A Little Antidote to the Doom-and-Gloom

We got some good news with week with a solid jobs report and the fact that that the uninsured rate has hit 9% - the lowest ever. But you're not likely to hear much about either of those things from Republicans. That's why President Obama recently had a little fun at their expense when he compared them to Grumpy Cat.

And so it was fascinating to run into an article at the very conservative National Review by Kevin Williamson titled: Take a Bow, Species. The whole thing is positively brimming with optimism and good news. Here's a list of the things he mentions:

* Polio has basically been eradicated from the globe

* Measles and rubella will be next

* The global rate of “extreme poverty, currently defined as subsistence on less than the equivalent of $1.90 a day, is now the condition of less than 10 percent of the human race. Take a look at how the World Bank recently plotted that change:

* The overall rate of violent crime in the U.S. has fallen by about half in recent decades.

* U.S. manufacturing output per worker trebled from 1975 to 2005, and our total manufacturing output continues to climb

* General-price inflation, the bane of the U.S. economy for some decades, is hardly to be seen

* I just filled up my car for $1.78 a gallon

The reason that you're not likely to hear any of that from Republican presidential candidates anytime soon is because it is their job to convince us that their presidency is needed to overcome the myriad of ways that President Obama has ruined everything.

But those candidates will also be tapping into the doom-and-gloom felt by Republican voters. Williamson quotes Tyler Cowen in an attempt to understand what fuels that mood.

It seems to me that people are first choosing a mood or attitude, and then finding the disparate views which match to that mood and, to themselves, justifying those views by the mood. I call this the “fallacy of mood affiliation,” and it is one of the most underreported fallacies in human reasoning. 

You can count me as pretty surprised to find myself basically agreeing with Kevin Williamson and Tyler Cowen. It's not that we've reached some kind of nirvana where all is well with the world. But consider this as an antidote to the "we're all going to hell in a hand basket" that we're hearing so much about these days.

The Policy Vacuum of Movement Conservatism

It is true that the media is having a bit of a feeding frenzy in their attempt to "vet" the latest front-runner in the Republican presidential nominating contest - Ben Carson. But in the midst of all that, this line from a column by Amy Davidson stood out to me:

A certain number of Republicans turned to Carson because the other candidates seemed even less plausible to them.

That was basically my reaction to the last GOP presidential debate. Initially, I looked forward to John Kasich's attempt to come out swinging against the rhetoric he called "crazy." But when he actually did it, all he had to offer as an alternative were the same-old Republican policies of tax cuts and a balanced budget (i.e., the "voodoo economics" of trickle-down) that were completely discredited during the Bush/Cheney years. That's when I realized why the so-called "establishment candidates" haven't been able to gain any traction against the rabble-rousers...they've got nothing.

That is basically the same conclusion reached by "movement conservative refugee" Michael Lind.

Why isn’t the old-time conservative religion working to fire people up any more? Maybe the reason is that it’s really, really old. So old it’s decrepit.

Lind goes on to talk about the birth of the modern conservative movement 60 years ago with the founding of the National Review by William F. Buckley, Jr. That was followed by Barry Goldwater's failed presidential candidacy and Ronald Reagan's eventual success. But by then, the strains were beginning to show.

Yet by the 1980s, movement conservatism was running out of steam. Its young radicals had mellowed into moderate statesman. By the 1970s, Buckley and his fellow conservatives had abandoned the radical idea of “rollback” in the Cold War and made their peace with the more cautious Cold War liberal policy of containment. In the 1960s, Reagan denounced Social Security and Medicare as tyrannical, but as president he did not try to repeal and replace these popular programs. When he gave up the confrontational evil-empire rhetoric of his first term toward the Soviet Union and negotiated an end to the Cold War with Mikhail Gorbachev in his second term, many conservatives felt betrayed...

Indeed, it’s fair to say that the three great projects of the post-1955 right—repealing the New Deal, ultrahawkishness (first anti-Soviet, then pro-Iraq invasion) and repealing the sexual/culture revolution—have completely failed. Not only that, they are losing support among GOP voters.

Lind suggests that this should have resulted in "an intellectual reformation on the American right in the 1990s," but instead, Buckley-Goldwater-Reagan conservatism returned in an even more radical form in the 2000's. The result was 2 failed wars in the Middle East, huge federal deficits and the Great Recession. And once again, rather than engage in an intellectual reformation, establishment conservatives initially embraced the post-policy strategy of obstruction and eventually drilled down even farther on the failed policies of the past.

Combine all that with fear-mongering about changing demographics/social mores and heated talk about a "world on fire" and you get a policy vacuum that has been filled by the likes of candidates like Trump and Carson.

It is impossible to know with any certainty how all this will play out. But unless/until conservatives come to grips with their own policy failures and re-think their whole ideological foundation (i.e., incorporate some of their own advice about personal responsibility rather than blaming others), I'd say that Stan Greenberg is right when he says, "I've seen America's future - and it's not Republican."

Infantilizing the Electorate

It comes as no surprise to anyone that an awful lot of pundits are over-analyzing an off-year election in which the results were pretty affirming of the status quo. A lot of that is fueled by the fact that Kentucky elected a Republican Governor for the first time since 2003. Of course, one has to balance that with the fact that Kentucky went for Mitt Romney by 22% in 2012 and regularly sends two Republicans to the Senate - one of whom is the current Majority Leader and another is running for president.

But the pundit that did the worst job of drawing conclusions from this election is none other than Ron Fournier. His article is titled, Kentucky's Trump with the subtitle: "If the next president doesn’t heal our politics, angry voters may reach further to the dangerous fringes." Here's how he articulates that in the article:

Should the next pres­id­ent—like the past two—break his or her prom­ise to unite the coun­try and ad­dress the na­tion’s long-term prob­lems, the an­ger will boil hot­ter, voter back­lash will hit harder, and the path to power for a hate-spew­ing me­ga­lo­ma­ni­ac will be easi­er.

Finding ways to address the nation's long-term problems will certainly be on the next President's desk. But it is important that we ask ourselves what it means to suggest that it is a president's job to unite the country.

Need I remind Mr. Fournier that the first three words of our Constitution are "we the people?" It just so happens that right now "we the people" are divided. There are a lot of reasons for that. Most notable is that we are in the midst of huge changes when it comes to demographics, cultural mores and an increasingly globalized economy. Add to all of that the fact that we have one political party that is intent on fear-mongering about those changes and a media that is dedicated to sensationalism over substance and you get a pretty toxic mix.

To assume that - in the midst of all that - a president can simply unite us by sending us all to our rooms for a time-out is to infantalize the electorate. President Obama has given us an alternative story of America in an attempt to inspire unity in speech after speech after speech. He has been willing to reach out his hand to work with the opposition to the point that a lot of people in his own party accuse him of being "naive." The one thing he has not been willing to do is let the American people be hurt by the divide in our politics as long as there is something he can do about it.

Ultimately it is not up to the president whether or not we continue to be divided or come together in unity to solve the challenges that face us...at least not as long as we live in a democracy. As much as there are times when I'd love to see a leader tell the malcontents to "sit down and shut up," I fear a system where that can happen more than I do the malcontents.

Have Trump's Numbers Been Overstated in the Polls?

According to the headlines, we're seeing a surge in the polls for Ben Carson, who has now over-taken Donald Trump as the new front-runner. But as soon as I saw that, I was reminded of something Steve Koczela wrote last week.

Donald Trump's poll numbers are slipping in Iowa, and a new national poll is the first in a while to show him trailing. But a closer look at the polling suggests that the Trump wave may have been overstated from the beginning. His sizeable lead has been based largely on the influence of Internet polls. Trump’s summer surge looks far less impressive in telephone polls, and polls of likely voters show his lead was always smaller and is now gone entirely.

It is interesting to note that the NBC/WSJ poll that is driving all the headlines was one of likely voters.

Here's a summary of what Koczela found from the different types of polls:

Koczela doesn't assume that we know which type of polling will turn out to be more accurate. But he does suggest this:

One potential explanation is that online polls may be sampling more non-voters. These non-voters may not be paying close attention and may simply select the candidate closest to the top of their mind, which could be Trump because of his heavy media coverage. This top-of-mind phenomenon might also explain why Trump is doing better in phone polls of registered voters than in polls of likely voters.

I just did my own check at the Huffington Post poll aggregator to see how this might be playing out.  Going back to mid-October, Trump's average among registered voters is 31.6% while his average among likely voters is 25.2%, a difference of -6.4%. For Carson, his average among registered voters is 20.5% and among likely voters it's 24.6%, a difference of +4.1%.

So, if you think that polls of registered voters are more accurate, Trump's lead is still about 11 points over Carson. But if you assume that likely voters are a better read right now, they're basically tied - and have been for awhile now.

What is Your Story of America?

Filmmakers Annabel Park and Eric Byler are making a film that attempts to answer the question about what divides us as Americans. Here is a profound excerpt:


Park wrote about what she learned from that last scene:

At the end of the video, when James catches himself being unfairly judgmental of people on welfare, when he realizes that he is not so different from the people he'd been judging, you can see the light bulb go on over his head. It took me months longer, but a light bulb went on for me as well when I revisited this experience watching the video: I'm not so different from James...

James' personal need is in terrible conflict with his political beliefs, his sense of self, and a story about America, I'll call it the Confederate South story, that he had being using to make sense of life. The basic story that I had been using, I'll call it the New America story, is different from his, but it operates in the same way in my life.

The basic story gives us a constant framework for understanding most of what happens in the public sphere and where the public and private intersect: these are the good people; these are the bad people; these are our values; these are their values, etc...

Looking back, it's amazing that James opened up to us about his dilemma and the details of his situation. If he hadn't done that, I may not see him as a person with a unique personal story. This conversation challenged the three of us to go outside of our basic story of America to understand each other.

There are actually several layers to these stories. First of all, there is the historical record of dates and events. We create our story of America by giving priority and meaning to the historical record. That is not simply something that some people do - it's the human experience. Finally, there is the interplay of our own personal stories and the story of America that we have created. It is at that intersection that we watch James experience a moment of cognitive dissonance when the two stories come into conflict. An opening is created for the possibility of expanding his story of America.

We can maintain the priorities and meaning we've given to the historical record by refusing to allow the individual stories of others to challenge our story of America. That is how we maintain the divide. The alternative is to recognize that our own story of America is something that can evolve as we listen to how it intersects with the individual stories of others.

I am reminded of what Robert Kennedy said during another moment of great division in our country.

But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Yes, We're Still a Nation of Cowards

Back in 2009, Eric Holder got in a lot of trouble for saying that - when it comes to talking about racism - we are a nation of cowards. His analysis came to mind as a theme developed in some articles I've been reading lately.

For example, Marc Fisher interviewed a group of Donald Trump supporters and attempted to draw some conclusions about what animates their attraction to his slogan about making America great again. There were a variety of responses, but the theme expressed here seemed pretty common.

Cimbal, a loyal Republican, wants people to think about how to curb illegal immigration and protect Second Amendment gun ownership rights, but she’s mainly drawn to Trump because she thinks his plain talk can get things done. Her goal is to restore a time “when there wasn’t as much animosity toward each other, when everything wasn’t about race and people just got along.”

Hmmm...when was that time "when everything wasn't about race and people just got along?" That is an assumption we've heard from white people for decades - things were better when people of color knew their place and didn't get so uppity in demanding equal treatment.

Then there's E.J. Dionne, who spent some time with a focus group of Republicans in NH watching the last debate and gathers some conclusions about what is dividing the GOP.

But the most instructive part of the evening came toward the end when Ross Terrio, a Manchester school board member, took the conversation to a different place, describing his response to President Obama’s time in office. “I have gotten so pessimistic,” he said. “I used to be such an optimistic person. Maybe Obama just sucked the life out of me.” Terrio, who works as a pharmacist, has no complaints about his personal situation but wonders how his neighbors with much more constrained incomes can make it.

So Terrio is doing fine economically. But having Obama as president turned him from being an optimist into a pessimist and just sucked the life out of him. Kinda makes you wonder what that's all about, doesn't it?

Finally comes Sarah Wheaton who - in reporting on the release of 6,000 non-violent offenders this weekend due to the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act - couches the concerns she heard from critics in the mold of a potential repeat of the racist Willie Horton ad of the 1988 election.

What blew me away in reading all three of these articles is that nowhere in any one of them does the reporter/pundit attempt to explore the role of racism exhibited in these situations. Not once!

Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that all of these stories can be ascribed to racism 100%. But to not even discuss the possibility of racism as a contributing factor is to be consciously blind to a glaring reality.

This does not portend well for the coverage of the 2016 election. Greg nailed it on twitter.

Think there's a quite dangerous tendency in media to rationalize and minimize the extent to which bigotry animates GOP primary electorate

— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) November 2, 2015

Some Straight Talk From FLOTUS

As part of her Let Girls Learn initiative, Michelle Obama will travel to the Middle East to speak at a global conference on education in Qatar. She previewed what she's going to talk about in an article in the Atlantic - and she's not pulling any punches. FLOTUS begins by acknowledging the importance of things like scholarships, transportation, etc. But then she gets down to the heart of the matter when it comes to the challenges facing girls.

But while these investments are absolutely necessary to solve our girls’ education problem, they are simply not sufficient. Scholarships, bathrooms, and safe transportation will only go so far if societies still view menstruation as shameful and shun menstruating girls. Or if they fail to punish rapists and reject survivors of rape as “damaged goods.” Or if they provide few opportunities for women to join the workforce and support their families, so that it’s simply not financially viable for parents struggling with poverty to send their daughters to school.

In other words, we cannot address our girls’ education crisis until we address the broader cultural beliefs and practices that can help cause and perpetuate this crisis. And that is precisely the message I intend to deliver this week when I travel to the Middle East...I’ll be urging countries around the world to both make new investments in girls’ education and challenge laws and practices that silence, demean, and brutalize women—from female genital mutilation and cutting, to forced child marriage, to laws that allow marital rape and disadvantage women in the workplace.

While we've made strides on these cultural issues here in the United States (as the First Lady acknowledges), it was my experience growing up that the shame of silence around things like menstruation made it deeply difficult to traverse the challenges they represent to girls. So while I'm sure that speaking so openly about them will ignite backlash in certain quarters, the fact that Michelle Obama is willing to do so is a powerful step in the right direction.

What has sometimes hobbled our efforts to address these issues openly has been the misguided notion that tolerance for different cultures means tolerance for the abuse of women and girls. That's why the words of a previous FLOTUS - Hillary Clinton - were so important 20 years ago.

Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even now, in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees. And when women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse. I believe that now, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break the silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.

As I've noted before, the empowerment of women and girls has a powerful effect on any country.

“In fact, the very best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is not its level of wealth, its level of democracy, or its ethno-religious identity; the best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is how well its women are treated,” [Valerie] Hudson wrote in a piece for Foreign Policy.

Michelle Obama takes it one step further.

But ultimately, for me, this issue isn’t just about politics or economics—for me, this is a moral issue. As I’ve traveled the world, I have met so many of these girls. I’ve seen firsthand that every single one of them has the spark of something extraordinary inside of them, and they are so hungry to realize their promise. They walk for hours each day to school, learning at rickety desks in bare concrete classrooms. They study for hours each night, holding tight to their hopes for the future, even in the face of heartbreaking odds.

These girls are no different from my daughters or any of our daughters. And we should never have to accept our girls having their bodies mutilated or being married off to grown men as teenagers, confined to lives of dependence and abuse. We should never have to raise them in societies that silence their voices and snuff out their dreams. None of us here in the U.S. would accept this for our own daughters and granddaughters, so why would we accept it for any girl on our planet?

In other words, she's asking us to expand our moral imagination beyond our own families, community and national borders. But ultimately, if we envision a more peaceful world, it is in our own interest to heed her call.