes the United States according to its interpretation of the ephemeral idea of “America.” The Founders were brilliant men, though it should be stated for the record that their idea of the “common man” was a white male landowner. In this, as noble as their intentions and as good as their plans were, they fell short. The rest of the story is how succeeding generations took the promise of the Constitution – government of, by, and for the people, forming a more perfect union – and expanded that to include more and more of their fellow-citizens. “We cannot escape history,” said Lincoln, and that is as true today as it ever was. Through war and reconstruction, the suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, and now the fight for full equality, the story goes on. I know not when it will end, but I hope – even in the darkest moments – that infinite chapters, developing all that is best in our collective plot, will continue to pour from the pens and keyboards of We, The People. For after all, we are the true authors of our liberty and of our history. We should never want to escape history; it is our story, and we owe it to ourselves and our posterity to write the best possible story we can.

WF

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Continuing with the twin themes of Richard Nixon and resentment as a political tool, here are two links which have been on my mind recently.

This link considers prejudice against Appalachians in academia, and this link examines Sauk Centre, MN, Sinclair Lewis’s hometown and the model for Gopher Prairie in Main Street.

The first article makes me think – what happens when someone willingly embraces the stereotypes of that group, and then uses those stereotypes as a marker of culture? Do the stereotypes become self-generating at that point? Is it a matter of “You think I’m a redneck? I’ll show you a redneck!” There is a natural human response of wagon-circling when a member of your tribe is attacked, to be sure, and I suspect there’s some of that at work here. But it can go to far, and ideology can obscure reality. (Read that link, by the way. It is outstanding.) Sinclair Lewis hit on this when he wrote Main Street. In an insular community, outsiders – or more specifically, ideas promulgated by outsiders – are rarely accepted or even tolerated. I found this out earlier this year when my hometown was in the news for less than good reasons. Even though it was home in a technical sense, I never felt like I belonged there, much in the same way that Lewis never felt like he belonged in Sauk Centre. Yet, that is where his ashes are buried, and it is not beyond the pale of possibility that my earthly remains will at least in part end up back home as well. I have felt the resentment of those who accepted things as they were, and I have also nurtured strong resentments myself at those same people. I love my family, and I wouldn’t trade my upbringing for anything, but Bedford is not home. It is simply where I am from. (Short form: having a non-majority temperament or views in a small town is tough. I doubt I’m alone in this.)

This politics of resentment is how Nixon captured the White House in 1968. He was careful enough to not be openly resentful in the way that George Wallace was (and arguably having Wallace in the race, instead of splitting the Right, allowed Nixon to use better code language and secure his position as the “Center”), but he still tapped into that. His language throughout his term in office (“Silent Majority,” the constant allusions to a giant conspiracy during Watergate) sent dog-whistles to the resentful base. And as we saw in yesterday’s post, he came by this honestly and at an early age.

I get Nixon. But for differences on political issues, I could be Nixon. In many cases, so could you. And that is why, as much of a populist as I am on economic issues, I have to keep it in check. Because when unchecked, it turns a President who was truly masterful at many aspects of foreign policy* into a punchline, a paranoiac, and a cautionary tale.

This has been a rather rambling excursion into my brain. I hope it resonated with at least some people.

*I propose that Nixon did what he did domestically (EPA, price/wage controls, Keynesian economic policy, etc.) to keep the heat off his foreign policy, making him the mirror of LBJ (who was hawkish in Vietnam to keep his opponents on his side, allowing him to pass his domestic policies).

WF

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Recently, I have been reading several things that make me think about Richard M. Nixon, the uses of power, and the politics of resentment.

If you know anything about Nixon’s college years, you know that there was a group of well-heeled upper-class types on the Whittier College campus known as the Franklins. Nixon would have never been accepted as part of this group, coming as he did from a working-class background. So he created an alternate group – the Orthogonians. Throughout his life Nixon set himself in opposition to the elites, even if – nay, especially if – they were from his own party. He was, if it is possible to be such a thing, the consummate outsider. At the height of his power, at a point when he was quite literally the single most powerful person the world had known up to that point, he used that power in ways both subtle and obvious to take (in his opinion) the elites down a peg.

He wasn’t the first outsider President; his immediate predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, was also from the wrong side of the tracks. LBJ grew up in a formerly stable family that had fallen on hard times. Like Nixon, he could not afford to go to a major university (Nixon went to the local college; LBJ went just down the road to what was then a teachers’ college and is now Texas State University – San Marcos), and like Nixon, he was all too willing to believe that his humble origins were the subject of scorn and mockery by the wealthier, the smarter, the better-connected.

In both cases, perhaps there was a kernel of truth to the fear. Robert Caro speaks of the Kennedy loyalists referring to LBJ (though never, to be sure, after the assassination) as “Rufus Cornpone.” Film critic Pauline Kael was famously lambasted for elitism after expressing surprise at Nixon’s victory since “no one I know voted for him.” And hey, everyone on the political spectrum from George Wallace to Occupy Wall Street finds “the elite” to be a suitable target for opprobrium. Where it gets dangerous is when Populism – an honest political movement, and one with honorable intentions and goals – crosses a line into what might be termed “elitism of the lowbrow.” When that happens, knowledge and expertise are themselves suspect, since they come from experts. (See this recent article in MacLean’s for a Canadian take on the situation.)

There more coming here, though I’m not quite sure what yet. I suspect it will have to do with feeling an outsider (something I know all too well) and what counts as acceptable prejudice (see this article for more, but don’t read the comments).

WF

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(Literate people will understand why I used that title.)

I have not yet decided if I agree with President Obama’s plan for limited military intervention in the Syrian civil war. I wish to examine what evidence I can further. I can, however, comprehend some of the domestic politics around an international issue, and I’m going to explore those. Of course, the mere fact that there are domestic politics of this type around an international issue is a different subject, but that can be tackled at some future point.

(1) A common question is “Why are we getting involved now? Why is a chemical weapon attack worse than a normal attack?” This is a fair question. Historically speaking, the use of chemical weapons was so mortifying when the German Army used them in World War I* that an entire international treaty was written to ban them. We (mostly) abhor warmaking, and obviously any violence should be avoided, but the use of certain weapons has long been considered to be beyond the pale even under the rather nebulous rules of engagement common in most wars. The position of the President and his administration is that this clear flouting of international treaty and custom sets a dangerous precedent.

(2) On the political side, I believe that it is absolutely vital (more on this in a moment) that the President seek an authorization for the use of military force. I further believe that each Representative and Senator should weigh the evidence and vote his/her conscience. The party whips should stay out of this. Finally, I believe that any member of Congress who decides to oppose this simply because they don’t believe in handing the President a “victory” on any subject – that is to say, anyone obstructing just for the sake of obstructing – should be summarily censured and/or expelled from whichever chamber. Ultimately, though, we the people are responsible for such hideous representatives, as there is a sizable chunk of the population (let’s be honest here – red states, rural areas, racist exurbs) that has elected a cadre of Tea Party buffoons whose sole purpose is to prevent any governance at all. I have often said that the misnamed Tea Party is a cancer upon our body politic, and nothing I have seen has convinced me otherwise.

(3) About the AUMF – I said it was vital, and I mean that from a political perspective, but legally it’s unnecessary under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, so long as the President then goes to Congress within 48 hours. It has been violated once or twice, but never has a violation led to a Constitutional showdown. If that were to happen here, I suspect that ending would be different, as the aforementioned Tea Party buffoons are looking for any reason to impeach.**

It’s messy. I don’t know where it all ends. But let’s have the debate, and let’s have it be an honest debate that puts what’s great about America forward. After all, the fact that we’re having the debate at all is a testament to our system of governance.

*Seriously. World War I is understudied, but it is at the core of pretty much every chunk of world history that follows.

**They have their unspoken reason, of course.

WF

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How come Sen. John McCain (R-Always Good News) now thinks Chuck Hagel would be a bad Defense Secretary when, just a few years ago, he said “I’d be honored to have Chuck with me in any capacity”? Hagel hasn’t changed much that I can see.

Oh, right. He was appointed by the Kenyocommuislamist Usurper, and we give John McCain an inordinate of press for no good reason. (Seriously, find me another losing candidate who appears so often on the Sunday chat shows.)

Related topic: Is it just me, or do southern Republicans have a particularly nasty opinion of President Obama? Wonder why that is…

WF

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Like you, I’ve been watching the fiscal cliff curb slight indentation and thinking, “My goodness, the House really is broken!” So how do we fix it? Here are three suggestions:

(1) End gerrymandering.
(2) Get stupid amounts of money out of campaigns (Super PACs, etc.).
(3) Increase the size of the House.

Yes, you read that last one correctly. According to the Constitution (you know, that document the Tea Party loves until it is used to help non-white non-males), each Representative should only represent 30,000 people. In the early 20th century, it was decided to cap the size of the House (at least in voting members) at 435. Using 1920 Census numbers, that means each Representative had approximately 244,000 constituents. Today, each Rep has over 700,000 constituents on average.

A few years back, when I was avoiding working on the dissertation, I created a spreadsheet postulating different House sizes and how many Representatives each state would get. I am attaching this spreadsheet now (you will need Excel). I believe I did the math correctly, but will welcome corrections. Check out all the different tabs.

apportionment

What do you think – time to increase the size of the House? How would it be done? What systematic changes would need to be made to the institution? I have some ideas, which I will discuss in a later post.

WF

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After the County Commissioner Candidate forum on Thursday, I’ve been thinking about the role of county government and elected officials. (This isn’t a new thing for me, as my older brother is a county commissioner back in Indiana. Every state is different, though.) Fortunately, the Minnesota Association of Counties has lots of good publications that can answer questions.

Why do I care so much about city council, school board, county commission and state legislature races? Here are a few reasons.

(1) These are the races where you can make the most contact with candidates and officials. It’s representative democracy in a nutshell. Each Stevens County commissioner represents about 2000 people. It is quite easy to meet your city councilmember or county commissioner and express your concerns.

(2) While what happens in Washington, DC clearly has a tremendous impact on what we do in our day-to-day lives, local and state government have equal if not greater impacts. It is important to know your local elected officials and where they stand on the local issues.

(3) In rural areas, counties have to provide many services that are taken for granted in urban areas. It is fascinating to watch the interplay between county and township vis-a-vis snow plowing, road management and economic development. And of course, access to mental health services, Meals on Wheels and other senior services, and local libraries/schools would usually devolve onto small towns and county government.

(4) Local elective office is the farm team for state and federal office. Many members of Congress got their start as local elected officials. Barack Obama was a state senator in Illinois before beginning his meteoric rise. Even as Congress becomes less responsive to local needs (a topic for another time, though I will say that a country of 300,000,000 deserves more than 435 representatives in what is allegedly the People’s House), we still like to see our Federal representatives with some legislative body experience.

WF

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July 4, 1776 is extremely important in the history of this great nation. So is September 17, 1787, for that is the day the Constitution was adopted by the Constitutional Convention.

Two quotes, from Molly Ivins:

“I submit to you that only half the reason the Constitution is a great and living document is because our foundin’ daddies were about the smartest sumbitches ever walked and also because they wrote right in there how to keep changing the old charter as need arises. The other half of the credit for the beauty of the Constitution goes to 200 years worth of American misfits, troublemakers, hell-raisers, eccentrics, mavericks, anti-Establishmentarians, and outsiders who are ever ready and happy to do battle.”

and

“In my opinion, there’s not a thing wrong with the ideals and mechanisms outlined and the liberties set forth in the Constitution of the United States. The only problem was, the founders left a lot of people out of the Constitution. They left out poor people and black people and female people. It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America. And it still goes on today.”

WF

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This article showcases a trend that is all too real, yet (sadly) nothing new. These issues date from almost the time the first white settlers came across the Atlantic.

The thing is, in the absence of real study and understanding of non-majority cultures, the majority culture becomes even more hardened in their negative opinion of the minority culture, thus perpetuating the system.

Of course, what is going to happen when – and it’s not if, but when – whites are no longer the majority?

I’m not even addressing the overall anti-intellectualism that permeates American life (and has overtaken one political party); I just believe – I know – that this refusal to even acknowledge other viewpoints and cultures leads to fear, xenophobia, and destruction. (Of course, the aforementioned political party loves those things.)

WF

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What I feared would happen happened. The “tricornered hat and empty head” brigade got another scalp. Also, a majority of people who voted yesterday in North Carolina put themselves on the wrong side of history. Again.

People, stop enabling these anti-government (check that: anti-government for anything other than rich white straight Christian males) idiots! They hide behind fear – fear of non-whites, fear of an angry God, fear of their own desires. They listen to the nice man on the TeeVee, the megachurch pastor with the fancy cars who peddles theological snake oil, the radio talk show host who knows how to exploit the stupid. They don’t think. They simply react, and they cannot stand that the country wasn’t like it was in the ’50s* (in the case of down here, that’s the 1850s).

*Actually, I’d take the tax rates of the 1950s in a heartbeat.

WF

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Is this the day Dick Lugar loses an election?

Look, as much as I want the Democrats to win as many seats as possible this fall, I am saddened that Dick Lugar – a true statesman and outstanding Senator for my home state – is possibly having his political career ended by a Tea Party hack.

WF