Monthly Archives: February 2020

Daggers Out

Once again, Donald Trump won a Democratic debate. As the candidates tore each other to pieces, he and his supporters must have been smiling, as they gleefully continue to dismantle our democratic system.

Basically, I believe the best way to enhance your relative stature is to raise yourself up rather than trying to reduce that of those around you. But I recognize that in a political competition, some attacks on rivals are par for the course. But in the Nevada debate, mutual bashing became the primary activity, with a viciousness and purposelessness that will only come back to haunt the ultimate nominee.

In most cases, the attack points were trivial, even petty. The candidates seemed to be randomly sticking pins in their opponents, searching for Achilles Heals that would destroy them. This went beyond purity testing to brute nastiness, for which Mayor Pete deserves first prize.

The only exception I feel was truly constructive were the challenges to Bloomberg on his toleration of stop-and-frisk abuse, and on charges of a sexist environment in his company. These were legitimate questions, and his responses were not only evasive but revealing. Pretending that releasing victims from NDAs, allowing them to speak out if they chose to do so, would somehow compromise their privacy is absurd. 

An Exercise in Repetition

The substantive aspects of the debate were also pathetic, and boring. Far too much time was spent, once again, on Medicare for All and its alternatives. Everyone agreed the current system needs to be dramatically improved, and the efforts to destroy Obamacare, flawed as it is, needs to be stopped. Everyone favors universal coverage, with different solutions and approaches to getting there. 

But remember: Obamacare was the best compromise solution a very popular president, with a politically savvy vice-president, could achieve. Realizing anyone’s vision will require control of both houses of Congress and a lot of patience and flexibility. 

So, we had to listen to everyone saying what they have already said countless times, about healthcare, global warming, and the few other issues discussed, while sniping against their opponents. Many other major topics were never even raised, or received one-liners which were just throw-aways. What about the huge, huge elephant in the room?

Elephantry, My Dear Candidates

A casual viewer who had been off the grid for the last few months would hardly have guessed the nation’s democratic institutions were under assault and our alliances were being undone, and the only thing standing in the way of their complete destruction was a sweeping Democratic victory in November. 

Sure, all the candidates proclaimed the need to defeat Trump. But this became like a formula in a responsive prayer, that alternates a phrase like “Lord have mercy” with a litany of lengthy appeals that in this case were hardly addressed to our better angels. The sense of urgency demanded to address this threat has only intensified over the past week was totally lacking.

A true recognition of the critical juncture in our national history would have led all the candidates to focus their ire on the president, underscoring the absolute imperative for the Democratic Party to remain unified and refraining from the suicidal attacks on each other. They failed to do so.

Another Media Failure

But to be fair, much of the blame for the disastrous debate falls upon Lester Holt and the NBC management who structured the event as a food fight. Holt announced from the beginning he wanted the candidates to engage with each other, and many of the questions asked one candidate to react to the positions of another. 

Many of the other questions were challenges intended to provoke, putting responders on the defensive and opening them up to criticism from their peers. Of course, that’s part of any moderated debate, but the balance was tipped much too far in that direction. And the candidates just fell into the trap rather than rise above it.

In fact, they could have changed the narrative forced on them by the moderators, much as they regularly changed the topics from the questions asked. They didn’t.

One can only imagine that NBC decided that an acrimonious spectacle was what viewers wanted, rather than what the nation needed. In other words, they made the same calculation the media did in 2016 when they realized Trump’s outrageous behavior would attract far more viewers than Hillary’s (or his Republican opponents’) more serious, policy-focused appearances, so gave him far greater coverage than he really deserved.

And so, the results could be the same this time around, with NBC joining the other enablers of a thoroughly discredited president. 

Part One: The Cutting Edge

Tribalism vs. Individual Self-Interest

In a recent New York Times Op-Ed column, David Brooks makes a forceful argument for broad-based cooperation as the best solution to our tribalized times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/opinion/us-politics.html

Essentially, he argues that the notion that society is primarily driven by individual self-interest is false: it’s really driven by intense competition among groups. 

He points out populism of both right and left have adopted a “winner take all,” “Us vs. Them” mentality that has come to dominate institutions, including government, as well as permeating society as a whole. While he focuses on the US, his observations really apply across the planet.

Basically, I agree with Brooks’ analysis and his ultimate conclusion that a healthier future demands genuine cooperation across diverse groups. Getting there, however, requires a deeper dive into the conflicting benefits of cooperation, as well as recognizing the conflicting demands of multiple identities.

There is little doubt that a genetic propensity to cooperate ensured those so endowed to survive as the fittest. As Brooks notes, “We thrived because we are better at cooperation.” Clearly, hunting a woolly mammoth as a group activity, and sharing the results with all those sitting around the fire, were far more conducive to success and survival than an individual effort followed by selfishly hoarding the carcass. 

Two aspects emerged from these primal experiences—the recognition of the superior effectiveness of group undertaking and sharing, and the ethical mandate of contributing to, and even sacrificing for the greater good.

But cooperation within the group also enabled effective competition against other groups, much of it violent. From extended family groups to clans to tribes to nations and nation states and empires, internal cohesion has enhanced the ability of one group of humanity to plunder, dominate, or decimate others. 

Whose Greater Good?

Much of this carnage has been driven by the moral imperative of furthering the greater good, which brings us to the question, whose greater good? The answer lies in an individual’s primary identification with a specific group. The options not only include familial and political groupings but race, gender, class, religion, and ideology, among others. And sadly, the moral frameworks that shape acceptable behavior within the group do not seem to apply when dealing with those on the outside. 

Complicating this is the fact that most people identify with multiple groups with potentially conflicting loyalties that may force people to choose, at critical moments, which one is primary. The ancient Greek city states fought each other mercilessly, but also enjoyed a common identity. They shared a religion, an oracle, the Olympics, and a vision of humanity divided between Greeks and barbarians. When faced with a common threat, they united to defeat the Persians.

Similar choices have played out over the centuries. Sometimes people have opted for a broader sense of identification, for better or worse, when joining Crusades and jihads, founding the United Nations and EU, adopting the Geneva Conventions, and launching the Marshall Plan. 

At other times, they have pinned their primary loyalty to a narrower framework, such as the Confederate generals who placed allegiance to their states above that to the Union; members of organized crime syndicates devoted to their own “families;” the far right in Europe and America who strive to keep their societies as white as possible; and the Bharatiya Janata Party that wants to convert India into a Hindu state.

Part Two: Stretching the Envelope

Seeking the Greatest Good

So how do we stretch the cooperation imperative to engage productively with other groups? And how do we blunt the tendency to increase internal cohesiveness at the expense of everyone else? 

These are two sides of the same coin, and offer the same answer. We need, as individuals and as a society, to strive to place our loyalty with the highest common denominator, seeking the greatest good for the greatest number. Ultimately, this should be our shared humanity. But in many cases, it may just be our common citizenship, shared history, political party, or sense of community. 

How do we do that? There are two critical components to achieving this goal. The first requires consciously modifying our behavior as individuals and as organizations. We can change our own behavior, and must also insist that the organizations to which we belong or support modify theirs. 

Specifically, we all need to stop demonizing opponents or members of other groups. You can criticize others’ beliefs and actions, but avoid ad hominems. Strongly condemn white nationalism, but don’t call your opponent’s supporters “deplorables.” Criticize a legislator’s vote, but not challenge his or her patriotism. 

This requires particular restraint on the part of public figures, especially candidates and elected officials, who are tempted to use group identity to galvanize their supporters. We need to hold them accountable, constantly reminding them that we’re all Americans with equal rights to shaping our future.

There are many ways of achieving this, but ultimately it comes down to the vote. As Brooks indicates, we need to resist the siren call of those who would divide people but focus on “electing leaders who are masters at cooperation.”

We should demand the same self-restraint from all kinds of associations to which we belong, religious, civic, and social, as well as the media, who set the tone of public debate. 

In other words, it’s ultimately up to us, the people. 

None of this will be easy, especially given the self-righteousness that dominant groups have always relied on to assert their priority. This moral imperative to strive to serve the greater good of one’s own group (race, class, religion, party, etc.) is the strongest impediment to cross-societal cooperation.

Embracing Multiple Identities

Here the second component of achieving our goal comes into play—acknowledging the multiple layers of identities that people possess. If we expect people to go beyond the parochial, you must first recognize and value the entire pyramid of group identities and loyalties that define them. Listen to an elderly World War II vet, a disappointed Brexit Remainer who described himself as follows: “First of all, I am Welsh, and I’m British, and I’m European, and I’m a human being.” (Watch the video 

https://twitter.com/bydonkeys/status/1223175366421946369; the quote comes at 1:03.)

In fact, embracing multiple identities, especially ethnic ones, is one of the true characteristics of American exceptionalism (or as I prefer to call it, American idiosyncrasy). In a recent New York Times profile, Alma Zadic, Austria’s justice minister born in Bosnia, explains how she overcame her own ambivalence about her ethnicity through her time in New York: “People were Italian and American, or Mexican and American, and it was totally normal. It was such a revelation. For years I had struggled with this question: ‘Am I Bosnian or Austrian?’ In New York, I learned that I can be Austrian and Bosnian and European at the same time.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/world/europe/austria-greens-alma-zadic.html?ref=oembed

We hold a genuine advantage over most places in the world where primary social distinctions tend to be singular and rigid. In contrast, we recognize multiple simultaneous identities while assuming that when push comes to shove, the “American” label will be primary. 

And now with globalization and a wider knowledge of the world, the idea of a common humanity has taken on a greater reality for many, especially in discussions of global warming and the environment.

The Community as Ground Zero

The place to start for many of us will be at the community level, where the fair resolution of local concerns demands inclusiveness, so solutions do not come at the expense of one or another group, generally the least affluent. This does not mean that every decision must take into account how it might impact humanity as a whole. (“What’s the impact on the fate of our species if we add this traffic light on Main Street?”) 

But it does suggest that recognizing the humanity of all of those who would be affected by these local decisions is a prerequisite for a fair solution. In America, and in many other places on this planet, the diversity of the population impacted by decisions at all different levels is far greater than we have historically been willing to accept. Accepting our shared humanity weakens the grip of more parochial loyalties, and strengthens our commitment to a truly democratic society. And that’s a start. 

Many ludicrous excuses for the Senate’s taking no action were offered during the non-impeachment trial of Donald Trump. One that superficially sounds sensible is the argument that “the voters should decide.” But this is categorically wrong. The responsibility lies squarely with the Senate, and they have, for the second time, passed the buck onto us.

The first time, of course, was when the Senate refused to even consider the Garland nomination. “Let the people decide,” they said. But the people had decided—they elected Barack Obama, twice. It was his prerogative—and his responsibility—to nominate a candidate for Supreme Court Justice, and the Senate’s responsibility to advise and consent. They did neither.

The latest abdication is even more pernicious, and requires an even greater sleight of hand. It pretends to follow the long tradition that if the voters find an official objectionable, they should “throw the rascal out.” This advice can cover a wide range of concerns from policy disagreements, incompetence, lack of attention to duty, making unworthy appointments, personal scandals, and even petty corruption. 

But the accusations against Trump are far more serious, and have led the House to issue articles of impeachment, analogous to an indictment. This demands a trial. In any other situation, a trial would follow rigorous procedures, require a jury compelled to consider all the evidence, and a neutral judge to make sure the rules are followed and to instruct the jury on the law.

Now imagine if I were arrested for a serious crime and demanded that my guilt or innocence be determined not by a court of law but by a vote among the general public, none of whom would be required to study the facts or the law. They could read about the case in whatever media they chose, or none at all. In other words, I could opt for a popularity contest.

This is the nub of the question. The Senate is charged with determining whether Trump had committed an impeachable offense. We all know that this is a two-part question—what had he done, and did it rise to that level? They scrupulously avoided delving deeply into his activity. And they deftly side-stepped an adult discussion about whether seeking foreign assistance in an election and rejecting all Congressional subpoenas should be considered high crimes. 

But an election is not a trial established to decide guilt or innocence. It’s a choice between two or more candidates for office. There can be many reasons to oppose Trump, not just that you believe he committed an impeachable offence. And there can be many reasons to vote for him rather than an opponent regardless of whether you feel he is guilty or not.

We live in a representative republic in which we delegate most governmental decision-making to those we elect or are selected by those we elect. While we do entertain occasional ballot initiatives, referenda, and recalls of officials, these are rare exceptions, hardly a drop in the ocean of legislation. 

Pretending an election can double as some sort of trial is absurd. For our elected representatives to delegate their responsibilities to the population at large is not only irresponsible, it runs counter to our very foundation as a representative republic. Perhaps they just don’t want to keep it, Mr. Franklin.