Liberal Opinion Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Vol. 27 NO. 11 March 16, 2016
Week
Charles Blow
The End of American Idealism Sometimes it’s hard to shake the uneasy feeling that we are witnessing the dissolution of an idea that was once America. The country is still a military superpower and an economic and innovation powerhouse, but so many of our institutions are proving to be either fundamentally flawed or deeply broken. This thought kept creeping into my mind as I watched Thursday’s Republican presidential debate in Detroit. It seemed to me the zenith of a carnival of absurdity, as the candidates descended into what appeared to be a penis measuring contest. I kept thinking with dread, “One of these men might actually be the next president” — either the demagogue from New York, the political arsonist from Texas or the empty suit from Florida. (I see no path for the governor from Ohio.) In another political season, liberals might greet such a prospect with glee. But this is not that season. On the Democratic side, the leading candidate is a hawkish political shape shifter, too cozy with big money, whose use of a private email server has led to an FBI investigation, and who most Americans don’t trust. (Around two-thirds of Americans don’t trust either party’s frontrunner.) Her lone opponent is a selfdescribed democratic socialist who seeks to cram sweeping generational changes — hinged on massive systemic disruptions and significant tax hikes — into a presidential term. And he says he will be able to do this with the help of a political revolution, one that has yet to materialize at the polls. One of these people will be the next president of the United States. And this is the country of which they will take the helm: We are a country stuck in perpetual
pre-K to college, serves the wealthy relatively well, but leaves far too many without access, underprepared or drowning in debt. We are plagued by gun violence and mass shootings and yet no one is moving forward on meaningful solutions.
warfare that is now confronting the threat of the Islamic State terrorist group. The Republican candidates have proposed the most outlandish approaches to that threat, including everything from war crimes such as torture and killing terror suspects’ families to carpet bombing in the Middle East until we can see whether “sand can glow in the dark.” Our government is broken. We have a legislative branch that increasingly sees its role as resistance rather than action. There is an opening on the Supreme Court that Republican leaders in the Senate, in a breathtaking and unprecedented move, are saying they won’t let this duly elected president fill. The appointment may fall to the next president. But that same Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech, swinging the door wide open to allow the ultrawealthy to have nearly unlimited influence on the electoral process. No wonder a 2014 study found that America has effectively transformed into an oligarchy
America’s middle class is shrinking. According to a December Pew Research Center report: “Fully 49 percent of U.S. aggregate income went to upper-income households in 2014, up from 29 percent in 1970. The share accruing to middleincome households was 43 percent in 2014, down substantially from 62 percent in 1970.” Our criminal justice system has made a mockery of the concept of equal justice with its racially skewed pattern of mass incarceration. Not only is the United States “the world’s leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation’s prisons or jails — a 500 percent increase over the past thirty years,” according to the Sentencing Project, but the group also points out: “More than 60 percent of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For black males in their thirties, 1 in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the ‘war on drugs,’ in which twothirds of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.” The list of woe is a mile long. There is palpable discontent in this country among those who feel left out and left behind in the bounty of America’s prosperity. How long can the center hold? How long can the illusion be sustained? How long before we start to call this the post-American idealism era?
instead of a democracy. And yet, that is an idea that most Americans are pathologically incapable of processing. We suffer from a blithe glacialism, occasionally cursing the winds that carry our demise, but mostly hoping against hope and pretending that evidence of things seen and felt is either faulty or fleeting. It is not. We have millions of undocumented immigrants in this country, but comprehensive immigration reform remains a thing we bicker about but never move on. Our infrastructure is in shambles, but in a country where the bridges are crumbling, Republican candidates are obsessed about building a border wall. The city of Flint was poisoned as officials sought to pinch pennies. Global warming continues unabated, most likely intensifying the severity of extreme weather — from droughts to hurricanes to blizzards — and yet last month the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Obama administration’s rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions c.2016 New York Times News Service from power plants. 3-6-16 Our educational system, from
Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Thomas Friedman
Our Politics Aren’t Keeping Up When the U.S. military trains fighter pilots, it uses a concept called the OODA loop. It stands for observe, orient, decide, act. The idea is that if your ability to observe, orient, decide and act in a dogfight at 30,000 feet is faster than the other pilot’s, you’ll shoot his plane out of the sky. If the other pilot’s OODA loop is faster, he’ll shoot you out of the sky. For a while now, it’s been obvious that our national OODA loop is broken — and it couldn’t be happening at a worse time. Our OODA loop is busted right when the three largest forces on the planet — technology, globalization and climate change — are in simultaneous nonlinear acceleration. Climate change is intensifying. Technology is making everything faster and amplifying every voice. And globalization is making the world more interdependent than ever, so we are impacted by others more than ever. These accelerations are raising all the requirements for the American dream — they are raising the skill level and lifelong learning requirements for every good job; they are raising the bar on governance, the speed at which governments need to make decisions and the need for hybrid solutions that produce both stronger safety nets and more entrepreneurship to spawn more good jobs. They are
also raising the bar on leadership, requiring leaders who can navigate this complexity and foster a resilient country. My own view is that these three accelerations have begun blowing up weak states — see parts of the Middle East and Africa — and they’re just beginning to blow up the politics of strong states. You can see it in America, Britain and Europe. The challenges posed by these accelerations, and what will be required to produce resilient citizens and communities, are forcing a politics that is much more of a hybrid of left and right. It is the kind of politics you already see practiced in successful communities and towns in America — places like Minneapolis; Austin, Texas; Louisville, Kentucky; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon — where coalitions made up of the business community, educators and local government come together to forge hybrid solutions to improve their competitiveness and resilience. Unfortunately, we can’t get there at the national level since: one of our two major parties has gone nuts and we have designed paralysis into our politics. The Republican Party fell into the grip of a coalition of far-right media and money people who have
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created a closed loop of incentives for bad behavior and never getting to hybrid: Deny climate change. Spurn immigration reform. Shut down the Congress. Block Obamacare (even though it was based on an idea first implemented by a Republican governor). Do so, and you get rewarded by Fox TV and the GOP cash machine. Stray from those principles, and you get purged.
collectively stupid.” We have major issues that Congress needs to resolve via politics, and the failure to do so will really hurt us: How do we balance privacy and security? How do we expand free trade and cushion our workers hurt from the effects? How do we make the fixes in Obamacare to make it more sustainable? These will all require hybrid compromises, not dogmatism.
That purging eventually produced a collection of Republican presidential candidates who, when they gathered on stage for their first debate, resembled nothing more than the “Star Wars” bar scene at The Mos Eisley Cantina on the remote planet of Tatooine — that assortment of alien species, each more bizarre than the next, from a “galaxy far, far away.” At the same time, as political scientist Gidi Grinstein points out, at the national level, because of the way congressional districts have been gerrymandered by both parties to produce either more liberal Democrats or more conservative Republicans, we’ve shifted to a system that nationally incentivizes polarization and prevents hybrid solutions. America, argues Grinstein, is making itself “structurally polarized at the national level and therefore
The guy who actually understands this is President Barack Obama. He’s never been as strong on entrepreneurship as I would like, but he’s also never been the radical lefty the GOP invented. His instinct has been to go hybrid — to combine support for free trade and immigration, to implement a Common Core to upgrade education, to provide health care so workers can be more mobile, to fund more Pell grants so more students can afford college, to make investments in clean tech, to make changes in the tax code to narrow income gaps — all to make the country more resilient. We could have done so much more with his presidency. What it is fascinating about Donald Trump is that he is blowing up the Republican Party by offering a totally new hybrid politics. In that
Friedman continued on page 3
Reference Guide Government Politics
1 Blow 2 Friedman 3 Petri
Hillary Clinton 4 Bernstein 4 Hunt 5 Lyons
Republicans
6 Carlson 6 Hunt 7 Bershidsky 8 Page 8 Dionne 9 Krugman
Government
Government
National
10 Cillizza 10 Press 11 Marcus 12 Egan 12 Lake 13 Robinson 14 King 14 Petri 15 Kristof
18 Page 18 Petri 19 Marcus 20 Krugman 20 Witcover 21 Dionne
24 Bruni
Republicans
16-17 Liberal Delineations
Republicans
Supreme Court 22 Young
Nancy Reagan 23 Hunt 23 Capehart
National Economy 24 Gilbert
Education Health
25 Flam
Cops
26 Dvorak
Robbers
26 Milloy
Sports
27 Gilbert
Technology 28 Soghoian 28 Kiriakou 29 Federighi
Women
30 Gadebusch 30 Feldman 31 Dinsmore
Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Alexandra Petri
‘House of Cards’ Has Become An Escapist Utopia “House of Cards” is back. And just in time to offer an escape from the hilarious dystopia of our actual politics into the utopian vision of a politics where, if things go wrong, it is because an evil someone behind the scenes knows what he or she is doing. If only. The one true rule of politics is Hanlon’s Razor, which states that you should never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity. This pretty much rules out “House of Cards.” Its dysfunctional politics are dysfunctional because people are interested in making deals. Making deals! Can you imagine? In fact, if it weren’t for all the murder, “House of Cards” would be aspirational. One of the main characters, between bouts of dastardly scheming, routinely goes on long jogs. (This should warn us. Any TV show that believes people actually jog when no one is looking would think that the reason politics are dysfunctional is that Washington is full of competent politicians who only sabotage things on purpose.) Then people sit down in lovely rooms and make secret deals there. The basic impulse behind “House of Cards” is the same thing that drives UFO fanatics. I have been to multiple gatherings of people who believe in UFOs -- both a fauxcongressional hearing for people who wanted to present evidence
Friedman continued from page 2
regard he is a pioneer — socially liberal in some ways, isolationist in others. He is almost Democratic in his approach to Social Security, yet he is anti-immigrant, bigoted and fear-mongering in other ways. And he is positively irresponsible in his budget proposals. His hybrid is an incoherent mess, more designed to appeal to the GOP base than to govern. But if Trump uses it to explode this Republican Party and to open the way for a new, mature, hybrid center-right version, he will have done the Lord’s work. But please, Lord, keep him away from the White House. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-1-16
of a massive UFO conspiracy and an event for people who wanted to talk about their own experiences of abduction -- and both times, it came down to: Well, it may be that a sinister committee of Reptilians or Greys or Arcturians are running the whole world, nay, the whole universe, but, dang it, at least someone knows what’s going on. It is the reassuring conspiracy theorist view of the world, where things that go wrong are only proceeding according to someone else’s dastardly plan. And make no mistake, there is a plan. But if politics these days have any lessons to offer, other than that middle school is never truly over, it is: there is no plan. Things will not just work themselves out. All those political theorists who said Don’t Worry, The Party Will Pick, The Trump Train Would Stop -were, how to put this politely, not grounded in fact. Not only is no one driving the bus, but also there might not be a bus. But try telling people that. Last weekend, I was at a Marco Rubio rally and a woman in attendance, who asked to be identified only
by her middle name, Ariella, told me that [the media] are “ramming Trump down our throats because they’re afraid of losing their jobs. Trump’s probably best friends with George Soros and Rupert Murdoch.” Media “are forced to glorify him. They have no choice if they want to keep their jobs. . . . They’re all buddies, probably eat lunch [together] once a week. Phyllis Schlafly predicted this in her articles. The liberal media will pick your candidates for you.” This is a lovely and orderly vision of the world -- but it is not the case. The reason everyone is writing about Donald Trump literally 100 percent of the time always (sorry, by the way) is not that we are being forced to do so by our Sinister, All-Knowing Masters. It is simply that people click on articles about Donald Trump, and we live and die by the click. The same goes across the board. When you think you see a Cunning And Devious Plan, it’s almost always the result of a dozen or a hundred individual instances of accumulated incompetence. It is almost never a Cunning And Devious Plan. When
things go spectacularly wrong, it is not because everyone bought into some Hideous Scheme, but because each individual person was doing something that made sense to her on a small scale, and when she looked up, it was too late. Still, it can be nice to feel that someone, somewhere knows what he is doing (never mind that nothing you have ever experienced leads you to believe this.) That’s why we watch “House of Cards.” But make no mistake: it’s fiction. Alexandra Petri writes the ComPost blog, offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of “A Field Guide to Awkward Silences.” (c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-6-16
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Jonathan Bernstein
Clinton’s Actually Pretty Good At This Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, full stop. No, she didn’t formally clinch, and Bernie Sanders picked up victories in Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Vermont. But the overall numbers are clear. Clinton crushed Sanders in the states she figured to win, and has kept it close in most states she figured to lose. For example, the political website FiveThirtyEight estimated she needed to win Virginia by 9 percentage points; she was winning by almost 30. In Georgia, she needed to win by 27 points, but she was ahead by more than 40; and in Massachusetts, Sanders needed to win by 11 but she won it narrowly. Large leads are difficult to overtake in the Democratic presidential race because strict proportional allocation of delegates means that even a slumping front-runner continues to get closer to locking up a majority. Nothing in the election returns to date, or polls of future states, or anything else indicates any nomination trouble ahead for Clinton. A lot of people underrate her as a politician. I suspect it’s because she isn’t good at delivering speeches. I can’t think of a major-party nominee in the video era (say, from 1952 on) who was significantly worse than she is at it, and most have been better, some by a lot. Her effort on Tuesday night was as pedestrian as usual. But public performance is only one part of what politicians do, and speeches are only a part of that. She’s good at other parts of public performance, including debates, one-on-one interviews and grillings by hostile congressional committees. And she has strengths we don’t see on the surface. No one just walks his or her way into a presidential nomination. She has earned it. Partly it was her success in cultivating strong ties with a wide variety of party actors: Some who supported her husband in the 1990s, some who had signed on for her in 2008, and still others who were new to her camp this time. It isn’t just about building relationships. Clinton has expertly positioned herself right in the mainstream of where Democrats are on public policy, leaving little room for anyone to challenge her. The challenge, it turned out, came from the fringe left of the party. While Bernie Sanders turned out to appeal to many voters, there has not been enough room between him and Clinton for him to win significant support from organized groups or high-profile individuals within the party. Yes, she has benefited because many Democrats are eager to put a woman in the Oval Office. But that’s the game. You use what you have, and you try to minimize the disadvantages you’re stuck with (and we know from experience and can see from some media coverage of her campaign that Running While Female has challenges too). Her husband presents both opportunities and problems -- this time around, at least so far, she has learned
to exploit the former and limit damage from the skills we’ve seen so far would make her good at latter. the job of president, if she gets the opportunity. All we know is that the great presidents were When she has had trouble -- and all master politicians of one kind or another. And as presidential candidates run into trouble -- virtually we have just seen, Hillary Clinton is a very, very no one dropped her. No, parties can’t snap their good politician. fingers and automatically anoint nominees (as the This column does not necessarily reflect the Republican side demonstrates). But they not only opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP can give a huge boost up to candidates the party and its owners. actors favor; they also provide leeway for them --In each case, those targets are estimates of when they stumble. The more the party is united how the candidates would do in each state if the behind a single candidate, the more those effects overall national contest was tied. Those estimates kick in. could be wrong, but so far (pending final numbers All this matters less in general elections, on Tuesday night) Clinton has beaten the target in simply because the individual nominee is far every state, sometimes by large margins. less important then than in primary elections. Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg View Despite the strong feelings so many have about columnist covering U.S. politics. her, she will likely enter that contest as a generic (c) 2016, Bloomberg Democratic candidate. 3-2-16 And we can’t know for sure if the political
Albert Hunt
Hillary Clinton’s Hubris Could Still Trip Her
Hillary Clinton could be in for some political peril. Sure, by winning 11 of the 17 contests since her New Hampshire drubbing, and running away with the delegate count, she’s not far from sewing up the Democratic presidential nomination. It’s the Republicans, not the Democrats, who face bitter divides that endanger the party’s future. Clinton is riding high; that’s the problem. “Her history is that whenever she gets ahead and looks in good shape, she reverts to her worst form,” says Peter D. Hart, a leading Democratic pollster, citing 2007 and this cycle after her stellar first debate performance. The Democrats’ confidence is based on the folly of Republicans’ nominating Donald Trump. But a lot can change in a few months and the Democrats’ own house has some needs. There is a demonstrable lack of enthusiasm about the likely Democratic nominee, underscored by the low turnouts in most contests. She is identified with the establishment by a restless electorate, and she is neither especially liked nor trusted by many swing voters, even some Democrats. “She seems out of sync with the electorate,” says J. Ann Selzer, after looking at the surveys conducted by her firm, Selzer & Co., for Bloomberg, as well as primary exit polls. “For someone who started her campaign on a listening tour she doesn’t seem to be listening.” Her likability issues go back a ways. In New Hampshire eight years ago, Barack Obama cracked, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.” The lack of trust stems mainly from the period after she stepped down as secretary of state in 2013. Her shortcomings with voters have little to do
with ideology or policies. “She laps the field on competence and skills to do the job,” Hart says. “What she needs to do is neutralize the personal distaste.” The Democratic pollster suggests that “she needs an event most days that is personal, human, sometimes even light.” He said that the public needs to see more of the emotional side she displayed at a town hall in December, when she comforted a girl with asthma who had been bullied: “There won’t be a magical moment where people say she’s really a good egg but over time she can create a more favorable impression.” David Plouffe, who managed Obama’s brilliant campaign against Clinton eight years ago, concurs, noting that it’s a myth that voters know all about her given that she has been around for a quarter century: “The key in this race is to define the race, her opponent and herself.” Plouffe says this definition has to be “authentic’ and “tied to her sense of advocacy, which would reveal interesting sides of herself.” If she did this well, he adds, it could offer a comparative advantage with Trump -- “this is a place he can’t go.” The trustworthiness problem is deeper, more difficult. It stems from some issues that are unfair to her, such as the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed -- Capitol Hill Republicans tried and failed to use the incident to tarnish her. But some of the wounds are selfinflicted, such as her use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state and the huge speaking fees
Hunt continued on page 5
Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Gene Lyons
Clinton’s America Never Stopped Being Great Sometimes, you take your laughs where you find them. For me, the funniest moment in an otherwise dreary and intermittently scary election year came when Candidate Trump visited the old state fairgrounds in Little Rock. A character seemingly straight out of a Charles Portis novel provided the most incisive commentary. The author of “True Grit” is the state’s best novelist, a master of deadpan comedy in a tone-perfect Arkansas twang. According to the newspaper, a Trump supporter carrying a “Make America Great Again” sign encountered a young man on his way into the arena to bask in the Great Braggart’s eerie orange glow. “America’s already great, you dumb-butt!” the kid said. He could have been Portis’ Norwood Pratt, the would-be country singer traveling the country with Joann the Wonder Hen, the College Educated Chicken. An exMarine, Norwood wasn’t one to mince words.
Hunt continued from page 4
she received for private talks to big Wall Street companies. Democratic strategists suggest that there’s no easy way to deal with it. Some talk about her doing a “Sister Souljah” moment, a reference to her husband’s criticism of a black rapper in 1992. This would require Hillary Clinton to take an unpopular, even risky position, displaying courage, a character point. That, however, probably is not in her political DNA. A general election campaign against Trump would be filled fear and loathing. His Republican rivals, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz can tell her how dirty the fight against the New York billionaire can get. Leading Democrats are confident that with her superior knowledge and intellectual agility, she can handle this. What worries them more is her recurring tendency, when on top, to show hubris. Albert Hunt is a Bloomberg columnist. (c) 2016, Bloomberg 3-6-16
So there was Hillary Clinton on the night of her thunderous win over Sen. Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina primary. “We don’t need to make America great again,” she said. “America never stopped being great. But we do need to make America whole again. Instead of building walls, we need to be tearing down barriers. We need to show by everything we are in this together.” Ain’t that the truth? Maybe not in Trump World, where voters who never tire of proclaiming their holiness are voting for an aging playboy who brags about the married women he’s seduced. (In his book “The Art of the Deal.”) But he’s going to put Them back in their Sanders’ remarks weren’t place, isn’t he? merely insulting, but tone-deaf Yeah, well, good luck with that. and objectively dumb. As South Anyway, I suspect Hillary has Carolina’s Rep. Jim Clyburn put it, “I don’t know how you can found a winning theme. Meanwhile, pundits seem oddly look at Mrs. Clinton’s history -reluctant to say so, but Bernie’s she was not running for president candidacy imploded due to a classic in the 1970s when she came to political blunder when he accused his South Carolina to work with opponent of pandering to African- those African-American juvenile American voters by supporting detainees or juvenile inmates trying to better their conditions, when she President Obama. “Hillary Clinton now is trying went to work with Marian Wright to embrace the president as closely Edelman, a native of Bennettsville, as she possibly can. Everything South Carolina, to come down here the president does is wonderful. working with her trying to better the She loves the president, he loves lives of children ... So, what was she her and all that stuff,” Sanders said doing? Who was she pandering to sarcastically. “And we know what back then?” that’s about. That’s trying to win Not Barack Obama, Clyburn support from the African-American noted, who was in junior high community, where the president is school. But then the Sanders campaign’s enormously popular.” Never mind that she was Obama’s idea of a South Carolina surrogate Secretary of State. Bernie delivered was Princeton professor and these remarks in an interview with controversialist Cornel West, author BET’s Marc Lamont Hill on Feb. 18. of this immortal trope from 2011: His poll numbers have plummeted “I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free like a stone ever since. In early February, Gallup reported black men. It’s understandable,” that Sanders’ net favorability rating West said. “As a young brother stood at 57 percent to Clinton’s 44. who grows up in a white context, By the March 1 “Super Tuesday” brilliant African father, he’s always primaries, those numbers were had to fear being a white man reversed. Bernie dropped 13 points with black skin. All he has known culturally is white ... When he meets as Clinton rose. I wouldn’t presume to speak for an independent black brother, it is black voters, but they tend to be frightening.” very acute about being patronized. Nothing scarier than a Princeton Indeed, 81 percent of Democrats revolutionary. generally have a favorable opinion of President Obama, along with a West recently suggested that reported 97 percent of black voters civil rights icons Clyburn and Rep. John Lewis had sold out to Wall in South Carolina.
Street. “Tell you what, my brother,” President Obama might have responded if he were a character in a Portis novel, “don’t pee on my shoes and tell me it’s raining.” As the results of this foolishness became manifest, some Sanders supporters began suggesting it was wrong for red state voters to have so much to say about the Democratic nomination. Only Yankees need apply. “Given the reality of a Republican presidential primary where the candidates are racing to outdo each other in their contempt for people of color ...” Nancy LeTourneau writes in Washington Monthly, “is it any surprise that African-Americans would assume that this country is facing the threat of a confederate insurgency?” No surprise at all. Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of “The Hunting of the President” (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). You can email Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo. com. Copyright 2016, Gene Lyons 3-2-16
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Margaret Carlson
Republican Dilemma: Trump or the Anti-Trump At about 10 p.m. on Super Tuesday, Donald Trump pivoted from candidate to nominee to president. He invited the country to the Florida White House. Rather than a victory speech in a rented hotel ballroom, he held a formal press conference at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach mansion/golf club. With its high ceilings, heavy molding, and a phalanx of flags, the setting was a Trumpian pastiche of the East Room. He even had a courtier, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, standing over his shoulder, nodding like Nancy Reagan and applauding limply like a listless Ed McMahon. What stagecraft. More important, Trump the showman tamped down the bombast, limited himself to a few personal insults, stayed on message and promised unity. He still delivered his usual stream of consciousness, each disparate thought loosely connected by “believe me,” “to be honest with you” and “in all fairness,” but it wasn’t unhinged. Still, the exercise in restraint wasn’t enough to calm those who fear an authoritarian strong man with seemingly poor impulse control and the nuclear codes at his fingertips. But he managed to impersonate a candidate who knows he’s won the prize, even if most of Washington is busy figuring out how to make sure he hasn’t.
anyone who warned that was impossible was tarred Nor were those who know him shocked that his as a Nazi appeaser. campaign spread a false report that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race in Iowa so that he could pick Cruz went further. Shortly after he came up those votes. He won dirty. Two weeks ago, he to Washington, he said, “I’m pretty certain Mitt had to fire Rick Tyler, a top aide, for an ad claiming Romney actually French-kissed Barack Obama” that Rubio was faking his respect for the Bible. and deserved to lose the presidency. Meanwhile Trump, counting delegates, fell Before he got to the Senate, when he had a minor asleep dreaming of his winter White House, not job with George W. Bush, Cruz’s fingers had to be a reality show as much as a mathematical reality. pried off the handle of his van so anxious was he Republicans made it possible. By tearing down to have face time with the boss. As Texas solicitor government, by trying to prove the president was general, he showed no balance. He was so adamant an illegitimate Kenyan-born Muslim (with Trump’s that a kid sentenced to 16 years for stealing a help), by treating compromise as a mortal sin, and calculator from Wal-mart serve his full sentence that by shutting down Washington for the fun of it, the he took the case to the Supreme Court to be sure the party has brought itself to this point. mistake wasn’t corrected. Now they may have to choose between a It’s hard to choose Cruz’s worst piece of behavior, vulgar, fast-talking salesman - with few scruples, but accusing Sen. Chuck Hagel of treason during five children by three wives and businesses that his hearings to be confirmed as secretary of defense ran roughshod over workers - and an arrogant, could take the cake. He kept saying that Hagel was prevaricating, self-satisfied, preening, Bible-quoting corrupted by money from enemies of the U.S., careerist who thinks he’s perfect. Let’s hope they particularly North Korea. Members of his own party choose wisely. were appalled. Margaret Carlson is a Bloomberg View He brought his temperament to his campaign. He columnist. photo-shopped a picture of Rubio to look as if he (c) 2016, Bloomberg were warmly shaking Obama’s hand at the Capitol. 3-2-16
If things weren’t bad enough for a party that sees itself hurtling into the abyss, Super Tuesday delivered another huge problem: The rise of the anti-Trump Ted Cruz, the most reviled member of Congress in recent memory. Although Florida Sen, Marco Rubio finally won something, the Minnesota caucuses, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich almost won Vermont, Cruz is the only candidate to have beaten Trump in three states. He should be the apple of the eye of every super PAC, wealthy donor and Republican who wants to keep the nomination from the renegade Trump. But even the most desperate mainstream Republicans who care about limited government, fiscal discipline, low taxes and a realistic foreign policy are hobbled by an asterisk to their #NeverTrump pledge that says “But Not Cruz.” Maybe they can get over it after a bad week in which Trump quoted Mussolini and hemmed and hawed over rejecting the white supremacist David Duke, prompting House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to denounce him. There’s a lot to overcome with Cruz. By all accounts, even his friends don’t like him. His one comrade, Sen. Mike Lee, moved on, eventually finding a new alliance with a Democrat, Sen. Cory Booker, on criminal justice reform. Cruz walks alone in the Senate. Cruz’s biggest problem, to avoid the L-word, is truthiness. Look him in the eye and get his vote for your bill and learn during roll call that he’s changed his mind. The epithet “liar” has been thrown around during this campaign, but Cruz was an early adopter, breaking a taboo by calling McConnell one -- and on the Senate floor. As he crusaded to repeal Obamacare,
The Republicans’ Muddle Is Good For Trump
Albert Hunt
As Donald Trump continues his march toward the Republican presidential nomination, panic is spreading among Republicans over how and whether they can stop the New York billionaire. Trump won at least six of the 11 Republican contests on Tuesday, from New England to a convincing sweep of the Southeast. He probably racked up more delegates than all his opponents combined. It wasn’t a clean sweep. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz handily won his home state of Texas, the biggest delegate prize of March 1, and upset Trump in Oklahoma. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio won his first contest of the campaign, in Minnesota, where Cruz also beat Trump. Cruz’s victories and Rubio’s mediocre showing overall sustains the divided opposition to Trump for at least a few more weeks. Rubio now needs a victory in his home state of Florida in the primary there on March 15. Similarly, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who finished out of the money everywhere but New England, needs to beat Trump in his home-state primary on the same day. On the Democratic side, it was another big night for Hillary Clinton. She continued to run away from Sen. Bernie Sanders by dominating the South with huge margins among African-American voters. She also won a hotly competitive race in Massachusetts. Sanders easily captured his home state of Vermont and beat Clinton in Oklahoma, Minnesota and Colorado. Clinton remains a prohibitive favorite to win
the nomination, yet the Vermont socialist did well enough to credibly continue his challenge. He hopes to frame a big showdown with the former Secretary of State on March 8 in Michigan, where he will make opposition to free-trade deals a central issue. Much of the Republican party, which has been in denial for months about a Trump nomination, now is engaged in meetings, strategy sessions and debates over what to do about the prospect. It is quickly developing into the most divisive intraparty fight in modern times, worse than the 1964 struggle between Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller or the 1976 contest between President Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Trump and his supporters believe they are tapping into the righteous anger of a frustrated electorate, only to be rebuffed by a privileged establishment defending its own interests. If his quest for the Republican nomination is foiled, Trump seems ready to attempt a party-shattering independent candidacy. Many Republican office holders and policy experts believe Trump would be an electoral disaster for Republicans. Polls show him running behind Hillary Clinton and taking down a lot of Republican officeholders with him as he taints the party’s already troubled image with his anti-immigration and racially incendiary postures.
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Leonid Bershidsky
The U.S. System Is Designed To Beat Trump “The evil we experience flows from the excess of democracy,” Massachusetts delegate Elbridge Gerry told the Constitutional Convention on May 31, 1787. The 2016 Super Tuesday voting rules in his home state do nothing to limit such “excesses,” and Donald Trump is likely to win in a landslide there. Yet, ultimately, the existing primary rules may serve the Founding Fathers’ goal of creating safeguards against ochlocracy -- mob rule. Gerry could have been watching Trump and wincing. He said: “The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. In Massachusetts it had been fully confirmed by experience, that they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions, by the false reports circulated by designing men, and which no one on the spot can refute.” In Massachusetts on Super Tuesday, polls give Trump 44 percent and his closest rival, Marco Rubio, only 18 percent. The state will distribute its delegates proportionally among candidates. Other Super Tuesday states have rules more weighted in favor of the front-runner. Most Southern states will give all their delegates to the candidate who wins more than
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There’s disagreement about how to respond, with party factions flailing at one another. Some believe he still can be denied the 1,237 delegates necessary to win the nomination at the Republican convention in Cleveland this summer. That would be feasible only if Rubio and Kasich win the winner-take-all contests in their home states in two weeks. Even then, Trump probably would have a clear lead in the delegate count, and the opposition would have trouble rallying behind one alternative. The reality is that the party establishment will have little influence on the convention without manipulating rules in a way that would assure a rupture. There are intense behind-thescenes efforts to rally opposition. One outside effort has begun, funded by the family of Marlene Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs and a big Republican donors. It includes antiTrump ads in Florida and Ohio and is being assisted by a former top aide to Jeb Bush. One catalyzing moment
50 percent (though Arkansas, for example, will subtract one delegate for each rival who wins more than 15 percent). In Alabama, the winner in each congressional district will pick up two out of three delegates. The sheer variety of often illogical election rules baffles a foreign observer: It isn’t clear why the states have different procedures if this is about federal office, and it’s even harder to understand why the results need additional weighting toward the winner. Democracy, after all, would be best served by a straight proportional system, as in Massachusetts. I put the weird rule-making down to the Founding Fathers’ mistrust of democracy. James Madison only thought it suited to small polities where the people can gather and rule directly; bigger ones needed what he called a republican system of representation. The rules by which this representation would be defined were meant to curb excessive democracy because voters’ ignorant passion might lead to tyranny (20th-century European history knows plenty of such examples). That’s why the Electoral College, and not the people directly, elects the president. Ostensibly, the primary rules weren’t written with anti-ochlocracy was Trump’s jumbled refusal last weekend to disavow David Duke, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Another party faction argues that the Trump nomination is inevitable, and that to protect other Republicans, especially vulnerable senators, an independent candidacy led by a conservative should be waged. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska is promoting this approach. It would be hard to carry out, starting with an uphill effort to get on ballots in big states like Texas, North Carolina and Illinois. So far there is no credible standard bearer. Some Republicans have said they wouldn’t support Trump. On the other side, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy advocates trying to work with the maverick billionaire, calculating that he would become more flexible than he appears once in the White House. Sanders is unlikely to succumb to Democratic pressure to bow out. He is winning delegates and has created an effective money machine of 1.5 million small donors. His campaign
safeguards in mind. They were meant to draw a quicker path to intraparty unity on a presidential candidate. The result is that Trump, a potential strongman without majority support in a single state, has a distinct advantage and a chance to seal the primary campaign soon after Tuesday’s 11state vote fest. One thing I’ve come to understand about U.S. politics, however, is that you don’t mess with the Founding Fathers. Everything that feeds into the system they built only proves the
believes he can do well in some upcoming small-state caucuses, and he relishes the Michigan primary showdown next Tuesday. Free trade is unpopular there, and Sanders has been a longtime opponent of trade deals while Secretary Clinton is a recent convert to the cause. Some Clinton strategists believe it won’t be possible to address her weakness with younger voters until the Sanders challenge dissipates. An FBI inquiry into her private email account potentially could derail her quest. Even if her use of a private server instead of a government one survives legal scrutiny, she could be damaged politically if any aides are found culpable. Either way, the e-mail controversy has taken a toll on Clinton’s reputation for trustworthiness. In recent polls she has the second highest unfavorable ratings of any major national political figure. The worst is Donald Trump. Albert Hunt is a Bloomberg columnist. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-2-16
system more efficient. Democracy’s excesses are covered, after all. If Trump wins the nomination without majority support among the Republicans, simply because he faces a divided field, the party is likely to lose the general election. At least that’s what the head-to-head polls show: According to most of them, Hillary Clinton (not to mention Bernie Sanders) will be able to beat Trump in November. Ted Cruz, Rubio and John Kasich would all beat Clinton, according to the polls. That’s because they are largely interchangeable, and the Republican majority can back any of them without compromising too much on principle. Not so with Trump: Many Republicans won’t be able to bring themselves to vote for him. I have seen this among evangelicals in South Carolina, and my Bloomberg View colleague Megan McArdle has recently documented the phenomenon among the Republican readers of her columns and Twitter feed. The Republican primary system is pushing Trump forward though he is not the party’s preferred candidate. Ultimately, the rules are set up to punish the party for being unable to choose the candidate who would best represent it. The punishment is all the more cruel because it is delayed, allowing the suboptimal candidate to taste victory prematurely. Leonid Bershidsky, a Bloomberg View contributor, is a Berlin-based writer. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-2-16
Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Clarence Page
Trump Nips Media Hand That Feeds Him To those who admire Donald Trump’s pushback campaign against political correctness, please note of how quickly his own inner thought cop leaps forth when his own fragile ego is poked. “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Trump said in a rally rant last weekend, without bothering to offer any examples of what he was talking about. “We’re going to open up those libel laws. So that when The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.” In other words, Trump promises to pursue those who dare to use the First Amendment for what it was intended to protect: your right to criticize the powerful. Ah, yes, scratch anyone deeply enough and you will find a censor, especially if -- like Trump -that someone has made bullying a central feature of his brand. Even for Trump, his assault against press freedom was breathtakingly detached from reality. A public figure, which Trump is, already has the right to sue and “win big” when someone has published false or malicious statements about him. But someone who sues also is required to offer such niceties as facts and evidence, two obligations that Trump seldom allows to get in the way of a good rant. In journalism school, we were schooled thoroughly in New York Times v. Sullivan, among other press law. That landmark Supreme Court case established “actual malice” as a standard before public officials could claim defamation or libel. The case was brought to push back against lawsuits filed by Southern governments to chill news coverage of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights protesters. That civil rights connection took on new significance a couple of days after Trump’s tirade as he hemmed and hawed his way through an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. Trump tried to sound as if he had never heard of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who had just endorsed the billionaire developer’s presidential campaign. Ah, here come those pesky, inconvenient facts again. CNN video of Trump in 1991 and a report by The New York Times in 2000 showed Trump rejecting Duke as “not company I wish to keep.” But that was then. In the days before Super Tuesday, Trump suddenly developed amnesia about any knowledge not only of Trump but also the Klan. “I don’t know any -- honestly I don’t know David Duke,” replied Trump, and “... I just don’t know anything about him.”
Why lie? Trump later blamed a lousy earpiece for his fib. Yet he looked and sounded as though he heard the question quite clearly but simply did not want to answer it. Sure, he might upset pragmatic Republican establishment voters, but he was not about to disappoint his base. Considering how much white nationalist support he has attracted, he may be right. Various reports (Evan Osnos’ excellent article “The Fearful and the Frustrated” in the Aug. 31 New Yorker was notably thorough) indicate Trump’s promises to ban Muslims and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, among his other excesses, has attracted the dwindling multitudes of white supremacy like cats to catnip. Trump’s attack against press freedom ironically bites the media hand that has fed him and his surprisingly successful campaign. He has uncovered a cauldron of boiling resentments, particularly among the same class of struggling working-class white Americans who complained
in the 1960s that there was no civil rights group to speak for them. Instead they turned to the Democratic presidential campaign of Alabama’s former segregationist governor George Wallace, which bears striking similarities to today’s populist uprising led by Trump. In similar fashion, candidate Trump sounds less concerned with denouncing bigotry than with using it. He wouldn’t be the first. Democracy requires tolerance for a wide variety of views, including the goofy. But I no longer wonder how civilized democracies crumble into tyranny and chaos. Trump has shown us the first steps: Feed people what they want to hear, not what they need to know. E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com. (C) 2016 Clarence Page 3-2-16
E.J. Dionne Jr.
A GOP Trapped By Trump
The Republican Party is on the verge of being taken over by an egomaniac who appeals to the nation’s darkest impulses. Yet Donald Trump’s foes are splintered, tactically but also philosophically. It doesn’t help that each of his three serious challengers is a flawed alternative. None is sufficiently dominant to force the others aside. Sen. Ted Cruz has the most legitimate claim as a Trump-slayer. He’s now beaten him in four contests. Yet Cruz is so disliked by so many party leaders that they have refused to rally behind him. Indeed, many in the GOP view Cruz as being nearly as vulnerable to Hillary Clinton as Trump is. She took a large step toward securing the Democratic nomination with her seven victories over Bernie Sanders on Super Tuesday. The Republican establishment plainly prefers Sen. Marco Rubio, but voters have not gone along. Rubio did manage to win the Minnesota caucuses. But he ran third in eight of the other 10 states that voted Tuesday and has lost 14 times since the nomination battle began. Gov. John Kasich may well be the party’s strongest potential general-election candidate. But his relative moderation has so far marginalized him in an increasingly right-wing party. Only in Vermont, one of the few states where a less strident brand of conservatism still plays well in the GOP, did Kasich put up a fierce challenge to Trump. Still, Kasich lost. But the difficulty Republicans have in identifying a single candidate to take Trump down speaks to a deeper problem. Its leaders have yet to decide whether Trump’s greatest sin is that he exploits bigotry or that he fails to bow to conservative ideological orthodoxy. While some conservatives such as Sen. Ben
Sasse, R-Neb., have brought the two strands together, there is ambivalence about how to go after Trump because the party itself has often played at backlash politics around race and immigration -- and because, throughout President Obama’s tenure, it embraced Trump as an ally in stirring resentment on the far right. Mitt Romney, now one of Trump’s leading antagonists, warmly welcomed Trump’s endorsement in the 2012 presidential campaign. Moreover, some of Trump’s most extreme positions have won wide approval from the Republican rank-and-file. For example, exit polls reported by CNN and The Washington Post found broad backing for his temporary ban on Muslims from entering the U.S: It was favored by 78 percent of Republican primary voters in Alabama, 67 percent in Texas and 63 percent in Virginia. It’s true that anti-Trump Republicans found common ground in excoriating Trump for his equivocation in condemning the Ku Klux Klan and the racist leader David Duke. “This party does not prey on people’s prejudices,” insisted House Speaker Paul Ryan. In fact, the party has subtly and not so subtly played on racial resentment -- birtherism, the claim that Obama is a Muslim, Ronald Reagan’s famous “welfare queen” reference -- for decades. Trump is just cruder about it. In any event, many Republicans dislike Trump primarily because they can’t abide his flight from conservative orthodoxy. He has criticized the Iraq War and George W. Bush’s foreign policy. He has attacked free trade. He opposes cuts in Social Security and Medicare. His vagueness on health
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Paul Krugman
Clash of Republican Con Artists So Republicans are going to nominate a candidate who talks complete nonsense on domestic policy; who believes that foreign policy can be conducted via bullying and belligerence; who cynically exploits racial and ethnic hatred for political gain. But that was always going to happen, however the primary season turned out. The only news is that the candidate in question is probably going to be Donald Trump. Establishment Republicans denounce Trump as a fraud, which he is. But is he more fraudulent than the establishment trying to stop him? Not really. Actually, when you look at the people making those denunciations, you have to wonder: Can they really be that lacking in self-awareness? Donald Trump is a “con artist,” says Marco Rubio — who has promised to enact giant tax cuts, undertake a huge military buildup and balance the budget without any cuts in benefits to Americans over 55. “There can be no evasion and no games,” thunders Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House — whose muchhyped budgets are completely reliant on “mystery meat,” that is, it claims trillions of dollars in revenue can be collected by closing unspecified tax loopholes and trillions more saved through unspecified spending cuts. Ryan also declares that the “party of Lincoln” must “reject
any group or cause that is built on bigotry.” Has he ever heard of Nixon’s “Southern strategy”; of Ronald Reagan’s invocations of welfare queens and “strapping young bucks” using food stamps; of Willie Horton? Put it this way: There’s a reason whites in the Deep South vote something like 90 percent Republican, and it’s not their philosophical attachment to libertarian principles. Then there’s foreign policy, where Trump is, if anything, more reasonable — or more accurately, less unreasonable — than his rivals. He’s fine with torture, but who on that side of the aisle isn’t? He’s belligerent, but unlike Rubio, he isn’t the favorite of the neoconservatives, aka the people responsible for the Iraq debacle. He’s even said what everyone knows but nobody on the right is supposed to admit, that the Bush administration deliberately misled America into that disastrous war. Oh, and it’s Ted Cruz, not Trump, who seems eager to “carpet bomb” people, without appearing to know what that means.
they all are. So why is this con job different from any other? The answer, I’d suggest, is that the establishment’s problem with Trump isn’t the con he brings; it’s the cons he disrupts. First, there’s the con Republicans usually manage to pull off in national elections — the one where they pose as a serious, grown-up party honestly trying to grapple with America’s problems. The truth is, that party died a long time ago, that these days it’s voodoo economics In fact, you have to wonder and neocon fantasies all the way why, exactly, the Republican down. But the establishment wants establishment is really so horrified to preserve the façade, which will be by Trump. Yes, he’s a con man, but hard if the nominee is someone who refuses to play his part. Republicans prefer someone By the way, I predict that even if Dionne continued from page 8 care leaves open the possibility that other than Trump. On Tuesday, he Trump is the nominee, pundits and he favors expansive government approached or broke 40 percent others who claim to be thoughtful action to keep people, as he likes to in only four states. That’s the conservatives will stroke their chins establishment’s hope. It wants to and declare, after a great show put it, from “dying in the streets.” deny Trump a delegate majority of careful deliberation, that he’s If the main problem with Trump and to stop his nomination at the the better choice given Hillary’s is that he is not conservative enough, July convention. character flaws, or something. And Cruz is the obvious answer, and But this strategy requires a self-proclaimed centrists will still the Texan gave an effective speech philosophical and tactical unity of find a way to claim that the sides are Tuesday night listing all of Trump’s purpose that party leaders have, so equally bad. But both acts will look apostasies. But the rejection of Cruz far, been incapable of mustering. especially strained. by the powers that be underscores And blocking Trump now would an additional ambivalence. The enrage his army of followers and Equally important, the Trump party wants somehow to keep the prove to them that the party is every phenomenon threatens the con angry Trump voters inside the tent bit as distant from their concerns as the GOP establishment has been while also trying to broaden its their hero has been saying. playing on its own base. I’m talking constituency. This is the appeal of E.J. Dionne’s email address is about the bait and switch in which Rubio, who is more willing than ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: white voters are induced to hate big Cruz to move in several directions @EJDionne. government by dog whistles about at once. But this flexibility is also (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group Those People, but actual policies are 2-3-16 Rubio’s vulnerability. all about rewarding the donor class. It’s clear that a majority of What Donald Trump has done
is tell the base that it doesn’t have to accept the whole package. He promises to make America white again — surely everyone knows that’s the real slogan, right? — while simultaneously promising to protect Social Security and Medicare, and hinting at (though not actually proposing) higher taxes on the rich. Outraged establishment Republicans splutter that he’s not a real conservative, but neither, it turns out, are many of their own voters. Just to be clear, I find the prospect of a Trump administration terrifying, and so should you. But you should also be terrified by the prospect of a President Rubio, sitting in the White House with his circle of warmongers, or a President Cruz, whom one suspects would love to bring back the Spanish Inquisition. As I see it, then, we should actually welcome Trump’s ascent. Yes, he’s a con man, but he is also effectively acting as a whistle-blower on other people’s cons. That is, believe it or not, a step forward in these weird, troubled times. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-3-16
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Chris Cillizza
Donald Trump’s Wild Unpredictability Is Exactly What Republican Voters Want
As Donald Trump was insisting during a speech in Maine Thursday that Mitt Romney would have “dropped to his knees” to win the real estate mogul’s endorsement in 2012, Austin Barbour tweeted this bit of praise of the former Massachusetts governor. @MittRomney was superb today. Rational, collected, smart, forward looking and clear with his contrast on Trump. Barbour, a Mississippi-based Republican political consultant and card-carrying member of the GOP establishment, was referencing Romney’s speech in Utah in which he sought to systematically discredit Trump’s candidacy. And Barbour is right. Romney was “rational” and “smart” in his speech. He succinctly made the case that Trump is a) not a real conservative and b) would cost the party dearly if he was the nominee against Hillary Clinton in the fall campaign. But it didn’t hold a candle to what Trump did a few hours later across the country in Maine. While the “dropped to his knees” comment will get most of the attention -- it’s only the latest in a series of double entendres Trump has unleashed in the campaign -- the entire Trump speech had a wild and circus-like atmosphere. The second he stepped to the podium, Trump was interrupted by a protester. “Get him out of here,” Trump said, to much applause. He asked the crowd what they thought of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the next host of “The Apprentice” and took an informal poll as to who would be the better host: The Governator or The Donald. (I’ll give you one good guess who won.) He called Romney a “choke artist” who blew the 2012 election. He told the Mainers in attendance that “people don’t realize how large your land mass is.” Trump said, it seemed, whatever came to his mind in the second he was talking. (Worth noting: Trump’s seeming spontaneity is actually far more calculated than it looks.) And people ate it up. They laughed. They yelled. They booed the protesters. They got caught up in the moment; the wildness of it, the unpredictability of it. If you want to understand why Trump has done so well in this election and the establishment has, well, not, all you need to do is watch Romney’s speech and the Trump rally back to back. Romney’s speech -- despite the condemnations of Trump -- felt steady, solid and predictable. Like going to a restaurant with your kids, then going home and watching a movie. Trump’s speech felt raw and uncontrolled. Like going to a restaurant with your kids, then dropping them off at home with the babysitter, flying to Vegas and gambling for two straight days. Most times, the electorate -- Democrats and Republicans -- opts for movie night with the kids sleeping upstairs. But every once in a while, voters want to go out raging, to blow it all out, forget
about the problems of yesterday or the concerns This election -- at least on the Republican of tomorrow. They want to color way outside the side -- is not for the rule followers or the mildlines no matter what it does to the walls. mannered. It’s for the profane. For the puncher. For Trump. That’s the mood the Republican electorate Cillizza writes “The Fix,” a politics blog for is in right now. And have been for months and the Washington Post. He also covers the White months. They know Trump is unpredictable, wild House. and a little -- OK, a lot -- different. And it’s not (c) 2016, The Washington Post that they are willing to look past those things -- 3-3-16 it’s that those things are what draw them to him.
Bill Press
Mistake To Take Trump For Granted
Which one of these statements is true? “Donald Trump is a racist, bigot, misogynist, buffoon and con artist who should never be seriously considered as a candidate for president?” Or: “Donald Trump is a serious candidate for president who could defy the odds and actually be elected 45th president of the United States?” Which one of these statements is true? The answer, of course, is that they’re both true. And therein lies both the fascination and the danger in this year’s presidential election. It’s true that we’ve never seen a more personally disgusting candidate for president. But it’s also true, as members of his own party learned too late, that those Democrats who belittle his political appeal are making a big political mistake. We all heard cocky Democrats chortling out loud on Super Tuesday, as The Donald chalked up another string of primary victories, making a total of 10 so far: “Oh, boy, we can’t wait. Donald Trump’s our dream opponent. Democrats will flock to the polls to vote against him. He’ll be the best get-out-the-vote motivator Democrats could ever want.” Not so fast. Haven’t they noticed? Yes, come November Trump may inspire Democrats to turn out to vote, but he’s already inspired Republicans to turn out to vote, millions of them for the first time. In Massachusetts, Virginia and Tennessee, Republican voters have turned out in recordbreaking numbers. In Nevada, Trump’s vote alone surpassed the entire voter turnout in the 2012 election. Yet in those same states, Democrats have turned out to vote in far fewer numbers. In Nevada, for example, where caucuses in 2008 attracted 120,000 Democrats, only 80,000 bothered to show up this year. And in Virginia, Democratic turnout was down an average 30 percent. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders have turned voters on or out the way Donald Trump has. Why? In part, because he’s a reality TV star. For The Donald’s voters, celebrity-worship trumps public policy. They don’t care what he says or stands for. Indeed, as we’ve seen, there’s nothing he could say that will turn his followers away. He could muse about dating his own daughter, brag
about his extramarital affairs, belittle women as “bimbos,” denounce all Muslims as terrorists and declare war on all Latinos. He could even pretend to know nothing about the KKK and refuse to repudiate the support of David Duke. He is, as Mitt Romney describes him, a “fraud, a con man and a flake.” Yet Trump’s fans will still vote for him -- because he’s famous. But there’s more to it, of course. Trump’s appeal is also based on the fact that he -- alone among Republican candidates -- has tapped into the sense of alienation that millions of Americans feel toward the political establishment. People look at Washington and see a deck stacked against them and politicians getting paid a lot of money for doing nothing. Meanwhile, American jobs disappear to Mexico or Asia, wages are frozen where they were 20 years ago, everything from college to cabbage is more expensive, most of the newfound wealth they hear about goes to the people at the very top, and they have less money in their pocket to spend. Along comes a bombastic billionaire, apparently beholden to no one, who promises to upend the establishment and fight for them. Bingo. Political gold. Among Democrats, Bernie Sanders speaks to the same frustration with politics as usual. The only difference is that he offers substantive ideas for change, while Trump offers them nothing. And, even though Sanders has inspired millions of young people to get involved in politics for the first time, he hasn’t done so to the same degree as Donald Trump. All of which adds up to: Democrats should be spending less time popping champagne corks at the prospect of running against Donald Trump, and more time figuring out how to beat him. As John Nichols warns in The Nation, Trump’s combination of winning message and popular appeal could cause trouble in November, especially in industrial swing states “where Trump’s promise to protect jobs and change trade policies could resonate among blue-collar workers.” We may be dismayed that Donald Trump has
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
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Ruth Marcus
The Steep Price of a Trump Presidency I write today to confess error. A few months back, pondering the ghastly parlor game of choosing between President Donald Trump and President Ted Cruz, I opted - reluctantly, disbelievingly -- for Trump, as the lesser of two dangers. Yes, the real estate tycoon is a know-nothing, uninterested-inlearning-anything buffoon. Also: a demagogue and a bully whose emotional instability would pose a threat to national security. But the Cruz alternative, it seemed to me then, was even worse. Cruz is smarter than Trump, more calculating than Trump (which is saying something) and way, way more conservative than Trump. A Trump presidency, or so I reassured myself, at least offered the prospect of unprincipled dealmaking in the service of what is Trump’s only guidepost -- promoting the greater glory of Trump. President Cruz would be as absolutist as Sen. Cruz, and therefore, from my point of view, the worse president. I was wrong. Since that column in midDecember, Trump has proved himself to be even less knowledgeable and even more unhinged. His election would constitute a grave threat to American values and, potentially, American democracy. In January, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham likened picking between Trump and Cruz to “like being shot or poisoned. What does it really matter?”
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been so successful in the primaries, and may actually be the GOP nominee. But unless Democrats take him seriously and, unlike his Republican opponents, unmask and destroy him early, we may someday be dismayed to see him take the oath of office as the 45th president of the United States. Bill Press is host of a nationallysyndicated radio show, CNN political analyst and the author of a new book, “Buyer’s Remorse,” which is available in bookstores now. You can hear “The Bill Press Show” at his website: billpressshow. com. His email address is: bill@ billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter at @bpshow. (c) 2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 3-3-16
Except Graham, like me, has come to the unexpected conclusion that it does. “We may be in a position where we have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald Trump,” Graham told CBS News’ Charlie Rose as the Super Tuesday returns rolled in. Was that what Graham was really suggesting, Rose asked the man who had joked, just a few days earlier, about how the safest place to murder Cruz would be on the Senate floor? Graham: “I can’t believe I would say yes, but yes.” Senator, I feel your astonishment, and raise it. To take one pending example, you probably wouldn’t have difficulty voting to confirm President Cruz’s Supreme Court nominee. I would. But my fundamental fear is that giving the reins of government to Trump would be even riskier, exposing the country to more longlasting danger than a court with multiple Cruz nominees. Trump on the trail demonstrates scant respect for, and even less knowledge of, constitutional and legal limitations. He wants to “open up the libel laws” -- actually, to undo limits imposed by the First
Amendment -- to make it easier to sue media outlets that dare to criticize him. He threatens those who contribute to his political opponents. “They better be careful, they have a lot to hide,” he warned Chicago’s Ricketts family, which has donated to an anti-Trump super-PAC. He cannot tolerate protesters, ordering his goons to “throw them out into the cold” and expressing his own yearning for even more violent measures: “I’d like to punch him in the face.” He would torture alleged terrorists (“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work -- torture works,” he said) and kill their families, notwithstanding that these constitute war crimes under U.S. and international law.
refuse to follow President Trump’s unlawful orders, as former CIA Director Michael Hayden suggested. What about the order -- issued in a fit of pique against a foreign critic -- that is lawful but crazy? Trump is Nixon with all of the megalomaniacal willingness to abuse power and none of the crafty realpolitik. He is attracted to strongmen, past and present -unapologetically retweeting a quote from Mussolini (“What difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else?”) and basking in praise from Vladimir Putin. Of the Republican speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, Trump said menacingly, on the night of his Super Tuesday victories, “I’m sure I’m going to get along with him, and if I don’t, he’s going to pay a big price.” Space precludes going through all the outrageous things Trump has said or proposed, or his predilection for flat-out lying when called on these offenses. Suffice it to say that, if Trump is elected, Ryan isn’t the only American who might have to pay a price. Ruth Marcus’ email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.
You could dismiss this as overthe-top campaign trail rhetoric -- or you could worry, as I do, about what a man like this would do once in office, with the power of government at his disposal. A former White House chief of staff once told me that the most astonishing aspect of the presidency isn’t how constrained the chief executive is by having to deal with a recalcitrant Congress -it’s how much latitude the president has when it comes to conducting military operations. (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group Perhaps the military would 3-3-16
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March 16, 2016
Timothy Egan
The Beast Is Us You heard the word “scary” used a lot this week, that and much more. Not from the usual scolds. Or Democrats. The loudest alarms came from desperate, panicked Republicans, warning of the man who is destroying the Party of Lincoln before our eyes. “The man is evil,” said Stuart Stevens, a chief strategist for Mitt Romney in 2012. Romney himself called Donald Trump a fraud on Thursday. But as much as these “too little, too late” wake-up calls are appreciated, it’s time to place the blame for the elevation of a tyrant as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee where it belongs — with the people. Yes, you. Donald Trump’s supporters know exactly what he stands for: hatred of immigrants, racial superiority, a sneering disregard of the basic civility that binds a society. Educated and poorly educated alike, men and women — they know what they’re getting from him. This idea that people are following Trump only for the celebrity joy ride, that if they just understood the kind of radical, anti-American ideas he advocates they would drop him, is garbage. If the pope couldn’t dent Trump, Romney surely will not. For Trump’s voters were not surprised at his hesitancy to disavow the hearty approval of a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. They certainly weren’t shocked when neo-Nazis hailed Trump a savior months ago, so a little added backing from hooded haters was not going to throw them. They aren’t upset that he’s attacked one of the foundations of an open society — free speech — with his recent call to “open up” the libel laws. Nor does it bother them in the least that he wants to apply a religious test for entry into a country whose founders were against any such thing. A majority of his Super Tuesday backers, in fact, support just that. And recent kudos from a pro-slavery radio host will certainly not dampen his legions. That support came from James Edwards. “For blacks in America,” he has said, “slavery is the best thing that ever happened to them.” Yes, Trump cannot choose his allies. But it’s certainly no coincidence that the race haters, immigrant bashers and religious hucksters who’ve been at the fringe for some time are all in for Donald Trump. With media complicity, Trump has unleashed the beast that has long resided not far from the American hearth, from those who started a Civil War to preserve the right to enslave a fellow human to the Know-Nothing mobs who burned IrishCatholic churches out of fear of immigrants. When high school kids waved a picture of Trump while shouting “Build a wall” at students from a heavily Hispanic school during a basketball game in Indiana last week, they were exhaling Trump’s sulfurous vapors. They know exactly what he stands for.
Granted, a huge portion of the population is woefully ignorant; nearly a third of Americans didn’t know who Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was in a Gallup poll last year. But ignorance is not the problem with Trump’s people. They’re sick and tired of tolerance. In Super Tuesday exit polls, Trump dominated among those who want someone to “tell it like it is.” “He’s saying how the people really feel,” one Trump supporter from Massachusetts, Janet Aguilar, told The Times. “We’re all afraid to say it.” They’re saying it now. So more than a third of Trump supporters in South Carolina wish the South had won the Civil War, and 70 percent think the Confederate flag should be flying over the state Capitol. And 32 percent believe internment of Japanese-American citizens was a good thing — something that the sainted Ronald Reagan apologized for. Judge him by his followers, who’ve thrown away the dog whistle. “Voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage,” said David Duke, the former Klansman. And judge him by those who enabled his rise, out of cowardice or opportunism, two words that will
follow Chris Christie to his grave. “To support Trump is to support a bigot,” wrote Stevens, the former Romney strategist. “It’s really that simple.” Now that the nomination is nearly his, Trump will start to tone it down and take it back. Just kidding, he’s going to imply. “I hate to say it, but I’m becoming mainstream,” he said. But it’s not mainstream to toss aside longstanding American policy against war crimes, advocating torture “even if it doesn’t work.” It’s not mainstream to approvingly pass on quotes from the Fascist Benito Mussolini. It’s not mainstream to be “everything we teach our kids not to do in kindergarten,” as Gov. Nikki Haley, the Republican governor of South Carolina, said. The German magazine Der Spiegel called Trump “the world’s most dangerous man.” The Germans know a thing or two about the topic. I would like to think our better angels always prevail. But there are also dark episodes, when the beast is loose, and what stares back at us from the mirror is something ugly and frightful. Now is one of those times. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-4-16
Eli Lake
Trump Turns Out To Be A Politician, And Not A Good One
For the most part, U.S. presidential campaigns are long slogs punctuated by short gaffes. Think of Rick Perry’s “oops,” Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” or Howard Dean’s scream. Like the MVP who misses the game-deciding foul shot in the championship, one mistake can erase a season of disciplined campaigning in an instant. Then there’s Donald Trump. These rules of political gravity do not apply to him. From insulting Sen. John McCain for getting captured in Vietnam to flubbing Jake Tapper’s question about the Ku Klux Klan, Trump’s 2016 campaign has been an extended gaffe. At Thursday night’s Republican debate, Trump gave us plenty of head-scratchers. He said for example that the wives of 9/11 hijackers were whisked out of the country before 9/11. This was in response to a question about his earlier remark that he would not only go after terrorists as commander-in-chief, but that he would also target their families. Then there was Trump University. In an exchange with Marco Rubio (whom he kept calling “little Marco”), Trump said the students of his for-profit college gave it high marks and then said he had reimbursed many of the students who asked for their money back. Let’s not forget Trump’s suggestion that allegations that his hands were small had no correlation to the size of his penis.
So far these kinds of gaffes have had no effect. Indeed, it is part of Trump’s appeal. He tells it like it is. He’s not afraid to say things that are politically incorrect. Unlike career politicians, Trump is unscripted. Sure, the Beltway mandarins are sickened at the thought of deporting millions of illegal immigrants, but this is exactly the kind of policy the Republican base desires. The fact that elites are shocked is a feature, not a bug. As Michael Kinsley famously observed, a gaffe in Washington is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. But this game works only if we assume Trump means the shocking things he has been saying. There’s a good chance he doesn’t. This was a theme in Thursday’s debate. Sen. Ted Cruz for example attacked Trump three times for writing checks to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. He asked how someone who claims to be so tough on immigration could support someone who was on the other side of this issue. In his own way, Rubio too made this point about Trump. Rubio reiterated his line that Trump is a con man, willing to scam the suckers who enrolled in his for-profit university the same way he is scamming Republican primary voters. It was the Fox News moderators however who really drove this point home. First they asked him
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
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Eugene Robinson
Trump’s Dance With Bigotry Donald Trump plays on racial fears and animosities in an ugly, deliberate and dangerous way. This dance with bigotry goes far beyond his temporary amnesia about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan. Trump speaks as if he considers whiteness the norm and sees people of color as somehow alien and suspect. He is the only major American political figure in many decades to display such an antediluvian worldview so openly. Trump doesn’t tweet dog whistles, he blasts foghorns. He brags about getting along famously with “the blacks” and “the Hispanics.” How long has it been since anyone in public life used such casually exclusionary language? There are about 40 million African-Americans and more than 55 million HispanicAmericans, all of them reduced, by Trump’s use of the definite article, to sidekick status -- the “good” ones being, I suppose, a bunch of Sammy Davis Jrs. and Ricky Ricardos. Trump’s entire platform, such as it is, can be reduced to “us vs. them.” The overwhelmingly white, largely blue-collar crowds that fill his gargantuan rallies are buffeted by harsh economic realities and have good reason to be anxious about the future. Trump doesn’t give them solutions, he gives them scapegoats. Recall that he kicked off his
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about an off-the-record interview he gave to the New York Times. Buzzfeed reported this week that Trump in January told the paper that his positions on immigration were flexible. This led to a bizarre answer from Trump in which he claimed he would not authorize release of the tape of this interview because he sought to honor the offthe-record agreement he made with the Times.
campaign for president last year with an outrageous libel against undocumented migrants from Mexico: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” In truth, immigrants are significantly less likely to commit crimes of any kind -- including rape -- than native-born Americans. But facts don’t matter when Trump chooses to point a finger of blame. He even makes the preposterous and wholly unfounded charge that the government of Mexico is deliberately sending criminals, including sexual predators, into the United States. To justify the “big, beautiful wall” he claims he will build along the border, Trump uses a resonant phrase: “We either have a country, or we don’t.” Together with his campaign slogan -- “Make America Great Again” -- those words require a bit of unpacking. The clear implication is that “we” once had a “great” country -- but if all those Latinos are permitted to swarm in, “we” won’t have our country at all. It will belong to the encroaching hordes. Never mind
to be consistent. At other times in the debate, Trump tried to make a virtue of his flexibility, explaining that this was what was needed to be effective in Washington. Trump has said this kind of thing before. He is after all a great deal maker, he assures us. But on Thursday night, it sounded different. When questioned about his contradictions, the unscripted outsider dissembled. Trump sounded evasive and uncertain. He sounded like a politician, for whom the rules of political gravity may still apply. Bloomberg View columnist Eli Lake writes about politics and foreign affairs. For more columns from Bloomberg View, visit http:// www.bloomberg.com/view
Then the moderators played clips of Trump contradicting himself in television interviews on whether he supported the Afghanistan war and allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S. Trump’s response was not very Trumpian. He tried to explain that he may have said different (c) 2016, Bloomberg View things to different people, but that 3-4-16 was only because he had meant
that the border is more secure than it has been in decades and illegal crossings have slowed to a trickle. Trump’s goal is to create the impression that “they” are besieging “us,” and that he will put an end to it. Perhaps this is what he truly believes. I recall something he said last September, in an interview with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, and has since repeated: “I was in Paris recently, and Paris doesn’t look like Paris anymore.” What could Trump be talking about? The Eiffel Tower hasn’t changed. Nor have the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre or the lovely Place des Vosges. But a visitor does share the boulevards with more dark-skinned people, mostly the sons and daughters of immigrants from former French colonies. Trump never spells this out, but I’ve only heard him use the line in discussions about immigration.
rape, they “do not exactly have the pasts of angels.” Trump still cannot bring himself to acknowledge that President Obama was born in the United States; once a birther, always a birther, I guess. A poll in September showed that two-thirds of Trump’s supporters believe Obama is a Muslim; Trump does nothing whatsoever to disabuse them of that false notion. Several recent polls have shown that a majority of Republicans, not just Trumpistas, support his idea of temporarily banning all foreign Muslims from entering the country. It would be impossible to implement such a policy -- just as it would be impossible to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. But actually doing these things is not the point. Activating populist anger against Muslims and Latinos seems to be what Trump is after. There are just two possibilities: Either Trump is a bigot or he There’s a history to consider. pretends to be one for political gain. In 1989, Trump took out a full- Pick your poison. page ad in four major New York Eugene Robinson’s email address newspapers to demand the return of is eugenerobinson@washpost.com. the death penalty after five young (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group black and Hispanic men were 3-4-16 accused of raping and brutalizing a Central Park jogger. The men were Join convicted and sent to prison -- but later exonerated by DNA evidence Liberal Opinion and released. Trump wrote an opWeek ed arguing the city should not compensate the men for their years on Facebook. of unjust imprisonment because, even if they did not commit the
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Colbert King
What Trump Voters Are Afraid Of This is shaping up to be a seminal year in American politics. What was unthinkable six months ago is emerging as a strong possibility today: Donald Trump may be on his way to becoming the Republican nominee for president of the United States. His ascension is causing the party establishment - congressional leaders, hightoned conservative commentators and deeppocketed right-wing money moguls - to go, as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-South Carolina, put it: “bat-expletive crazy.” Except he didn’t say “expletive.” Their meltdown, however, is secondary to Trump’s elevation to GOP front-runner and likely party standard-bearer in November. But for goodness’ sake, please note that it is not Trump who is placing the crown on his own head. Republican voters in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia and Vermont, and those in primaries and caucuses yet to come, are making Trump the heart of the “party of Lincoln.” Republicans don’t get a pass. Trump couldn’t happen without them. Who are these voters, and why are they backing The Donald? Vox correspondent Amanda Taub examined Trump’s emergence in an in-depth article this week, “The rise of American authoritarianism,” that seeks to explain the strong support that the prospective GOP nominee draws across income, age, educational and religious lines. A stipulation: It would be unfair and dishonest to paint all Trump supporters with the same brush. Nonetheless, the story warrants a closer look. The Vox article is based upon work by various political scientists who study psychological “authoritarianism.” According to the scientists, people who score high in authoritarianism value conformity and, when feeling threatened, turn to strong leaders who promise to do whatever is necessary “to protect them from outsiders and the changes they fear.” Does authoritarianism, the scientists asked, correlate with support for Trump? Polling data not only said yes, they concluded, but also suggested that this characteristic was more reliable a predictor than virtually any other. Trump, according to the Vox article, embodies the leadership style most desired by these authoritarians: “simple, powerful and punitive.” But Trump is not producing the threats and scary changes that bring out the authoritarianism in people, as Vox notes. It isn’t Trump who is making the country more diverse. He’s not confronting white Americans with race in ways they have never faced before. He isn’t squeezing working-
class whites economically. He’s not behind the demographic, economic and political forces that make the authoritarian-minded feel insecure. Trump is, however, the embodiment of what they think is needed to suppress the dangers and halt the damage - threats and changes such as the Islamic State, Russia and Iran; the erosion of traditional gender roles; immigration; the browning and blackening of the United States; and the disruption of once well- established social hierarchies.
as: Saying Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists? Regaling crowds with the story of prisoners massacred with bullets dipped in pig’s blood? Claiming Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States and is an illegitimate president? Or consider Trump on Fox News’s Megyn Kelly: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” On Jews: “The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” On Sen. John McCain(R-Ariz.): “He’s not a war hero. . . . I like people that weren’t captured.” On my journalist colleague Serge Kovaleski, who has limited mobility in his arms: “Now the poor guy, you’ve gotto see this guy,” Trump said, before contorting his arms in an apparent impersonation. Trump’s willingness to flout all the conventions of civilized discourse when it comes to out-groups and others that his authoritarian supporters find so threatening is, as Vox observed, a benefit rather than a liability for him. Even if Trump is out of the picture, Vox’s Taub points out, the authoritarians “will still look for candidates who will give them the strong punitive leadership they desire.” Thus a seminal finding: There is a sickness in our body politic that Trump’s candidacy exposes.
Trump’s authoritarian supporters believe he can “take back America” and protect them from a scary world. Taub reported that with or without a Trump, political scientists found that authoritarians generally, and Trump voters specifically, were highly likely to support policies such as prioritizing military force over diplomacy against countries that threaten the United States; amending the Constitution to bar citizenship for children of illegal immigrants; imposing extra airport checks on passengers who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent; and requiring all citizens to carry a national ID card to show a police officer on request. So what sets Trump apart from his Republican rivals who are every bit of the far right as he? Simply stated, Trump can neither be outdemagogued nor out-nastied. (c) 2016, The Washington Post How can anyone top such vile Trump insults 3-4-16
Alexandra Petri
Chris Christie’s Wordless Screaming
Is Chris Christie okay? I believe that Donald Trump was talking, Tuesday night, and that he, in fact, held an entire press conference. But it was impossible to hear him over Chris Christie’s eyes. Chris Christie spent the entire speech screaming wordlessly. I have never seen someone scream so loudly without using his mouth before. It would have been remarkable if it had not been so terrifying. Sometimes, at night, do you still hear them, Clarice? The screaming of the Christies? His were the eyes of a man who has gazed into the abyss, and the abyss gazed back, and then he endorsed the abyss. It was not a thousand-yard stare. That would understate the vast and impenetrable distance it encompassed. He looked as if he had seen a ghost and the ghost had made him watch Mufasa die again. He had the eyes of a man who has looked into the heart of light, the silence. A man who had seen the moment of his greatness flicker, and seen the eternal footman hold his coat, and snicker. And, in short, he looked afraid. He had the face of a man who has used his
third wish and realized too late that “may my family never starve” could be twisted to mean that the genie should murder his entire family. He had the face of a man who has just realized his own mortality. Look into those eyes and try to deny that Chris Christie has seen something. Someone just told Chris Christie that there is no God. Or Chris Christie has just discovered that God does exist but She is an enormous snake who hates or is indifferent to mankind. Or Chris Christie has just discovered that there is no God but that Hell is real. “When are they coming to airlift me out?” Chris Christie’s eyes are pleading. “Please tell me that they are coming and that it is soon.” But then his expression hardens. Chris Christie knows that they are not coming back for him. This is his life now. Soon he must return to the plane onto which Trump humiliatingly sent him before. Soon he must return to the small cupboard under the stairs where he is kept and occasionally thrown small slivers of metaphorical raw meat. When he asked to be part of Trump’s cabinet he never thought to specify “presidential cabinet, of course, not a
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
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Nicholas Kristof
Donald the Dangerous Is there any scarier nightmare than President Donald Trump in a tense international crisis, indignant and impatient, with his sweaty finger on the nuclear trigger? “Trump is a danger to our national security,” John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to the State Department under President George W. Bush, bluntly warned. Most of the discussion about Trump focuses on domestic policy. But checks and balances mean that there are limits to what a president can achieve domestically, while the Constitution gives a commander in chief a much freer hand abroad. That’s what horrifies Americawatchers overseas. Der Spiegel, the German magazine, has called Trump the most dangerous man in the world. Even the leader of a Swedish nationalist party that started as a neo-Nazi white supremacist group has disavowed Trump. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, reflected the views of many Britons when she tweeted that Trump is worse than Voldemort. Leading American conservative thinkers on foreign policy issued an open letter a few days ago warning that they could not support Trump. The signatories include Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of homeland security, Robert Zoellick,
the former deputy secretary of state, and more than 100 others. “Mr. Trump’s own statements lead us to conclude that as president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe,” the letter declared. A starting point is Trump’s remarkable ignorance about international affairs. And every time he tries to reassure, he digs the hole deeper. Asked in the latest debate to name people whose foreign policy ideas he respects, Trump offered Gen. Jack Keane, and mispronounced his name. Asked about Syria, Trump said last year that he would unleash ISIS to destroy Syria’s government. That is insane: ISIS is already murdering or enslaving Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities; executing gays; destroying antiquities; oppressing women. And Trump wants ISIS to capture Damascus? A second major concern is that Trump would start a trade war, or a real war. Trump told The New York Times in January that he favored a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods, then denied ever having said such a thing. The Times produced the audio (that part of the conversation was on the record) in which Trump clearly backed the 45 percent tariff,
Imperial troops and his friends are frozen in carbonite. Chris Christie has the glazed and terrified look of someone who has traded his inheritance for no pottage at all, who has watched his credibility dry up and is about to be led back to his basement cage, having lost Winterfell for good. Chris Christie is realizing that the steak he gets to eat inside the Matrix is not worth this. Chris Christie has made a yuge mistake. Donald Trump won seven states on Super Tuesday. His path to the nomination is clear. Chris Christie has no mouth, but he must scream. Alexandra Petri writes the He is embroidering this ComPost blog, offering a lighter hideous truth very slowly onto take on the news and opinions of the a handerchief, but it will not be day. She is the author of “A Field ready in time. Guide to Awkward Silences.” Chris Christie must stand and (c) 2016, The Washington Post watch as his city is overrun with 3-2-16
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literal cabinet underground where the ventilation is poor and there is no light.” It just did not occur to him. Why would it? And now it is too late. Nobody is coming for you, Chris Christie. Nobody is coming to save you. Chris Christie has seen things. Things you wouldn’t believe. Things that would make your hair fall out and turn gray all at once. But he cannot speak of them. He can only stand there. Chris Christie is the bearer of a hideous knowledge that hangs on him like a horrible weight. But he has no way to say it.
risking a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Trump has also called for more U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq, and raised the prospect of bombing North Korean nuclear sites. A poorly informed, impatient and pugnacious leader can cause devastation, and that’s true of either Kim Jong Un or Donald Trump. The third risk is to America’s reputation and soft power. Both Bush and President Barack Obama worked hard to reassure the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims that the U.S. is not at war with Islam. Trump has pretty much declared war on all Muslims. The damage to America’s image is already done, even if Trump is never elected. Simply as a blowhard who gains headlines around the world, he reinforces caricatures of the United States and tarnishes our global reputation. He turns America into an object of derision. He is America’s Ahmadinejad.
foreign capitals as a buffoon, and a dangerous one. Trump is not particularly ideological, and it’s possible that as president he would surround himself with experts and would back off extreme positions. It was a good sign that on Friday he appeared to reverse himself and pledged that he would not order the U.S. military to commit war crimes, yet that’s such an astonishingly low bar that I can’t believe I just wrote this sentence! In any case, Trump is nothing if not unpredictable, and it seems equally plausible that he would start new wars. It’s a risk that few sensible people want to take. As Mitt Romney notes, “This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.” Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who was a national security official in the Bush White House, noted that most Republicans are united in believing that Obama and Hillary Clinton have damaged the United States and added to the burdens of the next president. “Yet what Trump promises to do would in some important ways make all of the problems we face dramatically worse,” he told me. “Why, at a moment when the country desperately needs our A-team, would we send in the clowns?” Contact Kristof at Facebook.com/ Kristof, Twitter.com/NickKristof or by mail at The New York Times, 620 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10018.
On Twitter, I suggested that Trump was pugnacious, pugilistic, preening and puerile, and asked for other P words to describe him. The result was a deluge: petulant, pandering, pathetic, peevish, prickly, pernicious, patronizing, Pantagruelian, prevaricating, phony, presumptuous, potty-mouthed, provocative, pompous, predatory and so many more, including the troubling “probably president.” There’s something heartbreaking about the prospect that America’s next commander in chief may be a c.2016 New York Times News Service global joke, a man regarded in most 3-5-16
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March 16, 2016
LIBERAL DELINEATIONS
Liberal Opinion Week
Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Clarence Page
President Tr(i)ump(h) The Insult Comic Dog? “You can’t insult your way to the White House,” Jeb Bush told Donald Trump in an early Republican presidential debate. Oh, really? Trump has since seized a commanding lead as the party’s frontrunner. Jeb Bush, who entered the race with the biggest war chest outside of Trump’s pocket change, has dropped out. Two of his remaining competitors, Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, belatedly are trying to bully the Donald. That’s a tough battle. History may well remember Trump’s campaign as an ongoing imitation of his near-namesake, the foul-mouthed, cigarchomping puppet Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. It works because, despite his lack of experience in public office -- or, for that matter, public service -- Trump has studied the political scene closely over the past two decades as he contemplated and repeatedly backed away from the presidential run he finally is making now. Why now? Why not? As the world can see, the Republicans have been limping through an odd state of disarray for years. They control most of the state governments and both houses of Congress, but they’ve lost the popular vote in five of the past six presidential races. National leaders in the Grand Old Party urge outreach to women and minorities. Trump has taken an alternative path urged by numerous hard-core right-wingers: Beat the bushes to roust out conservatives who have stayed home on Election Day out of dismay and outright anger with a Washington that they feel has sold them out. That’s why the Donald has carved out what amounts to a third party in the making: tougher on illegal immigration and foreign trade deals, for example, than the conservative think-tank establishment but also more protective of Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements. But before Trump could sell his agenda to the public he had to get our attention. That’s where his insult-dog act came in. He astonished us with his affronts to Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, a disabled New York Times reporter, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other POWs and a growing list of other targets. “Trump is what the psychologists call the ‘empathic bully’,” said best-selling humanbehavior author Malcolm Gladwell on “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” the night after Super Tuesday. It sounds odd to put “bully” together with “empathy.” But as Gladwell explained, the ability to understand what and how others feel is very helpful to the bully who wants to read your weaknesses and exploit them to make you feel that much worse. “The best bullies are people who are brilliant at reading your weaknesses and exploiting them,” Gladwell said. “When (Trump) makes fun of the other candidates, it’s not some bad
crude insult. It’s actually an insult that cuts into That’s why, instead of calling Rubio the quick of who they are.” inexperienced, Trump talks about how the Floridian “sweats a lot.” When conservative So when he called Jeb Bush “low energy,” radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump in another the son and brother of former presidents suddenly debate about his overdue promise to release seemed to become more low-energy in public his tax returns, Trump responded by belittling and probably in his self-perceptions, too -- right Hewitt’s audience ratings. up to his famously sad request to a small New And when Mitt Romney courageously stood Hampshire audience, “Please clap.” up and denounced Trump as a “phony,” “a fraud” We should have seen this coming. Trump and a danger to democracy, Trump pointedly loves professional wrestling. He’s co-sponsored called Romney a “stiff” and a “choke artist” “Wrestlemania” events and even performed, who “failed horribly” in his 2012 election bid playing -- who else? -- himself. “that he should have won.” And it works for the same reason that the But Mitt did the right thing. Good people need Wharton-educated billionaire often talks like a to speak up against Trump’s put-downs. lunch bucket-carrying blue collar worker from Otherwise, if he really does insult his way Queens. When he recently said, “I love the to the White House, brace yourself. Every poorly educated,” he sounded like he meant it. future presidential debate will sound like Of course, Bush, Rubio and Cruz have tried Wrestlemania. belatedly to return fire. But the insult is not a E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune. game for the squeamish or ill-prepared. Trump’s com. skills come from decades of his strategic (C) 2016 Clarence Page obnoxiousness. 3-6-16
Alexandra Petri
Marco Rubio and the Myth of the Establishment Lane
The Holy Grail has one up on the Establishment Lane. At least someone was able to find the Holy Grail. Marco Rubio has not been so lucky. Did you know that if you whisper “George Herbert Walker Bush” three times into a mirror, the Establishment Lane will appear and open a path to victory for you? The media has said it often and it must be true. The Establishment Lane was a beautiful legend. Imagine! A lane where all you needed was major donors and the support of party leaders, and voters would flow like milk and honey. It is just north of the Fountain of Youth, right past the Big Rock Candy Mountain, but before you find the Holy Grail. It is visible in the background of photos of Bigfoot, although you cannot see it because the photos are always so blurry. For years, Marco Rubio sat at the knee of people who told him the tale of a beautiful, wonderful place called the Establishment Lane, where a young candidate could go to make his fortune. The media assured him that it existed. It existed and was paved with major donors and it would solve all his problems. But then Marco Rubio actually went out on the road to look for it. He and Jeb Bush rode forth from Camelot (Fla.) on matching horses to seek it. He even shoved Jeb Bush out of the way in the hopes of getting there sooner.
But he rode and rode and passed all the landmarks by which the pundits (always so reassuringly certain of everything) said that one might be able to identify the lane. The secondplace polling. The media plaudits. The praise on Sunday morning shows. He rode further. There were definitely lanes. The Outsider Lane was most certainly real. People kept passing him in it. He was right where it should have been. His position was correct. Except: no lane. He tried again. He showed up to CPAC, even though he clearly had a terrible cold. He delivered a speech, coughing intermittently. He attacked Donald Trump, as the establishment urged someone to step up and do. He did all the things recommended by the People Who Said This Was Surely Real. But -- nothing. On “Super Saturday” he placed no higher than third in any state. Where was the dang lane? He rode and rode but found only voters, underwhelmed. After Super Saturday, the Establishment Lane joins the Fountain of Youth, city of El Dorado, and Atlantis on the list of Things That Sounded So Beautiful That People Went Out Looking For Them, Wandered For Years, And Then Were Forced To Return Home Empty-Handed, But With The Sympathy Of The People of Minnesota. The Establishment Lane sounded so real and so beautiful that someone was bound to believe.
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
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Ruth Marcus
Presidential Politics’ Worst Day Ever Children, gather round and let me tell you about a time before candidates vouched for the size of their, um, endowments on national television. Was it really so long ago - OK, actually, it was -- that a sunglasses-wearing Bill Clinton was criticized for going on “The Arsenio Hall Show” to play his saxophone? Clinton coarsened the discourse, we were told. How tame that seems in retrospect. How dignified. I blame Clinton, actually, not for the Hall performance, but for a fateful moment during his presidency, at a 1994 MTV town hall, when a young woman asked, “Mr. President, the world is dying to know: Is it boxers or briefs?” Clinton stared in open-mouthed disbelief, looked down, put hand to forehead -- then answered, “Usually briefs. I can’t believe she did that.” I happened to be at the event, and I couldn’t believe he responded with anything other than an admonition that surely this questioner had been taught better. But Clinton’s willingness to show some leg seems positively Victorian in contrast to today’s discourse. Thanks, largely but not entirely, to one Donald J. Trump. Recently, Trump feigned outrage at the notion that former Mexican President Vicente Fox would use “a filthy, disgusting word” about Trump’s proposed border wall. Really? In New Hampshire, as Trump was excoriating Ted Cruz Petri continued from page 18 But so far Marco Rubio has found himself in the unenviable position of someone whose parents were so convincing about Santa that he expected gifts from him as a grown-up. And who can blame him? Everyone who Knows About These Things for a living was so sure. But when have they ever been right, this cycle? Alexandra Petri writes the ComPost blog, offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of “A Field Guide to Awkward Silences.” (c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-6-16
for shying away from endorsing waterboarding, a supporter shouted out a feline profanity to describe the Texas senator. Trump knew he wasn’t supposed to repeat it. He couldn’t help himself. “She said -- I never expect to hear that from you again!” he said, in mock anger. “She said he’s a pussy! That’s terrible. Terrible. Terrible.” Then Marco Rubio decided to join Trump in his gutter. Rubio’s problem wasn’t doing too little too late, it was saying too much too late. He suggested that Trump had wet his pants during a debate. He mocked Trump’s spray tan. Worst, most astonishingly, he insinuated that Trump was lacking beneath the briefs. “You know what they say about men with small hands?” Rubio said, smirking. “You can’t trust them.” Which brings us to Thursday, March 3, which will go down as the most embarrassing day in the history of American presidential politics. At least let’s hope this is as bad as it gets. Trump began by summoning an unwelcome picture of Mitt Romney, his party’s nominee four
years ago. “He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, ‘Mitt drop to your knees,’ he would have dropped to his knees,” Trump said, pointing to the floor. This is, as Fox News host Megyn Kelly educated us oh-somany GOP debates ago, a favorite Trump image. “You dropped to your knees?” Trump had once asked a contestant on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” laughing lasciviously. “It must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.” At Thursday night’s Fox News debate, Trump could not leave Rubio’s “small hands” slander unrebutted. Did Trump plan it? Could he simply not restrain himself from answering the assault on his manhood? It’s hard to tell which would be worse. “He hit my hands,” Trump said, unprovoked, minutes into the melee, holding up his digits for viewing. “Nobody has ever hit my hands. I have never heard of this. Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee.”
No, fact-checkers! No! What’s next, an affidavit from the wives? “OK, moving on,” said moderator Bret Baier. If only. As I write this column, a headline on CNN.com reads, “Donald Trump defends size of his penis.” This might be funny -- these poor guys and their anxieties -- if the stakes weren’t so high. Gender solidarity impels me to suggest a solution for this juvenilia: a debate stage populated by women. That would take care of the playground insults, the shouting, the constant interrupting and talking-over. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, you have got to do better than this,” moderator Chris Wallace said at one point, breaking up the schoolyard fight between the candidates who referred to each other as “little Marco” and “big Donald.” Roman emperors once placated the masses with bread and circuses. Today, no bread is required. Politics is all circus, all the time. Ruth Marcus’ email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com. (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group 3-6-16
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Paul Krugman
When Fallacies Collide The formal debates among the Republicans who would be president have exceeded all expectations. Even the most hardened cynics couldn’t have imagined that the candidates would sink so low, and stay so focused on personal insults. Yet last week, offstage, there was in effect a real debate about economic policy between Donald Trump and Mitt Romney, who is trying to block his nomination. Unfortunately, both men are talking nonsense. Are you surprised? The starting point for this debate is Trump’s deviation from free-market orthodoxy on international trade. Attacks on immigrants are still the central theme of the Republican frontrunner’s campaign, but he has opened a second front on trade deficits, which he asserts are being caused by the currency manipulation of other countries, especially China. This manipulation, he says, is “robbing Americans of billions of dollars of capital and millions of jobs.” His solution is “countervailing duties” — basically tariffs — similar to those we routinely impose when foreign countries are found to be subsidizing exports in violation of trade agreements. Romney claims to be aghast. In his stopTrump speech last week he warned that if The Donald became president America would “sink into prolonged recession.” Why? The only specific reason he gave was that those duties would “instigate a trade war and that would raise prices for consumers, kill our export jobs and lead entrepreneurs and businesses of all stripes to flee America.” This is pretty funny if you remember anything about the 2012 campaign. Back then, in accepting Trump’s endorsement, Romney praised the businessman (who was already a well-known “birther”) as someone with an “extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works.” But wait, it gets better: at the time, Romney was saying almost exactly the same things Trump is saying now. He promised to — you guessed it — declare China a currency manipulator, while attacking President Barack Obama for failing to do so. And he brushed off concerns about starting a trade war, declaring that one was underway: “It’s a silent one, and they’re winning.” More important than Romney’s awkward history here, however, is the fact that his economic analysis is all wrong. Protectionism can do real harm, making economies less efficient and reducing long-run growth. But it doesn’t cause recessions. Why not? Doesn’t a trade war reduce employment in export industries? Yes, and it also increases employment in industries that compete with imports. In fact, a worldwide trade war would, by definition, reduce imports by exactly the same amount that it reduces exports. There’s no reason to assume that the net effect on employment would be strongly negative.
But didn’t protectionism cause the Great Depression? No, it didn’t — protectionism was a result of the Depression, not its cause. By the way, if you want an example of a policy that really did have a lot to do with the Great Depression’s spread, that would be the gold standard — which Ted Cruz wants to restore. So Romney is talking nonsense. But so is Trump. Five years ago the Trump complaint that Chinese currency manipulation was costing U.S. jobs had some validity — in fact, serious economists were making the same point. But these days China is in big trouble, and is trying to keep the value of its currency up, not down: foreign exchange reserves are plunging in the face of huge capital flight, to the tune of a trillion dollars over the past year. Nor is China alone. All around the world, capital is fleeing troubled economies — including, by the way, the euro area, which these days tends to run bigger trade surpluses than China. And much of that flight capital is heading for the United States, pushing up the dollar and making our
industries less competitive. It’s a real problem; U.S. economic fundamentals are fairly strong, but we risk, in effect, importing economic weakness from the rest of the world. But it’s not a problem we can address by lashing out at foreigners we falsely imagine are winning at our expense. What can we do to fight imported economic weakness? That’s a big subject, but one thing is for sure: given the pressures from abroad, and the worrying strength of the dollar, the Federal Reserve really, really needs to hold off on raising interest rates. Did I mention that Trump wants to see rates rise? Not only that, but he’s a full-on conspiracy theorist, declaring that Janet Yellen, the Fed’s chairwoman, is keeping interest rates down as a favor to Obama, who “wants to be out playing golf a year from now.” So there you have it. The good news is that there was a real policy debate going on within the GOP last week. The bad news is that it was junk economics on both sides. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-6-16
Jules Witcover
The Republicans’ Race To The Bottom
On the day Mitt Romney called Donald Trump a con man, a fraud and a phony, and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz subsequently ran Trump through a televised debate buzz saw, the Republican Party may have hit a new low in selfdisparagement. Its 2012 presidential nominee first provided the Fox News debate team all the raw material required to keep Trump on the defensive for two hours. Then the debaters did the rest, as Rubio joined Trump in a display of gutter-speak over such matters as genitalia size and other matters better suited for locker-room chatter. For once, attempts were made to draw out Trump on his unending boasts about his wealth and charity, raising doubts about both and generating flashes of anger and impatience from Trump. But once again, it was all about Donald as near-panic seized the party over the prospect of his nomination in July. At one point, moderator Chris Wallace quoted verbatim from Romney’s all-purpose indictment of Trump: “The bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics.” With the field of contenders finally narrowed to four -- Trump, Rubio, Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich -- only the latter again refrained from the mud-slinging and character assassination. Observing the ganging up on Trump around him, Kasich said at one point: “I have never tried to go and get into these scrums that we’re seeing here on this stage. And people say everywhere I go, ‘You seem to be the adult on the stage.’ “ Kasich has earned that observation by sticking
to selling his own record as a proven budget-cutter in Congress as part of President Ronald Reagan’s economics team, and then as a governor who has balanced his state budgets each year in Ohio. At the same time, he has softened the sharp edges he often displayed in Washington and has embraced the “compassionate conservativism” that George W. Bush claimed to champion early in his presidency. Kasich stood by patiently for long intervals in the Detroit debate as Rubio and Cruz hammered at Trump’s business claims in their effort to keep their flagging prospects alive. Kasich is focusing on the Michigan primary Tuesday, hoping to garner Midwest support as a prelude to next week’s primary in his home state. After that, he has said, he will bow out of the presidential race if he doesn’t win there. Asked along with the other candidates in the debate whether he would keep the pledge all of them have made to support the eventual nominee, he answered as follows: “When you’re in the arena, you enter a special circle. And you want to respect the people you are in the arena with. So if he (Trump) winds up as the nominee -- sometimes he makes it a little bit hard -- but you know, I will support whoever is the Republican nominee for president.” That response was a rare display of tact in an otherwise evening of crude and vulgar alley cat brawling by the others that should have been an embarrassment to the Grand Old Party. Earlier in the day, Romney himself had
Witcover continued on page 21
Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
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E.J. Dionne Jr.
The GOP Vulgarians It was William Bennett, education secretary in the Reagan years and the Republican Party’s premier moralist, who embedded a phrase in the American consciousness when he bemoaned the fact that “our elites presided over an unprecedented coarsening of our culture.” Well, to borrow another famous phrase, it is Bennett’s party and two of its presidential candidates in particular, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, who are merrily defining our politics, our discourse and the American presidency down. The 2016 Republican primary campaign is now on track to be the crudest, most vulgar and most thoroughly disgusting contest in our nation’s history. A policy wonk who has spent nearly two decades in politics was watching last Thursday’s GOP debate with his two teenage daughters and was horrified when one turned to him and asked: “Is this what you do?” The dad, who didn’t want to be named because he didn’t want to embarrass his daughters, said their acquaintances had higher standards than the debaters: “They would be humiliated if their friends talked to them that way.” Call me old-fashioned or even a prig, but I have a rather elevated view of what politics can be and what it can achieve. For decades, in good political moments and bad, I have repaired for inspiration and comfort to the political philosopher Michael Sandel’s description of politics at its best. “When politics goes well,” he wrote, “we can know Witcover continued from page 20 stepped out of character in labeling Trump “a con man” and the rest, but then Rubio and Trump in the debate combined to lower the tone and quality of the discussion even more. Informed at the outset that Romney had challenged him “to answer with substance not insults,” Trump replied: “Well, look, he was a failed candidate. He should have beaten President Obama very easy. He failed miserably, and it was an embarrassment to everybody, including the Republican Party. ... I guess, obviously, he wants to be relevant. He wants to be back in the game.”
a good in common that we cannot know alone.” In the GOP right now, it’s not going well. You can place a lot of the responsibility for all this on Trump and, yes, the media. As I was writing this, MSNBC (for which I’ve worked over the years) and CNN were simultaneously broadcasting live the same Trump speech. Welcome to Trump State Television. Broadcasters have reveled in the ratings to be gained from airing Trump’s stream-of-consciousness (if politically effective) rants, and the coarser the better. We might let the blame settle there, except that Marco Rubio got frustrated. The man the party’s leaders keep saying is the real challenger to Trump despite his early difficulties in winning actual contents decided that to beat Trump, he had to join him. Thus began his own rants that reached a low point when he declared of Trump during a rally last month in Virginia: “I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who’s 5-2. Have you seen his hands? They’re like this.” Here, Rubio held his thumb and fingers closely together to depict something very small indeed. He added: “And you know what they say about men with small hands.” Such is the state of serious contention in the GOP in its quest to find a 2016 standard-bearer capable of ending the Democratic control of the White House in November, and the unspeakable threat of the hated Hillary Clinton poised to bring back the Clinton Era, along with -even worse in Republican eyes -- a liberal Supreme Court. Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcover@comcast.net. (C) 2016 Tribune Content Agency, llc. 3-6-16
My naivete extends to the fact that I did not know that small hands are often equated to diminutive endowments elsewhere. But Trump, obviously more worldly than I, went all defensive at the debate, held out his arms and declared: “Look at those hands, are they small hands? And he referred to my hands -- ‘if they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.” Now we know.
Trump has made an incredible amount of coverage.” Yes, let’s be honest: He’s right about the media, but since when is it credible, responsible or, for that matter, conservative to blame someone else for what comes out of your own mouth? By comparison, John Kasich and Ted Cruz are looking almost as issue-oriented and responsible as, well, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. But the whole Republican race is now a moral and electoral wreck, a state of affairs that one conservative after another mourned during and after Thursday’s encounter. For decades, conservatives have done a great business assailing liberals for promoting cultural decay. Sorry, guys, but in this campaign, you have kicked away the franchise. E.J. Dionne’s email address is ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne.
Then there was Trump’s response earlier in the day to the attack on him by Mitt Romney. Trump had a point that Romney was happy to seek his endorsement in 2012 (and to ignore Trump’s birtherism and his other racially and religiously tinged comments about President Obama). But here is how Trump put the matter: “He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, ‘Mitt, drop to your knees.’ He would have dropped to his knees.” (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group We expect Trump to be loutish. 3-7-16 Worse is Rubio’s refusal to take Online Subscription responsibility for the course he has chosen. Explaining that he would Beat The Postal Delay, truly prefer to be talking about Subscribe Online Today! issues, Rubio went for the-devilmade-me-do-it defense. “But let’s www.liberalopinion.com be honest too about all this,” he Or call Toll Free explained. “The media has given 1-800-338-9335 these personal attacks that Donald
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
John Young
All right, then, Mitch; the people will have their say Like blowing out that last birthday candle, Mitch McConnell is going to get his wish. For the remainder of 2016, no one will occupy the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia. No concession will be made to a lameduck president. That nominee won’t get a sniff of a hearing room. Such joyous Republican news comes with an advisory, however: Enjoy the cake, the balloons and the party hats, Mr. Senate Majority Leader, because in your revelry and obstinacy you increase the odds that when a new year dawns we’ll address you as Mr. Senate Minority Leader. Meanwhile, on another significant political front, your latest gambit (Sen. Harry Reid terms it “obstruction on steroids”) is going to help more Americans understand why they need an experienced consensus-seeker rather than a hotel-suite bomb-thrower for president. Back to the Senate and the court. It is quite magnanimous for Republicans to say, as McConnell did, that voters “should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.” That, of course, they did, in electing Barack Obama to appoint justices. They did it once, and they did it again. On the Senate floor, Sen. Al Franken suggested that the GOP leaders appear to have enacted a new rule to “lop off the last year” of a presidency. Franken added, “If only the American people had a voice in deciding precisely how much we should shave off a president’s term.” Of course, we have that option. It’s called a constitutional amendment. Go for it, suggested Franken. Put that one before the voters. Let them speak. Here’s what Washington Post columnist James Hohman predicts the voters are going to say this year: Blocking Obama from doing his job is going to make it more likely that
Republicans will lose the Senate. “Assuming the president picks a Hispanic, African American or Asian American – bonus points if she’s a woman – this could be exactly what Democrats need to re-activate the Obama coalition that fueled his victories in 2008 and 2012,” writes Hohman. The fact is that this year the Senate is there for the Dems to retake, after an off-year election in which just about every contested race with a Democratic incumbent was in a state that had gone red in 2012. This year seven Senate incumbents face challenges in states that Obama won twice -Florida, Illinois, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Democrats need to win five of them and then prevail in safer states where their incumbents are on the ballot. None of this is a sure thing, but Obama stands to have a mighty poster child – the Supreme Court nominee soon to be introduced -- to show the nation that things need to change and the GOP way of obstruction and division is not the way.
through the next election -- to be re-nominated by Obama’s Democratic successor. That would be the ultimate nightmare for those who, like McConnell and Ted Cruz, put partisan bloodlust over every other concern they might have had in Congress. At that point, hara-kiri might be in order. Based on this scenario, McConnell goes down in history as the Senate majority leader who failed in meeting his No. 1 legislative objective (depriving Obama of two terms). Then he helped lose the Senate, hence failing ultimately to block that still-nominated Obama Supreme Court nominee. Oh, and he helped elect a Democrat to hold the White House well into the 2020s. All the while, that nominee will be a This is called reverse obstruction. sympathetic victim of politics most venal. That Longtime newspaperman John Young lives nominee will be seen as a political martyr. in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail. One scenario many people don’t seem to com. consider is that this attractive, willing, able 3-1-16 nominee could remain, waiting patiently, judiciously, right
Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Albert Hunt
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Jonathan Capehart
Remembering Nancy Reagan, Mourning More Than The Formidable First Lady Loss of Nancy Reagan The list of influential modern first ladies always includes Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton, but not usually Nancy Reagan. That’s a mistake. Reagan, who died Sunday at 94, had a big influence on her husband, President Ronald Reagan, both in shaping White House operations in his first term and encouraging his breakthrough relations with the Soviet Union in his second. For more than a half century, the Reagans’ love story was so intense that at times it burned at the expense of family, friends and politics. That could be a political liability. Reagan’s lavish spending habits and social friends became political baggage. Her fixation on astrology after the 1981 assassination attempt on her husband was a distraction for the White House. Before Ronald Reagan reached the White House, including during his two terms as governor of California, his wife was seen more as a stylish, protective spouse than a substantive mover and shaker. That changed after Reagan became president in 1980. The Republican right wing was determined to shape the new administration’s agenda by putting Edwin Meese, a hardline conservative, in charge of the White House staff. Mrs. Reagan, working with her old confidant Michael Deaver, instead persuaded her husband to tap James Baker as chief of staff even though Baker had been the campaign manager of her husband’s primary rival (and then running mate), George H.W. Bush. Meese instead became counsellor to the president. The Baker-Deaver duo proved remarkably effective at pushing a conservative agenda in a politically pragmatic way. Reagan won reelection four years later in a landslide. When Baker and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan switched jobs at the start of the second term, the new White House chief of staff ran afoul of the first lady. That was Regan’s mistake. After the Iran-contra scandal, involving arms-selling to Iran in exchange for release of American hostages, she helped engineer his ouster in 1987.
She also encouraged her husband to seize an opening for a better relationship with the Soviet Union. She forged a close alliance with Secretary of State George Shultz -- they had scores of telephone conversations -- at the expense of the more conservative national security adviser, William Clark, a longtime Reagan ally. Clark, too, was discarded, and Reagan signed a sweeping arms control pact with the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1991, about three years after Reagan left office, the Soviet Union collapsed. It wasn’t that President Reagan was easy to manipulate. But these were controversial issues and there was conflicting advice. His wife, more than anyone, knew how to appeal to him and had his confidence. After her White House years she became a vocal advocate for research on Alzheimer’s Disease, which afflicted her husband late in his life. She also supported some gun control measures, reflecting the continuing influence on her thinking of the 1981 assassination attempt. She remained a Republican, occasionally appearing at events at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. But she told friends and acquaintances in recent years she was dismayed at the right-wing tilt of her party, which she believed didn’t reflect the legacy of her “Ronnie.” Albert R. Hunt is a Bloomberg View columnist. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-7-16
While I was growing up in the 1980s, Nancy Reagan, who passed away March 6 at the age of 94, wasn’t my favorite. Then the first lady of the United States, wife of President Ronald Reagan, seemed to my teenage self a cold, stern figure who lectured us to “Just Say No” to drugs. The Hollywood glamour she and her husband brought to the White House those eight years only added to the distance -- psychological and experiential -- that seemed to be between her and me. That view of Reagan continued long after she left Washington. But all that changed in the evening hours of June 11, 2004. We all watched the nation pay its respects to the 40th president of the United States. The man who led the Reagan Revolution and who so many Republican leaders struggle to emulate was being laid to rest after succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease. The pageantry started in Washington and ended in the glowing sunset at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Nancy Reagan, seated in a chair, watched an honor guard as they removed the U.S. flag from her late husband’s coffin and dutifully fold it. After it was handed to her, Reagan held the banner to her heart, as if she were holding him one last time. And then that moment happened. The one so touching, so human that grownup me could never look at her with those teenage eyes again. Placing the flag atop the coffin,
Reagan rested her head on the casket as she patted and rubbed her hand across it. As The Post reported then, Reagan had been through a week of public remembrances and “somber rituals” by the time she “surrendered to her grief.” The woman who turned around her “Queen Nancy” reputation in Washington by making fun of herself in a performance of “Second Hand Rose” at the Gridiron dinner in 1982 was now a grieving widow. It was hard to watch her public pain as an adult and not feel for her.
Remembering Reagan’s loss then and reflecting on the Reagan presidency, including her strong presence in it, now will force us to consider how much more has been lost. The reverence for the presidency and respect for the person entrusted with it, once omnipresent in Washington, is gone. The dignity of the process of nominating and electing that person has never been pretty. But Donald Trump has degraded it beyond anything the former president would recognize or condone. The remembrances of Nancy Reagan will take us all back to the days of the Reagan presidency. An astonishingly simpler time when decorum ruled and compromise was essential to governing. That’s not to say Reagan’s presidency was perfect or that the late first lady was an uncontroversial figure. But at a time when the political process has been debased by talk of the size of hands and other body parts, her death is a useful reminder that those Republicans now seeking to follow in her revered husband’s footsteps aren’t worthy of filling the shoes of a giant. Jonathan Capehart is a member of the Post editorial board and writes about politics and social issues for the PostPartisan blog. (c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-7-16
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Mark Gilbert
‘Helicopter Money’ Might Be Closer Than You Think Central bankers, it may soon be time to don your flying suits and start your engines. There’s a growing suspicion that quantitative easing and zero/negative interest rates have lost any power they might have had to kickstart the economy. So Milton Friedman’s famous “helicopter money” is back on the radar as a potential solution to what ails global growth. With governments still unwilling to flex their fiscal muscles to boost the world economy, Friedman’s idea -- easy to articulate, devilishly hard to envisage in practice -- is very much in vogue. Here’s how he described it in “The Optimum Quantity of Money,” a collection of papers published in 1969: “Let us suppose now that one day a helicopter flies over this community and drops an additional $1,000 in bills from the sky, which is, of course, hastily collected by members of the community.” The hope would be that putting more money directly into consumers’ pockets would send them scurrying to the shops to spend their windfalls. The ensuing surge in demand would revitalize animal spirits, averting the threat of deflation by persuading retailers to raise their prices. Inflation rates would make their way back to the 2 percent targets many countries have adopted as a safe pace of acceleration for consumer prices. In practice, a central bank wishing to drop money on its constituents would probably either just add money to their bank accounts, or move in tandem with the government to fund a national tax cut. We’d all wake up a bit richer on a Monday morning. Friedman appended an important caveat to his thought experiment: “Let us suppose further that everyone is convinced that this is a unique event which will never be repeated.” The truth is no-one would regard a helicopter drop as a one-time event. Once the whirlybirds are in the air, they’d likely fly again and again. Moreover, if the money drops had the desired effect of reviving inflation, it’s entirely unclear how you’d go about taking stimulus back out of the economy if prices spiral dangerously higher. So this sounds like a crazy plan, right? So did quantitative easing and negative interest rates until the very recent past. As Jim Reid at Deutsche Bank has argued, a compelling feature of the post-crisis environment is how quickly radicalism becomes orthodoxy. Put another way, desperate times tempt desperate central bankers into desperate measures: “Throughout the modern history of monetary economics one policy has been put forward as a monetary “super drug” (or deadly poison depending on your view). That is “helicopter money.” It has long been seen as being too powerful to control and thus beyond the scope of contemplation. However in the past decade such policy has slowly emerged from the shadow of heterodoxy.” Reid wrote that way back in September 2013, when the hopes of the world still believed in quantitative easing as a cure for deflation. After all, Ben Bernanke had assured us in 2002 that the existence of the printing press meant “a determined
government can always generate higher spending Wonderland world we currently live in means no and hence positive inflation.” policy is too outlandish to contemplate. Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said Trillions of dollars of QE later, and it’s not on Monday he’s opposed to helicopter money so clear that Bernanke’s assertion that “sufficient and would never countenance printing money to injections of money will ultimately always reverse fund either the government deficit or to finance a deflation.” public spending. To paraphrase from Hamlet, the Concern that the deflation demon is still lurking central banker doth protest too much, methinks. explains why helicopter money -- an idea that’s The fact that helicopter money is being discussed almost half a century old and has never been at all should be fair warning that the whirlybirds attempted -- is the subject of blog postings from are warming up. And, let’s be honest, any central serious market watchers including Nobel prize banker looking out at the economic horizon must winning economist Paul Krugman, former Bank be close enough to despair to feel that something, of England economist Tony Yates, and former anything, everything, is worth a shot now. chairman of the U.K. Financial Services Authority Mark Gilbert, a Bloomberg View columnist, is a Adair Turner. member of the Bloomberg View editorial board. While the list of objections to the idea of (c) 2016, Bloomberg View helicopter money is a long one, the Alice-in- 3-5-16
Frank Bruni
Hidden Gold in College Applications
If the gatekeepers at Davidson College had judged the teenager by her ACT score, she probably wouldn’t have gotten in. It was 25 out of a possible 36, and more than three-quarters of the students at Davidson, a liberal-arts school in North Carolina with about 1,800 undergraduates and an acceptance rate of just over 20 percent, do better than that. Her grades at a small charter school in the Boston area didn’t carry the day. I was allowed to look at her application, with her name redacted, and what I saw was an impressive but unexceptional mix of A’s and B-pluses, along with an impressive but unexceptional array of extracurricular activities much like any ambitious high school senior’s. I had to read deeper, as the admissions officers at Davidson had done, to understand why they felt so strongly about her, and to feel that way myself. I had to notice details embedded in her letters of recommendation and mentioned fleetingly in bits of personal information that she’d provided. She’d been reared by a single mother. She had a 6-year-old brother. And for the last few years, she’d spent three nights a week making his dinner and getting him to bed while her mom was at work, earning an income so modest that the teenager met the federal requirements for receiving free lunch at school. “Look at what she’s juggling,” Chris Gruber, Davidson’s dean of admissions, said as we chatted about her last week. In the context of those stresses, her Advanced Placement classes shimmered brighter; so did her volunteer work. And though her high school wasn’t chockablock with counselors, she’d had the good sense to read up on Davidson and, in her application, lay out a mix of cogent, sophisticated reasons that it was right for her. “She researched the place perfectly,” Gruber marveled, and, in all likelihood, “was doing it on her own.” Everything about her suggested maturity, independence, determination. Forget that ACT. She
was a wager that Davidson was willing to make, and she was granted early admission to the class of 2020, which will begin studies next fall. There has been a crescendo lately in talk about how to conduct college admissions in a manner that brings greater socioeconomic diversity to campuses, making them richer places to learn and better engines of social mobility. I had extensive conversations with administrators at three very different schools that have made such diversity a priority and were willing to discuss specific applicants whose mettle became evident only upon a closer consideration of circumstances. The administrators explained how such an examination is done. One of those schools was the Air Force Academy, which has a 17 percent acceptance rate and an especially interesting vantage point. Because it’s free and funded by the government, it feels an extra obligation to be open to all. It’s also legally compelled to look for, and at, applicants in all 50 states. And because it is preparing its students to be military officers, character matters as much as — if not more than — test scores. The academy’s administrators briefed me on several applicants from recent years who were admitted despite inferior scores, and who nonetheless performed superbly at the academy. One had an ACT of well under 20, and yet she’d earned A’s in AP classes at her high school in inner-city Philadelphia. Delving into her background, the administrators concluded that the low ACT was in part a function of a childhood in which she’d bounced around in foster care and even lived with teachers. “It wasn’t a capacity issue for her,” Col. Carolyn Benyshek, the director of admissions, told me. “It wasn’t a skill issue. It was about exposure.” That she’d nonetheless challenged herself academically and maintained a high grade-point
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Liberal Opinion Week
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Faye Flam
Weird Science Works In The Fight Against Cancer What kinds of research should be included in the $1 billion “moonshot” proposal to cure cancer? Since President Obama announced the idea in his last State of the Union address, Vice President Joe Biden, who is heading the effort, has talked of getting more patients enrolled in clinical trials and finding more efficient ways of sharing data. But what about less obvious steps, such as a recent experiment on zebra fish with green glowing skin tumors? When it comes to cancer research, weird is good. Tackling cancer requires unconventional ideas because cancer is an unconventional enemy. Cancer is less a disease than a class of diseases. It’s a broad description of the mysterious forces that make our own cells turn unpredictably against us. Unlike the quest to eradicate smallpox or to send astronauts to the moon, the effort to cure cancer doesn’t have a clear path forward. There is no universal cure or prevention strategy. The researchers working with the genetically modified zebra fish set
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average struck academy administrators as remarkable. They admitted her, and she went on to win a coveted award for her performance during basic training. Phillip Prosseda, who works with Benyshek in admissions, stressed that what they’re trying to be sensitive to “isn’t simply a sad story or a sob story. It’s about: What are the candidates’ life experiences, and how did they react?” For instance, a young woman with modest test scores and grades that weren’t dazzling had done something that showed remarkable gumption, ingenuity and civic concern: She had coordinated the chain of events that led to the government cleaning up an environmental hazard near her school in an Illinois suburb. The academy admitted her. An admissions operation with enough resources to ferret out accomplishments like the Illinois woman’s and to follow up with high schools and learn more about candidates is key. The Air Force goes even further: It has a residential prep school where academically marginal students whom it wants to admit can do a year of remediation. Private schools with especially robust endowments could
out to learn something basic about why some cells become malignant and others don’t. The dark stripes on these fish contain same pigmentproducing cells, called melanocytes, that malfunction in melanoma - a potentially fatal form of skin cancer. The experiment ended up giving the scientists the first view of cancers as they were born, said Leonard Zon, a Harvard biologist who lead the study. The results were published in January in the journal Science. Cancer cells are riddled with mutations. These spelling errors in the DNA send faulty instructions, so that cancer cells lose the ability to cooperate with the specialized cells of an intestine, or lungs, or skin, and instead replicate themselves in an uncontrolled way. But many of the mutations found in cancer cells also appear in noncancerous cells. Melanoma cells carry a mutation in a gene called BRAF, but so do ordinary moles, and most moles don’t become melanomas. Many kinds of cancer cells also have spelling errors pursue more efforts along these lines than they do. Admitting students with merit that isn’t instantly clear in their transcripts is a purposeful effort, a commitment. Davidson and the third school I looked at, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, do extensive outreach to make sure that North Carolina kids from geographic areas and backgrounds that aren’t ready-made conduits to top colleges know about them and about aid that can make them affordable. Davidson sends emissaries to speak with the leaders of community-based organizations and with guidance counselors in less affluent schools. UNC-Chapel Hill is a vigorous partner in the College Advising Corps, which places recent graduates in schools to nurture kids who might not otherwise set their sights on higher education. Chapel Hill’s admissions director, Stephen Farmer, told me about the follow-up that his office had done regarding a young man who recently applied for early admission. His test scores placed him toward the bottom of the applicant pool. He had D’s from his freshman and sophomore years. But then there was a stunning improvement that suggested a commitment all the more noteworthy in light of significant adversity in his
in a gene called p53, but so do some cells that don’t become malignant. Zebra fish have many genes in common with humans, including BRAF and p53, said Zon, so he was able to genetically engineer fish with cancer-associated mutations in these genes. Despite having melanoma time bombs in every cell, the fish on average got just one to three tumors, he said. Most of their melanocytes remained normal. Some other factor was at play. He suspected a gene called crestin, which signals cells to divide, and is active in the fish when they’re embryos. The gene is supposed to stay shut down in adult fish. He suspected that something had caused the gene to become activated when it was supposed to be off. Molecules surrounding the DNA switch the genes on and off - changes referred to as epigenetic. And like the rest of the body’s complex machinery, this system, too, can malfunction. To test this hunch, Zon added
family. Farmer and other admissions officers wavered, conscious that “if you put students in an academic environment that’s too tough for them, you’re setting them up to fail.” On the other hand, they sensed real grit in him. So they delayed a decision in order to see if his grades from the fall of senior year held up. They did — and he has just been admitted. Farmer mentioned a similar case from a year ago: a young man from rural North Carolina with an ACT of 22. He was the son of immigrants who didn’t speak fluent English and had relied on him, since the sixth grade, to translate for them and even deal with the bank. He devoted up to 30 hours a week to the family business. “He needs a bridge to his future,” wrote one of his teachers in a letter of recommendation. He started in Chapel Hill last fall. For that first semester, he had an Aminus average. And he’s proof, Farmer said, that “if we’re viewing everybody through a single lens, we’re not seeing most people clearly. So we need to get better at adjusting our vision, or we’re going to miss a lot of talent.” So is America. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-5-16
another genetic modification - a “tag” that would produce a green fluorescent protein as soon as the crestin gene was turned on. Then, he saw little pinpoints of glowing green cells emerge on some of the fish. These turned out to be the first seeds of cancer. The cancer cells, Zon said, resemble embryonic life. The next step is understanding what might trigger the epigenetic change - whether it results from something specific, like inflammation or UV exposure, or whether it’s up to chance. Projects like this one can complement efforts to gather more human data, especially genetic information on patients and on the DNA errors in their tumors. New research is showing that genetic mutations may be more common than thought in children who get cancer. But the genes don’t directly cause cancer. Some people with predisposing genes stay healthy, and some cells with cancer-related mutations don’t become tumors. Zon is hoping that figuring out why could lead to better treatments - perhaps ones more likely to stamp out those cells capable of seeding a relapse. Scientists warn that if there’s risk involved in the cancer moonshot, it’s the prospect of siphoning money from other research aimed at, say, developing treatments for ALS or Alzheimer’s Disease, or vaccines against emerging viruses. The other risk is that of unrealistic promises. A previous “war on cancer” started in 1971 by the Richard Nixon administration promised to end “suffering and death from cancer” by 2015. That looks like a failure now, but Zon says his work in fish and in human patients wouldn’t be possible without the knowledge and technological advances gained from that war. A billion dollars won’t stamp out an affliction that’s been around since the age of dinosaurs. But sprinkled with imagination, it’s enough to make some progress. Faye Flam writes about science, mathematics and medicine. She has been a staff writer for Science magazine and a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She is author of “The Score: How the Quest for Sex has Shaped the Modern Man.” (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-3-16
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March 16, 2016
Petula Dvorak
Police Officers Are Killed Dealing With Domestic Violence and Other Problems We Ignore
The risks are real and the threats are much more complex than most people want to acknowledge. Every time cops like Ashley Guindon put on their badges and head out to work, the criminals they encounter are only one small part of their difficult, dangerous jobs. Nearly 1 million men and women in blue put their lives in jeopardy every day because they are too often the ones fighting the war on so many social issues that the rest of the nation refuses to properly address: domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, poverty and gun control. This was how Guindon - a 28-year-old Marine Corps Reserve veteran, double-degree college graduate in aeronautics and forensics, and newly sworn-in police officer - was killed Saturday on her first shift as a Prince William County, Virginia, police officer. She was an ideal rookie - smart, tough, welleducated and with enough opportunity in other career fields that a life on the beat had to be chosen out of conviction and passion for the work. She had perspective, having recently worked as part of the unit at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling that dealt with returning the remains of fallen Marines to their families. She is the daughter of a sergeant who killed himself the day after he returned home from the war in Iraq in 2004. But it was in a quiet suburb in Northern Virginia on a domestic disturbance call that she met her own death.
Army Sgt. Ronald Hamilton, 32, had been fighting all day with his wife, Crystal, who finally called 911, police said. Guindon got the call. And when she arrived at the Hamiltons’ door, Crystal Hamilton was dead and Ronald Hamilton allegedly opened fire. Guindon was killed and two other officers, Jesse Hempen, 31, and David McKeown, 33, were injured. Blue blood was spilled here because of something folks don’t like to talk about, something that is politicized, marginalized and too often dismissed as a social issue: domestic violence. The story wasn’t too different a couple of weeks ago in Abington, Maryland, where David Evans, who has a long history of mental illness - and who is suspected of shooting his ex-wife years ago - allegedly killed two Harford County Sheriff’s deputies inside a Panera Bread. And it all apparently began with mental illness and access to guns. A police officer is killed in the line of duty about every 2 1/2 days in the United States, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Last year, 124 officers were killed, 42 of them by gunfire, 52 in traffic accidents and 24 died of work-related heart attacks, according to the fund. Nine of the officers killed last year were women, which was more than double the four female
officers killed in 2014.
owners by Guns & Ammo magazine - Georgia, Louisiana and Texas - also had the highest rates of officer deaths. It’s no mystery why police officers are vocal about the recent legislation passed in Texas allowing guns on university campuses. They are afraid for their lives, too. We ask cops every day to be social workers, marriage counselors, psychiatrists, negotiators, teachers and friends. And yet, too often, the same people who ask this of police balk when asked to support the other people who are trying to do those jobs. Ashley Guindon was an accomplished, thoughtful woman. And an appropriate way to honor her sacrifice is to acknowledge that the work of law enforcement officers is nuanced, complex and requires an American partnership that’s much deeper than simply Petula is a columnist for The Washington Post’s local team who writes about homeless shelters, gun control, high heels, high school choirs, the politics of parenting, jails, abortion clinics, mayors, modern families, strip clubs and gas prices, among other things.
This year has been a deadly one for police officers, with 11 killed. At this time in 2015, only one had fallen in the line of duty. Who kills police? The FBI data on law enforcement officer deaths shows that between 2004 and 2013, white males were the most frequent killers of cops. It’s no secret that police work is dangerous, and these men and women clearly put their lives in peril every day. But anyone discussing #BlueLivesMatter has to acknowledge where nearly all the risks to police officers come from. Supporting police is about far more than a Facebook post, a tweet or a slogan. It means taking a serious look at the threats they confront daily and coming up with real solutions to minimize them. It may not fit into a tough-guy meme to say that true reform of our mental health system saves police lives, but it would. So would better drug treatment And taking on domestic violence on behalf of police officers doesn’t sound sexy, but seven cops were killed last year responding to such calls. (c) 2016, The Washington Post Want to talk guns? The states ranked among the highest for gun 2-29-16
Courtland Milloy
Some Ex-Offenders Now Have The Chance To Vote - For ‘Liars’ and ‘Con Men’ For ex-offenders who have successfully “I’ve heard bits and pieces of the campaigns, fought to have their voting rights restored in recent months, the presidential primaries were the first chance to go to the polls in years, even decades. And what a special welcome back it must have been for them to choose from a slate of candidates who have often exhibited the kind of behavior that many were warned about when they were given a second chance. One of those who expected to start voting again in the Super Tuesday presidential primary was Je’Marc Morton, a warehouse employee in Williamsburg, Virginia. His voting rights were revoked for seven years after his conviction for grand larceny in 2008. His sentence for the larceny was five years’ probation. Morton successfully petitioned to get back the right to vote last year. Now he was able to vote in a presidential primary - to choose among candidates variously described by one another as liars, con artists, hypocrites, wackos, frauds, cheats and thieves. And to think that millions of people have been permanently disenfranchised - even after completing their sentences - because politicians like some of those running for president say ex-offenders do not have the “judgment” or “trustworthiness” to cast a ballot.
candidates being called things like ‘crooks’ and ‘stupid,’ “ said Morton, 28. It’s been a dispiriting campaign, to say the least. “I celebrated when I received a certificate saying my voting rights had been restored. But I just haven’t decided what to do.” Just vote, that’s what he ought to do. Get back into the habit of participating in the political life of the nation. These voting-rightsrevocation laws, which proliferated after the Civil War, were designed to do nothing more than keep black people away from the polls. However, as often happens, poor and working-class white people began getting caught up in the traps that were laid for black people. As Paul Berendt, then the Washington state Democratic Party chairman, told the Seattle Times back in 2005: “We know for a fact that nonunion, blue-collar, Caucasian men vote very disproportionately Republican, and when you look at the felon population in the state of Washington, they are overwhelmingly nonunion, blue-collar, male Caucasians.” The result has been a budding bipartisan effort
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
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Mark Gilbert
Why Tackling Bans Are A Wrongheaded Solution Last weekend, Liverpool played Manchester City in an English soccer cup final. About 18 minutes into the game two Liverpool players banged heads going for the same ball. About six minutes later one of them, Mamadou Sakho, fell over like a drunken baby giraffe when defending his goalmouth, and was immediately led off the pitch by the Liverpool doctor. The player was furious, hurling a water bottle away in anger and then sitting in the stands hidden beneath a jacket, apparently in tears. Arguably, the defender’s exit cost his team (and mine) the game and lost them the trophy. But it was still the correct thing to do. The debate about how to curb head injuries in sport, particularly in American football and rugby, is important. But the conclusion that seems to be gaining popularity in those two sports -- protect players by banning as much as tackling as is possible -- feels misguided at best and downright dangerous at worst. More than 70 doctors and healthcare professionals wrote an open letter this week calling for tackling to be banned in school rugby in the United Kingdom. Last week, the eight Ivy League U.S. football coaches agreed to abolish full-contact hits in regularseason practice sessions. As a former (not very good) teenage rugby player, I’m concerned that if the techniques to tackle safely
aren’t learned and honed either as a youngster or in less competitive environments, there’s more risk of serious injury as players progress to a higher level. Imagine imposing a 50 miles-per-hour speed limit on Formula 1 cars on their practice laps; and then expecting the drivers to navigate the track at three or four times those speeds in the actual race. It just wouldn’t make sense.
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and 20 percent of black people in the state, the ACLU says. The numbers would be even higher if McAuliffe hadn’t made policy changes that have helped people with certain drug convictions get their voting rights restored sooner and removed the requirement that people pay court fines and fees before applying for restoration. Black people make up 45 percent of those arrested for drug offenses in Virginia, even though they are only 19.7 percent of the state’s population - and despite evidence showing that white people use illegal drugs at higher rates than black people, according to the ACLU. Such systemic racial disparity could understandably lead to despair and cynicism among black exoffenders. Why even participate in a political process that undergirds obvious injustice? Because voting is the best remedy,
to reform these draconian restrictions on voting rights. Today, there are an estimated 5 million Americans who have lost the right to vote because of felony convictions. Virginia, as it turns out, is one of the states doing the most to remedy the injustice, with Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) continuing reforms started under his predecessor, Robert F. McDonnell (R). Nevertheless, Virginia still has one of the highest rates of disenfranchisement in the country. According to the Virginia ACLU, an estimated 450,000 Virginians are barred from voting for the rest of their lives because of a felony conviction - nearly 7 percent of the state’s population. That includes 1 in 4 African American men in Virginia permanently banned from voting,
You can’t eliminate danger from most sports, but you can mitigate the risks, as the safety history of motorsport shows. By 1960, 30 Formula 1 drivers had died in just 10 years; a further 37 lost their lives from 1961 to 1980, with 10 fatalities in the 15 years to 1995. Jackie Stewart, one of the sport’s biggest names between 1968 and 1973, reckoned racing drivers had a two-in-three chance of dying, and was a catalyst for improving safety. Since 1996, the sport has suffered just four fatalities. Proper crash barriers replaced bales of hay; metal fuel tanks with a high fire risk were abolished in favor of punctureproof bladders, which these days are made of military-grade Kevlar. Fire-resistant clothing and helmets, survival cockpits built into the chassis, and rules enforcing a maximum fivesecond escape time from the driving seat have all made the sport safer. Closed cockpits, which might have
saved the most recent victim, Jules Bianchi, last year, are still being reviewed. Rugby has also introduced initiatives to improve player safety. Since last year, medics take any player with a potential head injury off the pitch for a 10 minute assessment including memory, cognitive and balance tests. No player showing signs of concussion is allowed to return to the game, and even those deemed to be fine have to undergo two further clinical assessments in the two days following the match. Of course, the risks highlighted by tackling opponents are as much from repeated hits as individual injuries. It’s not an entirely satisfying answer to those wanting urgent action, but better data collection to properly no matter how imperfect. “The real push now should be for people to find out if they are eligible to have their voting rights restored and get it done in time for the November elections,” said Rebecca Green, a law professor and codirector of William and Mary Law School’s Election Law Program. “It takes a few months to go through the process, so they need to start now,” said Green, who also helps run a project for disenfranchised Virginia residents called Revive My Vote. “At least in Virginia, there’s never been a better time to apply to get your rights back.” And when ex-offenders do succeed in getting their rights, they need to use them. Hopefully, Morton exercised his and voted - if only for the candidate who lies the least. (c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-1-16
understand the risks players are taking with their brains would make for a more informed debate. Brandi Chastain, who played for the United States at the 1999 Women’s World Cup, said this week she’s bequeathing her brain to medical science. Some U.S. colleges, notably Dartmouth, have already introduced restrictions on practice tackling. My Bloomberg View colleague Kavitha Davidson has explained that those teams have seen “none of the negative effects on play that many players, coaches and other football insiders fear from ‘going soft’ in practice.” Those players, though, already know how to tackle, even if they get to use those skills less often; if the next generation is deprived of the opportunity to gain experience, they’ll be more at risk of injury when match day arrives. Better in-game monitoring and expelling players at the first sign of injury is one obvious step to improving safety. Training American footballers to copy rugby players, who try to hit opponents with a combination of shoulders and arm wraps rather than leading with their heads is another. Perhaps the National Football League should think seriously about abolishing helmets, which arguably promote a false sense of security. Banning tackling outside of competitive adult games, however, seems to me a knee-jerk solution that will only increase the risks of head injuries over time. Gilbert is a Bloomberg View columnist and a member of the Bloomberg View editorial board. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-4-16
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Christopher Soghoian
The Technology At The Heart Of The Apple-FBI Debate, Explained
What if the FBI could force Samsung to covertly turn on the video camera in your smart TV? Or force Google to deliver a malicious security update to your web browser which actually spied on you and transmitted your passwords and other sensitive information back to the FBI? Sound like something from a dystopian sci-fi movie? If Apple loses its high-profile legal fight with the U.S. government, these scenarios could become a reality. This will also threaten the security of all Internet users. Until relatively recently, consumers were often nagged to look for and download software updates. This is something that many of us didn’t do, promptly, or often, at all. As a result, many people ran out-of-date, insecure software, leaving them unnecessarily vulnerable to cyber attacks and computer viruses. In an effort to get prompt security updates to as many consumers and businesses as possible, the software industry has largely shifted to a model of automatic updates. As a result, our phones, computers and Internet of Things devices (such as thermostats and smart TVs) now regularly call their makers to look for updates, which are then automatically downloaded and installed.
The transition to automatic updates has significantly improved the state of cybersecurity. However, the existence of a mechanism to quietly deliver software onto phones and computers without the knowledge or consent of a user could be misused by criminals, hackers and nation states. It is for that reason that tech companies have built in an additional security feature, known as “code signing,” through which companies can certify the software updates they’ve created are authentic. Without a digital signature proving the authenticity of the software update, it cannot be installed. This code signing mechanism ensures that only Microsoft can deliver updates for Word, only Apple can distribute updates for iOS, and only Google can deliver updates for its Chrome browser. Earlier this month, the American public learned that the Department of Justice had sought and obtained a court order forcing Apple to help it hack into the iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters. The court ordered Apple to create a new, special version of Apple’s iOS operating system that bypasses several security features built into the company’s operating system. The court also ordered Apple to sign the custom version of the software. Without this digital signature certifying the software’s authenticity, the iPhone would refuse to run it. Experts fear that the precedent that the government is seeking in this case - to be able to force Apple to sign code for the government - could allow the government to force other technology companies to sign surveillance software and then
push it to individual users’ devices, using the automatic update mechanisms that regularly look for and download new software.
their children puts their entire community at risk, so too the decision to turn off automatic updates not only impacts the individual, but other users and organizations, as those vulnerable, infected users’ computers will be used by hackers to target others. The trust that Americans have placed in software companies is far too important to risk destroying to make it easier for the government to spy. And the precedent the government is seeking in this case will not just apply to Apple, but, in an age of Internet of Things, to the TVs, thermostats and other smart-devices with cameras and microphones we are inviting into our homes. The author is the Principal Technologist with the Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.
If consumers fear that the software updates they receive from technology companies might secretly contain surveillance software from the FBI, many of them are likely to disable those automatic updates. And even if you aren’t worried about the FBI spying on you, if enough other people are, you will still face increased threats from hackers, identity thieves and foreign governments. There are a lot of parallels between computer security and public health, and in many ways, software updates are like immunizations for our computers. Just as we want parents to get their children immunized, we want computers Special to The Washington Post to receive regular software updates. Indeed, just 2-29-16 as the decision by some parents to not vaccinate
John Kiriakou
What’s At Stake In Apple’s Privacy Fight
Civil liberties fans in the United States recently got an unlikely champion: the CEO of Apple. In a high-profile spat with the White House, Tim Cook has emerged as a leading spokesperson against the Obama administration’s efforts to weaken Americans’ constitutional protections and civil liberties. In particular, Cook is fighting a federal order that would force Apple to create software to bypass the iPhone’s security features — and give the FBI access to the phone and everything on it. He sent a letter to all Apple users explaining the company’s position and promising to keep up the fight. Here’s what’s at stake. The FBI is investigating last December’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. It wants access to the iPhone used by suspected terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook, who carried out the shooting together with his wife Tashfeen Malik. But here’s the controversial part: The feds basically want Apple to create a software “backdoor” that would allow the FBI to access the phone’s information remotely. The FBI insists this is a one-off request. But that’s ridiculous: Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. Indeed, the FBI is already seeking access to iPhones in nine other cases. The constitutional implications are chilling. If the government gets its way, nothing would be private. With a secret order from a judge, your phone company or manufacturer could have to provide all the information on your phone to the FBI, including call logs, text messages, emails, chat transcripts, and even photos. They won’t just find out if you’re talking with “terrorists,” of course. Are you calling a secret
girlfriend or boyfriend? Are you talking with an abortion provider — or a psychiatrist? What kind of porn do you look at?
If it’s on your phone, the government would get to know about it. Nothing would be private. Nothing would be sacred. And worse yet, those same tools the FBI wants could easily fall into the hands of hackers, criminals, or even foreign intelligence services. Once Pandora’s box opens, there’s no closing it. There’s another issue at play here, too: The FBI dropped the ball on Syed Rizwan Farook months ago, so now it’s trying to cover its mistakes. Federal law enforcement officials told CNN in December, for example, that Farook had been in touch with “more than one terrorism suspect” the FBI was already investigating. That was well before he carried out the shootings. Why wasn’t the FBI intercepting his communications then, when they could’ve gotten a warrant? Why was there no authorized surveillance? It’s because the FBI botched the case, and now they’re trying to make up for it by turning Apple — and privacy — into the bad guys. We should support Apple and its efforts to protect our privacy. We’ve already lost many of our civil liberties since the September 11 attacks. It’s time to turn the tide. Our privacy is worth fighting for. OtherWords columnist John Kiriakou is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and the winner of the 2015 PEN Center USA First Amendment award. An earlier version of this opinion piece appeared at Truthdig.com. OtherWords.org 3-2-16
Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
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Craig Federighi
Apple VP: The FBI Wants To Roll Back Safeguards That Keep Us A Step Ahead Of Criminals As the head of software engineering at Apple, I think nothing is more important than the safety of all of our customers. Even as we strive to deliver delightful experiences to users of iPhones, iPads and Macs, our team must work tirelessly to stay one step ahead of criminal attackers who seek to pry into personal information and even co-opt devices to commit broader assaults that endanger us all. Sadly, these threats only grow more serious and sophisticated over time. In just the past 18 months, hackers have repeatedly breached the defenses of retail chains, banks and even the federal government, making off with the credit card information, Social Security numbers and fingerprint records of millions of people. But the threat to our personal information is just the tip of the iceberg. Your phone is more than a personal device. In today’s mobile, networked world, it’s part of the
security perimeter that protects your family and co-workers. Our nation’s vital infrastructure - such as power grids and transportation hubs - becomes more vulnerable when individual devices get hacked. Criminals and terrorists who want to infiltrate systems and disrupt sensitive networks may start their attacks through access to just one person’s smartphone. That’s why my team works so hard to stay ahead. The encryption technology built into today’s iPhone represents the best data security available to consumers. And cryptographic protections on the device don’t just help prevent unauthorized access to your personal data - they’re also a critical line of defense against criminals who seek to implant malware or spyware and to use the device of an unsuspecting person to gain access to a business, public utility or government agency. Of course, despite our best
efforts, nothing is 100 percent secure. Humans are fallible. Our engineers write millions of lines of code, and even the very best can make mistakes. A mistake can become a point of weakness, something for attackers to exploit. Identifying and fixing those problems are critical parts of our mission to keep customers safe. Doing anything to hamper that mission would be a serious mistake. That’s why it’s so disappointing that the FBI, Justice Department and others in law enforcement are pressing us to turn back the clock to a less-secure time and lesssecure technologies. They have suggested that the safeguards of iOS 7 were good enough and that we should simply go back to the security standards of 2013. But the security of iOS 7, while cutting-edge at the time, has since been breached by hackers. What’s worse, some of their methods have been productized and are
now available for sale to attackers who are less skilled but often more malicious. To get around Apple’s safeguards, the FBI wants us to create a backdoor in the form of special software that bypasses passcode protections, intentionally creating a vulnerability that would let the government force its way into an iPhone. Once created, this software - which law enforcement has conceded it wants to apply to many iPhones - would become a weakness that hackers and criminals could use to wreak havoc on the privacy and personal safety of us all. I became an engineer because I believe in the power of technology to enrich our lives. Great software has seemingly limitless potential to solve human problems - and it can spread around the world in the blink of an eye. Malicious code moves just as quickly, and when software is created for the wrong reason, it has a huge and growing capacity to harm millions of people. Security is an endless race one that you can lead but never decisively win. Yesterday’s best defenses cannot fend off the attacks of today or tomorrow. Software innovations of the future will depend on the foundation of strong device security. We cannot afford to fall behind those who would exploit technology in order to cause chaos. To slow our pace, or reverse our progress, puts everyone at risk. The writer is senior vice president of software engineering at Apple. He first joined Apple in 1997. (c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-7-16
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Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
Ruth Gadebusch
Goodbye Safe and Legal It had been my intention to continue recognition of March as Women’ History Month by resurrecting the stories of some of the forgotten women of history; however, all the attention on this week’s hearing at the Supreme Court on Texas’ abortion clinics cannot be ignored. That too is the history of women in this nation. Lest you have forgotten, three years ago Texas legislator Wendy Davis did a thirteen hour filerbuster in opposition to Texas HB2 designed to eliminate women’s access to abortions in the state. It is that legislation with numerous burdensome requirements of no medical legitimacy whatsoever - passed despite Ms. Davis heroic efforts - that is now before the Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade may have declared abortion rights Constitutional but it has not been able to shut down the opposition. If the objectors could not control women’s reproductive health nationally they could and did go state by state. Largely the push has been to set all manner of limits such as not beyond 20 weeks (or some other shorter arbitrary time), watching a video (not necessarily limited to truth), an unnecessary period of delay (ostensibly to give the woman time to reconsider), etc. Now the focus is on the facilities with the outrageous requirements that are nearly impossible to meet. It is not just the expense but requiring a doctor performing the procedure to have hospital admittance that no local hospital will permit. Speaking of providers, let us not think this is the first time that providers have been in the crosshairs. Not only have providers, both doctors and support workers, been harassed unmercifully but more than one has been killed. All in the name of saving lives! Of course, it is not just the medical people being harassed but the patients themselves. Attempts to protect patients from this harassment have largely lost out in the name of freedom of speech. To appreciate the full importance of this case currently before the Court, one need only realize that in the three years between 2011 and 2014 two hundred thirty one new abortion restrictions were adopted by the states. From 2000 to 2014, the number of states considered hostile to abortion rights with at least 4 types of abortion restrictions rose from 13 to 27. Forty-four states now have some kind of restriction. Just as it was Sarah Weddington at age 27 who argued - and won - Roe v. Wade, the lead council is Stephanie Toti arguing her first case before the court. The Texas Solicitor General, counsel for the state, has argued two previous cases before the court and once clerked under Justice Anthony Kennedy considered the swing vote. In the decision of Roe v. Wade in 1973 the Justice expressed his belief that access to clinics would not be an impediment. The Texas Solicitor General and his minions insist on directing their materials and questions to the slightly older and more experienced secondary
counsel Alex Lawrence, despite having been clearly told that Ms. Toti is the primary counsel. Just another insult that young professional women so often must endure. The names of Sarah Weddington and Stephanie Toti must stand tall in history, not just of women but of all humankind.
is just such women making history day by day whose inspiring stories must be told just as those of men have long been known. Should the court decide for Texas making a tie with only eight members the lower court decision stands. Abortion services in Texas will be decimated. It would also open the door to other The outcome of the current case will not states passing such legislation. Without access be known in this Women’s History Month but Roe v. Wade is useless. Back to the coat hangers! it will have a long lasting effect no matter the Good-by safe and legal. outcome. Ms. Toti says she is well aware of the 3-1-16 significance and the pressure it puts on her. It
Noah Feldman
Texas Abortion Case Hinges On ‘Undue Burdens’
What’s an undue burden? That question was at the heart of Wednesday’s oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court in the Texas abortion case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. In particular, the conversation focused on whether the court needs to do a cost-benefit comparison to determine an undue burden -- and if it does, what statistical evidence is needed to do it properly. As expected, the oral argument reinforced the sense that the outcome of the case depends on Justice Anthony Kennedy. The four liberal justices made it pretty clear that the Texas law, which requires abortion clinics to operate more like hospitals, should be struck down. The three conservatives, sorely missing the support of Justice Antonin Scalia, will surely vote to uphold it, although Justice Clarence Thomas kept silent on Wednesday. What matters, therefore, is how Kennedy is thinking about the undue-burden problem. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wanted to help. She pressed counsel for both sides on the question of what benefits, if any, the law might have. Under her careful guidance, Stephanie Toti, the lawyer for the reproductive-rights group, said there was no medical benefit to be had from taking abortioninducing drugs in a clinic rather than at home, as the law requires. And Toti said there was no medical advantage to performing the procedure known as D&C (dilation and curettage) during an abortion in an expensively equipped ambulatory surgical center given that an identical procedure is often performed in other cases in a doctor’s office. Then Sotomayor asked Scott Keller, the Texas solicitor general, “Are you taking into account in the undue-burden analysis the value of the need being imposed?” Sotomayor’s point was that determining whether the law created an undue burden would require comparing the burden imposed with the benefits created by the law. Keller tried to deflect, by saying that the court should assume that a law
has a rational basis unless proved otherwise. The reason for Texas to avoid a weighing of costs and benefits is pretty clear: The real purpose of the law is to reduce the total number of abortions. The state legislature almost certainly considered that to be the law’s benefit, but it couldn’t say so when writing and passing the law, because that would seem to violate the very idea of a constitutional right to abortion. Instead, the law was presented as protecting women’s health. On that dimension, the law does little or nothing. Kennedy was listening. After Sotomayor’s foray he asked the Texas lawyer whether the premise or effect of the law was “to increase surgical abortions as distinct from medical abortions.” He added that “my reading indicated that medical abortions are up nationwide but down significantly in Texas.” Furthermore, Kennedy said, “this may not be medically wise.” Abortion-rights activists will be heartened to hear Kennedy’s final suggestion. But it would be a mistake to assume that he fully bought the argument that the law has no medical benefits. If the court’s method of analysis were to balance cost against benefits, then it would be relevant that more women seem to be having surgical abortions in Texas, thus incurring greater medical risk than they would if they were having the druginduced procedure. But if undue burden is just a question of individual women being able to get an abortion of some kind, then a different sort of evidence would be needed. On this point, Kennedy was also animated. He suggested that it might be necessary to send the case back to the lower courts to ascertain whether, as a matter of practice, women in Texas have sufficient access to abortions going forward. His thought seemed to be that new ambulatory surgical centers might come into existence to satisfy the need created by the closure of existing abortion clinics. He even asked, somewhat fancifully, whether the federal district court
Feldman continued on page 31
Liberal Opinion Week
March 16, 2016
31
Christine Dinsmore
An Illegal Abortion Killed My Grandmother The assistant district attorney pressed the police officer for details. Did he ask my grandmother Maria Consolazio whether she knew she was going to die? “I did,” Officer Arthur O’Neill answered. “She said she didn’t know.” Reuben Wilson, the assistant D.A., further questioned: Had he asked her if she had any hope of recovery? O’Neill did - she didn’t know. This testimony in State of New York v. Regina Michele was heard in the New York City 6th District Court of Brooklyn on Nov. 10, 1921. Michele, accused of providing an abortion, denied knowing or ever seeing my grandmother. The case was dismissed. Maria died at age 36. She had already given birth to seven children, then ranging in age from 11 months to 10 years. An immigrant from Santa Paolina, Italy, an hour east of Naples, she spoke no English and depended on her husband, Francesco, to negotiate the world outside their Brooklyn flat. Maria, a talented seamstress, helped the family eke by, taking in clothing to repair and alter. Her oldest child, Biaggio, would lug piles of garments in need of her handiwork back and forth to tailor shops. Maria’s death haunted my mother, Anna. The tears would come whenever she recounted the day she
walked into the tenement kitchen and found her mother on the floor. In barely a whisper, Maria instructed her then-9-year-old daughter to run and get her “aunt,” her mother’s closest friend, who substituted for the family Maria left behind in Italy. She recalled how later, as her mother was taken away to the hospital, a kind police officer sat her on his lap and said he would make sure her mother would be OK. Of course, he couldn’t.
Feldman continued from page 30
creating a 4-4 split that would uphold the law without creating a national precedent. But it remains uncertain -- possibly even to Kennedy himself -- whether he would vote to strike down the law now by a vote of 5-3 or to send the case back to the district court for more fact-finding. The court’s outcome depends on whether Kennedy chooses the costbenefit route or chooses to focus on access. Whichever he picks, he’ll be pointing the way for future jurisprudence in the area of abortion rights, even after he’s gone from the court. Bloomberg View columnist Noah Feldman is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard University.
would have the authority to freeze the operation of the law for several years to see if such new centers came into existence. After all, he said, “district judges often think they can do anything.”
When Maria’s five surviving children would get together as adults, the conversation often veered toward life without Mama. In hushed voices, the three oldest - Biaggio, Anna and Michele - would relive that fateful day. Elena, 6 at the time, vaguely remembered. And Giuseppina, back then 2, hungered for stories of an unknown mother, hanging on to every detail as if her existence depended on the reality of a loving mother instead of the stepmother who annihilated Giuseppina’s selfesteem. Raimondo and Virginia didn’t survive childhood. The consequences of my grandmother’s botched abortion are innumerable. Her oldest children were whisked away and placed in separate, sex-segregated Catholic orphanages. The youngest - Virginia - was placed in foster care, where she died a short time later. The psychological issues of abandonment
Kennedy got a laugh for this quip; district judges, who, statistically speaking, are rarely reversed on appeal, may be among the most powerful government officials for that reason and may seem omnipotent. Yet the serious implication of Kennedy’s question was that if the Texas law is to be analyzed based on abortion accessibility, rather than costs and benefits, the court might need more empirical facts. The upshot is that it seems (c) 2016, Bloomberg View relatively unlikely that Kennedy 3-3-16 would vote with the conservatives,
and trauma played out differently with each child. None was immune. Maria’s grandchildren knew she had died an awful death, but the exact cause was only hinted at. I was told she died in childbirth - a stretch of the truth by any measure. As a child, I eavesdropped on a conversation between my mother and her sister Elena. “Papa says Mama is in hell,” my mother said, her voice rising to a wrenched crescendo. “Not true! God wouldn’t condemn such a loving woman. We couldn’t survive another mouth to feed,” Elena said. That was my first inkling that my grandmother did something terribly wrong - at least my grandfather thought so. Why else would she be in hell?
illegality of Maria’s abortion, further stigmatized the family. Until the day she died at age 102, my mother would talk achingly about her mother. She pined for “Mama,” wishing she had met her own husband and four children. She re-experienced that void throughout her life, magnified with every family milestone. Ninety-three years of grief. The court transcript detailed a young mother confronted with her imminent death. Unable to afford another child, she took a chance to save her family but lost. Moments from death and away from anyone familiar, she faced the reality that her children would become motherless. In a time when women didn’t have access to safe abortions, they still happened, often with repercussions that lasted generations. This week, another court - the country’s highest - heard the most significant abortion case in more than 20 years. I hope the justices will remember women such as Maria Consolazio as they deliberate. A pro-choice movement slogan states, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” For my grandmother and countless others who lived before Roe v. Wade, abortion often led to a sacrament the last rites. Christine Dinsmore is a writer and editor who lives in Woodstock, N.Y.
Years later, I asked my mother if my grandmother had died of a bungled abortion. She confessed her mother took something to end her pregnancy, adding, “It turned out she wasn’t even pregnant.” I bought that family myth until I read the courtroom transcript. Who is charged with performing an abortion on someone who was not pregnant? And after seven children, Maria surely knew whether she was pregnant. So much shame was wrapped up in that deadly afternoon. A devout Catholic family clung to the tenets of the church and was humiliated that Maria had an abortion. They couldn’t dare be outraged that church dogma forced their mother to reproduce over and (c) 2016, The Washington Post over. The criminal case against 3-5-16 Regina Michele, underscoring the
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