Categories
America Race

No lecture for the white guys

We’re going to have to make this a regular column. My last post was about how conservative states’ rights/local solutions arguments suddenly evaporate when the aim of federal programs is to persecute minorities, rather than protect them.

But we’ve not plumbed the depths of conservative hypocrisy yet.

“Culture of failure”

If you’ve watched Fox News any time in the last 8 years, there’s a good chance you’ve heard that the only thing standing between minority communities and success is personal responsibility. Mitt Romney famously attributed the difference in economic success between Israeli Jews and Israeli Muslims to “culture.” The UN emphatically disagrees. But the most popular place to apply this trope is unquestionably black communities in the US. Since the Right has declared racism officially over, the success of black communities is in their own hands. And, by extension, if black communities don’t succeed, they have no one to blame but themselves. They could succeed if they could rid their communities and their lives of drugs, get and stay married and stay in school. You may also have heard about our black President’s failure as a leader to lecture young black men into successful careers as bow-tie-clad hedge fund managers. According to the Right, any discussion of racial disadvantage is unmanly excuse-making. Minorities should stop blaming anyone else for their problems, pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and get a job.

No scolding for the white kids?

But the discussion of white poverty and economic hardship looks very different. White Appalachian coal miners and factory workers really are victims, you see. They can’t be blamed for their increased drug use or suicide or the increasing failure of their marriages or their inability or unwillingness to relocate or retrain for new jobs. Obama’s failure with respect to them (to listen to right-wing media) was too little coddling. When unemployed factory workers blame their hardship on “Obama’s NAFTA” and vote for Trump, it’s not complaining or shirking their personal responsibility. It’s making America great again! Because the natural order of things is for policies like tariffs and subsidies to benefit white, native-born people as they have for generations. This heavy-handed tilting of the economic playing field in favor of white people is not a hand-out. It’s restoring the natural order. See?

This, ladies and gentlemen (and Bill O’Reilly), is what privilege looks like. When Parties and nations mobilize to solve your problems and whole governments are turned upside down out of fear of your electoral wrath, you’ve made it. All the brown folks are entitled to is a scolding from “their” President.

A better way

The Left should not fall into the trap of scolding and blaming rust-belt factory workers for the disaster President Trump is making of our country. They are victims of a system they could not control. And I, for one, do not envy their position. Instead, progressives should be inviting these victims of capitalism back into the Party fighting for a gentler economic system. And we can do so without amplifying their dangerous jingoist streak. In the past, we have been able to have a nuanced discussion of the connections between poverty and irresponsible behavior and we know the importance of digging to find the systemic causes of poverty. This is our chance to show the world the that love sees no color and that whether you’re a victim of driving while black or black lung disease, we’ve got your back.

Categories
America Class Gender Race

Unstrange bedfellows

While it may be counting chickens before they’re hatched, this election seems to be slipping from the tiny fingers of Donald J. Trump. America, you did it! It was the bare minimum required of a democracy hopeful of its continuance, but you did it.

The GOP has already begun its quadrennial public mortification and, in true Republican form, they don’t have a clue. George Will figures this will be accomplished in a single sentence, “Perhaps it is imprudent to nominate a venomous charlatan.” This has been expressed more concisely elsewhere. You can find half a dozen fresh columns by conservative pundits each week insisting that The Donald has damaged the brand and, crucially, that he was never a real Republican any way and could we please just move on from this whole ugly episode. I see that point. I really do. The Republicans I know have no use for the misogyny, religious persecution, racism or protectionism of the Trump campaign. Their shtick is small government, local solutions, free markets, etc., etc.. They opposed Trump every step of the way and are a fine example of putting principle above Party. Bravo, #NeverTrumpers!

The point of this post is not to rub salt in their wounds. The traditional fiscal conservatives are entitled to their wrong opinions on taxing and spending. They don’t have to take credit for Trump any more than I have to take credit for everything said by the anti-natalists at NARAL. But, in my opinion, Republicans have put far too little thought into how they got here. Is it merely a coincidence that the free market advocates and the racists ended up in the same party? It is, after all, a genuinely impressive trick to win the votes of lower-class whites while advancing a host of policies that would take money from their pockets. Are Republicans just that good?

The key to understanding the big, peculiar circus that is the GOP is the concept that inspires the most eye-rolling from them. The connection between the “where’s the fence!” wing and the “taxation is theft!” wing of the GOP is … privilege. More accurately, it’s the willful or accidental ignorance of inherited privilege in the United States circa 2016. In order for the GOP to exorcise these demons, they’re going to have to first understand, then acknowledge the existence of, privilege and their relationship to it.

What privilege is not

We almost need a new word for this phenomenon. Modern conservatives have so shut themselves off from understanding the concept of privilege that they can’t speak of it sans sarcasm.

“Sorry guys. Gotta go. My white privilege job needs my attention.”

“With all this male privilege I’m enjoying, people just throw money at me.”

(It’s long been established that conservatives are abysmally losing the contest for comedic superiority. Low expectations are key here.)

I wish it didn’t have to happen, but let me say what’s been said thousands of times before: White privilege does not mean you didn’t work for the things you have. The rewards, financial and other, that you receive, are undeniably correlated with the effort you put in. Congratulations!

What we mean when we say that you enjoy “privilege” is that this correlation between effort/character and wealth is not perfect. And, some of the additional variation can be accounted for by your race/gender/religion/parentage/etc.. That’s it. You work hard. But some people who work just as hard as you receives less because they have different parents. Is that so hard to imagine?

We’ve explained this in a hundred different ways. The playing field is not level. Some people are born on 3rd base. There are comics. And object lessons. And a personal address to a lost Yalie. The resources are out there.

White privilege also does not mean that no woman or Black person has ever succeeded. That’s not how a statistical correlation works. At the upper end of the bell curve for all races/genders, we’ll find highly talented, motivated and lucky people who succeed. But that does not mean that one population does not enjoy an unearned advantage. Obama and Oprah do not mean racial privilege is over.

Why privilege is the glue

Privilege is the glue that holds together the Brooks Brothers wing and the patriotic jumpsuit wing of the GOP. The fiscal laissez-faire conservatives want to shrink government since it takes money from deserving makers and redistributes it to unworthy takers. But this only works if you think possessing wealth is highly correlated with deserving wealth. As you become aware of the myriad ways society and its institutions give incremental advantages to (for example) white men born into wealth and put obstacles in the path of lower-class Latinas, this argument becomes a lot less compelling. The weaker you believe that correlation between wealth and character to be, the less you’re concerned about taxing rich people to pay for programs for poor people. Wealthy Republicans believe this correlation is strong and taxes are, therefore, immoral.

The Trump wing of the party has a different privilege problem. They have a hard time coming to grips with their historically-conferred advantages. As astutely observed by Michael Kimmel, Trump is drawing support from the aggrieved entitlement of non-college educated white men and women. These are men and women who pine for the world of their parents and grandparents when a job in the factory got you a house, health care and a retirement. But this set up was always made possible by the presence and effort of both a domestic and an international underclass. Discrimination in employment, housing and education has bolstered the incomes and suppressed the rents of white people for decades. As that discrimination is eliminated, white people find it hard to build the life their parents had with only their high school diploma.

Even leaving aside state-side discrimination, the lives of Americans have been subsidized by the accident of their birth in the United States. The expansions of free trade has reduced that subsidy as well, to the benefit of the international lower class. But even if the knocking down of trade barriers benefits both rich and poor countries on the whole, there are individual victims within those countries. These disenfranchised Trump supporters see this as giving away the jobs to which they are entitled.

It’s not incorrect for this group to recognize themselves as victims of globalization. What’s incorrect is thinking the system has suddenly become unfair because you have to compete with Mexicans on a level field. The system has suddenly become fair and the real problem, that a modern economy does not support low skilled workers at American wages, was previously masked by tariffs. In effect, the US government has been picking winners and losers for decades now. Once it stopped, non-college workers discovered that the market made them the losers in this game.

Unfortunately, the GOP is the wrong place for economic losers. In the Republican Party, those who can’t support themselves have deficient character. So the GOP has to hide from it’s non-college voters the fact that they’re victims of the market. They’ve paraded various scapegoats during the Obama Presidency, but Trump’s genius was to latch on to a scapegoat with a long tradition in Republican states–the brown people.

The college-educated Republican elite are perfectly willing to paint this Republican underclass as victims of a system propping up minorities at their expense. They don’t believe in privilege either and, without white racial resentment, their political future is bleak. But the gig is up. I know right now we liberals are supposed to be sheepishly apologizing and examining our own unfortunate prejudices. But when I contemplate this country long term I believe privilege denialism is near its end. Every day, the racist and misogynist machinations of the system are more apparent. And when that glue that holds this twisted Republican coalition together dissolves, a new day dawns.

Categories
America Foreign Policy War

Pre-emptive Candy-bombing!

Since no one else seems willing to be President, I guess I’ll have to finally lay out my platform, officially. Despite all my rantings on widely varying subjects, I, heystupid, have only one plank to my Presidential platform: pre-emptive candy bombing. For those unfamiliar with the concept of candy-bombing, the original candy bomber, Gail “Hal” Halvorsen, dropped candy from his C-54 cargo plane to the children of Berlin in the aftermath of World War II. Soon, American candy makers were sending chocolate by the ton and Americans were mailing their own handkerchiefs to Halvorsen to use as parachutes. Almost 70 years later, Colonel Halvorsen was invited to carry the German team’s national placard during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics. There’s a school in Berlin named for him. Check him out here:

This is a terrific example of winning hearts and minds at the price of about 12 cents per heart.

However, it occurs to me that it’s wasteful and unnecessary to bomb a country with ordnance before we bomb it with food, water, clothing, medicine, malaria nets, soccer balls and, yes, candy. We should be mercilessly pre-emptively candy-bombing (and potato-bombing and water-bombing and amoxicilin-bombing and …) dozens of countries, especially our enemies. Let them tremble before our charity! Hal Halvorsen said, of his act, “It wasn’t the candy that was important. What was important was that somebody–an American–knew I was in trouble. Somebody cared.” Imagine how many fewer countries we’d have to invade if the people of the world felt like Americans knew their struggles and cared.

So, if elected my first priority will be to redirect one-third of the US military budget to humanitarian and rescue efforts. The US military already does a lot of humanitarian work, and they do it astoundingly well. Coupling these efforts with military capability will help ensure aid is directed where most important. But, let us go into this venture with open eyes. There will be American casualties from this, despite our best efforts. What could be more noble than to die that families may have enough to eat?

I propose we raise a worldwide generation whose first memory of the stars and stripes is attached to a Hershey bar and a bottle of Pepsi (or a SodaStream!). HeyStupid 2016!

Categories
America Economics Obama Taxation

All those things you hope the GOP will do? They can’t do them

Ben Howe says today’s GOP is different from GOP circa 2006–that we should stop holding the budget-busting, war-mongering actions of Bush-era Republicans against today’s fiscally responsible, TEA party Republicans. This is not your father’s GOP. This idea is getting some traction. There is some wishful thinking out there that this time your vote for Republicans will mean smaller government despite the fact that the last Republican President to reduce either federal spending (adjusted for inflation and population) or the budget deficit was Eisenhower.

There’s a part of me that would like to believe in the sincerity of GOP rhetoric. I do worry about a government that allocates fully a quarter of everything produced in the country. But, I’m skeptical not just because the faces at the top of the GOP have not changed. I believe people can change. The problems is the incentives for GOP legislators have changed very little since 2006. When a politician (of any persuasion) pays lip service to a policy you like, it’s important to consider how the stake holders feel about it and how they’re liable to react politically. Here are three good conservative ideas which the GOP has no chance, or indeed intention, of accomplishing.

Raising the retirement age (or other Social Security fixes). You know and I know that it’s ridiculous to pretend people aren’t staying healthy longer or that Social Security isn’t approaching a precipice. Without any changes, the trust fund (i.e. the surplus accumulated by payments into Social Security, also the money loaned to the treasury to fund our government these 20 years) is predicted to be exhausted in 2033. At that point (or some time before), Social Security must either cut benefits by an average of 23% or begin collecting more money. To listen to them, you’d think the GOP were making this top priority. But today’s Republicans have no hope, or even inclination to make substantive changes to the Social Security. The reason for this is that Republican electoral success increasingly relies on strong majorities among retirees to compensate for their poor showing among younger age groups. The Democrats enjoy an advantage among registered voters in every age category except the over 65 crowd. Candidates on the Left who openly advocate raising the retirement age or trimming benefits regularly face attacks from the Right. Most of us remember Mitt Romney’s criticism of the President’s 700 billion dollar reduction in Medicare spending. The Washington Post highlighted more such attacks against Democratic candidates by Karl Rove’s American Crossroads. Until Republicans find a demographic to replace retirees, all Republican entitlement reform is dead on arrival. You heard it here first, when it comes to fixing Social Security, the GOP will sell you, hard-working taxpayer, out to their AARP base in a heartbeat.

Eliminating mortgage interest deductions. This is a great Republican idea. The mortgage interest deduction is a giveaway to home owners and shifts the tax burden to poorer renters. It drives up home prices, complicates tax filing and distorts the market unnecessarily. But the GOP can’t do it. They take too much money from the people most harmed by this policy. The third largest individual donor to Mitt Romney, post TEA party revolution candidate for President, was Texas real estate developer, Bob J. Perry. He gave $15 million to the Romney campaign. Real estate interests gave three times more money to the Romney campaign than to the Obama campaign. Aside from investment professionals, real estate was the industry most supportive of Romney’s candidacy. The National Association of Realtors is a powerful organization which spends $40 million on lobbying every year. They support candidates on both sides including GOP House Candidate Mia Love and Democratic Senate candidate Mary Landrieu. Until money no longer rules politics, the mortgage interest deduction is here to stay.

Reducing agricultural subsidies. No one but the recipients of farm subsidies thinks they’re a good idea. The Department of Agriculture directly pay about $19 billion each year to American farmers, large and small, in the form of subsidies to crop insurance premiums and direct crop price support. Recipients include Jon bon Jovi, Rockefeller heirs and 1500 residents of New York City. Subsidies to US farmers harm third world agrarian economies which could be lifting themselves out of poverty while providing cheaper groceries for American consumers. Countries around the world hold this up as an example of the US’s protectionist trade policy and our hypocrisy as we ask countries like China to open their markets to foreign goods. Cutting these subsidies gets some play on conservative talk radio and in conservative think tanks. But it’s a non-starter among Republicans who actually govern. President Obama’s 2014 budget includes some cuts to these which Republican lawmakers have resisted. The Republican Study Committee recently uninvited the influential conservative Heritage Foundation to its meetings over Heritage’s support for reducing farm payments. Again, Republicans have both a demographic and a fund-raising problem. They enjoy broad support from rural communities and states whose voters, even when they don’t receive subsidies themselves, identify with the image of the struggling Midwest farmer. It also brings in the dollars. Campaign contributions by agribusiness has increased five-fold since 1990 with 71% of contributions going to Republicans. An estimated $150 million is spent on lobbyists for agricultural industries every year. In 2007, facing reductions to farm subsidies spearheaded by Democrats, 3000 lobbyists flew to Washington and killed changes to the farm bill. The farm lobby has even helped write provisions that enable US farmers to trade with embargoed countries like Iran.

Don’t misunderstand me. Democrats also are crazy to oppose these sensible proposals and electing Democrats is only slightly more likely to make these reality. But they have other policy objectives that are both possible and sensible like immigration reform, expanded infrastructure spending and health care reform. In the GOP playbook, I see only stupid ideas (aggressive foreign policy, balanced budget amendments, etc.) or smart but impossible ideas like those above. A realist must confront the fact that America can expect more of 2003 from today’s GOP. What Republicans can do is start wars. It’s a thing they believe in and that their base can get behind. It plays well with their demographics and brings in campaign contributions from military contractors. As previously discussed, in Republicanland, the Law of Unintended Consequences doesn’t apply to foreign policy, so there’s very little downside.

Meet the new boss…

 

Categories
America Morality

On Exceptionalism

My children are exceptional. They just are. I’m sorry if you don’t like to hear that. I will always choose them over your children. You should get used to that.

My children are exceptional in that I am prepared to work and sacrifice that they may become amazing people. But no matter what kind of people they become, I will love them. When I say that, I mean that I will always hope for wonderful things for them in a way that I will never feel for your children. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate your children’s talents and successes. They’re great. But they’re not my children. Objectively, I know mine won’t always perform better than your children but I’m prepared to stand by them even when they come in last place. I’ll even cheer for your children or coach them or encourage them, but not like I cheer for mine. I’ll take their side in a disagreement. Probably I’ll do this more than I ought, but there are plenty of people ready to thwart my children. They deserve at least one consistent ally.

I realize that you feel the same way about your children and that there’s a certain symmetry that makes my conclusion (that my children are the best) no more valid than yours. You’re entitled to your wrong opinion.

But mine is a wide-eyed love. I see the mistakes my children make. Not to see them would be to fail them in my responsibility to make them better. I do not blindly defend my children’s actions, nor do I always submit to their wishes or follow their plans. Again, to pretend they always do right is not love. It’s laziness and bad parenting.

So, too, with my country. I love the United States more than any country in the world. I’ll always hope for her success in every arena. When we do wrong, as a country, I’m going to speak up. That how much I love the USA. There is a set of people who think that pointing out the ways the America has done wrong is not patriotism. They think I should deny the Tuskegee experiment and redlining and Stonewall and the Battle of Blair Mountain and just keep waving the flag as if nothing ever happened. I fear for those people’s children. Because that’s not love. It’s cowardice. It takes work and courage to love a country that’s not perfect.

There may be a lot of fine things about your country (unless you’re Belgian. Belgium is the worst.). Some things about your country are undoubtedly better than mine (again, except for Belgium). But it will never be my home. I know America has given us atrocities like the trail of tears and Nagasaki and Iraq and Fergie and Iraq again, but it also gifted the world a lot of nobility and beauty and peace including my beautiful childhood. And so, I’ll sing my lungs out when the Star-Spangled Banner plays. And I’ll paint my face red, white and blue and chant “I believe that we will win!” And I’ll fight for her on varied battlefields.

The other thing I love about both my children and my country is their potential to be even greater. I’ll do what I can to make them all beacons of truth and righteousness. Because that’s what love looks like.