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1/31/2016

Do You Have "Skin in the Game?"

 “Skin in the Game” – a phrase that gets bandied about without much agreement as to what it may mean.  According to Wikipedia, to have skin in the game is “to have incurred monetary risk by being involved in achieving a goal.  ‘Skin’ is a synecdoche (figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole) for the person involved, and ‘game’ is the metaphor for the actions on whatever field of play is at reference. The aphorism is particularly common in business, finance, gambling, and is also used in politics.” 
 Investopedia .com refers to a situation in which “high-ranking insiders use their own money to buy stock in the company they are running…to ensure that corporations are managed by like-minded individuals who share a stake in the company. Executives can talk all they want, but the best vote of confidence is putting one’s own money on the line just like outside investors.”  This probably takes us as close as we will come to the original meaning of the phrase.


 It is what an investor like Warren Buffet looks for in companies in which he likes to invest.  Although Buffett did not originate the phrase (as some contend) he prefers to invest in companies where executives invest their own funds in their firms.  The late William Safire, columnist for the NY Times sought the origin of the phrase, dispelling the rumor that Buffett created it, but learning from another investment specialist that the expression is much used to “convey financial risk in any kind of venture, but you could stretch it to mean some kind of emotional investment.”   The phrase has become somewhat popular in everyday language and has become increasingly popular in political speech.  It has been heard more than once or twice in the Senate chamber, and even President Obama got into the act in an interview with George Stephanopoulos when the President-elect explained that a long-term fix for the economy would demand sacrifices from all Americans.  He proclaimed, “Everyone’s going to have to give.  Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game.”
One writer, Michael Corning, on www.deliberatelyconsidered.com  used the phrase to sum up the differences between Republicans and Democrats as to its meaning. 
“Democrats tend to say that the wealthy aren’t paying enough taxes, and Republicans frequently lament that around 45% of all households pay no federal income taxes.”  Similar arguments are applied to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and public pension and retirement programs.  “Democrats seek to preserve these programs without making major changes to them, and Republicans insist that to preserve these programs, substantial changes are needed and more skin needs to be put into the game.” 
Corning then makes a point which carries a great deal of truth, and puts our raging political debate into a somewhat different perspective.  He said (in 2011), “These opposing views will dominate public policy discussion through the 2012 elections and beyond.  Ultimately, public policy will (have to) resolve whose skin should be in the game, and how much of it should be committed.”  He concludes: “Putting ‘skin in the game’ touches us on an elemental level and reaches beyond reason.  It is this characteristic that makes it attractive for political rhetoric for those promoting shared sacrifices and others seeking personal investment in solutions.  The next time you hear the expression, you might want to stop and ask: 'what is being asked by whom, and for what purposes’?”
That, in essence, brings us back to the title question:  Do You Have “Skin in the Game?”  In other words, what investments are you making in the enterprise called “democracy?”  Using alternative phrasing, do you have a stake in the management of our system of government?  Do you make an investment in terms of money, time, effort in being a citizen?  Have you put anything on the line, so to speak so that you have something to lose if things are not going well?  Do you have a real stake in our common enterprise of making democracy work for all?  Or, are you being led astray, bamboozled, and made ineffectively invisible by certain forces and interests that take control of your very being in a subtle or surreptitious manner?   Let’s explore some thoughts:

1.     It has to be acknowledged that many people – citizens and non-citizens – already have some skin in the game.  That is, there are those who are already investing themselves in this enterprise of governing, of being a good citizen -- investing money, time and/or effort in this franchise.  Some could say that the mere act of paying taxes is such an investment.  However, one could also argue that tax-paying is a citizen obligation imposed by government at all levels, but is not a ‘voluntary’ investment.  I happen to be one who believes that the aspect of being voluntary is crucial to the concept of having ‘skin in the game’; at least that seems to be more than implied by the original use of the phrase in business – executives deciding to use their own money to invest in their company’s stock.   So, at the very soul of this phrase is voluntary contribution.

Who could we safely say are already making such a contribution to the enterprise of governing and making our democracy work?  Following-up on #1, I would venture to say that such a definition would encompass:

·        Volunteer enlistees in the military

·        Those engaged in volunteer service for their country for at least 2 years such as AmeriCorps or Peace Corps members; Teacher Corps members and VISTAs would also qualify, as would Older American Programs like Foster Grandparents and Senior Companions.  (By the way, just because some of these volunteers receive a stipend does not, by law, count as wages)

·        Caregivers who volunteer to care for a loved one or stranger for a period of their lives

·        There are also some very famous people who have put their own skin in the game, often on a broader scale than just for this country.  Some are former Presidents, like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Jack Kennedy.  Others are entrepreneurs who have made enormous amounts of money and then founded Foundations or organizations to undertake worldwide missions of healing, of starting businesses among the poor of the world or investing in education, rights of girls and women or of technology.  Bill and Melinda Gates come immediately to mind, but don’t forget people like Zell Kravinsky who made millions investing in real estate in his native Pennsylvania, but in 2001, began donating money and land to various charities until his contributions reached $45 million dollars. However, Kravinsky still felt that donating money and land wasn’t enough. He decided to up the ante and gave his kidney to a total stranger – now that’s putting some real skin into the game!

·        Celebrities in the entertainment and professional sports worlds have also been contributors of money and effort in ways that show extraordinary investment of self in our system and our enterprise of democracy, fairness and equality.  
    I think of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.  Brad has been involved in the effort to rebuild New Orleans (especially in the 9th Ward where devastation is still quite visible).  Brad and a group of colleagues have been actively supporting the rebuilding of houses along “green” lines in the midst of that devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.  Angelina has been shown time and again working with young girls and women of other countries to bring opportunities in health, nutrition and education to other countries of this world.  Together they have also made it a point of their lives to adopt children with special needs from different races and cultures.  These celebrities have skin in the game, as do others like Oprah Winfrey and Muhammed Ali. 
    We know something of Opray’s involvement beyond just charitable giving, but Ali is more of a hidden treasure.  “Muhammad Ali’s charitable legacy is not measured in dollar signs and decimals, but by the countless stories of his willingness to bring joy to others. As President Barack Obama put it, “We admire the man who has never stopped using his celebrity for good — the man who helped secure the release of 14 American hostages from Iraq in 1990; who journeyed to South Africa upon Nelson Mandela’s release from prison; who has traveled to Afghanistan to help struggling schools as a United Nations Messenger of Peace; and who routinely visits sick children and children with disabilities around the world, giving them the pleasure of his presence and the inspiration of his example.” Muhammad Ali is the first, the original charitable athlete. And he’s been at it for 50 years now,” proclaims TotalProSports.com.

These are just some of the citizens who are broadening the concept of ‘skin in the game’ by investing themselves directly – one of the hallmarks of having ‘skin in the game.’

2.     On the other hand, there are those who possess wealth or special talent or entrepreneurship who choose not to put skin into the political or equal opportunity game.  It is somewhat painful to know that many millionaires and billionaires do not even give to charity.  In fact, the average rate of charitable giving amongst the rich and powerful is a mere 1.7% of their income.  A sad comment indeed on the “job creators and best among us,” as they have been termed by some of their worshippers.   An article by Ken Stern in The Atlantic magazine (online) from April 2013 tells some additional interesting facts.

·   Many of the 12 individual charitable gifts that topped $100 million in the U.S. last year were showered with public attention: $150 million from Carl Icahn to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, $125 million from Phil Knight to the Oregon Health & Science University, and $300 million from Paul Allen to the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, among them. If you scanned the press releases, or drove past the many university buildings, symphony halls, institutes, and stadiums named for their benefactors, or for that matter read the histories of grand giving by the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Stanfords, and Dukes, you would be forgiven for thinking that the story of charity in this country is a story of epic generosity on the part of the American rich.

·  It is not. One of the most surprising, and perhaps confounding, facts of charity in America is that the people who can least afford to give are the ones who donate the greatest percentage of their income. In 2011, the wealthiest Americans—those with earnings in the top 20 percent—contributed on average 1.3 percent of their income to charity. By comparison, Americans at the base of the income pyramid—those in the bottom 20 percent—donated 3.2 percent of their income. The relative generosity of lower-income Americans is accentuated by the fact that, unlike middle-class and wealthy donors, most of them cannot take advantage of the charitable tax deduction, because they do not itemize deductions on their income-tax returns.  Another article takes a narrower view of “the richest” and claims that in 2008 (note the date) “the wealthiest Americans — those making over $500,000 annually, which is less than 1 percent of all tax filers — gave away 3.4 percent of their income in 2008… significantly higher than Americans at lower income levels.”  So we have a debate as to statistics and when they are promulgated, where they were retrieved and who they target.

·   Some experts have speculated that the wealthy may be less generous—that the personal drive to accumulate wealth may be inconsistent with the idea of communal support -- “the rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people.”

·   In a series of controlled experiments, lower-income people and people who identified themselves as being on a relatively low social rung were consistently more generous with limited goods than upper-class participants were.

·  The poor tend to give to religious organizations and social-service charities, while the wealthy prefer to support colleges and universities, arts organizations, and museums. Of the 50 largest individual gifts to public charities in 2012, 34 went to educational institutions, the vast majority of them colleges and universities that cater to the nation’s and the world’s elite. Museums and arts organizations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art received nine of these major gifts, with the remaining donations spread among medical facilities and fashionable charities like the Central Park Conservancy. Not a single one of them went to a social-service organization or to a charity that principally serves the poor and the dispossessed. More gifts in this group went to elite prep schools than to any of our nation’s largest social-service organizations, including United Way, the Salvation Army, and Feeding America (which got, among them, zero).

·   And finally, on this topic, we know too well the record of very rich corporations that have a reputation for keeping income from the tax system, or extracting subsidies from that tax system, so that the needs of the poor and those with special needs go un-attended and under-funded.  Corporations like General Electric, Con Edison, Verizon, FirstEnergy and Pepco Holdings paid no income tax between 2008-2012, according to an article from Huffington Post that cited studies from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Thus, in spite of the fact that the wealthy give huge sums of money to charity, they seem not to have any real skin in the game in terms of self-risk or selfless motivation generally serving the elite rather than those people most in need, most living at the bottom of the income scale. 
3.     We have to take into consideration the complaint of the rich that 45% of the citizens of this country who exist in the lower and some middle income brackets, do not pay federal taxes, and in fact some are subsidized by a mechanism called the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). 

·   EITC is a refundable tax credit that increases the income of low- and moderate-income working families by providing tax reductions and cash supplements.

·   As a federally funded anti-poverty initiative, the primary purpose of EITC is to help employed low-wage earners achieve financial self-sufficiency by offsetting taxes, supplementing wages, and making work more attractive than welfare. 

·   Refunds received from EITC are not considered income for any federal or federally funded public benefit program.  EITC has been instrumental in closing the poverty gap for many of the nation’s working poor.

·   Preliminary reports for tax year 2013, indicate that EITC provided $62.9 billion in tax credits to over 28 million eligible families and individuals.

·   IRS reports that EITC is credited for lifting more than 6 million people out of poverty, including 3.3 million children during tax year 2013
 It is incumbent upon us that we take this situation with a similar gravity to that we take of wealthy individuals and corporations who pay no taxes.  Those who pay no federal tax at the bottom and perhaps middle of the income scale, but receive federal subsidies from our tax system need to be seen as having some ‘skin in the game.’  However, that does not mean that there is no difference between the two income classes.  The rich who pay no taxes have already taken huge profits from the economic system.  They have a tremendous obligation to give back some of that wealth (earned on others’ backs); the government subsidies they receive enable them to gather even more profit.  Contrariwise, the working poor and some middle class families are not making profits, are not in a position to invest, and are not gaining huge additional wealth from their subsidies.  They are, instead, merely surviving.  So let us not contend that these circumstances equate with each other.  They do not.  HOWEVER, in terms of having skin in the game, there is something to be said for advocating for equal obligation but not necessarily for an equal expression of that obligation. 

4.     We have too many citizens (and non-citizens) in our nation who simply will not invest themselves in a way that certifies that they have skin in the game of democracy and politics (more on this next time).
And so, we come to that moment when we have to ask:  what is the point of all this?  We will never be a nation that has full participation and investment of its citizens.  Why not?  Why is it that we abandon the concept of full participation for our citizenry when we know full well that self-investment, emotional investment, patriotic investment – SKIN IN THE GAME – is what we must be all about in order to maintain and sustain, develop and protect our form of democracy?  

Why do we consider voting as an option instead of a duty or obligation?  Why is paying something into the system not required of everyone?  It doesn’t have to be cash money!  Why is running for elective office so narrowly meant for professional politicians and those who can afford to do so?  Why do we leave governing and politics to the bureaucrats and not involve ordinary citizen volunteers in those fields?  Why is participation in certain events called patriotic, yet other activities and events are called socialistic or subversive?    Why do we emphasize good citizenship as obeying laws and rules instead of making contributions and investing ourselves in others?  In my next posting, I’m going to offer up some suggestions that might change some definitions of citizenship while broadly defining ‘skin in the game.

1/22/2016

"Authoritarianism" Trumps Other Factors

We hear a lot lately about the threats that Donald Trump poses to this country.  We hear about his racism, his attempts to be tough acting like a Putin, his outrageous attacks against Muslim refugees, his narcissism and his bluster about negotiating with other nations (all of which his latest endorser, Sarah Palin, supports!).  On the other hand, we hear from those who don’t share his views to any degree that if he is elected, they plan to move to Canada.

I totally empathize with their concerns and fears, but I have to say that Donald Trump’s views and bluster are not necessarily the only concern about which one must be energized or exercised.  Personally, I am very worried about the people who are supporting him and especially those who have come to support him from a position of uncertainty or fear.  Who are they?  How are they being pulled-in? 

First, it appears that some of his supporters are those who are basically associated with the original Tea Party.  This group began as an antidote to those Republicans in Congress who were advocating their conservatism, but not following through in terms of their votes or their legislation. Abandonment of ideological purity on the part of these neo-conservatives came forth especially during budget negotiations and in cases where legislation prevailed that favored progressive values.  

The Tea Party emerged around 2009 generally opposing excessive taxation and government intervention in the private sector while supporting stronger immigration controls. Encyclopedia Britannica tells the story of their ascendancy within the Republican Party and here are some of the highlights that remind us of their questionable positions: 

  • The catalyst for what would become known as the Tea Party movement came on February 19, 2009, when Rick Santelli, a commentator on the business-news network CNBC, referenced the Boston Tea Party (1773) in his response to Pres. Barack Obama’s mortgage relief plan. Speaking from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Santelli heatedly stated that the bailout would “subsidize the losers’ mortgages” and proposed a Chicago Tea Party to protest government intervention in the housing market. The five-minute clip became an Internet sensation
  • Spurred on by conservative pundits, particularly by Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck, the generally libertarian character of the movement drew disaffected Republicans to the Tea Party banner, and its anti-government tone resonated with members of the paramilitary militia  movement. Tea Party ranks were swelled by “Birthers,” by those who considered Obama a socialist and a ‘secret’ Muslim.
  • The Tea Party’s first major action was a nationwide series of rallies on tax-filing day April 15, 2009, that drew more than 250,000 people proclaiming that “Tea” was an acronym for “Taxed Enough Already.” The movement gathered strength throughout the summer of 2009, with its members appearing at congressional town hall meetings to protest the proposed reforms to the American health care system, particularly the proposed “public option.”
  • Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska in July 2009 and became an unofficial spokesperson on Tea Party issues, and in February 2010 she delivered the keynote address at the first National Tea Party Convention. Glenn Beck of Fox News helped draw tens of thousands of protesters to the U.S. Capitol on September 12, 2009.  Freedom Works, a supply-side economics advocacy group headed by former Republican House majority leader Dick Armey, provided logistical support for large Tea Party gatherings
  • January 2010, in the special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Ted Kennedy, dark-horse and Tea Party affiliate Scott Brown defeated Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley in a race that shifted the balance in the Senate, depriving the Democrats of the 60-vote filibuster-proof majority they had held since July 2009
  • The November 2010 midterm elections saw the Republicans gain approximately 60 seats to take control of the House and reduce the Democratic majority in the Senate. Many observers credited this performance to the interest and enthusiasm generated by the Tea Party and their insistence that Obama (and “Obamacare”) was to blame for a poor economy, higher taxes, small business failures plus domestic and foreign incompetency.
  • Although Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz coasted to an easy victory in his race for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, that result was far from typical for both the Tea Party and the Republicans in the November 2012 elections.  Several first-term Tea Party representatives were turned out in their reelection bids.  In Massachusetts, Sen. Scott Brown, was defeated by Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren. Republicans ultimately ceded small but significant gains to the Democrats in both houses of Congress
  • In May 2013 the IRS revealed that it had unfairly targeted for additional scrutiny conservative groups that had applied for tax-exempt status as 501(c)(4) nonprofit social welfare organizations. The so-called scandal served to reinvigorate a movement that had struggled to regain its footing in the wake of the 2012 elections
  • Later in 2013, Tea Party members in the House and the Senate demonstrated their influence when they used the threat of a government shutdown as a bargaining tool in their ongoing campaign against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).  
  • Those parts of the government deemed nonessential were shut down on October 1, the start of the fiscal year, and some 800,000 federal workers were furloughed. Business leaders, traditionally strong supporters of the Republican Party, vocally criticized the Tea Party and the tactics that led to the shutdown
  • Seen as the group most responsible for the government shutdown and facing increasingly vocal and robust challenges from pro-business lobbies, Tea Party candidates suffered losses in a string of 2014 primary contests. Across the country, establishment Republicans, many of whom had tacked right to embrace elements of the Tea Party platform won nominations.  The narrative of a resurgent Republican establishment took hold in the media.
  • That narrative suffered a stunning blow on June 10, however, when Republican House majority leader Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia was soundly defeated by a dark horse Tea Party candidate in the Republican primary election—a vote that was widely seen as a rejection of the incumbent’s support for immigration reform.
  • In the 2014 off-year national elections, the Tea Party’s resurgence helped Republicans win majority control of both House and Senate. 
  • 2015 saw the emergence of Republican presidential candidates who had substantial Tea Party backing, including Cruz, Rubio, Huckabee, and continuing front-runner, Donald Trump, who was endorsed on January 19, 2016 by former Tea Party spokesperson, Sarah Palin.
(For further details on Tea Party history, see  http://www.britannica.com/topic/Tea-Party-movement

It is very difficult to know how many supporters of Donald Trump are also Tea Party supporters, but one thing is clear:  they would come not only from the ranks of registered Republicans, but from Independents and even from some conservative Democrats.  One estimate is that 32% are from the Tea Party movement.  This analysis from arbiter news gives us some more interesting demographic information to keep in mind.

 Gender
42% of Trump supporters are female (MSNBC poll)
58% male (MSNBC poll)

Age
2% are under 30 (Real Clear Politics, YouGov)
14% are between the ages of 30 and 44 (Real Clear Politics, YouGov)
About 50% are between the ages of 45 and 64 (Real Clear Politics, YouGov)
34% are 65 and over (Real Clear Politics, YouGov)

Race
91% White (MSNBC poll)

Income
33% earn under $50K (MSNBC poll)
72% earn under $100K (MSNBC poll)
28% earn over $100K (MSNBC poll) / 11% earn over $100K (Real Clear Politics, YouGov)

Education
43% have a high school degree or less (MSNBC poll)
19% have a college or postgraduate degree (Real Clear Politics, YouGov)

Ideology
65% describe themselves as “conservative” (Real Clear Politics, YouGov)
20% describe themselves as “liberal” or “moderate” (Real Clear Politics, YouGov)
13% describe themselves as “very conservative” (Real Clear Politics, YouGov)
32% indicate involvement with the Tea Party movement (Public Policy Polling)
82% support Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims, compared to 54% of Republicans (Public Policy Polling)
66% believe President Obama is a Muslim (Public Policy Polling)
61% think President Obama was not born in the US (Public Policy Polling)
41% are in favor of bombing Agrabah, the fictional country from Aladdin (Public Policy Polling) (which may well have something to do with the 43% with high school or less education)

No one analysis is extensive enough or deep enough to be entirely accurate, but because this particular analysis takes information from several sources, I have chosen it simply to give us some idea of from where Trump support emanates.  Having established that, I want to leave it for your consideration, keeping it in mind as we move ahead to emphasize one more important point that has been made by a doctoral student’s thesis: that all of these demographics need to be tempered by one factor that seems determinant about Trump’s supporters. Here’s a compendium of that story as it appears on inquisitr.com. 

“A survey conducted by (the author) suggests that there’s one strange determining factor that makes a Donald Trump supporter, and it has nothing to do with race, religion, age, gender, education, or income. A Donald Trump supporter tends to be someone  with authoritarian leanings.”

Matthew MacWilliams  sampled 1,800 voters from across the entire political spectrum and ran a “statistical analysis” of the poll answers. He found that it didn’t really matter what age, race, religion, etc. the voter was, they tended to support Donald Trump if they agreed with authoritarian values. Donald Trump supporters also had a strong fear of terrorism, according to the survey, but that was greatly overshadowed by their authoritarian inclinations.”
Just what does authoritarian mean? While MacWilliams mentions that authoritarianism has been “widely studied” as a result of the authoritarian leadership in the Nazi party, this does not mean that Donald Trump should be fairly compared to Adolf Hitler. 

Authoritarian leanings are defined by Dictionary.com in the following way.
            “A personality pattern reflecting a desire for security, order, power, and status, with a desire for structured lines of authority, a conventional set of values or outlook, a demand for unquestioning obedience, and a tendency to be hostile toward or use as scapegoats individuals of minority or nontraditional groups.”

I don’t usually quote another author extensively, but, because I think this particular author has a major valid point that corresponds to thoughts I have previously posted, I have taken the liberty of doing so.  So, let us conclude with a more detailed analysis of this “authoritarian inclination” according to MacWilliams’ thesis and his article on Politico.com at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533

[THE AUTHOR, Matthew MacWilliams is founder of MacWilliams Sanders, a political communications firms, and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he is writing his dissertation about authoritarianism (all emphases are mine)]:

Trump’s electoral strength—and his staying power—have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations. And because of the prevalence of authoritarians in the American 
electorate, among Democrats as well as Republicans, it’s very possible that Trump’s fan base will continue to grow.

“Authoritarianism is not a new, untested concept in the American electorate. While its causes are still debated, the political behavior of authoritarians is not. Authoritarians obey. They rally to and follow strong leaders. And they respond aggressively to outsiders, especially when they feel threatened. From pledging to “make America great again” by building a wall on the border to promising to close mosques and ban Muslims from visiting the United States, Trump is playing directly to authoritarian inclinations.”

“Not all authoritarians are Republicans by any means; in national surveys since 1992, many authoritarians have also self-identified as independents and Democrats. Based on 14 years of polling, (it has been found) that authoritarians have steadily moved from the Democratic to the Republican Party over time.  The trend began decades ago, as Democrats embraced civil rights, gay rights, employment protections and other political positions valuing freedom and equality. In my poll results, 49 percent of likely Republican primary voters score in the top quarter of the authoritarian scale—more than twice as many as Democratic voters.”

“Trump was the only candidate—Republican or Democrat—whose support among authoritarians was statistically significant.  And in a general election, Trump’s strongman rhetoric will surely appeal to some of the 39 percent of independents in my poll who identify as authoritarians and the 17 percent of self-identified Democrats who are strong authoritarians.

“What’s more, the number of Americans worried about the threat of terrorism is growing… published research finding that non-authoritarians respond to the perception of threat by behaving more like authoritarians… (which means that) more voters are susceptible to Trump’s message about protecting Americans. In my survey, 52 percent of those voters expressing the most fear that another terrorist attack will occur in the United States in the next 12 months were non-authoritarians—ripe targets for Trump’s message.

“So what does this mean for the election? In a statistical analysis of the polling results, I found that Trump has already captured 43 percent of Republican primary voters who are strong authoritarians, and 37 percent of Republican authoritarians overall.  Take activated authoritarians from across the partisan spectrum and the growing cadre of threatened non-authoritarians, then add them to the base of Republican general election voters, and the potential electoral path to a Trump presidency becomes clearer.

“So, those who say a Trump presidency “can’t happen here” should check their conventional wisdom at the door. The candidate has confounded conventional expectations this primary season because those expectations are based on an oversimplified caricature of the electorate in general and his supporters in particular. Conditions are ripe for an authoritarian leader to emerge. Trump is seizing the opportunity. And the institutions—from the Republican Party to the press—that are supposed to guard against what James Madison called “the infection of violent passions” among the people have either been cowed by Trump’s bluster or are asleep on the job.

“It is time for those who would appeal to our better angels to take his insurgency seriously and stop dismissing his supporters as a small band of the dispossessed. Trump support is firmly rooted in American authoritarianism and, once awakened, it is a force to be reckoned with.”

As I have indicated in previous posts on this Blog, the tactics being employed by the Far Right Wing of the Republican Party are not to be ignored; they are the tactics that put fascists (or “authoritarians,” if you prefer that term) into complete control of Germany in the mid-20th century.  And, here’s the main point of today’s posting:  it was not just the strategy and tactics of Hitler himself, or those of his cadre of ‘brown shirts,’ that brought him to power.  It was the fertile ground of authoritarianism in the people (or susceptibility to strong-man characteristics) plus the power of fear that led to the Third Reich and the leadership of a Fuhrer. 

If Trump continues to attract this authoritarian strain from all political parties and from independents, he could become the new authoritarian leader (Fuhrer) of this country and, by extension, a leader who could produce dire consequences for the rest of the world.  It is those “dire consequences” -- in all matters domestic and foreign-- that we must avoid. 

In 2016, we MUST:

VOTE AGAINST authoritarianism (Trump is not the only purveyor!)
DEFEAT Republicans at local, state and national levels
ELECT a Democrat to the Presidency (who will appoint progressives to the Supreme Court)
TAKE BACK the Senate



1/10/2016

Who Are We? Why Are We Here? Where Are We Headed? - Part 2

Last week, we asked the first of three important questions about ourselves as a nation:  Who Are We?  Why Are We Here?  Where Are We Headed?  Today, we aim to talk about those last two questions in light of the first, for Why We Are Here and Where we are Headed grow out of, and relate back to, Who We Are.
One writer provides his viewpoint on Who We Are as a nation by quoting a speech by a 19th century French writer.  His thoughts on our nationhood confirm the interaction between the three.

  Are We A Nation? (www.spectacle.org Jan. 1997)
“One hundred and fourteen years ago, French historian Ernest Renan, in a lecture delivered at the Sorbonne, posed and answered the question, "What is a nation?" Renan began by disposing in short order of the arguments that nations are made by race, religion, language, commerce or borders. Many nations, he noted, do not share a common language, race or religion. Commerce, he said, does not rise to the level of a collective soul, a national principle; and there is neither rationality nor permanence to borders.
“A nation is ‘a group of people sharing a common story, a community by choice.’  A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which, in truth, are really one, constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is the present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue to value the undivided heritage one has received.... To have the glory of the past in common, a shared will in the present; to have done great deeds together, and want to do more of them, are the essential conditions for the constitution of a people...”
“Can we say… that we still have an American national story which meets Renan's requirements?  What is our national story today?  You and I may differ; I may believe in larger government, you in smaller; but we must have some shared pivot, some point around which we both rotate, to be members of the same nation.  I respectfully suggest that the central point of the American nation ought to be its Constitution.  The Constitution itself may be built of words, but those words sing. They sing of the following:

We are all created equal and are to have access to equal opportunities.
The government governs by our consent.
None of us is to be denied procedural and substantive justice in our treatment by the state.
A zone of privacy exists around each of us in which the state cannot interfere.
No law may be made infringing our freedom of speech.
Ours is a secular state, in which each may worship as he pleases, or not at all.
We protect free speech because we are humble and not too quick to say that only our own ideas may be right. 
We recognize diversity, of ideas and races, because we are humble and tolerant. 
And we are optimistic, as we must be to trust ourselves and our fellows and to believe that all will always come out right in the end.

“If we are still a nation, what do we have in common if not our Constitution? I was raised to believe that ours is a compassionate story; and it is not hard to find the traces of compassion in the Constitution's protection of fairness and freedom of worship and speech. Even if we did not have our Constitution in common, if you and I had compassion in common, we might still be a nation, or at least the beginnings of one. But what that compassion means is that, no matter how radically I disagree with you, I am still beholden to you, responsible for you, dedicated to aid you when you need me, and entitled to expect your help when I am in need. So, though we agree on nothing else, we may agree that we belong to each other. 

“But this country is full of people today who have identified large numbers of their fellow citizens as outsiders, as "the other", with whom they have no bond. This year's initiatives to penalize legal immigrants in this country, to end Aid to Families with Dependent Children and affirmative action is not our national story of justice.  There has never been an era in our country when more faction existed, when more of us were more hateful and certain in our hate, and desirous to terminate our bonds with one another.
“A nation is a great act of solidarity, constituted by the memory of the sacrifices one has made and those one is inclined to make in the future. A nation supposes a past; it expresses itself in the present by a tangible fact: the consent, the desire clearly expressed to continue living together. The existence of a nation is (excuse me for the metaphor) a daily plebiscite, in the same way that individual existence is a perpetual affirmation of life.  “We must want to be a nation in order to be. We must search for the common ground, the overlapping thread in our stories. We must believe it is there in order to find it. A leap of faith is needed.”

Why Are We Here?
The clues to why we are here exist in the answers to who are we.  We are here to carry through on what makes us who we are.  We are here for a purpose; several purposes in reality.  The overwhelming reality is that purpose involves activity; it is defined by verbs not nouns.  It is more than freedom or justice or rights or compassion or hope.  It is, instead, the actions necessary to make each of these concepts active in the lives of citizens of this nation.  It is more than words spoken, although that action is often essential.  It is compassion in action; justice delivered; challenges met; obstacles overcome. 

We are here not only because the Constitution has given us rights and freedoms, but because it has also delivered challenges, responsibilities and duties.  Every right has corresponding responsibilities: free speech carries with it the obligation not to use it to harm others, but to dignify us all.  Every liberty carries with it a solemn obligation: not to use one’s religion to discriminate against another person, for example.  The Constitutional protections and rights like the 2nd amendment also carry the obligation not to use one right (to own a gun) to abrogate other rights like life, liberty and happiness by firing that gun to bring harm to another, and to bring hurt to everyone affected by that loss of a life. 

We are here in order to act on behalf of the people of this nation (and of other nations).  We are here because we have obligations to act in the best interest of other persons.  We are here because we are connected inexorably to every other human being by our common humanity.  We are here because we must act to honor and enhance that interdependence for we are not alone nor are we entirely self-sufficient.  What this nation does, affects the well-being of people in many places around this globe.  Such is the responsibility of a super-power; not to over-power, but to give back a measure of our power in the form of humanitarian and compassionate aid and goodness to those who have legitimate needs.  Likewise, what we do as individuals has far-reaching effects on other human beings.

We are here to take action for the good (the “General Welfare”) of the People.  To do less is to deny the pivotal purposes of our Constitution, and is therefore a denial of who we are.  Just to make sure we are on the same page, here is what the Preamble to the Constitution says in its entirety:

            “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Note, if you will, the string of action verbs that constitute this declaration of purpose for our Constitution:  form, establish, insure, provide, promote, secure, ordain and establish (again)  The Founding Fathers were not passive in their answer to why we are here.  They emphasized potent action from beginning to end.  
Unfortunately, the current Congress epitomizes some other verbs: delay, obstruct, scandalize, criticize, minimize, denigrate and divide.  They have not actualized much of anything except a social issue agenda: oppose abortion and contraception with no exceptions; close Planned Parenthood; denigrate Health Care Reform but provide no alternatives; diminish rights of Labor, women, children, the poor, Muslims, students and minorities.  Ignore comprehensive immigration, gun violence, the cost of wars; the over-incarceration of people of color; the plight of children living in poverty.

We exist as a nation to enhance liberty and justice; to expand help to the vulnerable and the challenged; to increase opportunities for the disadvantaged; to correct the faults of our justice system; and to make our governmental structures work on behalf of the People not to their detriment.  We are under an obligation to act upon the fact that we are interdependent and mutually responsible for each other, for government itself and for the outcomes we produce as both citizens and as a living branch of that government.   
We must ACT on the principles that under-gird our foundational document.  Every day is a day of action.  And, by those actions we re-affirm our intention to work together as a nation, a government and a People.  In order to keep what we have we must act, we must serve, we must protest, we must reform and we must promote the dignity and authenticity of every citizen, and every legitimate nation for that matter.

So, Who Are We?  Well, we know some things for sure:  we are a representative democracy with certain structural initiatives such as a bi-cameral legislature, with checks and balances between branches of the federal government and a separate Judiciary that has the responsibility of interpreting the meaning of our Constitution.  The nature of our government is meant to be an activist government that is responsible for our unity as a nation by “establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”  But there are some other important elements that make us who we are, and I will list some of those I consider most important:


  •   We believe in the principle of the primacy of law over the wiles and whims of men, but we also believe that the consent of the People must be obtained to sustain such rule of law
  •  We believe that all deserve equal treatment, equal opportunity and equal justice under the law
  •  We also believe that citizens have a duty to obey those laws, but if they have a grievance they may make that known in peaceful protest
  •  While some assert ‘that government is best that governs less,” we actually believe that restraint and prudence are the guiding principles for government intervention or action, and that is why the Constitution puts restraints like warrants, probable cause, a man’s home is his castle, a writ of habeas corpus, the right to due process, the right to privacy and protection of property into our Constitution. 
  • We also believe in unity (out of diversity) and in cooperation between branches as well as among legislators in order to make our system work
  • That cooperation has in the past been extended to other nations and to fair legislative consideration of Executive actions involving other governments
  • We believe in paying for government programs by expecting that a fair tax system will be progressive but not disproportionate
  • Our government is reluctant to be seen as infringing upon our freedoms
  • The national government is protective of us all at times of domestic and international difficulties, when our states act contrary to our constitutional principles, when there is a need of such proportions that only the national government can address the circumstances, and when a small group needs protection against larger predators, or vice versa
  • Our government is forbidden from establishing a national religion, or allowing one religion to be favored over another, but we are also a government that must not infringe upon the freedom to worship, or not to worship.
  • We are an optimistic people, a charitable people, and a people who favor underdogs, probably because our Constitution and laws tend to encourage those attitudes and viewpoints. 
Thus, Who We Are determines to a large degree Why We Are Here.  Attitudes, ideology and commitment to our Constitution and its principles help to determine what we might do about taking action.  But it is in taking fair, just, reasonable and responsible action that we fulfill the promise, the potential and the essence of who we are as a nation.  The current actions taken by a band of ultra Right Wing Republicans bent on diminishing the role of national government is tearing at the fabric of who we are and destroying the reasons why we are here as a nation.  So, perhaps it is time to ask:

Where Are We Headed?
Perhaps Straight to Hell if we don’t make the election of 2016 a recall vote on those Right-Wing Senators and Congresspersons who have failed to represent the constitutional call to protective and enabling action in order to resolve the needs and issues of their constituencies.  At the very least, if we fail to elect a Democrat for President, we shall be subject to a power bloc that will have the ability to transform our nation (and its actions) into an unfamiliar and unsavory entity that will take a very long time to reform and restore.  We have only to look briefly at some of the measures passed in states where Republicans control the Governor's seat and perhaps the legislature and we will find the living examples of voting restrictions, opposition to providing medicaid to the uninsured, the diminishing of Labor rights, stricter abortion legislation, de-funding of Planned Parenthood  (and even attacks on their primary  mission of providing health care to women); opposition to Syrian refugees, potentially harmful laws allowing unrestricted carrying of guns.  We will find hate speech about many different groups allowed and even encouraged; killing of black youngsters by police, unreasonable high unemployment rates among minorities as well as disproportionate incarceration of black and brown men.  We will also find the tax rates dropping for the richest while the middle and poorest classes suffer no minimum wage increase.   There is much more, of course, but the room it takes for recitation is just too high.

We must, instead, seek a better place where:
Ø  There is a larger Vision of service and humanitarian aid for this country to pursue
Ø   There is hope in large supply because common sense laws and cooperation in passing them return
Ø  People are not seen as “others” but as part of our common human family
Ø  We can express a Common Cause of service and justice for all and work together, despite differences, toward a common purpose
Ø  Reform is a constant expression of compassion
Ø  Human development and advancement are acted upon daily
Ø  Programs to meet special needs are seen as the fulfillment of an obligation to provide for the General Welfare, ensure domestic tranquility and to provide for the common defense
Ø  Ordinary citizens are included in government structures as advisers, evaluators, assessors, and citizen advocates.
Ø  Peace is not a dirty word signifying weakness but an activity celebrating the strength of human compassion and reconciliation
Leaders dare to speak out against hate, against injustice, against discrimination and neglect.

We can get there, but we must resolve to get into the action with a daunting commitment to who we are, why we’re here, and to where we need to go.  Money, time, energy, talent, action, commitment and devotion are all in the mix as choices of what one can contribute.  Start somewhere, but do take action.  Phone someone, write something and share it with the public; use your computer to make some noise on social media.  Join an activist group.  Volunteer where there is a need you can fulfill.  Use your talent – art/music/dance/other – to send a message.  Transport someone to register to vote, and then, on Nov. 8, 2016, to the polls to cast a ballot..  Hold a meeting of friends and neighbors to discuss an issue or book or activity.  This New Year—2016—is a watershed year.  Progressives have to act or regression will take-over.  

Who We Are – Why We’re Here -- and Where We’re Going – in the final analysis all depends on YOU and ME! - ACT NOW!