We Are One

Like a lot of us, I am struggling to process the events of Wednesday, Jan. 6. The rally on the Ellipse south of the White House, the storming of the Capitol building, and the unprecedented votes cast (unsuccessfully) to throw out duly-certified electors in a Presidential election – all of this is without precedent. Though many of us saw this coming, these are still uncharted waters.

Much of what needs to be said is being said. There must be consequences for those who committed crimes – as many clearly did. Incitement to riot is a crime. If Alex Jones – unprotected by any government position – hasn’t yet been arrested, I can’t imagine why. 

 

Then there’s the issue of the President himself. Far fewer would argue today that he’s fit to hold the office he still holds for two more weeks. Take a vote on impeachment, he’s likely to be impeached. Vote in the Senate, he’s likely to be convicted. Perhaps that will happen. 

 

A lot of what happens now matters for the future, more than it matters for today. Despite this amateurish and ridiculous coup attempt, Joe Biden will still be President starting Jan. 20. The House and Senate will be controlled by the Democratic Party. Further attempts at violence in and around the Capitol and elsewhere in DC will likely be met swiftly and decisively. In that sense, the immediate danger is minimal.

 

But because we are in uncharted waters, what we do now will have an outsized impact on what happens in the future. Will a refusal to concede become a lasting pattern in American politics? Will troops be called to defend the Capitol every time there’s an event of even symbolic significance? Can we expect a replay of this in two years, or four? 

 

This is a defining moment. What we do now will impact the trajectory of the country for a generation or more.

 

How do we navigate in such a time? Lost in an unfamiliar sea, winds blowing in many directions, how do we find a way forward? Like mariners have always done, we must set course in relation to a fixed point – steering by what is True.

 

It seems fitting that now is a good time to return to the notion of Truth. So much of what has driven us to this point has been the opposite of truth – lies, falsehoods, conspiracy theories run rampant. Untruth is what has hurled is into this storm. Truth will be what gets us out.

 

Here I mean more than simply a return to fact-based reality, although that’s an important first step. The phrase “alternative facts” must be buried along with the mound of lies and falsehoods, untethered to evidence, that have been piled high all around us. If we can’t start with basic facts, we won’t go anywhere.

 

I also mean more than a return to a respect for what truth is and isn’t. There are some things that we know definitively, and there are some things we’re pretty sure of, and there are some things that we don’t know yet. We know for certain that the COVID-19 virus kills many people. We used to think that contact with infected surfaces was a major transmission vector – now we think it’s probably a thing, but not a serious as airborne infection. We don’t yet know everything we want to about immunity, either from a vaccine or from recovery from the disease. We need to understand that truth is not always Yes or No – though sometimes it very much is.

 

What I mean to say here is that as important as these things are – as important as facts and science and expertise are in getting us out of the storm we are in – there is a Truth even deeper. It is the truth that undergirds all politics, all societies, all communities everywhere. It is the Truth necessary for any kind of life, much less civilization, to survive.

 

It is simply this: We are one.

 

Across all differences of race and color, we are one.

 

Across all genders and gender identities, we are one.

 

Across all forms of belief and non-belief, theists and atheists, religions and spiritualities, we are one.

 

Across all political parties and ideologies, we are one.

 

Across all languages, all cultural barriers, all artificial borders drawn and redrawn and redrawn again, we are one.

 

In the United States this Truth is emblazoned on the coins that pass through our hands and the Seal of the Office of the Presidency: E Pluribus Unum. Out of Many, One.

 

It rings through the words of the Constitution, is embedded in the Pledge of Allegiance that schoolchildren recite every day.

 

We KNOW this to be true. It is in our bones and our deepest selves, even when we try to reject it from our minds.

 

The storm we are seeing now – the rallies, the tweets, the assault on the Capitol building yesterday – is all one giant attempt to escape this truth. To try to impose the falsehood that we are not all one, that we are many and divided. That My Group and My People can win and Yours can lose and I don’t have to deal with You ever again. 

 

We’ve seen this before. In Rwanda. In Belfast. In Jerusalem. In Sarajevo. In Bergen-Belsen. In the holds of slave ships and the platforms of slave markets. In Charleston. In Charlottesville. In Minneapolis. In Louisville. In Cleveland. In Beavercreek.

 

The choice has never been clearer. Either we find a way to work together, to embrace a politics that celebrates differences and builds a common life together, or we consume one another – and everything around us – in fire and suffering. What is set before us is life and death, blessings and curses. We can choose life, or we can choose death. 

 

Those who stormed the Capitol yesterday, and those who egged them on and encouraged them with lies and deceit, chose death. They may not have understood it as such. But the Truth doesn’t care whether you understand it or not. The Truth is.

 

So what do we do? How do steer ourselves out of this storm?

 

We choose life. We accept the Truth that we are one. And we move forward together.

 

One of the great benefits of the humanities – of fiction and story and drama and art – is that they often give us ways to express the Truth more eloquently than we otherwise can. I close with a speech written as part of a science fiction TV series, Babylon 5, aired over 20 years ago. Imagine a speech like this on the lips of one of our leaders today. And imagine a community that actually believed this to be true.

 

 

 

Things I Believe Are True

We are living through an election year. Election years always feel like divisive times in American society – each one, it seems, a little more so than the last. Even given that trend, this year feels different.

In a time like this, how do we have conversations about the future of our communities? We can’t have the kinds of conversations we used to, in which we discussed and argued about policies and ideas. Once upon a time, debating health care meant talking about the pros and cons of market-based systems and single-payer plans, about the appropriate role of government. Those debates are long gone.

 

Public discourse, such as it is, has largely been reduced to name-calling, vitriol, anger, and threats – not just in campaigning but in governing. Some of those threats take the form of action. Protests turn violent. People show up at protests armed, expecting and planning for violence. The original sin of racism has become too blatant for anyone to ignore. People have lost their lives because we can’t talk to each other. 

 

In this chaos, most reasonable people – and despite appearances, that’s most people in our society – have taken to one of two options. They either talk about politics and the public life only with those who share their views (a task made easier by social media). Or they talk about it not at all.

 

Both choices are doing us no good. 

 

This post is an attempt to find another path. I have no idea if it will have any impact or not. But trying seems better than not trying.

 

I don’t want to talk about the election, because I don’t think the election itself is the most important thing. Yes, it matters who wins and who loses. But other things matter more. If the “right” person wins (whoever you think that person is) and the country continues to descend into vitriol and anger, to draw farther and farther apart by race and wealth and ability and privilege and all the divisions we have created, then who is in the White House will matter much less than who we are (or are not) as a community. Who’s in government is irrelevant if we are ungovernable.

 

Rather than making arguments about policies, or even facts, I want to try to identify truths – things that I believe are fundamentally true, and which matter a great deal. Perhaps that’s a different kind of ground on which to have a conversation.

 

Things I Believe To Be True

 

I believe that Thomas Merton was right when he said that “In all things visible there is … a hidden wholeness.” That beneath all distinctions and divisions there lies a wisdom that everything is connected. That we, and everything and everyone around us, are all part of the whole.

 

I believe that the best term we have come up with for this hidden wholeness is love.

 

I believe that the most important thing about public life – about our life together as a community – is not the policies we adopt, as important as those are. The most important thing is who we are to each other. We have a choice, individually and collectively, to live together and be love to each other or to live divided and fear each other. Policies flow from that choice.

 

I believe that the divisions we see in our society – race, gender, class, wealth, privilege, disability, and so many others – are creations of our own making. Which means we have the power to un-make them.

 

I believe that when we espouse, in various languages and traditions and frames, that all are created in the image and likeness of God, that actually means something. Everything, and every person, is capable of love. And everything and everyone can be loved.

 

I believe that division among people – not difference, but division – harms everybody. It is not only blacks or Latinx or other people of color in the United States who are harmed by racism; whites are too. It is not only the poor who are damaged by classism; so are the wealthy and privileged. 

 

Difference does not have to mean division. Communities can foster and celebrate difference and use it as a strength. 

 

I believe that conflict, based on division, is likewise our creation. It is not pre-ordained or inherent in the universe. The universe is fundamentally connected. Cooperation and coordination are far more “natural” than the conflicts we generate.

 

I believe that conflict is ultimately created out of fear – our fears of others, which are usually just projections of our own fears of ourselves and of the suffering and loss which is a necessary component of all life. 

 

I also believe that one does not have to have fear to suffer from it. Plenty of us suffer because of the fears of others.

 

I believe that any vision of the public life of the community which requires conformity – of thought, of race, of creed, of culture – is doomed to failure. Seeking “purity” of any kind is a fool’s errand which only causes more suffering. Difference exists – we can either deny that and increase our and others’ suffering, or we can accept it and build together from there.

 

I believe that justice is not justice unless it is available to “the least of these”, to the hungry and the poor and the marginalized. This is not merely a Christian notion, though it is obviously that. It is echoed in every great religious and humanist tradition of human civilization. 

 

Finally, I believe that if we don’t learn to talk to each other – past the divisions we have created and the anger we wear like armor and the fear that we hide from ourselves – then, in the words of the great philosopher Theodor Seuss Geisel, “Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

Competence Matters

It's been over a year since I've written anything on this blog. Why this is so is a matter for another time. And I don't know how often I will continue writing, if at all.

I'm returning to writing today to state the obvious, in the hopes that if enough of us say this it will have some impact. I hope lots of other people will say it too. It's not an original thought to me - I'm just one voice in the chorus.

The lesson we are facing, as we all go into lockdown to try to slow the spread of a pandemic that may overwhelm our hospitals and kill hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions around the world, is simple: when it comes to government, competence matters.

In the American context, competence matters more than party. It matters more than whether we identify with the Red tribe or the Blue tribe. It matters more than any of the hundred "hot-button" issues we like to argue so passionately about. All of those issues, and all of those divides, will still be there tomorrow.

In short, everything we have been focused on in our politics for the last several years is irrelevant. And if we keep conducting our politics on that basis, they too will become irrelevant.

This is important, because one faction within one political party - the Republican Party - has been trying to argue that competence doesn't matter. This is not a partisan dig, nor a new discovery. It's simply an observation. Some Republicans, from Newt Gingrich (at times) to Grover Norquist to a host of others, have been selling their supporters on the notion that Government is Always Bad. That the best thing to do with government is to shrink it down small enough to be drowned in a bathtub (to borrow Norquist's colorful phrase).

We now see the consequences of that view. Beyond their wildest hopes and dreams, this view has helped elect an administration, and create a host of believers, who eschew science, who replace expertise and knowledge with loyalty, and who view facts as either weapons or conspiracies of the enemy.

Because of that, this pandemic will be worse in the United States than it needed to be. Because of that, thousands of people will die who didn't need to die.

Governments exist in large part as insurance against exactly this kind of event. Pandemics are natural disasters on the grandest scale. They demand a collective response. Collective action requires a coordination point and enforcement. Only effective government can provide effective collective action.

This will not be the last pandemic. There will be more, just as there will be other events that demand a collective response.

Later this year we will hold elections. There are people in both parties who believe in competence. New York's Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, is one. Ohio's Mike DeWine, a Republican, is another. Find these people and elect them. Elect more like them. Vote out anyone who has shown indifference, even hostility, to competence - to facts and science and what is real.

Lives are depending on it.

Who We Are: Reflections on the 2018 Election

Since we're in the post-election season of "what did it all mean?", I might as well throw my thoughts into the arena. Finding meaning in events is one of the most important things we do, because the meanings we construct become the world we inhabit.

I would start with an observation. We think of elections as tools, as moments when we can change who we are as a society. While this is true to some degree, I think it is more the case that elections are mirrors that who reveal who we were already but perhaps failed to recognize.

Lot of folks want to characterize elections as a referendum on either people or policies. Both can be true to a point - there are some single-issue voters (though not many), and there are some voters who become particularly attached to (or repulsed by) a particular political figure. Political parties know this, and spend a lot of time trying to make these the salient points, because these are things they can try to control.

Elections, it should be noted, are also about a ton of local things. Trying to look across a landscape of 435 House races, ~33 Senate races, and a number of state governorships to find some common theme is a bit of a fool's errand. Tip O'Neill was largely right - a lot of politics is indeed local.

Nevertheless, this set of midterms more than most had a national flavor to it. Much of that was driven by a White House far more active not only in campaigning, but in trying to drive the agenda and the conversation. Much of that agenda, especially in the final weeks of the campaign, turned on issues of immigration, which are really issues about Identity - who is Us and who is Them.

This surprises no one, because the Us/Them theme has been central to the current President since the moment he started campaigning (and, likely, for many years before that). Donald Trump has never been accused of being a "big tent" sort of person, and I don't know that he's ever given a speech, the primary theme of which was what unites Americans. That's a significant departure - every past President, Republican and Democrat, has given some version of that speech, usually many times. Think of Ronald Reagan's "City on a Hill" or Bill Clinton's "Bridge to the 21st Century" or Barack Obama's "there is no 'Red America' and 'Blue America'", or George W's impromptu bullhorn speech after 9/11.

So with the Who We Are question on the ballot this year, what do the election results tell us?

The results should surprise no one: they revealed a divided country. Many millions of Americans still believe in America as the land of equal opportunity, the "nation of immigrants" that embraces people from all around the world in tolerance and community, the America of "bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses". Particularly in the cities but increasingly in the suburbs as well, this America has reacted very negatively to the President's approach and to a message of division and exclusion.

Yet many other millions of Americans believe in a different America - one that in which people like them are (or should be) the dominant group, where their particular race or culture sets the standard, where people who do not fit that mold are to be feared, or subjugated, or driven away. Their America, they believe, is under threat from Them. They believe that the central challenge of this time is to drive back that threat, already far advanced, so that things will be Great Again. There is some of this view everywhere, of course, but it is more concentrated in rural areas and smaller communities, often themselves very homogeneous.

The latter group has known about the former for a long time. Folks in rural areas have always been subjected to the cultural pressures of the city, especially over the last century as mass communication (radio, television) has driven much of our national communication and entertainment. This group didn't particularly like the changes it saw, coming from the more urbanized, wealthy, and liberal America, but they were always aware of them.

The former group, however, has been quite surprised in recent years by the size, even the existence, of the latter. Many well-educated urban and suburbanites have been convinced, between their own daily existence and their presence in mass media, that their cosmopolitan view of the world was the dominant one, and that other views were dwindling if not mostly dead. The tendency of urban centers to view less-populated areas as "flyover country" didn't help much.

When elections were contested on policies and well-known personalities, this divide didn't matter a lot. Politicians could selectively play on it, but tended to stick to other alignments more in keeping with their vision of political parties as aggregations of policy preferences (tax cuts vs. gov't spending, more or less regulation, guns vs. butter, that sort of thing).

To the extent that the parties are realigning around identity politics, we're starting to see where people stand on the Who We Are question much more clearly - because now it matters. Whatever else may be, Donald Trump has managed to bring this question front and center of the American political debate.

The divide of identity was already and always there. It will not go away if Trump loses the election two years from now, or even if he is impeached and thrown out of office by Feb. 15. None of this is about who the President is. It's about who we are.

In response to a number of recent events - the synagogue shooting in my old neighborhood being only the latest - many people have proclaimed, "we're better than this". They have wanted to believe that we as a nation are not violently racist, that we really do believe in the "nation of immigrants", in tolerance and acceptance and equality of opportunity. They want to believe this because they themselves believe it and had thought that this was a settled question.

Unfortunately, the statement "we're better than this" is only true for a limited definition of "we". Some of us are clearly not "better", if by "better" we mean tolerant of difference and embracing of diversity. For a host of reasons, "we" - all Americans together - don't fit that description. We are not, as a people, all at that table.

This really shouldn't surprise us, except for the power of wishful thinking. All of us want to believe that everyone else thinks the way we do, because that's a far more comfortable world to live in. Folks in the "America First" camp never had that luxury - they knew, through their televisions and movies and whatnot, that theirs was not the only view in the world. They persisted anyway, invisible to everyone else until recently.

So where do we go from here? That depends, as always, on the end goal. If we want to work towards a nation with a shared understanding of Who We Are, then we need to start listening to each other - on both sides. That will be hard, and it will take a long time, and we will have to ignore screeching politicians who want to use our different views for their own factious purposes. And it will take commitment on both sides - a genuine desire to forge a common view of America that doesn't just involve imposing our views on the other side.

An alternative is to negotiate a workable detente. In some sense, this is already happening - people are increasingly moving to areas where their view of Who We Are is better represented, separating themselves from people who think differently. To the extent that different areas have different views, and they can agree to leave each other alone, that can work.

But we all live under one government and one set of laws. Our federalist structure means that we can finesse that to a point, as long as we're willing to let other areas be different. But on some larger questions, we can't just agree to disagree and call it a day. Equality under the law means that we share the same law.

The third possibility is that the conflict itself comes to define us. Short of a genocidal civil war, identity conflicts like this aren't solvable by force (and usually, not even then). There is no "winning" in this "fight". Indeed, "fight" is really the wrong analogy entirely. No one ever succeeded in getting someone else to agree with them via a Twitter war.

So it may be that Who We Are for the foreseeable future is this: two nations, sharing space and laws, that cannot agree. I wrote back on the eve of the 2016 election that America is Dying. Looking back on that post through the lens of this election, I am afraid I was right, and that we have gone farther down that road in the years since. Our third possibility is to recognize that America, as one nation at peace with itself, is gravely ill, and to wait and hope for healing.

When we are in conflict, elections are the last thing we need. Elections do not heal, they exacerbate conflict. They can, sometimes, clarify the situation in much the same way that a biopsy can tell you if you have cancer or not. But at best they are diagnostic. They don't make things better, and they may well make things worse.

So this, then, is the real choice of our time. Not Democrats or Republicans. Not Trump or anti-Trump. Not Red or Blue. We must decide what we want to be: One Nation, or Two. The question is not whether we want to Make America Great Again. The question is, Who is America?

Why I Hate Election Politics

We are entering the thick of the Presidential election season, and I hate it. The Republican National Convention opens today in my state (thankfully, up at the other end), and I will not be glued to my TV set watching. I intend to watch as little as possible, and to read only such news coverage as is necessary to follow the basic outlines of what's going on. Unless the convention doesn't nominate the Trump/Pence ticket, and unless there is significant unrest outside the convention hall, none of the rest of it matters.

The reason why I come to this conclusion, and the reason why I hate watching electoral politics in the United States, is that we have abandoned all pretense that elections are actually about anything other than tribes. This is not a comment about the two candidates this year - we've been speeding down this road for some time. I will write separately about why I think the two presumptive nominees are actually different, but that's a topic for another day.

For now, what bothers me so much about the whole mess is the extent to which elections have become an exercise in emotion-driven identity politics. This is true for nearly all people and across pretty much all issues. We want very much to think that elections, and politics in general, are about ideas, about figuring out what's best for the country. But very little that has been said over the past year, and nothing that will be said from here on forward, is really about any of that.

What we're really engaged in is a collective effort at ego protection, wishful thinking, and massive cognitive distortion brought about by emotion-driven biases. I feel Paul Ryan's pain. The poor guy actually has some ideas and wants to have a conversation about them, but nobody else wants to join in - including and especially his party's own nominee. Most Democrats have long since written Ryan off as a stooge for nefarious Koch Brothers schemes, or as simply hopelessly ignorant.

The same can be said, in spades, of Republican responses to Hillary Clinton, all of which boil down to "she's a horrible, untrustworthy human being who is the worst person to ever walk the earth". She, too, has ideas she wants to talk about - goals and plans and policies that she thinks are important. Like Ryan, she's a policy wonk. But the race from here on out is about the theological question of whether she's a demon disguised as a human.

We want so very much to think that we're an Enlightenment society, that reason and argument and logic and evidence are what matter most. But in reality, we have left that past behind (if it ever existed), traded for a modern version of the Hatfields & the McCoys. People have pointed out, with some justification, that Trump is neither conservative nor Republican, and that Hillary (until seriously challenged by Bernie Sanders) wasn't much of a liberal Democrat either. Things are so scrambled up that nobody remembers what we're really fighting about anymore. And what does it matter, as long as my side wins?

Limited government? Sure, except for ongoing wars and regulating sexual politics. Oh, and more police and prisons. Immigration reform? People are all over the place. We're tying ourselves in knots over race relations. And everyone wants more and better jobs. Forget trying to have a reasonable discussion about climate change or GMOs.

When confronted with this, most of us will blame the other side. We, of course, are the reasonable, rational, sane people. It's those other idiots who are insane, stupid, or bent on America's destruction. If only they would be reasonable, everything would be fine. But since they won't, well we really can't have a dialogue, can we?

All of this is confirmation bias and wishful thinking, not just sprinkled on top but thoroughly baked into the entire cake. Yes, we have reasons for voting the way we do. But what we really don't want to face is that most of those "reasons" are rationalizations tacked on the back end. They are the monkey riding the tiger and claiming that it's steering.

All of this is painful to watch and painful to participate in. Yes, I have preferences, and I believe there  are differences of kind (not merely of degree) between the two presumptive candidates (more on that later). I also believe that process is usually more important than outcome, that they way in which we go about seeking solutions has a great deal of impact on the kind of solutions we get, and that the process we are currently using - the scorched-earth, your-side-are-all-traitorous-thugs approach - is making things worse, not better.

So although I study political conflict for a living, I'll not be watching much this week or next. Nor do I think that the effect of the conventions will be positive on the American body politic. I'll try to spend my time instead reminding myself that there are no Democrats and there are no Republicans - there are only people. Gonna be a tough few months for our humanity.

Why I'm Not Afraid of President Trump

It's May 4 (better known in much of the Nerdverse as May the Fourth) again. Three years ago I published this post talking about how, while I'm a huge nerd and a Star Wars fan, I'm ambivalent about the widespread cultural acceptance of May 4 as a sort of unofficial "Star Wars Day", because in so doing we have lost what little remembrance we had of the much more serious events at Kent State some four and a half decades ago.

In this midst of this Presidential election cycle, with all its unexpected bizarreness, I think that remembering Kent State is more important than ever. As is typical, I've had a blog post floating around in my head for a while with the title "Why I'm Not Afraid of President Trump" - this is as good an opportunity as any to try to get that point across.

What does the Trump campaign have to do with remembering Kent State? In part because remembering the past helps us put the present in some context. There is a pretty widespread #neverTrump movement within the Republican Party, and I have a number of Republican friends who regard Trump as a fascist and a threat to the republic. The former accusation may be true, at least to a degree; the latter probably is not.

Much of the narrative of this election cycle has been about the "angry voter". The success of Trump, and the better-than-expected showing of Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, are held up as indicators that the American voter is "mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore". There is talk of "revolt" and "revolution". All of this because voters are voting for people somewhat outside the usual (rather narrow) mainstream of US politics.

We need to stop for a moment and remember what angry politics really looks like. If you want to see real anger in action, go back and watch footage of the riots outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago (an event that spawned the primary voter system we have today). Or read accounts of the race riots in over 100 American cities that same summer. Find a decent, sober history of the Weathermen (yes, I share a name [sort of] with one of their founders - no relation). And then read accounts, not only of the Kent State (and Jackson State) shootings, but of the divided reactions afterwards.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were suffused with anger so broad and so deep that substantial numbers of people seriously entertained the notion that violence was not only an acceptable tool of social and political change, but a necessary one. Part of this was generational, part of it racial, part based on the sudden collapse of a number of social norms and structures simultaneously. A lot of people were pissed off at other people (on both the Left and the Right), and in that anger were willing to support or at least sympathize with violence directed against their enemies.

Seen in that context, the interpersonal violence that has broken out at Trump rallies seems pale and almost pathetic in comparison. Yes, the candidate himself has at times egged his supporters on to beat up those who disagree with them. This has been directed largely at opponents who have shown up to those rallies - the few who have walked into the lion's den, as it were. Ugly as these incidents are, they are far removed from Nazi brownshirts accosting Jews in the street, much less an organized mass attack like Krystallnacht.

I find Trump reprehensible and completely unacceptable both as a candidate and, insofar as he presents himself in public, as a person. He is unqualified to be President. Being President would also probably drive him nuts, because it is a profoundly limited position. The history of our last three Presidents - all of them serving for two terms each - illustrates this nicely.

Opposition to Bill Clinton appears to have been largely personal, not ideological or political. Though Republicans accused him of being a "tax and spend" Democrat who would blow up the Federal government's finances, he was in fact a centrist who supported conservative ideas in welfare reform and brought the budget deficit down to near zero (depending on your accounting rules). He faced determined opposition in Congress despite his centrism. At the end of eight years, none of the terrible things Republicans feared had come true and the country was, to a substantial degree, much better off than it had been in 1992.

Leftist opposition to George W. Bush centered around both his foreign policies and, for the most committed opponents, his suspected authoritarian/fascist tendencies. His electoral victory in 2000 was questionable, which put his administration under a cloud from the beginning. The neoconservatives he brought into the government responded to the 9/11 disaster by starting major wars which, sadly, are still with us. These were policy failures of a significant order. He also supported a number of centrist domestic policies, with mixed results. One could lay some blame on the administration, perhaps, for the collapse of the financial system near the end of his Presidency, leading to the worst economic downturn in a generation. But in the end, he and his administration walked away from power after the 2008 election, and while the country was worse off the problems were recoverable and the republic still intact.

President Obama has faced a level of opposition not seen in modern times in our political system, both ideological and personal. His opponents have spread the most absurd of stories (He's a Kenyan! A Muslim! A socialist bent on destroying America!) while working to block nearly any initiative his administration has tried to undertake. Most of those initiatives have been (surprise!) centrist ones - even the much-maligned "Obamacare" is based on health care reform ideas largely drafted by Republicans a decade or two earlier, a far cry from the single-payer or government-run systems preferred by some on the Left. Nearing the end of his eight years in office, the country is somewhat better off, but not perhaps as far along as many might wish. But if he was trying to destroy the nation, he completely, totally, and utterly failed.

The point of these stories is that they all have a sameness. Despite our howls of protestation about the evils of our opponents (whoever they may be), there is a center of gravity in the American political system. That center can (and does) shift over time - since the 1980s it has shifted significantly to the right, which is why repeated Republican protestations about being victims in a country about to collapse into leftist socialism are bafflingly bizarre. The conservative movement has in fact been succeeding in slow, steady increments, yet to listen to them talk you'd think they were Davy Crockett at the Alamo.

And this is why I refuse to be afraid, even if Donald Trump is elected President. Whatever else he does, he will not push the country still farther to the right - he's not a conservative and never has been, which is why he keeps violating conservative principles on the campaign trail. He will not make the country more racist or xenophobic than it already is - all he is doing is drawing out the existing racism, xenophobia, and misogyny in the population. In a way (as some in the NYT have argued) he may be doing us a favor by bringing this nastiness out into the light where it can be more effectively countered.

Trump as President would be confronted with a badly divided and electorally weakened Republican party in Congress, quite likely a Democratic Senate that can filibuster anything he tries to do, and a vast Federal bureaucracy with decades of experience in centrist governance. Washington, DC isn't the Celebrity Apprentice - you can't just fire everybody and start over. If he tries - really tries - to impose his desires simply by force of will, as he has tended to do in his business life, he will rapidly find himself unable to do much of anything, and he might be impeached. His penchant for litigation will get him nowhere - who do you sue when you're the President?

Most of the stuff Americans really care about - that is, the economy - is beyond a President's grasp anyway. The Federal government tends to operate at the margins on the economy. Yes, decisions made today can have significant effects tomorrow. But given the opposing forces battling over those decisions, they are unlikely to drive us off a cliff. On foreign policy, Trump is likely to alienate a number of American allies - but will he do worse than George W?* In the end, international relations (as the Realists remind us) really is based on interests, not on personalities. Europeans and others understand this. They will suffer what they must and do what they can, and they will continue to work with the United States when it suits them, as they always have.

There's a popular saying that every crisis is an opportunity in disguise. A Trump Presidency would represent a crisis of sorts, but it would also present a lot of opportunities to have important conversations about what kind of country we want and how we're all going to get along in it. In the end, his greatest impact could well be to unite the country against him. Whatever happens, in the end the republic will still be standing. And so, while I will vote against him and urge everyone I know to do the same, I am not afraid.

*Some have argued that Trump's foreign policy views in particular need to be carefully examined, because Presidents have absolute power over foreign policy in a way they don't in the domestic sphere. See this piece in Vox today for an example of this view. I disagree with this diagnosis - there are in fact a great number of checks on the power of a President in foreign policy, not least that it is formulated, carried out, and managed by large bureaucracies (State, DoD, Treasury, even to some degree the NSC) staffed by professionals. Most of these organizations are only penetrable by Presidents down three or maybe four levels - everyone else is there whether you like them or not. And there probably aren't enough qualified people who share Trump's views on FP to staff all those Deputy Undersecretary slots. Some senior military officers have even indicated during the campaign that they will disobey orders that contradict US law and the Constitution - as they should. So in the end, I think a President Trump would find foreign policy just as frustrating as domestic policy, perhaps even more so.

The Authoritarian Movement, Fear, and the American Soul

If you read nothing else about the Donald Trump (Drumpf!) phenomenon, go read this (somewhat lengthy) article: The Rise of American Authoritarianism.

The article is an excellent distillation of research done, both in the last couple of decades and recently, about authoritarian tendencies within the American body politic. This research produces an explanation not only for the "Drumpf phenomenon" but for a lot of other things in American politics. That explanation includes this observation:

And so the rise of authoritarianism as a force within American politics means we may now have a de facto three-party system: the Democrats, the GOP establishment, and the GOP authoritarians. 

And although the latter two groups are presently forced into an awkward coalition, the GOP establishment has demonstrated a complete inability to regain control over the renegade authoritarians, and the authoritarians are actively opposed to the establishment's centrist goals and uninterested in its economic platform.

I've no doubt that this will lead to a whole new wave of political strategizing by both Democrats and establishment Republicans about how to "win" in this new landscape. Democrats are likely very happy with this development, as it tears apart their principal competitor. Establishment Republicans are likely very concerned, as this threatens to split their coalition and lead to defeat not only in this round but for years to come.

This is all interesting in an academic sense, but while I do have preferences among parties and policy positions I largely try not to have a dog in that fight. Parties are going to do what they do regardless of what I think or don't think, say or don't say. I'm more interested in what this means for us, individually and as a people known as Americans.

One of the key observations in the literature cited above is this one:

non-authoritarians who are sufficiently frightened of physical threats such as terrorism could essentially be scared into acting like authoritarians.

Authoritarianism (the tendency to look for "strong man" solutions to perceived problems) is largely driven by fear, either in general (in response to broad social changes, for example) or in particular (fear of specific dangers seen to be near at hand - terrorism, gun violence, home invasion). I've written a lot about fear lately, much of which can be summarized in one of my favorite clips:

All of this raises a very important question to those of us who are not authoritarians and don't want to live in a country ruled by fear: What can we do?

My answer to this question is not political (in the traditional sense of "vote for this person" or "join this party"). Most of the people motivated by this question are going to do those things anyway. But as the Vox article points out, authoritarianism is not about this particular election. It's a significant force, and it's not going to go away no matter who wins in November.

So if you're really concerned about rising authoritarianism changing our identity as a people, I think the best answer isn't political, it's personal. What can you or I do to make our communities less authoritarian?

Answer: interact with people in such a way that they become less afraid.

Without going too deeply into the research on authoritarian tendencies, I will take as given that a portion of the population is authoritarian simply by nature. I'm not going to "talk someone out" of being authoritarian. This is not a subject to rational debate; authoritarianism lives at the gut level - the affective/emotional side of our psyche. There isn't some clever argument or set of factoids that is going to transform someone who is deeply, ideationally authoritarian into something else.

To the extent that some of the authoritarian movement is a response to fears perceived in the environment - as the research above suggests that it is - then we have an opportunity to make a difference. This too is less about arguments and facts, although those can be helpful. But ultimately you can't convince somebody who is afraid of a terrorist attack by telling them that they're more likely to be killed by falling furniture. Statistics don't convince emotionally.

So how do you engage with authoritarianism in ways that might actually move the needle? Not by rational argument, but by relationship. If authoritarians (or those who have been driven to it by perceptions) are driven by fear, show them that the world isn't as scary as they think. That other people (you) can be counted on to be decent, honorable, trustworthy, even if you're different. And above all: show them that you are not afraid. Not afraid of them, not afraid of terrorists, not afraid of the many (largely phantom) menaces that people conjure up in their minds.

Why would this matter? Because more than arguments and facts, people are moved by stories and the way those stories make them feel. You yourself are a story to everyone you meet. The more you interact with them, the more of your story they get to see. If your story is one of peace and love, they may begin to see that fear is not the only option. That other paths are possible.

There's nothing foolproof about this. Some folks are so driven by fear that they will dismiss you as a nut, a loon, an idealistic dreamer out of touch with reality. So may even get angry, because your story challenges theirs. So be it. There is no "formula for success" here. It won't work every time. But it's likely the only thing that will work.

So if you are concerned (as I am) that there is a rising tide of authoritarianism, fear, anger, and hatred in our nation, the answer is not to fight fire with fire. Fear does not dispel fear. Anger does not counteract anger. And snark, while amusing, is not a tool for change. To borrow from the stirring words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

In short: if you don't want to live in a community ruled by fear, then don't. Don't be afraid. And let everyone see you not being afraid. This is the only thing you can do. And if enough of us do it, then we will all be right.

Who Are We?

Marco Rubio started off his opening statement to Thursday's Republican debate by making an inadvertently profound point. The 2016 President Election, Rubio said, is fundamentally not about this policy or that talking point. It's about who we are as a country, as a society. In his words, it's about "the identity of America".

I don't share a lot in common with Senator Rubio, but on this one point he is absolutely right. One reason why we are so drawn to Presidential elections - despite their being less important than we think they are - is that they represent perhaps the only truly nationwide measure of who we are as a people.

This, I think, is what is currently sustaining attention for, and driving reactions to, Donald Trump's candidacy. (Yes, I know I said I didn't want to talk about Trump. I still don't. But it's impossible to talk about broader issues without bringing him in at some point.) A lot of people see the anger, the hatred, the demonizing, the stratospheric levels of incivility, and they wonder: is this who we really are as Americans?

Vox, rapidly becoming one of the better popular purveyors of actual political science research and expertise, ran this piece a few days ago suggesting that Trump's support isn't demographic, it's attitudinal. In particular, it's predicated on one attitude in particular: authoritarianism, or individuals' inclination to authoritarian behavior and worldviews. Borrowing from the article's author:

People who score high on the authoritarian scale value conformity and order, protect social norms, and are wary of outsiders. And when authoritarians feel threatened, they support aggressive leaders and policies.

There is undoubtedly a correlation between authoritarianism and racism, but that can miss the point. In the authoritarian view, racism is simply a part of a broader worldview of people who are inclined to pull inside their tribal walls, circle the wagons, and make sure that absolutely nothing changes. Such people are quite willing to use violence when necessary to enforce the reality they cling to.

At the root of the authoritarian worldview, of course, is fear: fear of change, fear of the other, fear of perceived threats and slights. The Vox article above notes that the other statistically significant predictor of Trump support is fear of terrorism - specifically, fear that you or someone you love might be attacked by terrorists. I've written about fear as a driver too many times to count; here's the most recent.

The thing about fear is that it is a choice. We don't always experience it as such, but people who have grappled with fear understand that we have it within our power to choose whether or not to be afraid. Some fears, of course, are instinctive: if a bear breaks down my front door I'm going to experience fear. But most of the fears being discussed in public - fear of terrorism, fear of immigrants, fear of Islam, fear of blacks (or #blacklivesmatter), fear of impending disasters political or economic - are things we visit on ourselves. Like Jacob Marley, we forge our own chains in life, link by link, until in the end they crush us with their weight.

So this appears to be what our Presidential contest is really measuring. Do we, in the soaring rhetoric of all of our past Presidents (Democrat and Republican alike), really value freedom? Are we really the Americans whom Ronald Reagan invoked when he spoke of the compassion, patriotism, and heroism of everyday citizens? Are we the hopeful, interconnected, idealistic people that Bill Clinton addressed from that same podium? Are we who we want to be, who we know we should be when we are at our best?

Or are we frightened, scared, divided, turning against one another in spite and anger and hatred? Are we mean and petty, denying each other's dignity and humanity and focusing on differences that are largely inventions of the human mind? Do we delight in the pain and suffering of others, because it makes us feel safer and more powerful?

Every great faith tradition, every philosophy, every system of thought in human history points clearly towards one of these poles and away from the other. Pope Francis today reminded us that "Deus Caritas Est" - God is love. Native American traditions have long passed down the wisdom of the "two wolves" - the struggle inside everyone of us. Mohammed referred to the "major jihad", the struggle within for self-control and virtue, as far more important than the "minor jihad" involving outsiders.

In politics, people disagree, sometimes strongly. There are significant differences in how people think our country should be run and what policies our government should adopt - although these differences are often far less than what our "leaders" make them out to be. But those differences are simply the backdrop of our daily lives, a part of the environment we live in. The real question is: how do we respond to difference? Do we feed the wolf of virtue, follow the call of God that is love, struggle within ourselves to be the best we can be? Or do we give in to our fear, allowing it to twist us to anger, jealousy, hatred, and violence?

We don't talk about this as part of the Presidential campaign, because it's easier and sexier to talk about who "won" the latest debate or which candidate is ahead in the polls. But those questions aren't the most important ones. The real question is the same one that faces us very day:

Who are we? And because of what we do today, who will we be tomorrow?

The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself

I take the title of this post, of course, from FDR's first inaugural address in 1933. As I pointed out recently, FDR uttered those words in a time of far greater crisis than anything the United States now faces.

But in this presidential campaign season, most of we hear about is what we should be afraid of. Already I am seeing dire warnings from both Left and Right of how our country will collapse if this or that candidate is elected. There is plenty of rhetoric, both from candidates and from partisans, about "disasters" and our nation "going off a cliff". It's enough to call to mind Chuck Norris' prediction four years ago of "1000 years of darkness" if Obama were re-elected. (I've not yet noticed any unusual amounts of darkness in the last four years...)

This is not to say that we don't have challenges. And it's not that I don't have preferences among the candidates - I like some and dislike others. I'm not interested in discussing those things, at least not here, because there are plenty of other people already doing so. Where I see the national conversation lacking is in the arena of anyone willing to call bulls**t on the increasingly extreme predictions of apocalyptic futures if some candidate wins this or that electoral contest.

So that's my aim here - to call BS on all of the "sky is falling" rhetoric, from whatever side and direction. You should not, in fact, be afraid. Here are several reasons why:

• Terrorism is not the existential crisis that politicians want you to think it is. By now, anybody who cares about facts knows the numbers: you're more likely to be killed by furniture than by terrorists, your odds of even being near a terrorist attack are lower than your odds of being struck by lightning, etc. To the raw data, political scientists can add perspective: all of the anti-Western terrorists in the world put together don't have a measurable fraction of the military power of the US. That's not to say they can't cause damage - they can, and they often do, usually to each other first and foremost. But given the geographic scope and range of the terrorist organizations involved, their disparate and often contradictory goals, and the general resilience and strength of modern wealthy societies, there's just no way these clowns can put a dent in our existence. They can kill a few people and blow up a few things, but that's it. They cannot credibly threaten America or "our way of life". We are not 100% safe against everything, but we are safer than nearly any society in the history of humanity.

• The Presidency is not nearly as important, or as powerful, as we think it is. Sometimes I think the greatest punishment for Donald Trump would be to elect him President and then watch him implode in frustration as he realizes just how limited the power of the position is. No matter who becomes President next, that person will have to deal with Congress, the Supreme Court, and the array of interests and preferences held by various sectors of society. Gilens and Page (2014) have pointed out that the preferences of the masses don't have much effect on policy; outcomes tend to be more in line with what the rich and powerful want. Those same forces will be at play in 2017 just as they were in 2015. That's not to say that we might not prefer some policy directions over others, and it's certainly not to argue that Presidents don't matter at all. But it is far beyond the capacity of any President to destroy the United States or bring down 1000 years of darkness. A bad President can cause a lot of damage, but again this doesn't rise to the level of an existential crisis.

• Regardless of who takes the Presidency in 2017, some bad things and some good things are going to happen over the next four years. Whoever sits in the Oval Office will have limited ability to stop the bad things from happening, and will likewise have limited ability to make good things happen that weren't going to happen otherwise. Most of the effects are marginal. The George W Bush administration's response to Katrina was bad, and it made a very bad situation worse - but Katrina was coming regardless. Francois Hollande was powerless to stop the Paris attacks. And despite badly overheated political rhetoric, Obama is not to blame for the financial crisis (neither, except in a marginal way, was George W). Chances are good that whatever happens, the US will deal with it - sometimes well, sometimes poorly. We must, of course, do our best to meet every challenge. But our survival, either as a country or as a population, does not depend on who sits in the White House.

• Lastly, as electoral seasons heat up there is always a hefty infusion of religious rhetoric that comes along for the ride. In the United States in particular, many people are guided in their voting choices by their understanding of their faith - in particular, their Christian faith (being the majority religion). For those who would invoke Christianity in the name of supporting this or that political position (what C.S. Lewis' devil Screwtape derisively referred to as "Christianity and..."), remember that the more you sound the alarm of fear the farther you are moving from the Gospel you supposedly profess. "Do not be afraid" is the single most repeated commandment in the Bible. The Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, are chock full of exhortations to put aside fear and to trust in the provenance of God. They also remind us of the superiority of spiritual concerns over material (or political) ones. There is no theological justification for fear, especially fear of this or that political ruler. Paul did not fear the Roman Empire, a far more powerful and draconian system than any we could face. Prophets and apostles throughout the Bible moved amongst tyrants and ruthless kings. What possible claim can you make to be afraid of a Bernie Sanders or a Ted Cruz?

There are issues of importance facing our society - as there always are. Political leadership can make a difference, but rarely if ever can it remake the world entirely. This is not "the most important election of our lifetimes", and it certainly is not "a turning point in our history" - any more than last year was, or two years from now will be. ALL moments in history are turning points. We are much better off - we make better decisions and we become our better selves - when we face each of those moments without fear. So set aside the "sky is falling" BS, move the fear to the back burner, and engage the issues and candidates from something other than panic and dread.

I Don't Want to Talk About Donald Trump

If you've been following the 2016 American Presidential election campaign at all, you know that 95% of the campaign coverage has been devoted to Donald Trump. I've seen some really smart stuff written about Trump in recent days, including this gem from my friend Peter Trumbore. For a similar take by a different author, you can check this piece out as well.

It has been well-noted by now that Trump is a master at dominating the news cycle. He has gotten enormous amounts of attention by saying outrageous things. This is clearly a big part of his strategy - maybe the whole of it. Everywhere he goes (which is to say, everywhere on the nation's airwaves and social media) he causes arguments. He is, in a very real sense, the center of attention.

Which is precisely why I don't want to talk about him. It's not just that I dislike him as a leader and as a person (though I do). More importantly, I dislike the fact that we spend an enormous amount of time talking about things that don't matter nearly as much as the stuff we're not talking about. Trump, in this sense, is a symptom of a broken political system that seems incapable of fostering the kinds of conversations we really need to have as a society.

I've pointed this out in other contexts before, so this is not a new argument for me (see here and here and here, as examples). A mentor of mine in higher education some years ago was fond of saying, "college is a conversation". This is true of society as well. We go along and live our lives, but what defines us as a community is the conversations we have with each other. The better those conversations are, the stronger our communities are. This is yet another way in which life isn't the end result of a process - life is process.

I see little hope, at least through the primary season, that our political process is going to produce conversations that would be useful for us as a country. We're not talking about climate change and what (if anything) to do about it. We're not talking about major technological trends (in energy and elsewhere) that will change the way we live. We're not talking about relations between groups (black & white, gay & straight, and so many other divisions) and how to make them better so we can have a more just society. We're not talking about how we want our economy to work and who should benefit from what. We're not talking about how our resources should be distributed, and what our top priorities should be. Instead, we're talking about an obnoxious bully with a bad hairpiece.

This will sound counterintuitive, for a political scientist, but if I have one request it is this: stop paying attention to the Presidential campaign. Spend a little bit of time picking your favorite candidate and then shut the rest of it out. It is a waste of time, it is imparting enormous amounts of negativity across the country, and it isn't producing anything of value. Find a way to have a conversation about something else with your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, online. When the time comes, go and vote and then forget about it.

It is elementary that we only achieve things that matter when we decide to focus on the things that matter. Maybe later this year, the Presidential campaign will reach that stage. For now, I'm going to find something else to think about.

Get Tough: The Fear-Based Politics of the Dirty Harry Fantasy

Last week's Republican candidate reality TV show put on display one of the most pervasive and persistent myths in American political culture. I call it the Dirty Harry doctrine, although someone else can undoubtedly come up with a better movie reference.

The Dirty Harry doctrine goes something like this: the US is the most powerful country in the world. But unless we demonstrate that power by "standing up to" various bad actors, our enemies tend to forget how powerful we are and will do bad things. But if we are tough, our enemies will back down and do what we want. If we don't "act tough", others will walk all over us.

This doctrine spreads itself to a general belief in the efficacy of implicit threats. Thus, Congressional Republicans talk about how they need to "stand up to" President Obama about this or that issue (health care, Planned Parenthood - pick one). Political candidates use the word "leadership" to mean "issuing nonspecific threats to cow others into submission", and their tribal fans eat it up. Even many pro-gun arguments are built on this same premise, that the threat of force solves all problems:

As I've pointed out before, these are emotional arguments. They feel good, which explains why they are so prevalent. Unfortunately, they have little bearing on reality.

Threats and intimidation - what people in my business call Deterrence and Compellance - only work under certain circumstances. They are not universally effective, and sometimes they make things worse. Anyone who walks around with only this one tool in their toolkit is pretty much guaranteed to fail much of the time, no matter what they're trying to do.

Take the assertion that a show of force in international affairs will change an enemy's behavior and get them to back down. There have been plenty of folks (mostly but not exclusively on the Republican side) arguing that the agreement with Iran is a bad idea, and that what is really needed to get Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons is a "get tough" approach, possibly including inflicting some actual damage to show them that we're serious.

What determines whether such a policy would work? Like all bargaining interactions, it's a function of actual power, perceived power, and perceived credibility. It's also a function of the motives and interests of both sides.

Japan attempted precisely this tactic in 1941. Its near-simultaneous attacks on US forces in the Philippines and at Pearl Harbor were designed not to defeat the United States outright but to convince the US to stay out of a war it wasn't yet involved in. The Japanese High Command believed that, if it could take away much of the US Navy's power in the Pacific, America would realize that it was dealing with a powerful and committed foe and we would back away from the fight, leaving Asia to the Japanese. Japan never wanted to invade the United States, and didn't much care about what we did within our own country - they just wanted us to stay out of their "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere".

This calculation, of course, was a spectacular failure for two reasons. First, the Japanese underestimated the real nature of power: industrial productive capacity, which America had in far greater quantity than Japan (or, indeed, than all of the Axis powers put together). Second and more important, Japan misjudged American resolve. The attacks caused a counter-reaction which drove the US from being somewhat concerned about Japan's behavior to being bent on its total and complete defeat.

How would Iran likely react to a "get tough" policy from the US? Iran clearly has the capacity to develop a nuclear weapons program even in the face of American sanctions. If Iran becomes convinced that the US is bent on the overthrow of its government, it has more motive to acquire nukes, as fast as possible. The Iranian people are likely to rally around their government, as nearly all people will do when presented with an outside threat. They may or may not like the Ayatollahs, but nobody reacts well to foreigners telling them what to do.

What about direct military action? The US' only practical option is to launch airstrikes on some specific targets. This might have the effect of slowing Iran's progress towards deployable nukes, but they would also seriously increase the motive for doing so. Airstrikes alone cannot stop Iran's nuclear program, and there are no other alternatives. Invade the country? Not a chance. Strike at Iranian sites with our own nuclear weapons? I can't imagine a faster way to get the US ostracized from the international community. Europe would abandon us in a heartbeat, and our economy would suffer far worse than in the recent collapse.

The point is, Iranian leaders know all of this. They have thought through all of these scenarios, just as American officials have. The reason we arrived at a negotiated solution is that leadership in Iran, the US, European countries, and Russia all came to the same conclusion: this is not only the best option, it's the only option.

And yet politicians want to sell us the "if only we had 'gotten tough' with them Iranians/Russians/what have you, things would be better" line. Their motives for doing so are clear: they traffic in the politics of fear. When people feel afraid, then emotional fantasies about how we're going to "get tough" on their watch make people feel better and therefore more likely to vote for them. It's shameless and ridiculous on all sides.

But as much as this is bad politics, it's worse for our soul. Fear clouds judgment, inflames our worst passions, and suppresses our best instincts. It makes us into worse people than we could be. It drives away, to borrow Lincoln's phrase, the better angels of our nature. Indulged in over time, it makes us far less than we are capable of.

At this moment in history, fear is the last thing most American should be feeling. In terms of traditional power, the United States is so far ahead of the rest of the world that the increment is hardly measurable. There are no serious threats to Americans' lives, jobs, communities, or culture. Iran is a regional power with regional ambitions at best, Russia is a shadow of its former self, and the Islamic State is just another minor insurgency with a savvy marketing campaign.

While we face serious challenges at home, things are far from dire. Our economy has a significant inequality problem, but it remains the richest and most productive in the world. The vast majority of American communities are safe, comfortable, nice places to live. Net migration of illegal Mexicans is actually flowing out of the country, not in - no "crisis" there. Violent crime is down in most places. Americans remain, on the whole, decent people who pull together when times are really difficult. There are problems that need to be addressed, and when we are in danger it is generally from ourselves. But a "dying civilization" or a "crumbling society" we are not.

Most of this, of course, doesn't have much to do with who occupies the White House. The government can nudge things in various directions, but the President does not determine outcomes. Blaming Obama for non-existent problems is wrong on two fronts: the problems aren't real, and even if they were the President didn't cause them. Especially not by simply "not being tough enough".

As Joseph de Maistre wrote in the 19th century, every country gets the government it deserves. If we allow ourselves to be governed by fear, if we continue to drink the spiked punch our "leaders" so desperately want to serve us, we will get exactly what we deserve. Moreover, fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more we indulge in its pleasures, the more we see things to be afraid of everywhere.

So in our politics at all levels and in our daily lives, let's drop this "get tough" dogma. The Dirty Harry fantasy is the cry of the insecure bully ruled by fear. If you want to see different politics, or if you simply want to contribute to a better community, stop listening to the fear. If you attend to the better angels of your nature, you may be surprised at what takes its place.

Post-Election Musings: Was This Really the Seinfeld Election?

It's the day after Election Day, and lots of folks are poring over the results to find meaning. Most, of course, will see what they want to see. Republicans will see this is a mandate - that the majority of the US agrees with them (whatever that means) and hates the President. Democrats will dig deeper to find rays of hope - overwhelming support for raising minimum wage laws, for example. Republicans have to decide whether they want to govern for substance and work with the President, or govern for symbols and spend two years trashing him. And everyone is looking already to 2016.

I have friends who are disappointed in yesterday's results and friends who are pleased. Some of this really is rooting for the tribal team - if you don't live in Kansas, who the governor is there doesn't really matter to you. For me, the "national scorecard" isn't very interesting for much the same reason that fantasy football isn't interesting - it's a made-up scoring system for something that doesn't really exist.

We also put FAR too much faith in the ability of any of these politicians, or all of them together, to actually make things better for the country. Does what Congress does matter? Of course. But if you think that one-party control of both chambers is going to usher in the new Golden Age, you need a reality check. Congress' ability (with or without the President) to affect things right now is pretty minimal.

[And yes, I know some folks will offer counter-examples - the Federal Minimum Wage being one. But those are exceptions, and most of the time these days Congress doesn't act anyway.]

At their best, elections serve as a kind of national conversation - a big (if imperfect and messy) discussion about the stuff that matters. The fact that we have to conduct those conversations through politicians, PACs, and media outlets is frustrating, but it can also be helpful. Ross Perot's surprisingly good third-party run at the White House in 1992 helped put the budget deficit and the federal debt on the map as an issue. Reagan's 1980 campaign was about America's place in the world and general vision for its future. Obama's 2008 run was fueled by a broad sense of post-racial and even post-partisan optimism (both now dashed hopes, which helps explain his approval ratings).

Midterm elections are usually NOT these kinds of conversations, although they can be. In 1994 the Republicans ran on the Contract with America, which put forward a broad set of ideas about what government should or shouldn't do. But that was the exception - usually midterms are about jockeying for power.

In this sense, 2014 was not the Seinfeld election (an "election about nothing", for those who don't get the reference), but it was the latest in a series. There were few if any defining issues - mostly just the same motley set of divides that we've been fighting over for years.

More important to me than what the candidates and PACs did talk about was what they didn't. Minimum wage laws are important, but that's a small stand-in for a much larger issue: the fast-growing and massive inequality in both income and wealth among Americans. That's a serious issue that shouldn't be a partisan one; most thoughtful conservatives I know (and yes, for my liberal friends - there are such people) don't want to live in a Russian-style oligarchy any more than anybody else. But nobody wants to talk about it.

Global climate change has also been buried as a live issue. Here we've so tribalized the issue that we are failing to ask the questions that need to be asked: how do we adapt to a changing planet? On the local level, coastal communities are already doing so, often in broadly bipartisan ways. But nationally our collective head is stuck deep in the sand while otherwise-grown people scream at each other.

I'm sure we can think of a few more such issues - things that broadly affect everybody in significant, even life-altering ways. Ebola isn't one of them; neither are Benghazi, ISIS, or most of the other claptrap that dominates the daily headlines. This isn't just the media's fault; it's their job to cover day-to-day news, to focus on what's changed since yesterday. But somehow, somewhere, we need to talk about the big stuff. I have no faith in either political party's ability or desire to do so. Somehow, the rest of us will have to figure out how without them.

You Keep On Using the Word "Democracy". I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.

This is a blog post I've been meaning to write for about a week, but haven't had time until today. I've found renewed motivation for coming back to this topic after perusing the book room at APSA, where I found several books on this subject.

The starting point for today's argument can be found in an open letter from a coalition of Tea Party groups in Tennessee to Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN). You can read the complete letter here.

The key point to the letter is to encourage Sen. Alexander to remove himself from contention for his Senate seat next year, lest he face a Tea Party-backed challenger in the primary and lose. That, in and of itself, is not all that interesting - political groups interested in affecting the outcomes of elections say all sorts of things, and public threats of primary challenges may be one way to get the person you don't like to step down without a fight. So far, not much interesting to see here.

What is interesting about the letter is the reasoning behind their request/demand/threat. Why are these avowedly conservative groups so upset with Republican Senator Alexander? The money paragraph of the letter is here (underlining added):

During your tenure in the Senate we have no doubt that you voted in a way which you felt was appropriate. Unfortunately, our great nation can no longer afford compromise and bipartisanship, two traits for which you have become famous. America faces serious challenges and needs policymakers who will defend conservative values, not work with those who are actively undermining those values. Quite honestly, your voting record shows that you do not represent the conservative values that we hold dear and the votes you have cast as Senator are intolerable to us.

Now, the groups that penned this letter have every right to disagree with Sen. Alexander's votes and actions in the Senate, and every right to vote against him as a consequence. But the argument that the United States "can no longer afford compromise and bipartisanship" is either fundamentally ignorant or treasonous, depending on whether the authors of the letter understand what they are saying.

The reality is that, however much the members of these groups may believe that their conservative values are superior to the ideas of others, those ideas are not shared by the majority of Americans. Electing new members to the Senate who do share those values will not change this fact. So if you want American political outcomes to reflect the values held by a minority of Americans, you must do one of two things:

1) Take control of enough of the machinery of the government that policies aligned with your values are enacted even though you are in the minority.

2) Convince a large number of Americans that you are right and they are wrong, so that your views become the majority's views.

The first option is, of course, fundamentally anti-democratic. It goes against the very basic principles of any pluralistic political system - and yes, America is a pluralistic system. To argue otherwise is essentially to argue for oligarchy or some form of apartheid-style minority rule. If this is what these Tea Party groups mean, they have failed to understand the most basic roots of our politics and have crossed the line (albeit unwittingly) into treason - they are proposing replacing our current system with the forceable rule by a minority.

The second option is more democratic, although even this is problematic if the values you are espousing call for actions that violate fundamental civil rights. At points in our history, the majority opinion was that blacks shouldn't vote (judging by recent actions in some states, this view may not be so far in the past). But our understanding of the fundamental sovereignty and dignity of individuals was and remains that that view shouldn't hold, even if 51% of the population agrees with it. Tyranny by the majority against a minority is still tyranny.

There's no evidence, in any case, that these Tea Party groups (or the Tea Party movement as a whole) has any serious plan for convincing more people to join its cause, or even an intention to do so. In my experience most of their communications consist of shouting at the rest of the country about how wrong it is, and self-congratulatory back-slapping about the righteousness of their cause. Neither of these is either seemly or productive behavior in a pluralistic democracy.

Fundamentally, all politics tends in one of two directions: either towards greater levels of individual choice and freedom and a removal of government restraints on individual choice, or towards the use of force to impose the views of one set of people on another.

In the real world, political systems have to choose a path between these - enjoying the benefits of a modern society means accepting some restrictions by the state, based on rules which most if not all of us can agree on. There's plenty of room for political argument in there, in which the Tea Party and everybody else is welcome to engage. On the whole and with unfortunate exceptions, American politics has been about trying to steer as close to the "freedom" end of things while keeping the whole mess functioning.

But the moment you start pushing towards the "governance by force" end of things (option 1 above), you have gone off the rails of American politics and deserve to be ignored (if you are a fringe movement) or opposed (if there is some chance you will get your way). Members of these Tea Party groups would do well to think about exactly what kind of country they want to work towards, what the political reality around them is, and whether they really share the American values of democracy and freedom that they claim.