The Politic - Fall 2012 I by The Politic

POLITIC THE

FALL 2012 I

THE YALE UNDERGRADUATE JOURNAL OF POLITICS

VOLUME LXVIII

Politic the

A Yale Undergraduate Journal of Politics

Editors-in-Chief Josef Goodman Noah Remnick Managing Editors Justin Schuster Eric Stern National Editors Cindy Hwang Marissa Medansky International Editors David Lawrence Eli Rivkin Features Editors Marc DeWitt Larissa Liburd Online Managers Rod Cuestas James Pabarue Director of Development Raphael Leung Layout Editor David Mandelbaum Editors Emeritus Byron Edwards, Jacob Effron, Donna Horning, Will Jordan Staff Writers D evelopment Geng Ngarmboonanant, Austin Schaefer, Derek Jin Gon Park, director Soled, Aaron Mak, Aaron Gertler, Amy Chang, Xiaochen Su Ezra Ritchin, Brett Davidson, Charlotte Storch, Dhruv Aggarwal, Joshua Faber, David Steiner, Yuval Ben-David, Samantha Lee, Ben Weiner, Jonah Bader, Aaron First, Ryan Proctor Cover Design by Madeleine Witt Board of Advisors John Lewis Gaddis Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military & Naval History, Yale University

Dear Readers, In just a few short days, the entire nation will pause and elect the leader of the free world. Tuesday night, as the results slowly flow in – vote by vote, swing-state by swing-state – we will sit glued to our television screens, refreshing our Twitter feeds and political blogs. Only once in an undergraduate career does a Yale student have the opportunity to experience a presidential election in these hallowed halls. In this special, presidential issue of the publication, The Politic is proud to contribute to the political discourse that captivates the nation and our campus in particular. We hope you’ll hold the contents of this issue in the back of your minds as the events of November 6 unravel. We are confident this edition will go beyond the snap polls and political predictions that consume the national media. In addition to broad election analysis, we delve specifically into the Yale electorate to understand what issues influences Yalies at the voting booths. We hope our thoughts raise points worthy of discussion over coffee tables and in dorm rooms. In this presidential issue, The Politic sits down with today’s foremost political experts, including former Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and current U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman. If you are looking for a break from election coverage, then you can escape American politics with our international section. There you’ll find a fascinating article on charter cities and a harrowing account of the Rohingya peoples’ struggle in Burma. Or, if you want to escape this world entirely, we encourage you to read about the future of NASA’s exploration of Mars. As you enter the polls, please remember one of the remarkable things about America: every four years we have the opportunity to hold our government accountable. We hope you take this responsibility seriously.

David Gergen Editor-at-Large, U.S. News & World Report Anthony Kronman Former Dean, Yale Law School

Faithfully,

Ian Shapiro Director, Yale Center for International and Area Studies

Josef Goodman Noah Remnick

For information regarding submissions, advertisements, contributions, or to provide feedback, please contact us at PoliticAtYale@gmail.com or write us at The Politic P.O. Box 205142 New Haven, CT 06520-1452 Disclaimer: This magazine is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. The opinions expressed by the contributors to The Politic do not necessarily reflect those of its staff or advertisers.

Editors-in-Chief, The Politic

Politic the

Fall 2012 I - Volume LXVIII

ELECTION FEATURES ELECToral analysis Rod Cuestas

An Interview with Governor Michael Dukakis Justin Schuster

With Love from abroad Amy Chang

2 7 12

to be young and involved

DEVOUTLY NEUTRAL

The Politic Board

Aaron Mak

NATIONAL An Interview with Joseph Lieberman Josef Goodman

Romney’s Mormonism Jonah Bader

the war on taxes Ezra Ritchin

where curiosity leads us Ben Weiner

The social cost of elitism Ryan Proctor

14 22 25 29 33

DECISION TIME

Obama’s Gay Marriage Gamble

Intuitive Politics

Ghosts of economists past

A Second Chance

Eric Stern

Derek Soled

Daniel First and Yuval Ben-David

William Jordan

INTERNATIONAL Untold lives

Charlotte Storch

Tweeting against tyranny Samantha Lee

35 39

Joshua Faber

Development, One City 43 Economic at a Time Dimitri Halikias

Pictures from CreativeCommons used under Attribution Noncommercial license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

FALL 2012 I

MASSACHUSETTS

electoral analysis

Solid D

Leaning D

Likely D

Tossup

186

By Rod Cuestas

Leaning R Likely R

159

267

It’s that time of year: primaries gone, ads bought, races set. The disarray of summer has passed and made room for the chaos of fall campaigns. And as far as predictions go, this year’s map has been stunningly, frustratingly hard to pin down. It is impossible to categorize races using any universal set of criteria, but we do our best at breaking down this year’s races. Here is a mix of the nice, the nasty, and the downright crazy contests for the 2012 elections:

Republican Senator Scott Brown was never supposed to win his 2010 race in deeply blue Massachusetts—the seat had been in Democratic hands for over 50 years. This year, Democrats have recruited their strongest possible candidate in consumer advocate and Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren. Polling has shown Warren in the lead since early September, but her single-digit edge pales to Obama’s 20%+ margins in the Bay State. If the debates serve as any indicator, the final days of the Senate campaign — the most expensive in the country — will be some of the roughest.

Solid R

206

President: Solid Democrat Senate: Lean Democrat - Elizabeth Warren (D) v. Scott Brown (R)

New Hampshire Washington Alaska

North Dakota

Montana

Massachusetts

Minnesota

Oregon

New York

Wisconsin South Dakota

Idaho

Pennsylvania Nebraska

Iowa Indiana

Illinois Utah Colorado Kansas

Missouri

Tennessee

Part of Obama’s so-called western firewall, Nevada shifts more in the Democrats’ direction each week. If one combines staunchly Democratic Las Vegas with the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population, it is not hard to imagine the President replicating Harry Reid’s 2010 victory here. The Democrats’ ground-game in Nevada is among the best in the country—and they’ll need it if they hope to give Rep. Shelly Berkeley, who is facing ethics questions, a fighting chance at defeating incumbent Sen. Dean Heller.

Arizona

Oklahoma New Mexico

Arkansas Alabama

Texas

West Virginia

Kentucky

Nevada

Connecticut New Jersey Delaware

Ohio

Nevada California

Rhode Island

Michigan

Wyoming

Hawaii

V I RG I N I A

Maine

Vermont

Virginia

Maryland District of Columbia

How times change. By most accounts, The Old Dominion, once considered among the reddest of the red, has become a decidedly purple battleground state. This shift is in part attributable to Obama’s massive popularity among the state’s minority populations, but the dynamic is visible beyond the presidential level as well. This year’s Senate race features a close matchup between two former governors: Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen. Both men are political heavyweights with national profiles, and although Kaine seems to have taken a lead during the final month of the campaign, Democrats are by no means out of the woods yet. President: Tossup Senate: Lean Democrat - Tim Kaine (D) v. George Allen (R)

North Carolina South Carolina Georgia

Mississippi

Louisiana Florida

F L O R I DA The perennial battleground state, Florida has once again proven a focal point of campaign attention. Look for Democrats to bludgeon Romney over the Ryan Plan and for Republicans to campaign against Obamacare in this senior-heavy state. Further drama is injected into the contest by former Republican Governor Charlie Crist’s endorsement of President Obama. Tea party fervor cost Crist a sure Senate seat in 2010, and the ex-Governor is eager to strike back. President: Tossup Senate: Likely Democrat - Shelley Berkeley (D) v. Dean Heller (R)

President: Lean Democrat Senate: Tossup - Shelley Berkeley (D) v. Dean Heller (R)

ARIZONA Democrats once dreamt of competing in staunchly Republican Arizona. Some even saw 2008 as a fluke: native son John McCain had simply prevented a Democratic consolidation of the state’s Hispanic vote. As it turns out, Arizona remains red as ever—President Obama is expected to lose the state handily. This year’s Senate race, where former Bush Surgeon General Richard Carmona (D) is proving a formidable candidate against Republican Representative Jeff Flake, may finally allow for the Hispanic vote to pull its weight at the ballot box. With a polished attitude, military background, and a well-honed message, Mr. Carmona carries with him the Democrats’ best chance at flipping Arizona blue. President: Senate:

Likely Republican Lean Republican - Richard Carmona (D) v. Jeff Flake (R)

MISSOURI The one that got away. President Obama lost Missouri in one of the closest races of ’08, but since then, voters in the Show-me state have made a hasty, vocal retreat away from the President. Most of Missouri is ruby-red territory, and President Obama’s decision not to contest the state may cost incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill a second term. McCaskill was considered a sure loser before Todd Akin lit the political world on fire with his “legitimate rape” comments. The incumbent senator has now fought her way back into contention—just as national GOP groups remain loath to spend money on Akin. Without the resources to defend himself on the airwaves, Akin may yet find himself among the biggest losers of this cycle. President: Senate:

Likely Republican Lean Democrat - Claire McCaskill (D) v. Todd Akin (R)

ELECTION FEATURE

to be young and involved The Editors

f you’re twenty, the world is your oyster, and with that Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Wesleyan, you’re going to change it. Tax Day is just Wednesday, and the IRS is just a series of letters. Spending money for social programs is spending someone else’s money for social programs. “In this world there is nothing that is certain except death and taxes,” said Benjamin Franklin. If you’re twenty, neither feels like a guarantee. But now you’re forty, you have two kids in private school, and your 401K has taken a beating. The world is merely the distance between your house and the office. Priorities have been inverted. Long ago were the rallies on college campus to protest the extinction of the Mediterranean Monk Seal. Taxes are high and you need every dollar for the gas pump. These mundane realities are critical 4

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to the course of history and contemporary politics. The young flocked to Woodstock and rioted at the Chicago Democratic Convention. Civil Rights, Feminism, and the War of Vietnam awoke the adolescent masses a generation ago. Similarly, the Occupy Wall Street Movement drew heavily from the bottom half of the age spectrum. According to Talking Points Memo, more than two-thirds of Occupiers were under the age of 35, while only a fifth were over the age of 45. These proportions were flipped with Tea Party recruitment, reflecting a conventional wisdom. Debt and spending, pocketbook issues, attract the old. Social justice — the moral arguments against low taxes for the wealthy and vast income inequality — appeals to the young. Yet, there’s a real difference between today and the Swinging Six-

ties. Where’s the passion of the young, impetus, hotheaded, masses? What happened to the spirit of sex, drugs, and rock and roll? Just four short years ago, 18-30 year olds almost single-handedly delivered Obama the White House. But with the future of this country in the balance and up for grabs at the polls, youthful passion -- on either side -- is conspicuously absent. Where’s our Woodstock? Where are our Convention riots? Occupy Wall Street, a movement stricken with disorganization in rank and message, petered out after a year. If $16 trillion debt and income inequality of Gilded Age proportions is not enough to provoke a sustained reaction from the youth, what is? At Yale, the students have rejected apathy, and while not in open revolt, aren’t keeping quiet either. *** If statistics can be trusted, the

Yale student body plans to turn out in droves to vote in the upcoming election for President Barack Obama. Of more than 500 Yale students surveyed this semester by The Politic, 85 percent of those eligible to vote say that they intend to exercise their franchise, outpacing the 63 percent of registered voters nationwide under the age of 30 who plan to vote, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. 77 percent of Yale students say they will vote for Obama, while only 14 percent say they intend to vote for the Republican challenger Mitt Romney. But the numbers don’t tell the complete story. Yale students don’t simply support candidates and leave it at that. Many of them also question their parties’ positions and disagree on policy. They don’t just say that they intend to vote, they registered others to vote – 600 students on Yale’s campus alone. They have left their dorm rooms, and even the campus itself, to participate in America’s most precious right: the right to vote for our leaders. Yale College Democrats have fanned across the Northeast to canvass for President Obama, and seven current students took leaves of absence to work toward the president’s re-election in swing states and at campaign headquarters in Chicago. Though smaller in number, College Republicans have, for their part, been calling and canvassing

85% - Yes

No - 5%

10% - Undecided

Of over 520 Yale students polled, 85% intend to vote. enthusiastically for Romney and for Connecticut Senate candidate Linda McMahon, who is facing off against Congressman Chris Murphy, and Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, who is in a tight race against Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren. Judging by the breakfast discussions about various opinion articles in the Yale Daily News and by the crowds who filled the Calhoun buttery during the Presidential and Vice

Undecided

Gary Johnson

14%

Mitt Romney

77%

Barack Obama Yale students’ support for President Obama is down only slightly from 2008.

-Presidential debates, Yale students in general are engaged actively in the election process. “This election was just too important to me to sit on sidelines, or in the classroom,” said Josh Rubin (DC ‘14), who is working at the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago. “From student loans to social issues to foreign policy, this election matters to our country and it matters to me. I couldn’t imagine studying political science this fall. I felt I had to live it.’’ Even while managing their course loads, some Yale students are managing nearly full-time election-related duties. Nicole Hobbs ES ’14, Elections Coordinator for the Yale Dems and President of the College Democrats of Connecticut, says she has to remind herself that “the semester doesn’t end Nov. 7,” that classes and papers and exams await. That is something that Elizabeth Henry CC ‘14, Chairman of the Yale College Republicans, can appreciate, as well. Professor Elizabeth Alexander, the Thomas E. Donelley Professor of African American Studies and Professor of American Studies at English at Yale, who was chosen by President Obama to read FALL 2012 I

ELECTION FEATURE

Bushes, father and son, Newman says that, of late, “We’ve been known to be a one-party university.” He said he believes that, “We can’t have a good conversation McMahon about where we ought to go unless both Murphy sides are represented.” Elizabeth Alexander says that 80% 20% when she sees Yale students involved in the political process, it brings to mind the elderly people she sees year after year, volunteering at polling places. Yale students are at the beginning of that journey, she said, and she hopes that they go on safeguarding the right to vote—“a right that people fought for, that people died for, it’s a right that not everybody has all around the world.” *** In late 2011, New York Times columnist David Brooks asked readers over the age of seventy to send him “Life Reports” — essays about their Among Yale students, support for Democratic Senate candidate Chris Murphy exceeds that of own lives and what they’d done poorly President Obama. and well. Brooks went on to extract life lessons, one which may speak to Yalies suggest that Yalies put a heavier weight an original poem at his inauguration, in January 2009, said she was impressed by on social, rather than economic, issues. and this election: “Work within instituthe level of commitment to the electoral The division in support for Obama and tions or crafts, not outside them. For a process that Yale students have been Romney is fairly consistent across resi- time, our culture celebrated the rebel and demonstrating. “It was really great to dential colleges and classes, according to the outsider. The most miserable of my correspodents fit this mold. They were see how the students understood that the poll. Zak Newman JE ’13, President of forever in revolt against the world and they were for the most part entering the electorate,” she said, “and with that, the Yale Democrats, said he is excited not ended up sourly achieving little.” The students here at Yale Universitaking on, beginning a life-time practice, just by the work he and his fellow Demo- a life-time commitment of exercising crats are doing, but that conservatives ty, and around this country, seem to have that right.” She urged students to realize also have mobilized on Yale’s campus. internalized such wisdom. Our Woodthat “your vote is so consequential’’ and Even though Yale’s political history has stock was when we went down to Tampa, to approach their choice with “careful been shaped by William F. Buckley and Florida and Charlotte, North Carolina his book “God and Man at Yale” and the for the Republican and Democratic Conthinking.” ventions to shout and cheer. Even in a Students are active not just in camdivisive and bitter political environment, paigning, but also in thinking through Yale students don’t riot for change, they the candidates’ positions. According to canvass for change. After all, we’re not a poll conducted by The Politic, some forty yet. cross-over thinking does exist at Yale. On economic issues (the role of government, taxes and job creation, debt and spending on entitlements) 27 percent of Yalies say they prefer Romney, which is well-above the 14 percent who say they intend to vote for him. Only slightly more than 14 percent support Romney’s views on social issues, such as abortion, same-sex marriage, education, immigration and gun control. The numbers 6

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55% 45% Absentee

In CT

The Politic Poll was conducted by David Steiner, a freshman in Silliman College. Page 4 Photograph by Adam Gottlieb

A majority of Yale students plan to vote absentee in their home states.

An Interview with Governor Michael Dukakis Conducted by Justin Schuster Michael Stanley Dukakis served as Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and 1983–1991, making him the longest serving Governor in the state’s history. He was also the Democratic Presidential nominee in 1988. Dukakis attended Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, and also served in the U.S. Army. In a 2008 interview with Katie Couric, Dukakis said he “owe[d] the American people an apology” for his 1988 loss to George H. W. Bush, because “if I had beaten the old man, we never would have heard of the kid, and we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Since his term as Governor ended in 1991, Dukakis has worked as a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University and Visiting Professor at the UCLA School of Public Policy.

The Politic: Let’s start with what’s been on everyone’s minds. Who do you think will win the Presidency? I think the President will be reelected, but this is going to be a very tight race. Anytime you have a soft economy — I don’t care who the incumbent is — it’s trouble for that incumbent. The Politic: As another Massachusetts Governor running for President, Mitt Romney has inevitably been compared to you. What do you think of such a comparison? I’m not a big fan of Romney’s, as you can imagine. I thought he was a lousy

Governor when he was here, and in the last couple of years, he wasn’t around much. On his signature issue, which is job creation and reviving the economy, he was a disaster. This state was 47 out of 50 in job creation under Romney. Only Michigan, Ohio and Louisiana after Katrina were worse. And we all know why those states were struggling. By contrast, [current Massachusetts Governor] Deval Patrick has run rings around him. We’re now in the top ten and this state is coming out of the recession very vigorously and it’s a whole different ballgame. In addition to that — and this is an important part of economic leadership — the state’s infrastructure when Romney left office was a wreck. That’s the

only way to describe it. Rusting bridges, potholed roads; he couldn’t get anything done. Projects that should have taken 18 months took five years. Even on healthcare, where he deserved credit for getting the process going, at the eleventh hour he walked away from some of the most important provisions of the bill. In fact, he vetoed it after months and months of work had gone into [crafting] a consensus bill. Fortunately, he was hugely overridden on the vetoes. Even Scott Brown voted to override him when he was in the state Senate. [Romney] not only wasn’t a very good Governor, as I say, on his so-called signature issue — the economy — he was a disaster! FALL 2012 I

ELECTION FEATURE

The State House; Massachusetts leaders have shined in the national spotlight. The Politic: You lost reelection after your first term as Governor, yet came back and won four years later. To what do you credit this turn-around? The lessons you learn from defeat, though as I’ve often said, you don’t want to go through it too often. But I learned a lot of things from that defeat. I mean I thought we were doing great stuff. We had come out of this very, very deep recession — far worse in Massachusetts than this past one — and we’d gone down from 12.5 percent unemployment to something like 5.5 percent. What you forget is that the folks you’re representing aren’t feeling anywhere near as good as you are at that point. They’ve gone through very tough times. And the way you bring people together is to build coalitions — to use your office to bring people to the table, to get them involved whether or not they were supportive or whether or not they agree with you. And that’s one of the most important lessons. I also became a much better listener. My legislative relations were far better the second time around. And all these lessons, somewhat painful, were a result of that defeat. I don’t think there’s any debate that I was a better Governor the second time around. The Politic: Perhaps the most memorable aspect of the 1988 Presidential 8

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campaign is the infamous Willie Horton advertisement, which many have derided as racist. Do you believe politics are nastier and more vicious today than they were back then? They were even nastier and more vicious in 1789. You know, there’s nothing new about attack politics in this country. I think the difference is that now so much of it is electronic. And thanks to Citizens United — one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court has ever made — we’ve now got millions of dollars in special interest money pouring into these campaigns. But don’t kid yourself; it was very tough back in the beginning of the Republic. There’s nothing new about this. Now I made a big mistake in ’88. I made a decision — it was no one else’s decision — that I was not going to respond to the Bush attack campaign and it turned out it was just a bad mistake. You just can’t do that. If the other guy’s going to come after you, you’ve got to have a carefully thought-out plan for dealing with it, preferably one that turns the attack campaign into a character issue on him. I had done that very successfully with [Edward] King [who preceded Dukakis as Governor of Massachusetts], but for whatever reason I thought, “Well, it’s the Presidency, and I’m a positive guy anyways.” And that’s what I believed at the time. But there’s just no question; you can’t sit there getting pounded without

responding. I’m not the only guy that made that mistake; [John] Kerry made it. And if you ask him, he’ll tell you he should have been ready. But at least in his case, he can be forgiven for assuming the he — a genuine war hero who put his life on the line for his country — would not be attacked by a guy who was reading magazines on some Air Force base in Alabama in the National Guard [during the Vietnam War]. Nevertheless, if you talk to John, he’d say he should have been ready for it. And frankly, under the circumstances, I think he would have been entirely justified to say to Bush, “Look, I don’t care who these people are. Get that ad off the air in the next 24 hours or your military record and my military record will become major issues in this campaign.” But he didn’t do that. I’m not the only guy who’s made this mistake, but very few Democrats have since then. In fact, Bill Clinton had a separate unit of ten people in his campaign — a number of whom had worked for me in the previous election — who called themselves the Defense Department. And all they did was deal with the Bush attacks, which were plentiful, believe me, in ’92. People don’t remember that, but if anything, Bush went after Clinton even harder than he went after me. But Clinton was ready for him. We had all learned from ’88 and we all know what happened in that election. The Politic: You picked Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen to be your running mate in 1988, yet you failed to carry Texas (or any southern state for that matter). If you had to do it over again, would you still pick Sen. Bentsen? Yes. He was an excellent running mate and would have been a terrific Vice President. I didn’t pick him because I thought I could win Texas. The single most important criterion when you’re picking a candidate for Vice President is whether that person — if, God-forbid, something happens to the President — would be an excellent President. Everything else

pales by comparison, which is why the Palin thing was so bizarre. Whatever you thought of her, I don’t think anyone believed a one-year Governor of Alaska was ready to be the President of the United States. And I think it hurt McCain badly. The geography thing was interesting, but it doesn’t compare with the basic question: “Is this person capable of being an excellent President?” The Politic: Do you think that Paul Ryan has the capacity to be an excellent President? No. He’s got a philosophy that’s basically rooted in Herbert Hoover economics. And anyone that thinks that Herbert Hoover economics would be good for this country has no business [running for] President of the United States. I don’t know how you can be a student of history and conclude that austerity can get you out of a recession. The Europeans have been trying this and they are now heading into another recession. So if that’s what Ryan believes, he’s got no business being the Vice President of the United States, let alone a heartbeat away from the Presidency. The Politic: In all of your years in politics, who is the best — most competent, most inspiring and most effective — politician you have met? I think for my generation, Jack Kennedy was probably that person. Remember, he was from my hometown. He was a

Massachusetts guy. He had extraordinary gifts in so many ways. And he was really the inspiration for a whole generation of us who decided in the late ’50s and early ’60s to get actively involved in electoral politics. There’s no question about it. The Politic: You, John F. Kennedy, Governor Romney and Senator Kerry are all from Massachusetts, as well as many up-and-coming politicians that could run for national office. What do you think it is about Massachusetts that has led to so many national figures? Something in the water, no question about it! Look, there’s a tradition here. From birth, we’re all brought up on two things: politics and the Red Sox. And it’s an important tradition in the state. People take their politics seriously. I’ve been out ringing doorbells for Elizabeth Warren, and I must say I’m very impressed with the voters I’m talking to. No one has to tell them about the Senate race or about who Elizabeth Warren is. The Politic: Do you have any predictions for the competitive Senate race in Massachusetts? If Elizabeth Warren and her campaign do the fieldwork on a precinct-by-precinct basis and then work hard at it, she will win. But that’s got to be done — intensively and effectively. I don’t have any sense that Brown has much of a field operation, but she does. And every single precinct in this state has got to be canvassed and recanvassed. And if that’s done, she’ll win. But it’s got to be done. So Kitty [Dukakis] and I are out on weekends going to different parts of the state, giving canvassing groups a pep-talk and then going out and ringing door bells with them for a couple of hours. It’s a lot of fun.

Dukakis has become associated with this 1988 election photo-op flop.

involve young people in the political process? Get them into this stuff early and put them to work. They ought to be precinct captains and they ought to be out there doing this work from an early age. If I had my druthers, every single high school student in this country, during his junior or senior year, would not only take a government or politics course, but would do some kind of internship with a local official. I think that’s very important. I remember when I was a state Representative and the town of Brookline decided that in the last half of senior year in high school, they’d permit folks to go out and do something half-time. If they wanted to work for some outstanding chef in a restaurant, they could do that. Anyways, I got a call from the guidance department, asking if I’d like a high school senior as an intern. In those days, we had no staff of any kind. We didn’t even have offices until that year, when they put about six of us in one room. But all of a sudden, I had one of these Brookline high school seniors spending half of the second semester of his senior year coming to the State House. [He and the subsequent interns] were not only terrific kids who were an enormous help to me, but every single one of them went into public service for his or her career. Every one of them. One of the reasons I’m here at Northeastern [University] is that I love the co-op program. I love what it does and what I can do to open up doors for these kids. The Politic: What advice do you have for college students today? Do every single internship you can. They are transformative experiences. And then use the experience to build a career in public service. Fortunately, your generation has an awful lot of young people who want to do this. Justin Schuster is a sophomore in Branford College.

The Politic: What do you believe is the best way to FALL 2012 I

ELECTION FEATURE

DEVOUTLY NEUTRAL A Look at the Mormon Church’s Political Neutrality By Aaron Mak

itt Romney’s candidacy for President of the United States could be the most important event so far in the history of the Mormon Church. The Church, though, has played a minimal role in the current presidential race. Due to their tax-exempt status, religious institutions are rarely overtly partisan. Yet political groups associated with certain religions, such as Moral Majority and Christian Voice, have been instrumental in convincing religious voters to support certain candidates and church members elected to office. Given this trend, the strict political neutrality of the largest Mormon denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), has been especially conspicuous in the current presidential campaign. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a follower and former bishop of the LDS Church. Even so, the Church’s pre-existing political neutrality policy prevents the Church and its leaders from using their influence to support a presidential candidate either directly or through a political organization. According to an official statement from the LDS Church, this policy specifically prohibits the Church from telling any of its members or officials to support a certain candidate or party, allowing its resources to be used for partisan politics and/or controlling government leaders in any way. The reasons behind this neutrality policy, though, are not completely clear due to the Church’s complex history with politics. Dr. Matthew Bowman, a professor of religion at Hampden-Sydney College and author of The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith, said in an interview with The Politic that the Church’s stance on political neutrality is relatively recent. He cited Heber J. Grant, the Church’s president during the 1930s, who actively opposed Franklin D. 10

THE POLITIC

Roosevelt’s 1936 presidential campaign. Various Church leaders have also run for political office with LDS support in Utah and other states. Bowman asserted that the Church’s new stance on political neutrality is a product of historical difficulties it has had with being politically active. Most of these political obstacles had to do with public disapproval. “Much of the criticism of the Church getting involved in state elections in the early 20th century was from perceptions that the leaders of the Church were rigging elections, favoring one candidate over the other, and telling people who to vote for,” said Bowman. There was often truth behind the criticism, though the attacks were sometimes unfounded. The Church had further difficulties with political activism when its members voted differently from the wishes of their leadership, causing embarrassment on the part of Church officials. Moreover, Congress repeatedly denounced the virtual Mormon theocracy in Utah. The practice of Church leaders holding state office and influencing state elections, according to Bowman, stopped after WWII as a result of these nuisances. “The LDS Church is well aware of this past and thus does not want to arouse these traditional suspicions,” said Bowman. This especially holds true in the current election. Romney’s candidacy is “testing this resolve to not get involved in politics,” Bowman asserted. “A Pew Forum released a survey that found that over two-thirds of Mormons in the US are Republicans, so there is a real propensity on the part of Mormons to support Romney.” “The Church has been forced to respond to criticism of the religion and clarify its views,” Bowman added. Dr. Newell Bringhurst, coauthor of The Mormon Quest for The Presidency

and a history professor at the College of the Sequoias, agreed that LDS officials’ reluctance to endorse a candidate with donations and verbal support is a result of weariness from past controversies. Bringhurst noted that the Church had been politically active even under the leadership of its founder, Joseph Smith, who ran for President himself in 1844. Bringhurst estimated that the Church’s current neutrality policy started around the time of the unsuccessful 1968 presidential bid of Michigan Gov. George Romney, an LDS high priest and father of the current GOP nominee. After George Romney failed to make it through the primaries with the support of Church president David O. McKay, the LDS allowed presidential candidates Richard Nixon, Herbert Humphrey, and George Wallace to hold separate rallies in church facilities. “[The LDS church] received storm and fury over the [George Wallace] in-

The Boston Massachusetts Temple in Romney’s home state.

cident because he was a segregationist,” said Bringhurst. The general public also responded poorly to the Humphrey and Nixon rallies. The condemnation convinced Church leadership to remain on the sidelines in future presidential contests, a position that McKay reinforced when he denied apostle Ezra Taft Benson’s request to run for Vice-president with the third-party candidate, George Wallace. Concerning Mitt Romney’s campaign, Bringhurst said that LDS spokesmen “are even uncomfortable acknowledging that political campaigns are going on … because so many Latter-day Saints members are overwhelmingly Republican.” The Church, Bringhurst believes, fears even the perception that they are implicitly encouraging Mormons to vote for Mitt Romney. Stephen Weber, Yale University’s chaplain for the LDS Church, views the Church’s political neutrality in a different light. Weber said that the Church’s policy stems from a belief in free agency and a move to avoid alienating Church members due to their political opinions. While there are certain issues on which the Church has taken a moral stance, such as gay marriage, he notes that he has met both Mormon Democrats and Republicans. Indeed, it seems that there are certain moral referendums on which the Church takes a stance. Yet, in all other areas, Mormons are given little direction from the Church in deciding their political views. Weber also noted, “We are very supportive of the United States government, and we are very supportive of the Constitution.” He asserted that it is the duty of Church members to be politically active by helping and voting for candidates who share their values. Both Bringhurst and Bowman noted that even though less than two percent of the US population is Mormon, LDS members have a great deal of influence in the fields of business, politics, and entertainment. So if the Church ever does stray from its stance on not supporting partisan candidates, it could potentially have a major effect on future elections. The spotlight that Romney’s cam-

paign shines on the Church, however, is unprecedented in LDS history. The attention may determine whether this new approach — neutrality to political

activism — helps or hinders the Church’s public image. Aaron Mak is a freshman in Berkeley College.

A BOOK REVIEW: THE NEW NEW DEAL By Aaron Gertler Early on in The New New Deal, Michael Grunwald informs us that reputable national polls find support for the stimulus to be less common than belief in a living Elvis. This is amusing. So are many of the sample budget items he trots out—though he spoils much of the fun by telling us how spending $144,541 on cocaine for monkeys is actually good science, and $25,000 for “an anti-imperialist puppet show” was a fraction of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act so small it can’t be typed in a readable fashion. But here’s another number to look at: 7.2 million. This, in dollars, was the stimulus waste found by the nonpartisan Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board by the end of 2011. This adds up to about .001% of the $787 billion Obama stimulus—that infamous boondoggle— going places it wasn’t supposed to go. Surprised? So was I. In this impressively-sourced work of political history—Grunwald interviewed Joe Biden and every relevant cabinet member, among hundreds of other sources—the author sets forth a thesis that, far from the ineffective, jobless, fraud-filled socialist monster of a bill we’ve all heard about, the stimulus is actually the single most important piece of spending since the New Deal—and might someday surpass Roosevelt’s program, thanks to heavy funding on “blue-sky” science projects with a massive potential upside. In the span of three months, Obama’s team found a way to inject more of our GDP into the economy than ever before, at unprecedented speed; much of the country might never notice the consequences, but Grunwald calls the Act’s passage a turning point in the Great Recession, and quite possibly in American history.

Excerpted from the author’s interview with Grunwald: The Politic: What do you think should be done to educate Americans in Keynesian economics—specifically, how uncontroversial they are among economists? I think it’s always a tough message— that at a time when families and businesses are tightening their belts, government needs to pick up the slack rather than tightening its own belt. It’s counter-intuitive for voters, which is why you want to have an automatic countercyclical stimulus, which we already sort of do have, with unemployment—when more people are unemployed, the government pays out more benefits, automatically. And the stimulus expanded our unemployment system by putting out seven, maybe eight billion dollars for the states if they agreed to change their unemployment rules. And thirty-one states did that, so they’ll have more automatic stimulus next time there’s a downturn. As for the Reagan Revolution: in the same way Americans say they don’t like government but do like Social Security, Medicare, Homeland Security, and the FBI. People say they didn’t like the stimulus, but they do like tax cuts and saving teachers’ jobs and everything else it put money into. And meanwhile, the Republicans were purely cynical. They painted Obama’s 787-billion-dollar stimulus as the death of American free enterprise, but meanwhile they voted for a very similar 715-billion-dollar stimulus—even Paul Ryan. For a full interview with the author please visit www.thepolitic.org. FALL 2012 I

ELECTION FEATURE

With Love from abroad By Amy Chang

ith the presidential elections rapidly approaching, a dichotomy between appearance and reality stands glaringly in the political spotlight. As Obama’s actions and rhetoric face heightened scrutiny, the shift in public opinion shows that though President Obama’s popularity has suffered both at home and abroad, Obama’s message of hope still holds considerable sway with some international audiences. For Obama’s adversaries, the recent violence in the Middle East over a privately-produced, American, antiMuhammad film confirms suspicions that the president’s attempt to leverage his image to improve international opinion of America has failed. Across the country, news outlets clamor about the drops in Obama’s domestic and global approval ratings. In light of this negative media attention, the public has generally come to accept that Obama is floundering on the international stage. However, as the media bang pots and pans together, the reality is that 12

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word “drop” has different implications internationally than it does domestically. When it comes to international favorability towards the U.S., the Middle East – where favorability towards the U.S. has almost never been high – is an exception and not the rule; out of the twenty countries surveyed, four out of the five countries with a negative outlook on the US are situated in the Middle East. While a domestic “drop” in favorability results in a percentage consistently in the 40s, as recorded by Gallup Polls throughout the course of 2012, a current Pew Global Attitudes survey reports that an international “drop” still results in a surprising 70 to 80 percent favorability in countries such as Japan, Italy, and France. Additionally, a majority is found in nine other countries, predominantly in Europe and Latin America. For mer New York Governor George Pataki offered an explanation for this disparity, suggesting during a visit to Yale University that “the difference between the approval ratings comes down

to the difference between seeing what the man does from across the ocean and having to live with it!” Obama’s image of hope still thrives abroad, where the foreign public does not feel the domestic economic desperation. Certainly, the state of today’s economy troubles voters. Many Americans are failing to find the jobs Obama promised to create, and blame the President for the anemic recovery. Yet, as Ian Shapiro, Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, brings up, when Obama took office in 2009, enthusiasm had reached such a fever pitch that many analysts foresaw its unsustainability. “In 2008, the only place he could go was down. He was at the peak of his popularity and everyone had loaded expectations onto him. The post-election question almost became ‘who is he going to disappoint first?’” While economic anxiety has driven Americans to consider a new president, distance causes Europeans to Bath, com-

mented, “Europeans realize [Obama] has had an almost-impossible task, not only inheriting the problems of the past, but also encountering a Republican caucus in Congress.” For the European community, the idea that Obama has played an active role in worsening the economic crisis is artificial. They believe that a term without the onus of reelection and without the Republican block would yield greater achievements. In Europe, there is an even more fundamental reason for high favorability towards Obama. Support stems from the fact that Europe’s political system is skewed farther to the left than the American system. According to John Bullock, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, Obama is more conservative than most Europeans; they support Obama not because he is well-aligned with their concept of “the left” but because they cannot embrace the conservative, American Republican Party. According to Bullock, “It’s very telling that even right-wing parties in Europe explicitly align themselves with the President. To much of Europe, Obama looks like Luke Skywalker because the Republican Party looks so much like the Death Star.” The domestic-international favorability gap boils down to domestic apathy regarding the global realm. “Obama’s success in the international sphere is largely due to the perception that he is capable of handling world affairs,” said Richard Wike, Assistant Director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. In America, however, a midterm election exit poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that foreign policy was a consideration for only 8 percent of voters. Because of this indifference, foreign policy usually does not tip the scales in a presidential election. “International involvement can’t help you [domestically]; it can only hurt you,” said Shapiro. “It’s especially common for charismatic leaders who make controversial international decisions to be looked upon more favorably by people outside of their own country.”

President Obama waves to adoring fans on a trip abroad. This principle has been particularly hope that without this Republican block visible in reactions to President Obama’s in Congress and without reelections handling of the Arab Spring. In his at stake there will be a greater margin involvement in Libya and the Iranian of maneuver, much more potential to elections, critics alleged that Obama deliver during a second mandate,” said adopted the philosophy of “lead from Howorth. “Transatlantic relations are behind.” Yet, according to Shapiro, at a critical junction in a world that is Obama’s delayed response prevented increasingly multi-polar. Strong cooppotential blowback as a result of acting eration between the U.S. and Europe too soon, aiding his image in the Middle is a particularly strategic objective, and East. Despite this international success, at this time, this type of cooperation is Obama was domestically characterized more conceivable with an administration as impotent by the public that took the led by Obama than one led by Romney.” For many Americans, international appearance as reality. Similarly, with so many media preference for Obama is not enough. references to how Obama is losing sup- With looming concerns about the econport, the idea of Obama’s international omy, voters often forget the significance unpopularity has become pervasive. of a President who is well-liked abroad. People forget that although Obama’s “It’s the U.S.,” says Wike, “and certainly favorability has generally dipped across a better image said leads a country to the board, all countries for which set incentives to cooperate with the numerical data is available – with the US.” This cooperation is often the key exception of Pakistan, which is miffed to economic well-being. Ultimately, at the covert bin Laden assassinations – perhaps appearance and reality are not express higher end-of-term confidence juxtaposed; in foreign policy, it is the imin Obama than in Bush four years age that defines the reality of relations. ago. This includes countries which the Amy Chang is a freshman in president is criticized for having handled Trumbull College. poorly, such as Egypt and Lebanon. Global confidence in Obama is still high because many continue to believe in his potential. “They [still] FALL 2012 I

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The Politic: A few years ago, I read a great article by George Packer in The New Yorker called “The Empty Chamber.” It was about the Senate’s arcane rules and filibusters. I’d like to ask you same question Packer posed: how broken is the Senate?

An Interview with Joseph Lieberman A Senator Bids Adieu Conducted by Josef Goodman Joe Lieberman is the senior Senator from Connecticut and was the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in the 2000 election. As Senator, Lieberman introduced the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 and played an important role in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. After serving in office since 1989, Lieberman will not seek re-election in 2012.

The Politic: What is your proudest accomplishment in all your years in elected office? That covers a lot of ground. I would say that today — and unfortunately, it’s not as common as it used to be — I am proud of the fact I always worked across party lines to get things done. I’ve been a Democrat and I was elected last time as an Independent, but I have always felt that my higher responsibility was not to a party, but to the national interest and interests of my state. I have had a lot of interests — wide-ranging interests. I have been very interested in the environmental movement; I’ve been very interested in civil and human rights; and more recently, I’ve gotten involved 14

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in protecting people from discrimination based on sexual orientation. But probably the area I have been most active in the last 24 years is national security, homeland security, and foreign policy. … I have had the privilege of being centrally involved in a lot of the response to the attacks of 9/11. … I co-sponsored the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security, the 9/11 Commission, and a whole new counterterrorism organization. Overall, I’ve been involved in the most significant reforms in our national security organizations since the beginning of the Cold War and the late 1940s. That’s what I believe has had the most significant effect on our country, which is to say it’s made us safer since 9/11.

The Politic: Over the years, what is your biggest regret? I regret that for all my efforts — and they went on for more than a decade — to do something about climate change, I wasn’t able to get to the 60 votes that you need in the Senate to get something done. I worked with a series of Republican partners. Anytime you really want to get something done in this place, you better have a co-sponsor from the other party. I began with Senator Chafee, Senator Warner, Senator McCain, Senator Graham, and Senator Kerry. The threat of climate change gets worse, but we haven’t been able to put everything together. I really regret that. That’s my biggest disappointment.

read was a New York Times Magazine piece on Al Gore, his family and the heartbreak of losing the 2000 election. I was wondering about you. How bad was it to win that election, and then lose it? Was there a long recovery?

The system has broken down. Some of this is because of the rules, like the misuse of the filibuster. Some of it is simply because there is too much partisanship here and ideological rigidity. Congress was itself created by a compromise. And here you have to use common sense to negotiate agreements that allow us to make life better and safer in this country. To do that, you can rarely get 100 percent of what you want. Too many times, members of Congress today say, “I will not support this bill unless I get everything I want or I get this one point.” When you try to get 100 percent of what you want around here, you usually end up with zero percent, and the great losers in that are the people who are good enough to send us here to serve them. The place has broken down.

Everybody reacts differently. We came to the extraordinary events of Election Day and the next month-plus from different places. Al Gore had been Vice President for eight years; naturally, he would think about running for President. But in the strange, unfair way that it all ended, his career in public service was also over at that point. … For me, I was lifted up by Vice President Gore when he chose me to be his running mate. This was really something I never dreamed of. I was also fortunate that I was still a Senator. Was it a trauma? Of course it was. But I was very lucky: the morning after we conceded, I came right to this office, right back to work. I have had the opportunity to continue my service now for twelve more years. I have been very fortunate. But it was tough, but to me, I look back at it and see it as a great privilege.

The Politic: How then would you suggest going about fixing the Senate? Reform the filibuster?

The Politic: How expected was it that phone call offering you a spot on the ticket?

None of this is easy. The filibuster was originally conceived to stop the passions of a moment from sweeping through Congress into an unfortunate law. The Senate requires 60 votes, as opposed to 51, the majority rule, and would be able to slow things down. … I would go back to majority rule. But if I felt this could be solved by procedural reforms alone, I would be a very happy person — but not very realistic. Ultimately, it requires elected officials to have the guts to do what their constituents want them to do, which is to work across party lines and reach reasonable compromises that actually get things done for the people and country.

When I got the phone call, it was down to three. The three, interestingly, were John Kerry, John Edwards and me. And you can look back at what has happened to both of them since then. If you had asked me at the beginning of 2000, “Do you think you might end up as Al Gore’s running mate?” I would have said, “Are you kidding me?” But it was quite thrilling. The American people were great to me. I was the first Jewish-American on a national ticket and there was no bigotry at all. Leaving aside the unfortunate problem of the electorate college and Florida, the fact is, the ticket on which I was privileged to run for Vice President got a half million more votes than the other ticket. The American people were voting — just as I hoped — not for me

The Politic: Another article I recently

or against me because of my religion, but based on which two people would do the best job for the country. That’s my take-away. Of course I wish I’d had the opportunity to be Vice President. But it wasn’t to be. The campaign, the opportunity to break a barrier, the total acceptance of me as the first JewishAmerican on the ticket, as reflected in the results, was really gratifying. The Politic: Now to enter a bit of a speed round: some fun questions. What’s your favorite television show? My sister wants to know. Is it Glee? (Laughter) We tend to be news and sports junkies, and we watch movies on-demand. But if you forced me [to answer], I’d probably say SportsCenter on ESPN. The Politic: This is a multiple choice one. If you could live in any other country, which of the following would it be: England, France, Israel, or drum roll, Sweden? (Laughter) I can’t imagine living in another country. I feel very lucky to be an American citizen. The Politic: I hear Sweden is lovely this time of year. They are all great places to visit. The Politic: Which of the two do you prefer: Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert? I haven’t watched a lot lately. I guess I’d give a slight nod to Stewart. I’ve met him over the years. I don’t know Colbert. The Politic: Who would you say is your best friend in the Senate? Or top three, if you don’t want to insult anybody? (Laughter) Good, because you’re going to get me in trouble. It’s weird, because I am about to say three Republicans, strangely enough. They would be SuFALL 2012 I

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san Collins, John McCain and Lindsay Graham. The Politic: This is another fun question. Which dead politician would you most love to have dinner with? Teddy Roosevelt has always fascinated me. JFK was my hero and [Harry] Truman was a very impressive leader. I have gotten to know a lot of the leaders since then; I know [Bill] Clinton well, and the two Bushes. But a dead one? I’d say, first choice: Teddy Roosevelt. The Politic: Can I ask you whom you will be voting for this November? You can, but I will not answer. I am still undecided, even for the next Senator from Connecticut. I feel such a sense of liberation not running this year. The Politic: Do you not like campaigning? I’ve loved it over the course of my life, but I realize I’ve done it enough. Part of it is because of the enormous amount of time you spend running around the country raising money. Senate campaigns, as you can see, have become quite nasty and personal. … I am just going to vote, like a good Independent, watching it right until the end. I’ll make up my mind on the presidency and the Connecticut Senate race in the privacy of the voting booth.

to what Senator [Lowell] Weicker raised, which was unexpected. It was very hard, because the limits then were smaller. When you are running for reelection, the conventional wisdom around here — and I think this is wise — is that the more money you have in the bank when you come into your election cycle, the less likely it is that you’ll get a really strong opponent. Now it takes more than that. If you have a lot of money in the bank, but your popularity is way down, you’re going to have tough opponents. But if you have a lot of money in the bank and your popularity at home is up, then some of the stronger [potential] challengers won’t run. I was fortunate enough to have that experience in 1994 and 2000. Obviously that was not the case in 2006. In that last campaign, [my opponent in the Democratic primary] Ned Lamont put in $18 or $20 million of his own money, forcing me to raise over $20 million. I couldn’t do that in Connecticut. So I had to spend a lot of weekends and recesses travelling around the country doing fundraisers away from my family and my constituents.

There is a building over on Madison Avenue where we rent offices because you can’t make fundraising calls from your public office. The reason this building is popular because it’s a short walk from here. During the cycle and a little before, you go over there quite regularly — an hour a day — and you just get on the phone and make calls. It took me a while [to get used to it] because it is not natural to call and ask somebody to give you money. But you realize that if you don’t do it, you’ve got no chance of being a Senator. So you have to do it. For better or worse, I got very good at it and thank God a lot of people supported me. I raised over $20 million last time to compete with Ned Lamont. They were telling me, when I was thinking about running this year, that I would have to raise over $30 million this time because Linda McMahon was going to run again and she was going to spend a lot of money. And I just thought, “Oh man, being away from my wife, my children, my grandchildren, my job — it takes away from your ability.” Actually, this has been a wonderful term because

The Politic: You mentioned fundraising. How has Washington, D.C. cultures changed with regard to money and how much of your day you spend raising money? It takes a lot of time, particularly during the two years you are in-cycle — that’s the vocabulary of the Senate — which is the two years leading up to your election. It has always been important to be able to raise money. One of the reasons I was able to win in 1988, when I first ran, was that as a challenger, I raised an amount of money that was comparable 16

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Senator Lieberman on a trip abroad.

I’ve focused on being the best Senator I can be. The Politic: What is your fondest memory from Yale? And what advice do you have for college students today? When I went to Yale, I didn’t really have any particular interest. My goals were informed [in part] by [John F.] Kennedy’s election in 1960, when I began to form an interest in seeking public office. I was also affected by Sen. [Abraham] Ribicoff, who I interned with during college. But if you had stopped me when I was coming out of Yale Law School and said, “What’s your dream, Lieberman? What do you want to do with your life?” Well, the true answer, which I never would have said because it was too presumptuous, was, “I’d love to be a Senator. That’s my dream.” And so I’ve been able to live the dream. And so I would say, in spite of all the ups and downs that come with it, I’ve been very lucky. Public service is just a wonderful way to spend your life. The first one when I ran for office

— fresh out of Yale — I challenged an incumbent state senator when I was 27 years old. Most people thought I was crazy, and I probably was. Then when I ran against Sen. Weicker; nobody thought I had a chance, but I thought I did, and I thought I had a case to make. So take risks. But another thing to say to students is that there are other ways to be involved in public service that are immensely satisfying: to be part of what we call the “civil service.” Teaching, law enforcement, environmental protection, healthcare administration, homeland security, military — you could go on and on. These are extraordinary careers. You may not get rich in the monetary sense, but I think you’ll feel everyday that you’re doing something worthwhile. And that’s important. And what’s my favorite memory from Yale? Yale really transformed my life, so all my memories are happy. I just love the place. What do I mean that it transformed my life? I came as a kid from a Stamford public school with a great, sort of “Happy Days,” upbringing. And Yale educated me, broadened my horizons. There were two wonderful

presidents of Yale then, Whitney Griswold and Kingman Brewster. Griswold died my junior year; I got to know him but not really well. But I was very close to Brewster. They both were great advocates of this sense that we were chosen by being admitted to Yale, but that this came with responsibility. We had a responsibility to be leaders, to serve, to make a difference in whatever we did. And that was a message that I absorbed. “For God, for country, and for Yale.” I always have to say that that’s in descending order of importance. I think it was William F. Buckley who said that line is the greatest anticlimax in the English language. In the final column Buckley wrote about me — God bless him — when I was running in 2006 in the general election… he talked about the good parts, a few things he didn’t like, and then he said, “But in the end, what I can say for certainty about Senator Lieberman is that he has a genuine love for God and country.” But he left out Yale! Josef Goodman is a junior in Morse College. FALL 2012 I

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DECISION TIME Gay Marriage, John Roberts, and the U.S. Supreme Court By Eric Stern

n February 14, 2003, Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania strode to the podium at the center of the Senate floor with all the fiery passion that defined his Presidential campaign nearly a decade later. “I rise today to introduce the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003…” Santorum said. “A little over two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Stenberg v. Carhart decision, struck down a similar, but not identical, law in the state of Nebraska that banned partial birth abortions. … To respond to the Supreme Court’s concerns in Stenberg, this bill provides a very precise definition of the partial birth abortion procedure to make it very clear what procedure is meant.” When Congress approved Santo18

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rum’s partial birth abortion bill months later, it was the conclusion of what was once an extraordinary yet predictable process: the Supreme Court overturns a federal law and Congress responds with a new statute, presumably one with firmer constitutional footing. For generations, this system kept alive the founding principles of checks and balances; Congress could not pass unconstitutional laws and Supreme Court decisions limiting acts of Congress would receive prompt legislative responses. But today, as Congress grinds to a halt in the face of unprecedented gridlock, the Supreme Court has more power than ever before. According to a study conducted by Richard Hasen of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, Congress

overrode a Supreme Court decision an average of 12 times during each legislative term from 1975 to 1990. In the last decade, however, that number fell to just 2.7. Consequently, the Supreme Court almost always has the last word in contentious policy matters, even when Court decisions explicitly invite a Congressional response. Moreover, as Hasen wrote in an email to The Politic, “when Congress does override now, it is more likely to do so on a partisan, rather than a bipartisan, basis. I view both phenomena as a consequence of polarization in Congress.” And as Congress grows increasingly polarized, the power of the Court only continues to expand. ***

This year’s Supreme Court’s schedule is far from set, but in all likelihood the term will be remembered for one salient issue: gay marriage. According to experts, the Court will almost certainly consider challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which codifies the government’s non-recognition of same-sex marriages for all federal purposes, including survivor benefits and hospital visitation. By taking one of six DOMArelated cases currently awaiting judicial review, the Court will have the chance to radically reshape the legal concept of marriage, either reiterating the federal government’s opposition to gay unions or advancing what many believe is the nation’s last remaining civil rights struggle. If the Court wants to wade even further into the gay marriage debate — a far less certain conclusion — it could consider Hollingsworth v. Perry (formerly Perry v. Brown), which challenges California’s 2008 Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that amended that state constitution to restrict same-sex marriage. In February of 2012, a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit ruled narrowly that California lacked the authority to take away the marriage rights because the Proposition was passed at least partially out of hostility toward gays and lesbians. If the Court agrees to hear Hollingsworth, it is likely to also narrowly tailor its decision so the impact would be limited to California. But the Court could instead issue a sweeping ruling, declaring a national right to same-sex marriage or concluding that the Constitution permits states to deny gays the right to marry. According to Richard Socarides, a Presidential advisor on gay and lesbian issues in the Clinton White House, “Depending on how broad the ruling is in the DOMA or Proposition 8 cases, they could be truly historic.” *** The issue of gay marriage, long discussed in whispered voices and behind closed doors, was first thrust into the national spotlight in Baker v. Nelson, a 1972

case brought by a gay man who believed he had a Constitutional right to marry. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in Baker that only persons of different sexes could obtain a marriage license and the US Supreme Court dismissed an appeal “for want of a substantial federal question.” The issue again appeared on the national stage in 1996 with Baehr v. Miike (formerly Baehr v. Lewin), when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that denying marriage rights to same-sex couples violated the state constitution’s equal protection guarantee. (A new amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as an institution between a man and a woman mooted the issue in Hawaii, but nonetheless thrust the debate into the national spotlight.) Congress immediately responded with DOMA, which, in addition to federally defining marriage, also allows states to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state. Moreover, the states themselves began passing gay marriage legislation at a furious clip. Since the Baehr decision, 41 states have passed laws or adopted constitutional provisions defining marriage as an institution between a man and a woman. In fact, in the 28 states where anti-gay marriage measures were put on the ballot, voters approved them in all 28. In 2003, however, a state Supreme Court ruling made Massachusetts the first state to recognize a right to marry for gays and lesbians. Since then, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont have also legalized same-sex marriage (as well as Washington, DC and a handful of Native American tribes). Another 12 states recognize same-sex civil unions. At the same time, public support for gay marriage has steadily increased — shifting faster than nearly any other social issue in recent history. “The first time we asked about gay marriage [using the current wording] was in 1996, and 27 percent said it should be valid,” said Dr. Frank Newport, the Editor-in-Chief of Gallup, a widely respected public

opinion monitor. “The percentage that said yes, it should be valid, gradually increased… In 2011, it burst through the fifty percent barrier and we had 53 percent who said yes.” And the public’s views have been evolving — to use President Obama’s words — on more issues than just gay marriage. “As recently as 1987, we found only a third [of Americans interviewed] thought gay and lesbian relations should even be legal,” Newport added. “And now that’s all the way up to 63 percent.” Experts posit a variety of reasons for the public’s dramatic shift on gay rights, but chief among them is the more left-leaning social views of younger Americans. According to Dr. Patrick Egan, a scholar of gay rights and public opinion, “Even young people who are conservative on a number of what we would call moral issues such as abortion are nevertheless taking liberal positions on issues with regard to gay rights. So that suggests that unlike an issue like abortion or school prayer, more and more people are viewing gay rights through the lens of equality rather than morality.” Indeed, the ground could shift even more come November. Gay marriage legalization is on the ballot in Maine, Maryland and Washington — polls have shown the initiative to be favored in all three states — while a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman is polling neck-and-neck in Minnesota. Pro-traditional marriage groups, like the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), dismiss the competiveness of gay marriage ballot initiatives. “Every state to vote on marriage has decided to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” said NOM President Brain Brown in a statement earlier this year. “This includes deep blue states like California, Wisconsin and Maine.” Gay marriage advocates, however, reject the assertion, pointing to the rapid shift in public opinion and recent lower court victories. “We’ve already won a majority of the American people. We’ve overcome the barrier of getting courts to rule in favor of the freedom FALL 2012 I

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to marry,” said Evan Wolfson, the executive director of Freedom to Marry, a national gay rights organization. “The last remaining barrier now is to show we can win an up-or-down vote on the popular ballot, and that’s the top goal we set for ourselves for the remaining part of this year.” *** Prior to the Court’s monumental decision in the Obamacare case, it was widely assumed that the deciding vote in any gay marriage case would be Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the Court’s two most recent gay rights cases, Romer v. Evans (1996), which blessed laws protecting homosexuals from discrimination, and Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which eliminated the nation’s last remaining antisodomy laws. Moreover, Kennedy is widely seen as the body’s perennial swing vote. Kennedy, 75, has sided with the Court’s conservative wing on a host of landmark decisions — including Bush v. Gore and Citizens United — but does not wear the culture warrior label nearly as comfortably as some of his colleagues. His Lawrence opinion, for example, so reviled Justice Antonin Scalia that Scalia’s dissent accused Kennedy of having “signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda.” “Kennedy is the tipping point on gay rights on the Court,” said Tom Goldstein, a prodigious Supreme Court litigator. Neil Siegel, a Duke Law School expert on political and constitutional law, agreed. “One way or another,” he said, “Justice Kennedy is going to be in the majority.” But Chief Justice John Roberts’s decision to uphold the healthcare law’s individual mandate — coupled with Kennedy’s withering attack on the government’s position — has undeniably recast the die. Roberts joined the Court after both Romer and Lawrence, and has never written a significant opinion with regard to gay rights. Since his 2005 appointment to the Court, Roberts has been a leader of the Court’s conservative wing, authoring opinions on divisive issues such 20

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as privacy and free speech. But there is some evidence that Roberts shies away from the contempt with which Scalia, for example, views the constitutionality of gay marriage. In 1996, Roberts’s law firm worked pro bono on the Romer case and Roberts personally helped prepare lawyers making oral arguments that argued in favor of equal protection for homosexuals. Additionally, it is widely believed that Roberts, 57, cares a great deal about the image and legacy of the Supreme Court. “Roberts quite explicitly has voiced concerns about the Court’s institutional position, its long-term legitimacy, and its place in the Constitutional system,” said Siegel. And considering that the judiciary is by far the least known of the government’s three branches — a CBS/Vanity Fair survey released shortly after the healthcare decision found that 60 percent of Americans could not correctly answer that nine justices sit on the Court — an issue as prominent as gay marriage will likely play a disproportionate role in coloring the public’s opinion of the Court. Although most experts believe that the justices’ decisions are primarily based on the law, many legal scholars assert that

Roberts’s concern for the Court’s legacy plays at least some part in his decisionmaking process. “Based on everything I’ve read and studied, the conclusion is inescapable that at least some part of his thinking was to factor in the political atmospherics of any particular decision,” said Richard Socarides, a former Clinton White House advisor, on the healthcare decision. “I think Roberts is concerned with how, institutionally, the Court is viewed and how he’ll be viewed in a historical context.” Socarides continued, “If the Court decides to take the Proposition 8 case and rules that there is a federal Constitutional right to same-sex marriage, as the plaintiffs argue, it would be huge.” *** Many liberals, however, fret that the Chief Justice’s judgment in the healthcare case will inoculate him against charges of overt partisanship in other controversial rulings, like the gay marriage cases. As legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen wrote in July, “[Roberts] has now increased his political capital that will allow him to continue to move the Court in a conservative direction in cases involving affirmative action and the Voting Rights

A protestor demonstrates at an anti-Proposition 8 rally.

Act, both of which he may well strike down next year by 5-4 votes.” Goldstein, the Supreme Court advocate, acknowledged that Rosen’s proposition was “certainly one of the conspiracy theories you hear on the left — that Roberts upholds healthcare, which gives him a huge amount of political capital to strike down all sort of things that conservatives hate and liberals like, while insulating himself from charges of partisanship.” “But that’s a very, very cynical, political view of a judge,” Goldstein added. “It’s a little much for me to think that is what’s going on.” Nevertheless, the gay marriage cases are far from the Court’s only important considerations this term. Fisher v. University of Texas, for example, concerns the college’s affirmative action admission policy, and could have lasting national implications. Both the District Court and a three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the University, but many observers expect the high Court to reverse these rulings, essentially disqualifying race as a factor in university admissions policies. Other significant cases the Court could consider include Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, which challenges the government’s continued use of the central enforcement provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Personhood Oklahoma v. Barber, which has already been granted certiorari and compels the Court to reexamine the always-salient issue of abortion. Numerous criminal rights and business-related cases will likely appear on the Court’s docket this term as well. *** Predicting how the Court will rule in any case is difficult; with an issue as sensitive as gay marriage, it is a guess at best. The comfortably life-tenured Justices have free reign in their Constitutional interpretations and must weigh a variety of factors — legal and otherwise. “Obviously the Court looks first to the law, but in deciding these cases, which are so culturally and societally significant, they look to where the country is and what the country is ready for,” said Socarides. “They probably try not

President Bush appointed Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005. to get too far ahead of public opinion, seventies, meaning that the direction of but I don’t think they want to be lag- the Court could be radically reshaped ging way behind either. And that’s what by whoever occupies the White House makes this moment and these cases so come January. interesting.” “We never know who will retire Legal experts are characteristi- when or who will get sick, but the imporcally divided along ideological lines, tance of the cases this term reminds us with left-leaning scholars and analysts how important it is [who] the President arguing that the Court will likely strike is,” said Socarides. down parts of DOMA or Proposition For now, however, gay rights ad8 and their right-leaning counterparts vocates are pursuing victories at the maintaining the opposite. Kennedy’s ballot box — attainable for the first time moderation on gay rights issues, as well thanks to the dramatic shift in public as Roberts’ surprising healthcare ruling, opinion — as well as in the courts. Said are promising bellwethers for pro-gay Wolfson, who is considered by many to marriage advocates. But Roberts has be the father of the gay marriage moverepeatedly asserted his belief that it ment, “While I understand the desire is not the Court’s job to effect social to speculate about what a given Justice change, and is famously wary of broad, is going to do, I think the real key is to sweeping decisions. Moreover, the focus on what we can control, which is Court as a whole has moved in a decid- making the case outside the Court. And edly conservative direction since Roberts the best way to do that is to continue has become Chief Justice, muddying the winning more states and continue winissue’s already opaque waters. ning over more hearts and minds, all of *** which creates the climate that enables This November, voters will decide the Court to do the right thing.” which political party to entrust control of the executive and legislative branches Eric Stern is a sophomore in of government. But control of the Pierson College. judicial branch may also hang in the balance. Four Supreme Court justices will begin the next Presidential term in their FALL 2012 I

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Romney’s Mormonism Why It Was Ignored By Jonah Bader

uring the 2012 campaign for president, the media highlighted the novelty of the Republican ticket’s religious composition: Mitt Romney is the first Mormon to be nominated by a major party. Because Paul Ryan is Catholic, Romney-Ryan is the first major party ticket not to include a Protestant. In the past, attacks on candidates’ religions have influenced a number of presidential elections. Why, then, did Democrats not exploit Romney’s religious beliefs for political purposes? Religion is not a new source of controversy in presidential elections, dating back as far as the election of 1800. The Federalists assaulted the religious beliefs of Thomas Jefferson who created his own bible by excising references to God or miracles. Because of his radical focus on humans over the supernatural, opponents tagged Jefferson as a Deist. Others branded him an atheist, and one Federalist labeled him an “open infidel.” Then-Yale president Timothy Dwight even likened Jefferson to the Antichrist. These Federalists warned voters of the consequences of putting an irreligious man at the helm of the Executive

Branch. This was the first time a presidential candidate’s religion was attacked, setting the precedent for the rancor of future religious accusations. While Jefferson’s struggle with faith is well-evidenced, Democrats blatantly lied about Episcopelian John C. Frémont’s religion during the 1856 election, claiming that he had been raised Catholic, had a Catholic wedding, and built a large cross when he was out West. This negative campaign demonstrated the effectiveness of distorting another candidate’s religious beliefs. Democratic presidential candidate Al Smith was also famously attacked on religious grounds during the election of 1928. The first Catholic to be nominated by a major party, Smith was barraged with attacks suggesting that a Catholic in the White House would answer to the Pope. This thought terrified Protestants. A number of conspiracy theories about Catholic plots also surfaced. These scare tactics paid off for the Republicans when Smith was resoundingly defeated by Herbert Hoover. The next Catholic to be nominated, John F. Kennedy, was also forced to

Jefferson created his own bible by excising references to God or miracles. 22

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defend his religious beliefs in the 1960 election. Kennedy delivered a famous speech in which he stressed he would not be beholden to the Pope, but rather would make his own decisions. “I am not the Catholic candidate for President,” Kennedy maintained. “I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic.” He added, “I believe in an America… where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind.” Nevertheless, JFK owed his victory in part to Catholic support; 78 percent of Catholics voted for Kennedy, while 63 percent of white Protestants voted for Nixon. Some political scientists view the 2000 and 2004 elections as evidence that candidates’ religions are now less important, since little attention was given to the religious views of Jewish Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman in 2000 and Catholic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. The focus on Obama’s religion in 2008, however, showed that religion can still be an important issue to voters. The media called into question Obama’s patriotism and tolerance because of his fiery minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Fringe members of the right also spread the false rumor that Obama was a Muslim, an attack not unlike the one Frémont endured. Why have Democrats refrained from attacking Romney’s Mormonism? Certainly not because his religion was unripe for attack. 31 percent of Americans have an unfavorable impression of Mormons, according to a Washington Post-ABC News Poll from July. While this is down from 39 percent in 2007, possibly as a result of the “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign, 31 percent is still a significant portion of the country. Moreover, tapping into anti-Mormon sentiment could have been an especially potent tool for Obama in the South. A recent Reuters poll found that 35 percent of voters across 11 Southern states said

they would be less likely to vote for a Mormon candidate. This could have been an effective strategy to capture the swing states Virginia and North Carolina, both of which were represented in the poll. However, according to Jon Butler, Professor Emeritus of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies at Yale, it would have been tough for democrats to capitalize on voters’ prejudices against Mormons without appearing hypocritical. Butler points out that Democrats have largely ignored Romney’s Mormonism in the 2012 election because Democrats “are almost self-identified as tolerant, [so] it’s very difficult for a Democrat to raise the Mormon issue.” Perhaps a safer and tamer strategy to make Romney’s religion seem less palatable to voters would have been to question the role the Mormon Church might play in a Romney administration. The president of the Mormon Church, currently Thomas S. Monson, is considered “a seer, a revelator, a translator, and a prophet” (Doctrine and Covenants, 107: 92) who wields immense power in influencing Mormons. If voters in the past were suspicious about a Catholic president taking orders from the Pope, present-day voters might be concerned about the influence the president of the Mormon Church could have on Romney. But Romney has already settled this issue, or at least so far as voters believe and trust him. In 2007, he delivered his “Faith in America” speech, recalling Kennedy’s speech about religion. “Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for President, not a Catholic running for President,” Romney said. “Like him, I am an American running for President. I do not define my candidacy by my religion.” Romney then directly addressed the issue of the president of the Mormon Church. “Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.” The fact that Romney’s Mormon-

ism was not targeted strengthens religious harmony in the U.S. instead of promoting divisive religious attacks. “I think it is good that we really have heard very little about religion, much less about religion than one might have thought would have been the case,” Butler said. “I think that’s good for American politics, I think it’s good for both campaigns, and I think it’s probably good for religion.

Romney at the Values Voter Summit in 2011. Many societies tear themselves to pieces over religious questions, and at the moment we’re not doing that.” He did still express concerns over persistent racism towards President Obama. Even as the U.S. becomes more secularized, it is still important to voters that a candidate is religious, but their affiliation is more inconsequential, according to Butler. “[American voters] like it that the candidates are ‘religious.’ It’s probably more important in America to be religious, than to be a Presbyterian or to be a Jew,” Butler explained. “Voters like it if someone is religious but they really don’t want to know too much about it.” One current theory in political science posits that contemporary voters no longer cast their ballots along the lines of their religion, but rather along the lines of religiousness. In other words, the churchgoing bloc votes differently than the non-practicing bloc. For example, Al Gore outstripped George W.

Bush on the Catholic vote by only 50-47, but with respect to the religiousness of Catholics, 59% of less observant Catholics supported Gore and 57% of more observant Catholics supported Bush. This new trend suggests that perhaps Mitt Romney should have touted his religious convictions more in order to contrast himself with Obama, who currently does not belong to a church. Since leaving Rev. Wright’s church, Obama has opted to worship at Camp David’s nondenominational church. Romney has sought to portray himself as a devout Christian, but he has talked about his faith far less than one would expect for such a dedicated adherent. He has certainly not used his piety as a major selling point of his candidacy, perhaps with good reason. Although religion can be an effective appeal to voters, “using religion also has a downside,” according to Butler. “There is a point at which talk about religion in the United States becomes unctuous, and it’s perceived by voters as unctuous and self-serving.” As a Mormon, devoting too much attention to his religion would have been especially dangerous for Romney, Butler noted. “He is in a difficult position for a very simple reason. If he really tries to describe his religious views and values, that opens up the questions that many Americans might have about what they would regard as oddities in Mormon doctrine and Mormon belief,” as well as possible racism in the Mormon Church, as blacks were not allowed to enter the Mormon priesthood until 1978. Butler also opined that focus on Romney’s religion could bring up the topic of polygamy, even though the Mormon Church ended this practice in 1890. It remains to be seen whether Romney managed to strike the right balance between stressing his religious fervor and deemphasizing his beliefs, undoubtedly a difficult task for a man who is an ardent follower of a minority religion. Jonah Bader is a freshman in Jonathan Edwards College.

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OPINION

THE WAR ON TAXES

Obama’s Gay Marriage Gamble By Derek Soled

n the aftermath of North Carolina’s May 2012 vote for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, President Obama announced: “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” As the November election nears, the motives behind Obama’s announcement are unclear. Was he trying to reignite his iconic 2008 “Change We Can Believe In” campaign? Was it a selfless move? Or was there an ulterior motive? Although Obama’s statement was met by mixed public opinion, many on the left praised his announcement as an altruistic, apolitical act. A closer look at Obama’s statement, however, reveals a social and economic agenda behind his endorsement. Since President Obama’s historic 2008 victory, much of the liberal enthusiasm for him has dissipated. Many factions of the American left, including the LGBTQ community, have become disillusioned by Obama’s moderate stances and perceived nonchalance on gay and lesbian issues. While most of this community is likely to vote for Obama in November, prominent gays and lesbians had withheld their substantial financial resources for much of the election cycle. According to many political strategists, Obama

Protester calling the President to action. 24

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strategically announced his support for same-sex marriage to woo back gay donors. Indeed, according to a CNN report, about one in every sixteen of Obama’s biggest donors is openly gay; the Washington Post goes even further and estimates one in six is gay. (Campaign contributors are not required to indicate their sexual orientation.) Between January and March 2012, LGBTQ donors raised roughly $8 million for the President. But “in the three days after Mr. Obama announced his shift in thinking, the campaign raised almost $9 million in donations,” said PBS News Hour correspondent Spencer Michels. “In recent years, gay people have dedicated more time and money towards politics,” said Dr. M. V. Lee Badgett, the research director of the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA Law School. In addition to the LGBTQ community, Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage may have an ancillary impact on both young and Jewish voters. In 2008, college students campaigned for Obama in a variety of ways, from holding voter registration drive to attending political rallies. Many believe the President’s announcement will once again inspire these students — particularly LGBTQ students — to campaign and vote. “In general, the younger generation is more tolerant and accepting of same-sex unions than older generations,” Badgett said. Yale University LGBTQ Co-Op coordinator Hilary O’Connell said that the organization is not officially involved in any campaigning as Yale undergraduate regulations prohibit organizations from using Yale money to promote particular candidates. Yet, she is “certain that many individuals [in Yale’s LGBTQ community] on campus are involved in other efforts to promote Obama, and some may have even worked on his campaign over the summer.”

The President may also attract Jewish voters through his gay marriage endorsement. America’s Jewish population is historically liberal-minded and particularly supportive of other minority groups. As such, experts believe they will find President Obama’s message a welcome one. In a recent article, Ron Kampeas of the Global News Service of the Jewish People wrote, “Polls have found that upwards of three-quarters of American Jews support same-sex marriage.” The same article reported that Obama’s gay marriage endorsement was praised by some of the country’s most influential Jewish groups. But for all the support the President’s announcement may have among gay, young and Jewish voters, one major drawback is the potential alienation of devout African American Christians. The NAACP recently backed Obama’s position and polls have shown that support for same-sex marriage in the black community has risen substantially since the President’s endorsement. But American blacks — like any other subset of voters — certainly do not vote as a group. Indeed, the Obama campaign remains concerned about the impact his announcement could have on a number of crucial constituencies — chief among them religious African Americans in states such as Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. In retrospect, it seems likely that the President’s statement in support of gay marriage was motivated at least in part by a desire to gain both financial and electoral support. But considering sharply divided public opinion on the issue, this strategy is a risky one. In just a few days, we will see whether it ultimately proves successful. Derek Soled is a freshman in Branford College.

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ith the constant talk of the 99%, the 1%, and now, the 47%, income tax policy has taken center stage during this campaign cycle. The Republican Party calls on Reagan’s presidency to defend its proposals for lower tax rates, but it has reinvented Reaganomics and taken it to a dangerous extreme. I had a conversation with Bruce Bartlett, a top Treasury official under George H.W. Bush and the domestic policy advisor to Reagan who crafted the Reagan tax plan, to get at the facts behind the GOP’s anti-taxation rhetoric. “It’s simply selective memory loss,” Bartlett said. “They just forget Reagan didn’t do any of those things,” he added, noting that Reagan raised taxes 11 times between 1982 and 1988—including a $133 billion tax increase during his last year in office—but that Conservatives such as Grover Norquist choose to ignore these facts. Grover Norquist is the founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, the group that created the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.” The majority of Congressmen, including 95% of Republicans, signed this pledge promising to oppose any efforts to increase taxes. Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform have established the “Ronald Reagan Legacy Project,” which, among other things, has pushed to establish a “Ronald Reagan Day” and to put Reagan’s face on the $10 bill. They have created a myth of Ronald Reagan as a man who followed a strict policy of no-questions-asked tax cuts, and they have used this fictionalized version of the president as a justification for constant opposition to any and all forms of effective tax increase. In Bruce Bartlett’s words, many conservatives “have adopted what I can only describe as an Ayn Randian view that the wealthy have no obligation whatsoever to society or to anybody else other than to make the greatest amount of money they possibly can, and that somehow or

By Ezra Ritchin other this will trickle down to benefit society as a whole.” Bruce Bartlett, however, has refused to go along for the ride. He was highly regarded in Conservative circles after his work for Congressman Ron Paul, Senator Roger Jepsen, President Ronald Reagan, and President George H.W. Bush. He drafted the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut, which was then adopted as Reagan’s first tax cut, and helped shape the Tax Reform Act of 1986, Reagan’s second tax cut. In 2006, however, he wrote a book entitled, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed Reagan’s Legacy. He was then kicked out of his conservative think tank and alienated from his political party.

“Wealthy people used to have an attitude of noblesse oblige, which basically said, those to whom great benefits have been given owe something to the downtrodden.”

Bartlett laments the shift away from the days when “wealthy people used to have an attitude of noblesse oblige, which basically said, those to whom great benefits have been given owe something to the downtrodden.” This is not merely a veteran statesman reminiscing about the good old days, however; the changes he is describing are both concrete and highly visible. Reagan inherited a 50% income tax rate on the top-earning bracket, a number that was steadily declining after hovering near 90% for most of the 1950’s and 60’s. It is currently at 35%, and Romney plans to bring it down to 28%. Bartlett quotes an estimate that states that if the effective rate on the top

1% of earners had stayed where it was under Reagan in 1986, today’s federal debt would be $1.7 trillion lower. Although the top income tax rate is ostensibly 35%, the effective rate is 24% due to loopholes and subsidies. Romney wants to decrease the marginal rate by a fifth. He also intends to reduce the corporate tax and eliminate the long-term tax on capital gains; Reagan advocated for capital gains to be taxed as income. The Republican Party has radically departed from Reaganomics, but a group of powerful elites led by Grover Norquist has managed to manipulate Reagan’s legacy to justify an economic shift towards lower rates and opposition to all effective tax increases. Norquist would simply be a man with a strong opposition to taxation if he did not have a highly influential, radical group of followers. The Club for Growth, a tax-exempt 527 group with a mission of “limited government and economic freedom,” has been instrumental in taking down Republicans who do not abide by the strict no-tax pledge. According to Bartlett, “if some candidate, a Republican, either takes the pledge and violates it or refuses to take the pledge, then the Club for Growth will target him for defeat in the primaries.” Bob Bennett, an 18-year veteran Republican senator from Utah, was pitted against two far-right conservatives, ultimately losing renomination. The Club for Growth targeted him largely because he co-sponsored the “Healthy Americans Act,” an attempt to improve the healthcare system that would require higher taxes. The Tea Party movement has legitimized and strengthened this hard-line anti-tax movement by giving groups such as Americans for Tax Reform and the Club for Growth the backing they need. Bartlett comments, “In a sense the Tea Party people added troops to the money and ideological advantages that Grover [Norquist] already had, and as a FALL 2012 I

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consequence made them pretty much all powerful, at least on the tax issue.” An “all powerful” anti-tax alliance is very dangerous, especially at a time when the national deficit is at its highest since the end of the Depression. Evidence from the Clinton and Bush Jr. presidencies suggests that higher taxes could be part of the solution, but over half of Congressmen have vowed not to vote for any effective tax increase. In the version intended for state legislators, Grover Norquist’s pledge reads, “I will oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.” It is shockingly irresponsible to shackle the men and women who govern our nation with a pledge that they will not adjust their views on taxation, whether it be for the purpose of deficit reduction, health reform, or anything else they view as beneficial to the American people. Bruce Bartlett was on the political front lines when Presidents Reagan and Bush encouraged legislators to violate the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, originally drafted in 1986. Their administrations raised taxes because they needed to increase government revenue. The Party that deifies Reagan has moved so far in the direction of fiscal stubbornness, however, that the man who drafted Reagan’s tax cuts can no longer call himself a Republican. In 1990, while Bruce Bartlett was an acting Treasury official, George H.W. Bush sponsored a tax increase that included a raise in the top income tax level from 28% to 31% in order to help raise revenue and reduce the deficit. Bartlett says, “The defeat of George H.W. Bush in 1992 was extremely important politically because it basically said if you raise taxes and you’re a Republican, you’re going to be defeated. The fact that this was not true for Reagan is sort of irrelevant. They just ignore that.” Ezra Ritchin is a sophomore in Ezra Stiles College.

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WOOING FOREIGN INVESTMENT By Austin Schaefer While American politicians publically lament the loss of American jobs to cheap overseas labor, little has been said about the rise in competition between states to attract investment by foreign technology and manufacturing companies. This “insourcing” rarely makes national headlines as it’s a zero-sum game; one state’s gain is another’s loss, so national politics pays little attention to the phenomenon. At the local level, however, foreign investment can make the difference between economic stagnation and revival. In the past, state competition for foreign business occurred at the federal level, where congressional representatives brought industry to their districts by tacking on in-state spending to federal bills. As politicians sought to curb government spending due to the ongoing fiscal crunch, this “pork barrel” spending came under attack, leaving states to fend for themselves. Increasingly, state governments must act affirmatively to bring business within their borders. As a result, foreign investors have the opportunity to pit states against each other in competition for their business. This usually takes the form of special tax incentives or even up-front cash grants. Twenty states have special “closing funds” used as last-minute deal-sweeteners. Florida’s governor can draw up to $2 million from the “Florida Quick Action Closing Fund” without legislative approval. The “Texas Enterprise Fund” requires approval only from the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and House Speaker to provide grants. Alabama recently offered Airbus, a European jet-liner consortium, a

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Intuitive Politics An Interview with Jonathan Haidt

tax-incentive package worth over $100 million to build a manufacturing plant in Mobile, Alabama. Notably, companies tend to prefer southeastern states, where unions are weaker and laws are friendlier to manufacturers. Toyota employs 40,000 people in plants across Mississippi, Kentucky, Texas, Alabama, and West Virginia. Mitsubishi’s energy division recently opened a turbine-manufacturing plant in Savannah, Georgia. Such foreign investments in American manufacturing have the potential to rejuvenate an industry that has lagged for decades. Insourcing is particularly prevalent in high-value-added industries such as airplane and automobile production and creates demand for educated, skilled laborers. This provides an invaluable opportunity to revive America’s stagnant manufacturing sector. Critics, however, allege that the incentives states offer foreign corporations are too costly for taxpayers, especially when the primary beneficiaries are overseas. Indeed, many state governments offer money with few or no strings attached, and often without a specific guarantee of job creation. While the American economy stands to benefit from a larger market for skilled laborers, effective state incentive programs must evaluate whether state-level expenditure will be remunerated by new corporate and income tax revenue resulting from the increased economic activity, and whether enough jobs will be created to justify the expenditure. As it stands today, insourcing is the new and fragile norm for many states, and its long-term effects remain to be seen.

Conducted by Daniel First and Yuval Ben-David Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and leadership ethics professor at the NYU Stern School of Business. He conducts research investigating moral intuitions and the role they play in politics and society. His latest work, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, is a New York Times Bestseller. The Politic: In your book, you argue that appealing to different moral intuitions may lead to success for a candidate. How does this theory play out in the current presidential election? Do you think that the candidates appeal to all of people’s moral intuitions? No, this election is very different. From 1992 through 2007 the cultural war was over authority, loyalty, and sanctity. It was issues like abortion, prayer in school, flag burning, corporal punishment — it was all the social conservative issues. But in 2009, the social conservatives had to temper their agenda to form an alliance — a stronger alliance — with the libertarians. Since the financial crisis, those social issues have been really in the background; it’s been mostly economic issues, which are still moral issues. But now it’s an argument over different understandings of fairness and liberty. The Politic: Do you think President Obama is successfully appealing to people’s moral intuitions? In general, yes, I think Obama is much more skillful than either Kerry or Gore, and he’s been very careful to avoid the standard liberal appeal. The standard liberal appeal is: we need to raise taxes on the rich because the poor are suffering and there’s so much inequality. Those would be the two main buttons than most people on the Left would want to push. But President Obama, I think, knows that that’s not going to work, and he rarely mentions equality. He really is trying to justify his policies in terms of proportionality — this is the conservative understanding of fairness. If you look at his “You didn’t build that!” speech, it’s

an argument for higher taxes on the rich because they received benefits and now they need to pay for them. So, Obama, I think, has been trying to avoid left-wing moral framing and be more of a centrist who tries to appeal to conservatives. The Politic: Do you think there’s a way he could appeal to people’s moral intuitions more successfully? The one thing that he has never pushed on and should have is the shared sacrifice button. He talks about how we’re all in this together — “I am my brother’s keeper” — then he never says, “And therefore we all have to sacrifice, we all have to pull together.” What he says is, “We’re all in this together and therefore the rich have to pay more in taxes.” He inherited a gigantic financial crisis and a gigantic deficit, and the Republicans are right that entitlement spending has been out of control since the 1960s, so I think the thing to do is—well, I can’t comment on specific political strategy—but, from a moral perspective, maybe the argument [should be] that we’re in big trouble, that we’ve all got to give, that there are going to have to be some cuts to benefits, that there are going to have to be increases in taxes. The benefit cuts are going to fall more on the poor, the tax increases are going to fall more on the rich — in the long run we have to do both in order to save our country. This is what the Simpson-Bowles commission said, this is what any nonpartisan observer knows. But Obama has never called for shared sacrifices; he’s always said he will protect the bottom 98%. The Politic: How has your understanding of moral psychology influ-

enced your political views? Studying politics and studying the moral matrix of liberals and the moral matrix of conservatives has made the moral matrix of liberals dissolve around me. I’m now not on any team; I’m not in either party; I’m not in either camp. 50% of any matrix is BS, is imaginary stuff that blinds you to real threats and problems and opportunities. So studying moral psychology has made me sort of fall off the liberal bus and now I see both sides as being right about some very important issues. That’s not to say that the Republican Party is just as sane or insane as the Democratic Party. Right now the Republican Party is much more insane. But compare the Republicans now to the Democrats in the 70s. The Democrats in the 70s were morally insane and they pulled back from that; this is the Republicans’ period to go insane. FALL 2012 I

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The Politic: Do you think that “debiasing” efforts could be useful in politics in order to reduce partisanship? No, there is no evidence that debiasing works. You cannot debias individuals. What you can do is set up political institutions to minimize the effects of those biases. And that’s something that the Framers had intended — they intended a series of checks and balances among the different branches and within the different branches. Unfortunately, now we have one giant line that runs through all of our institutions, and it’s the Left-Right line, so the liberals in congress are allied with the liberals in the Supreme Court are allied with a liberal president—that’s one team. There’s no check or balance there anymore. The Politic: Do you have any practical suggestions for a way to help alleviate the effects of cognitive biases in political discussion? Yes. The main fixes are going to have to be institutional. I have a website at civilpolitics.org where we discuss some of these. There are about ten to fifteen different fixes that will reduce the benefits of extreme partisanship to the players. Political actors are very savvy, they make do with what works, and over the last 20 years as the public has gotten more polarized, as the center has shrunk, there are more and more benefits to appealing to the base. There are a number of fixes we can do that will make that less beneficial, that will make instability and hyper-partisanship less profitable. There’s a group, nolabels.org, that has very good suggestions, and there’s a wonderful book called The Parties Versus the People by Mickey Edwards. Those are two sources of very good ideas. Also, there are things that individuals can do. I hope that everyone in America will read my book and then be nicer to their brother-in-law at Thanksgiving who holds opposite political views. The Politic: You speak in the book about how some people have more 28

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of an individualist nature and some people are more group-oriented, and that perhaps this is an East-West divide. First, do you think that one of those two possibilities is more in line with human nature; and second, do you think it can be changed—if someone was brought up in an individualist society can they shift to see themselves as part of a group? The normal or default way of being is more group-ish. But human nature is very flexible, and WEIRD culture has arisen over the last 200 years (that is, Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). So, if we American secular individualists can do this, then it is within the scope of human nature. But it is not the default. There are sensitive

periods to human development, and if a person is raised in a more group-ish or collectivist setting through their midtwenties, I think it would be hard to change. But certainly, with a child — you see this with Asian-Americans — those who are raised in Asia are very, very different from those who grow up entirely in the United States. So there are sensitive periods, certainly, and human nature has quite a range of potential. I’m not saying that individualism is a bad thing— it just makes it harder to get people to come together or cooperate sometimes. Daniel First is a junior in Ezra Stiles College. Yuval Ben-David is a freshman in Silliman College.

RATIONALIZING DISHONESTY Brett Davidson interviews Daniel Ariely

The Politic: What do you think the culture of cheating looks like in the U.S. Congress?

ran for Congress and I get to be dishonest; I can justify it to myself and say ‘as long as you vote for me, you will actually be much better off.’ And once you can start thinking this way, that your actions are for the purpose of other people, then it’s easier to rationalize. The second thing is the question of everybody else is doing it, which I think is also very common, and as we have more and more stories about how politicians are being dishonest, it is becoming more and more likely that other people will behave this way. And then, there’s another thing. We did a little study in which we asked people how much they are willing to allow their politicians to be dishonest. And what we basically found is that people want their own politicians to be more dishonest. People realize that politics is a dirty system, and if you care about the outcome, all of a sudden you want your politicians to play according to the real rules of the game, which include lots of dishonesty.

People feel they are cheating for the good of other people. Just imagine I

For a full interview, please visit www. thepolitic.org.

Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavior economics at Duke University. He is the author of The Honest Truth about Dishonesty. The Politic: Why cheating? What made you want to study dishonesty? Enron happened. Everybody was pointing at the three architects of the disaster, and then I met a person I really admired who was on the inside, and he basically described his own world as being wishful blindness. He actually said that he created an ideology for himself to help believe that what was going on was actually a good thing. So that basically made me wonder: was the dishonesty that was happening better described by three people or was it something that we could all do if placed in the same circumstances.

Where curiosity leads us Dr. Charles Elachi of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab discusses the future of outer space exploration By Ben Weiner Dr. Charles Elachi was appointed the Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2001, and in the intervening decade he has overseen a flurry of highly successful missions to Mars and beyond. Prior to that, he served as the director of NASA’s Space and Earth Sciences program for 18 years while teaching the physics of remote sensing at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Elachi was born in Lebanon in 1947, and he pursued his education in France before coming to CalTech in 1971 to gain his doctorate in Electrical Engineering. He started working at JPL while still studying at CalTech and has served there ever since. He has published more than 230 papers on electromagnetic theory and remote sensing.

merica’s love affair with exploration is deeply ingrained in whatever confluence of history and ambitions makes up our cultural identity. The idea of pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and experience has appealed to our collective imagination since our nation’s inception as a few scattered outposts in the New World. We saw it in our nation’s settlement, in our Westward expansion, and in the can-do spirit that sent men to the moon within a decade of President Kennedy’s famous directive. Earlier this summer, America’s love for exploration took center stage when the Mars Curiosity Rover touched down to a live audience of 50 million people on August 6. To put that in perspective, the 2012 Olympics had an average of 30 million viewers on any given night. The rover landing, which took place at 1:32 a.m. EST, was played on the iconic digital billboards in Times Square; and NASA recorded 1.8 billion hits on its website in the subsequent 24-hour period. Far from simply being a successful science experiment, the landing was a media sensation. The public’s nearly unconditional love for space exploration and the dramatic triumphs of the past decade make it easy to forget how uncertain the future of the Mars program was at the beginning of the millennium. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) lost two expensive spacecraft in 1999, one to a gaffe confusing metric and imperial units. “The two failures happened during a period where everyone was advocating, you know, we need to do things faster, better, cheaper, which different people interpreted in different ways … Some

people interpreted it as, ‘Well, we’ll take shortcuts,’ and I think that’s what got us in trouble,” said Dr. Charles Elachi, Director of the JPL since 2001. “In this business, once you launch a spacecraft you cannot bring it back to fix it.” Instead of gutting the program, the lab instituted new checks and balances, and the following decade has witnessed twenty successful missions sending robotic emissaries across the Solar System, which has resulted in “literally thousands of scientists getting data from these different satellites and conducting research, I’m sure many of who are at Yale,” added Dr. Elachi. Dr. Elachi’s story embodies the American spirit of discovery and cooperation so perfectly that it almost seems trite — until you remember that in August this spirit propelled the JPL to achieve one of engineering’s most devilishly tricky feats ever. Born in Lebanon in 1947, Dr. Ela-

CURIOSITY landing on Mars. chi immigrated to the United States in 1969 to get his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology. “I came to Caltech because I knew some of the faculty there, and then when I found out that JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA, I thought, ‘How lucky I am!’ So after the first year at Caltech, I started working part time at JPL as a student to earn my living, and here I am 40 years later.” Dr. Elachi’s specialty is remote sensing and electromagnetic theory, topics on which he has published more than 230 papers. When asked what aspect of the Curiosity mission he was most proud of, he highlighted neither the unprecedented skycrane landing maneuver, nor the extensive mobile laboratory they loaded onto the rover, but rather “the capability of bringing a team of literally hundreds and hundreds of people to focus on an objective, and really work hard to achieve that common objective FALL 2012 I

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that seemed really impossible … And that’s what I’m particularly proud about, more than any specific technological accomplishment.” The team he referred to has been working almost continuously for the past eight years to send the rover on its 55 million kilometer journey. Their job is indeed just beginning as the rover makes its way to a crater rife with sedimentary rocks conducive to the search for organic materials. The short road trip is expected to last a couple of months; as Dr. Elachi explains, “You know how scientists are, every time we drive and see something interesting we say, ‘Let’s spend a day examining this, and let’s spend a day examining that.’” This week’s “something interesting” is the discovery of what’s almost certainly an ancient streambed, where smoothed pebbles suggest an antediluvian Mars where life could have flourished. The federal government’s commitment to space exploration came under close scrutiny this year in light of devastating budget cuts in the proposed fiscal plan for 2013, along with NASA’s decision to retire the Space Shuttle and rely on the Russian Soyuz rockets to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Yet we may have a chance to reaffirm our investment in the

“Our love affair with the cosmos has value for, in Dr. Elachi’s words, ‘The inspiration it gives young people [and] the pride it gives people about what great things their country and humankind can do.’” space program. As Dr. Elachi says, “Congress has come back and said that it’s not going to allow that cut to happen. As a matter of fact, they added back some money to the Mars program. And after the landing, we’ve created a much more positive environment back in Washington relative to the Mars program.” The end of the Shuttle program comes as the technology for entering Earth’s orbit has martured to the point that the private sector can now begin “to make [space travel] afforadable like what happened with airplanes,” according to Dr. Elachi. This process has already begun, starting with NASA’s contracts with SpaceX and the Orbital Sciences Corpo-

ration to resupply the ISS. “The government, specifically NASA, will focus on sending a human beyond Earth’s orbit, going back to the moon, to asteroids — to assemble a telescope at the Lagrangian point — and ultimately going to Mars,” he elaborates. “It’s similar to almost any endeavor of exploration: the first steps are usually done by the government, because they are expensive, and then once that technology’s in place, the private sector can capitalize on it.” As we step back to reexamine our relationship with outer space from afar, the question inevitably turns to what we can gain, and at what costs. According to Dr. Elachi, the Curiosity rover has cost each American seven dollars over the past eight years. In other words, seeing Curiosity land on Mars cost the average American less than seeing Transformers 3. Moreover, aside from the gains in scientific knowledge and the countless technological innovations spurred by space exploration, our love affair with the cosmos has value for, in Dr. Elachi’s words, “The inspiration it gives young people [and] the pride it gives people about what great things their country and humankind can do.” America has always sought to redraw the boundaries of what is possible and to push the limits of human imagination. And if Dr. Elachi is right, we will not be able to help but follow that drive across the Solar System, from one giant leap to the next. Ben Weiner is a freshman in Branford College.

A NASA rover surveys Martian soil. 30

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Ghosts of economists past A Interview with Nicholas Wapshott Conducted by William Jordan Nicholas Wapshott is a British author and journalist. He is a frequent contributor to CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and ABC, and writes a column for Thomson Reuters. He was a former editor of the Saturday edition of The Times (London). His book, Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics, has just been published in paperback by W.W. Norton.

The Politic: Could you describe the basic economic philosophies of Keynes and Hayek? John Maynard Keynes was incensed at the extent of unemployment in Britain during the 1920s when it was more than ten percent due to the fixing of the pound sterling at the wrong rate. He came to the conclusion that governments had a duty to do something about that, and he worked out various measures you could take in order to increase employment. He had a sort of moral dimension to it—he thought that if governments could do something about it, then they should do something about it. All economics today is really Keynesian, in that we take a macroeconomics approach, looking down on the economy as moving parts and understanding the whole things as a whole, rather than microeconomics. Friedrich Hayek took a much more hesitant view. He came out of WWI anxious about what hyper-inflation had done to his country of Austria, particularly to the people he knew, including his parents. For the rest of his life, he was more worried about inflation than unemployment. It was his view that there was a limit actually to how much you could understand about economics. If you really didn’t know too much about economics, you could do more harm than good just by making crack remedies to things. He tried to prove that if you had a Keynesian stimulus of the sort that Obama put into effect, at the end of the stimulus you would find that all sorts of companies that were invested in the wrong sorts of businesses would go bust because the market had been misled by government action. He’s different from Ayn Rand,

who thought that the free market should just run wild. Hayek, rather like Romney in the debate, said that there should be a lot of regulations to ensure that the free market works truly freely and truly fairly. Hayek ecoKeynes (left) and Hayek (right). nomics is still very it would be silly to do so; to start taxing controversial. But much less controverpeople and imposing austerity, if by taksial is the lesson of The Road to Serfdom, ing that amount of money out of the published in 1944. It suggests that the system you would actually trip a second larger the state, the more likely that indirecession. But to keep their parties happy, vidual rights will be trammeled. That has I think Obama tends to suggest that he had enormous resonance, particularly is much more Keynesian than he is and among conservatives in America. Romney tends to suggest that he is more Hayekian than he is. The Politic: Do you think the Repub There is, however, a fork of the lican and Democratic parties reflect road. Romney suggests that there is a this divide? way to have a small government and business-friendly society, and Obama is Obama is less Keynesian than his pracmuch more concerned that the federal tice would sometimes suggest. There is government ensures that everybody in no doubt he introduced a classic piece society is well taken care of. This is the of Keynesian stimulus—$800 billion real great divide between left and right. worth—in the spring of 2009, but anybody would have done that. In fact, the The Politic: Does the austerity in plan was made up by the George W. Bush Europe reflect a Hayekian response? Treasury team. That was almost a bipartisan thing to do. Mitt Romney agreed Britain’s response to the economic colwith that intervention in the economy lapse was to look at how an independent at that time. country with an independent currency It is quite interesting hearing Mitt could maintain prosperity. And they Romney talking about not paying the defthought that you would have to do things icit right away. They’re paying the deficit to appease the market, hence the austerright away in Britain—a pure Hayekian ity. But they had a back-up plan. This is example. Romney said more than once FALL 2012 I

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a Conservative Government, and many of the older members were part of the end of Mrs. Thatcher’s reforms from the 1980s. And Mrs. Thatcher was an avowed Hayekian. She met Friedrich Hayek at least once a year. She also used to carry around one of his books, and when anybody asked her what the government believed, she would slap down a copy of Hayek and say, “That is what we believe.” A number of the conservative cabinet ministers thought that the Thatcher years were brought to an end too swiftly and they got an unfinished Hayekian agenda. They latched onto the economic crisis, thinking ‘Whoopee, now we’ve got the perfect excuse to cut back.’ What has happened? If you take an amount of money out of the government’s budget it affects the economy. They have only cut 15% of what they plan to so far, and already the economy went into a recession. If you take that amount of money out of the economy, then you are going to cause a recession and hardship. So austerity in Britain is very tough-love medicine, and it is a hard experiment to try in a democratic country. I rather expect that David Cameron, who doesn’t already enjoy a majority in parliament, will find it very difficult to remain in power come the end of the parliament. The Politic: The title of your book implies that this clash of ideas has defined the modern field of economics, but how was their clash of ideas influenced by their own academic rivalry? Friedrich Hayek was almost invented by the London School of Economics. He was not a very accomplished economist when he lived in Austria. Lionel Robbins, at the London School of Economics, had read a lot of Austrian economics, and he was seeing Keynes at Cambridge really running away with economics. It was for Robbins a sort of mark of pride to establish the London School of Economics as a sort of place to provide an alternative to Keynes, and that was why Hayek was called over. 32

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There was a paradigm shift that took place in 1936 on publication of the General Theory when Keynes persuaded the world that macroeconomic thinking was the best way to understand the economy. But Hayek and Robbins tried to head off the paradigm shift before it happened. It is a rare example where a counterrevolution tries to take place before the original revolution. The Politic: Despite this clash, were Keynes and Hayek on good personal terms? Keynes and Hayek met in the late 1920s, and they instantly fell into argument. They became somewhat friends and what teenage girls call frenemies. On the whole they avoided talking about the economy. Keynes was very much a warm-hearted man, whereas Hayek was rather buttoned up and stiff. Yes, Hayek could be a pain in the ass, but when in 1940 the London School of Economics was bombed out of London and he had to take an empty college in Cambridge, Keynes and Hayek got closer. He didn’t really like that college— you know the architecture was not very nice, the rooms were rather drafty—and they found him a suite of rooms in King’s College, Cambridge. Throughout the war, for the last six or seven years of Keynes’s life, Hayek and Keynes shared the high table in this grand Tudor college in Cambridge, and they became very friendly. They collected antiquarian books, usually early books on economics. They discussed their latest finds in bookshops. They also tried to work out what to do with the command economy during wartime. For example, they tried to work on whether you rationed food and luxuries or whether there was a better way. Hayek’s instinct was that you just crank up the prices, but that really wasn’t practical because some people would be really well fed and a lot people would starve. Both Keynes and Hayek were scared that when the war was over, there would be a collapse in growth and mass unemployment. That didn’t happen thanks to the Keynesian policies of the

Marshall Plan and the socialist government in Britain.

The social cost of elitism

The Politic: What makes this situation and your book unique?

An Interview with Charles Murray

We are talking about two great people here. Whether or not you like his ideas, Keynes is undoubtedly one of the great geniuses of the twentieth century. Had it not been for Churchill, I think he would have been the greatest Englishman of the twentieth century. And Friedrich Hayek, as we have seen—wow, what extraordinary longevity has his ideas gotten! These are two guys who knew each other and represented conflicting points of view; two people who cared for each other, fought and happily argued with one another. It was as if Isaac Newton were to have met Albert Einstein, and had gotten into a debate about which was the better of the two theories. That’s what makes it such a charming book to write. Will Jordan is a senior in Branford College.

Wapshott’s book, published in 2011.

Conducted by Ryan Proctor Charles Murray is a libertarian political scientist, opinion columnist, and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC. He is the author of the controversial 1994 best-seller The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life and most recently of Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010.

The Politic: Is America the united, classless society we’ve always held ourselves to be, or is it really the case that there are two separate, deeply divided Americas? It used to be that there was a core of truth to the idea of a single America that is actually what made America unique. The civic culture that still existed when I started the book Coming Apart in 1960 was extremely broadly shared. Now, there would have to be exceptions for blacks, who in 1960 still were excluded from a lot of participation in that civic culture, but if you look at the population of whites, which was about 88% of the population then, poor people got married at about the same rate as affluent people did, they went to church at not very different rates, engaged in civic activities and community activities at very similar rates. In all of these very basic ways of being an American and running local communities and the rest of that, there was a common civic culture. A phrase that was in common use in 1960 was “the American way of life.” And that was what people had in mind when they talked about the American way of life: a very distinctive, locally centered, community-centered civic culture, and that has pretty much disappeared. Now if you’re talking about America, I’d say that we have definitely diverged with a new lower class that no longer participates in that civic culture and a new upper class that is increasingly segregated from it. The Politic: You touched briefly on the idea of marriage rates and religious participation rates. Could you expand on exactly in what areas we can see the differences between these two classes developing?

In the book I choose what I call the founding virtues, and the reason I call them the founding virtues is that all of the founders very explicitly stated that this constitution would not work unless there were certain qualities in the American people, that getting the laws right wasn’t good enough. The four founding virtues that all of them mentioned as absolutely essential in one way or another was first what they used to call “marital morality,” which was really referring to the institution of marriage and the integrity of the institution of marriage, and then industriousness, which was the classic American signature trait—we work our asses off, and it’s historically what Americans did and what distinguishes them—and religiosity—the founders were not particularly devout in the traditional sense themselves, but they all thought that religion was absolutely essential to sustain the moral system—and the final one was honesty. I took those four and I tracked using quantitative indicators what’s happened to them over the last fifty years, and in all four of those cases there has been a major divergence between the behavior of the upper-middle class, meaning college-educated professionals and managerial types, and the white working class, meaning high school-educated and blue-collar or service workers. The Politic: What brought this divergence about? Was it state action or cultural change? There was some of both. I’m on record in Losing Ground with my indictment of the effects of government social policy, but you also have to think of things that were going on independently of government policy, such as the feminist move-

ment. If you had the kind of increase in economic independence that came with more and more women in the labor force, you’re going to get a major change in the role of men and marriage that was unavoidable. It’s one of the many instances in which things that were good in their basic sense had side effects that weren’t so good. That was one example: increased labor force participation by women. That’s great. More economic independence, that’s great. But men who end up being a whole lot less interested in and committed to marriage was a result. A similar example of that is a good thing that happened around the time: places like Yale shifted from being schools with a lot of rich kids and a few smart ones to schools with a lot of smart kids and a few rich ones. Yale got much, much better, along with Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Princeton, and the rest, at going out and identifying the talent FALL 2012 I

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wherever it was and scooping it up. Where are you from?

gives you the option of not going to places like that, you might consider not going to places like that.

The Politic: Atlanta, Georgia. Fifty years ago, you probably wouldn’t have ended up at Yale unless you were from one of Atlanta’s leading families, [and] you probably would have ended up marrying the girl next door. But as it is, you are probably going to be on a corporate career trajectory where you won’t get married until your late 20s, or maybe later, and the girl you marry will probably be an MBA from Harvard or some similarly selective institution as well. That’s great in one sense: it’s good for people to marry others who get their jokes and understands what they’re talking about, but it also tends to create a separate culture, an elite culture, which is increasingly contemptuous or ignorant of mainstream American culture. That’s bad. The Politic: What can Yalies do to burst this elite bubble while in college and afterwards? Summer jobs are a good way. Don’t go take an internship at the American Enterprise Institute or with your congressman for your summer job. Forget about getting ahead with your career. For example, go out and work as a busboy in one of the hotels in the national parks. They do a lot of hiring in the summer; you ought to be able to get a job there. I guarantee you’ll run into a whole lot of people that aren’t at Yale. There are a lot of other kinds of jobs you can take which will at least avoid what too many people in elite colleges do now, which is that they use their summers to further embed themselves in this glossy little elite world that they want to enter. You’re [also] going to have to think about where you’re going to live after you get out. A lot of the jobs that Yalies are going to get are in New York, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and those areas have very, very large enclaves of super ZIPs, of these elite bubbles where you’ll probably end up. If your career 34

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The Politic: So are there any potential solutions? And if so, do they have to come from individuals, or is there any role the state can play in this? There’s no role for the state that I can see. It has to be individual, and it actually has to come from people like you, people who are at elite colleges, who are starting off in their lives and often times have grown up in an upper-middle class environment and have the option of pretty much removing themselves from contact with ordinary Americans. You have the option of going into a career and living in places and in ways which keep you completely ignorant of them. I hope that this book is an idea whose time has come, because among older members of audiences that I speak to, I get lots and lots of parents who are part of the new upper class, who are really worried about their kids, because they grew up in the working class or middle class. They still remember what that was like. But they see their kids, perhaps people like you who have not had nearly the range of experience they’ve had, and they’re worried about you being

hothouse flowers. This is something for Yalies to worry about in more concrete terms. I talked to the CEO of a very large corporation, who said to me, “We don’t even interview at Harvard and Yale and Princeton anymore. We don’t want them. We’re sick of their sense of entitlement. We’re sick of their unwillingness to start at the bottom and learn their business from the ground up. We want to hire kids from Southeastern Oklahoma State who share our values and will come in and work hard and be part of our organization.” That still leaves you with lots of job opportunities in law firms and investment firms, but beware, because there are a lot of smart, powerful Americans out there who think that you’re hothouse flowers and are losing interest in you. So these are also things you want to think about when you’re going about your summer jobs and you’re going about planning your life. Don’t think of breaking out of the bubble as something you do for the public good. Think of it as something you really need to do to grow as a person. Ryan Proctor is a freshman in Saybrook College.

HEALTHCARE ECONOMICS Jacob Effron interviews Jonathan Gruber Jonathan Gruber is an American economist and a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Politic: Why do you think the Obamacare has been so unpopular? How could it have been better pitched? I think unpopular is the wrong word . ‘Uninformed’ is the right one. If you ask people what they think of the individual mandate and only 30% like it. If you tell them one true fact, that the individual mandate doesn’t affect people who already have health insurance, and

then it goes up to 60% approval. People just don’t understand. The latest poll number had approval way up. 1/3 of the people really don’t like it, 1/3 of people really like it and then you have another chunk of people who wished it went further like single payer advocates. They count these as not approving which isn’t really appropriate. In Massachusetts where we put this in place it has broad public approval. And I think eventually we’ll get that once it’s in place and people see the benefits. For a full interview, please visit www. thepolitic.org.

Untold lives Statelessness and Minority Rights in Burma

arly this past June, at least seventyseven people died in Burma’s remote Rakhine State of injuries sustained in tit-for-tat skirmishes between members of the country’s Buddhist majority (who are believed to have benefited from Burmese state sponsorship) and the Rohingya Muslim minority. The violence is believed to have begun with the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three young Rohingya men; in retaliation, a Buddhist mob attacked a bus carrying Rohingya pilgrims, killing ten. By the time the worst of the violence subsided, more than 2,500 houses had burned to the ground, about 30,000 people had been displaced from their homes, and several hundred families had attempted to flee across the border into southern Bangladesh. This border cuts across the Naf River delta and in some places is most easily crossed by water; the Bangladeshi authorities are said to have repelled the refugees’ boats, leaving them floating in the river without food, water or medical assistance. This apparent disregard for international humanitarian obligation looks somewhat less inexplicable when placed in historical context. Poor, crowded Bangladesh already harbors some 300,000 Rohingya, many of whom came to the country in 1978 and in 1991 fleeing earlier spasms of intercommunal violence in Burma. Large Rohingya refugee communities also exist in India, in Thailand and in Malaysia. Only about 750,000-800,000 Rohingya still live in the Burmese homeland established by their forefathers – and more are leaving every day. The tragedy of the Rohingya in Burma is several centuries old, but we can begin by looking at it through a relatively new lens: that of the legal and political situation of the community since the promulgation of Burma’s 1982 constitution, which denies Burmese citizenship to the Rohingya community.

By Charlotte Storch Formally, they’re stateless and they have no legal nationality. Rohingya children are born into no country, belong to no nation, and receive the protection of no government. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees puts the number of stateless people in the world at about 12 million and notes that they face a unique constellation of vulnerabilities. Often, they lack access to health care, education and other social resources, as well as mechanisms to guarantee the security of their land and property. As people with no legal existence, they can be trafficked, abused and exploited with relative ease. Statelessness is an old problem. The demarcation of borders has always been an imperfect process, and there have always been, among the founders of new states and the writers of new constitutions, those who choose to grant citizenship on the basis of jus sanguinis (the right of blood) rather than jus soli (the right of soil). International law has grappled with the issue for decades; the first UN Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons was adopted in 1954 and has remained in force since 1960. 74 countries have acceded to the 1954 Convention, and 47 to the complementary Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness adopted in 1961. The 1954 treaty provided the international community with the definition of statelessness that has served as the basis of all subsequent legal approaches to the problem. A stateless person is simply “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.” According to the treaty, such a person should possess, within the territory where he or she lives, the same rights to religion and education that the territory grants to its recognized citizens, and the same rights to employment, association, and housing that the territory grants to its other resident non-citizens. Despite the narrowness of the treaty’s

wording, 119 states have chosen not to sign it, and are therefore under no obligation to enforce its provisions. According to Mark Manly, who heads the statelessness unit at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, statelessness generally happens in one of three ways. Citizens of some countries can lose their nationality after years abroad; in this way many migrants find themselves stranded without legal status, ineligible to apply for nationality in their new countries and no longer in possession of the status into which they were born. Another problem lies in the chaos of state succession. “When new states emerge,” Mr. Manly wrote in an email, “they have often failed to ensure that everyone who has a link such as residence in the territory ends up with a nationality. We continue to deal, for example, with cases which originate with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and are currently working to ensure that people do not become stateless as a result of the independence of South Sudan.” Outdated, exclusive nationality laws are responsible for millions of new cases a year: twenty-six countries do not recognize the equal rights of mothers and fathers to pass nationality on to their children, while the share of the global stateless population represented by children as a group continues to rise. “In any given year,” Mr. Manly wrote, “poorly drafted nationality laws mean that the largest number of new cases of statelessness are those of children who are left stateless because their parents were stateless.” In Burma, the Rohingya are generally referred to as “Bengalis” and treated as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. They are said to have darker skin than the ethnic Burmese majority, and they speak their own language, a Bengali-Assamese dialect distinct from the Tibeto-Burman language spoken by Burma’s Buddhist majority. They are so despised that they FALL 2012 I

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are barely considered to be legitimate possessors of potential rights; even the leaders of Burma’s pro-democracy movement have publicly equivocated when asked whether the Rohingya should be granted citizenship. In an email, Moshahida Sultana, a professor at the University of Dhaka who has interviewed Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, described the patterns of devastation wrought in Rohingya communities by Burmese security forces. She told me that mosques have been burned, property looted, men, women, and children killed. Refugees have fled “to escape brutal violence, rape, murder, confiscation of land, forced labor, and forced eviction.” Professor Sultana emphasized the role of Burmese state coercion in the exploitation and marginalization of the Rohingya, noting that the status of the community in Burma has been a subject of violent contestation since the country achieved its independence in 1948. “In 1974,” she wrote, “the Muslims in northern Rakhine State received foreign registration cards instead of National Registration Cards.” Major ethnic cleansing operations carried out by Burmese state security forces in 1978 and 1992 displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Despite the long history of Muslim settlement in Burma, she writes, “the statelessness of Rohingyas is a result of long cultural marginalization…Their statelessness has nothing to do with the Muslims’ inability to assimilate into Burmese society. It is a state-supported systematic process of annihilation through which Rohingyas are made stateless.” The psychological impact of such marginalization is enormous and falls disproportionately on the youngest members of the community. “Rohingya children usually grow up experiencing psychological trauma, insecurity, and fear…The experiences of physical torture, the memories of having close relatives tortured, and the shock of broken dreams have made them different people…” Greg Constantine, a photojournalist who works with stateless communities all over the world, told me that “for 36

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A Second Chance

anyone who knows the issue of statelessness, the Rohingya represent probably the extreme end of this issue.” They are mired in desperate poverty, the alleviation of which not one of the region’s governments yet considers to be its responsibility. Their access to international aid is sharply restricted, and in most places they live in camps, crowded together in dangerous conditions, without prospect of economic advancement or political acknowledgement of any kind. Despite abundant evidence of official participation in violence against the Rohingya and other minority communities, Western leaders praise the Burmese government’s moves toward democracy and rush to lift the harshest of their economic and political sanctions on the country. The Rohingya are no one’s priority: in government files and in national statutes, they do not exist. They can petition for no redress for their losses. Their deaths will go unrecorded. Their roads can be ripped up, the roofs over their heads can be burned, their fleeing children can be left to drown, and no government records, in Burma or in Bangladesh, in Thailand or in Malaysia, will show that any of it ever happened to real people. Charlotte Storch is a sophomore in Pierson College.

Lessons Learned in Egypt and Latin America By Joshua Faber

Burma’s Rakhine State - the site of the Rohingya conflict

IS BURMA READY FOR FOREIGN INVESTMENT? By Eli Rivkin In the span of two years, Burma, one of the world’s most brutal military junta-led regimes, has begun to rapidly change. As a result, countries such as the United States have started to lift their imposed sanctions. However, in easing sanctions and opening Burma — also known as Myanmar — up for foreign investment, most western powers are overlooking the country’s complex history wrought with corruption, suppression of rights and ethnic minority exploitation. The current government structure, lack of an effective education

system, and an overreaching military presence reflect some of the problems that poorly regulated foreign investment could exacerbate. As stability is key for the security of investments, the unstable transitory period that Burma now finds itself in poses risks of solely enriching military officials and members of the Burmese elite rather than average citizens. For the full article please visit www. thepolitic.org.

rom 2011 to 2012, social media outlets were set afire with news of an increasingly tumultuous situation in the Middle East. It is true that the Middle East has always been a hotbed for international crises, but in the past year, the region’s decades-long commitment to autocracy finally faltered. Within months of each other, Tunisia’s Zine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi all fell from their despotic perches. From a global perspective, theoccurrence of these events in the Middle East is not particularly unique, For much of the 20th century, many Latin American countries also languished under dictators, many of whom had either the implicit or explicit support of the United States. Raphael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, for instance, ruled with an iron fist for years until the atrocity of his actions finally outweighed his close relationship with the U.S. Congress. In 1980’s Argentina, the US-sponsored School of the Americas turned out hundreds of brutal military leaders. Until events like Trujillo’s assassination—or more recently, the Arab Spring—presented themselves, people in autocratic regimes rarely had a chance to experience change. Before transitional opportunities would arise, any resistance to the status quo was often the harshest retribution, a punishment that ranged from exile to death. The autocratic political dynamics that defined Latin America for forty years have also been present in the Middle East—most notably, in Mubarak’s Egypt. Professor Emma Sky—a senior fellow at the Jackson Institute, political advisor to Generals Petraeus and Odierno, and US coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process—provided remarkable insight into the Egyptian condition when interviewed by The Politic. She explained, “The struggle you see in Egypt

is between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood… the Muslim brothers will try to bring the military under control and the military will try to resist that because they have a huge stake in the Egyptian economy.” The Dominican Republic and Argentina once bore the same marks of military dominance. Soldiers became the subject of nationalistic worship, receiving kickbacks from the wealthy and building lucrative connections to powerful families. The self-serving interests of the Egyptian and Dominican militaries could even lead to the collapse of their respective governments. With regards to Egypt, Professor Sky asserted that, “To save themselves, the military sacrificed

“Before transitional opportunities would arise, any resistance to the status quo was often the harshest retribution, a punishment that ranged from exile to death.” Mubarak,” and “[Under Morsi] They have the capacity to carry out a coup.” In the Dominican Republic, historian Howard J. Wiarda writes, “When Trujillo was assassinated… several high-ranking military officers… were implicated.” In the context of these examples, it becomes clear that the traditionalist Dominican and Egyptian military do not merely dominate politics, but that they also play the roles of kingmakers. The parallels between Latin America and Egypt extend beyond the nature of their governmental structures and into the basis for the collapse of those structures. Though the causes of the

Egyptian Arab Spring are still under debate, it is almost universally accepted that poor governance and weak economies were guiding forces in the destruction of once ostensibly invincible regimes. One study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) indicates that in Egypt, youth unemployment and low per-capita GDP growth were some of the key reasons behind revolt. According to University of Texas Professor Mark Atwood Lawrence, the same could also be said for Latin America during the Nixon years. Lawrence points to a presidentially-requested fact-finding report by Nelson Rockefeller: “There was a ‘restless yearning’ across Latin America for a better way of life. Yet a range of interlocking problems—poverty, population growth… corruption — was blocking progress.” A final connection that can be drawn between Latin America and Egypt is that of United States intervention. In the 1960s, for instance, Lyndon Johnson backed the highly conservative Dominican leader, Joaquín Balaguer. And in a telephone call with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, President Nixon said that he did, in fact, “favor dictatorships.” In the context of the mid-20th century zeitgeist, it can be argued that Johnson and Nixon were reacting to the omnipresent threat of communism. In Egypt, however, the billions of dollars that were poured into Mubarak’s military coffers were given for a different reason: Israel. Former Iraqi Ambassador John Negroponte, who served as the first director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush, said that although “Bush was very disappointed that Mubarak did not move his country in the right direction” the United States backed Egypt not because “we were against democracy… but we have always placed the utmost priority on upholding the Camp David Accords.” FALL 2012 I

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Despite the United States’ goal of maintaining a fragile peace between Israel and its neighbors, American funding for Mubarak may have had the same negative ramifications as Johnson’s or Nixon’s Latin American funding: the populations in these volatile regions gradually lost all sympathy for the United States. Professor Lawrence summarized Rockefeller’s report to President Nixon, saying, “unrest would have increasingly anti-U.S. overtones since so many Latin Americans saw the United States as a bulwark of the oppressive status quo.” Professor Sky argued that some members of the new Islamist government “were in our jails [and] are suing us because they were tortured.” A recent Gallup poll suggests that both Professor Sky and Ambassador Negroponte make a valid point. Though 48% of Egyptians support the US-backed Camp David Accords, 82% also oppose US aid to Egypt. Considering the still-fluid framework of the Egyptian situation, the comparisons drawn above indicate that the Middle East now stands on the same precipice as Latin America did during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. In other words, regardless of the outcome of the 2012 election, the next President of the United States will have to remind himself of lessons learned during this time period. Professor Lawrence called Nixon’s foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere “a powerful illusion of success.” If the next president does not heed the past, he runs the risk of repeating Nixon’s mistakes. Ambassador Negroponte advanced the argument that regional differences make the democratic evolution of the Middle East much less likely than that of Latin America. Analyzing the Latin American situation in hindsight, a few policy directives become clear. For one, any future president must act under the assumption that a return to Egyptian autocracy is fundamentally detrimental to American goals in the region. Professor Lawrence asserts that when Nixon declared, “Latin America doesn’t matter,” he made a 38

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grave mistake. However, both former United Nations Academic Council Executive Director Jean Krasno and Ambassador Negroponte put it a different way: “Stay the course,” they both said. Professor Krasno continued, “We can’t be seen to withdraw when there is tension or conflict…because that would only encourage more attacks.” Ambassador Negroponte agreed, stating his belief that the only thing worse than staying in the region would be leaving altogether. In order to fix two decades of blunders in Latin America, Lawrence writes, “Officials concluded that Washington must continue, within tighter constraints, to demonstrate a commitment to economic development.” The same goes for Egypt. Economic development of the region is vital for the betterment of US-Egyptian relations and the stable growth of an Egyptian democracy. Ambassador Negroponte stated, “It’s not enough to just buy peoples oil. That means in the case of Egypt you’re not buying anything.” Instead, he proposed measures to increase manufacturing in Egypt with the goal of “integrating the Middle Eastern economies with the European economies.” If there is any one thing that the history of Latin America demonstrates,

it is the weakness of America’s Chief Executive in crafting creative and mutually beneficial policy. Lawrence writes that in 1969, Nixon gave a speech that he hoped “would be the most meaningful one that [Latin Americans] had heard in years.” The speech itself was a disaster, and Lawrence notes that, “Observers had little difficulty recognizing the speech as a blueprint for inaction.” In 2009, President Obama delivered one of the most famous speeches of his presidency in Cairo, creating what Professor Sky calls “huge expectations that he has not delivered on.” Whoever it is that America chooses in January, he cannot make puny nor empty promises. For better or for worse, Egypt is a volatile nation that is full of potential, and when the state of democracy looks grim and deficit hawks call for the end of foreign aid, the grit of our Commander-in-Chief will be the deciding factor in how the future pans out. Joshua Faber is a freshman in Branford College.

THE RUSH TO NATIONALIZE By Dhruv Aggarwal

“We must recover what is ours.” Stirring the popular sentiment, Bolivia’s socialist President, Evo Morales, used this pitch while taking over the Spanish owned major power grid company, Transportadora de Electricidad (TED). Mr. Morales has built up a reputation for confrontational nationalization. This is, after all, a president who came to power promising to restore the rights of the indigenous Indians, oppressed for centuries, and who tore up hydrocarbon contracts early in his presidency. It is not just Mr. Morales, or his close ally, the self-styled ‘Bo-

livarian’ revolutionary, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who are taking over private assets, especially in the oil and energy sector. There is a region-wide rush to place natural resources in the custodianship of the state. Across Latin America, governments are rushing in to retrieve resources earlier parceled out to foreign companies. For the full article please visit www. thepolitic.org.

Tweeting against tyranny

n January 25, 2011, the people of Egypt came together to protest a dictatorship that had neglected their needs and silenced their voices. Starting as a small group of 50 marching from a mosque in the Mohandiseen neighborhood, the group grew to 10,000 by the time they reached Tahrir Square. Tweet by tweet, Facebook post by Facebook post, people learnt of the movement and began to join in the protest. Social media not only gave protesters an easy way to disseminate information and coordinate action; it also gave individuals comfort and conviction in the knowledge that they did not stand alone. As the battle raged on, buffeted by this solidarity that could now be freely expressed and mutually acknowledged through social media, the movement only grew, eventually leading to the resignation of Mubarak after 29 years in power. In an ideal world, the story would have ended here — with Egypt as a thriving democracy and social media feted as the tool that brought down the dictator. Except that it didn’t. The movement had come with expectations that a more liberal and democratic country would emerge. A year later, however, protests continued as dictatorship was replaced by military rule. The people of Egypt had found their voice and reclaimed their right to be heard, and were hungry for more. They were not content with the removal of Mubarak — they wanted fair wages, a change in economic policies and a civilian government removed from the influence of the military. *** The rules of politics have changed in unexpected ways with the rise of social media. When Facebook was launched in 2004 and Twitter in 2006, nobody could have predicted that they would play a key role in the wave of revolutions that saw ordinary people bring down dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Nor

By Samantha Lee did they foresee the influence these websites would have on the 2008 US presidential elections and American politics ever since. Yet while many have heralded a new dawn of democracy made possible by social media, the instability witnessed in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolutions and the unpredictability associated with using social media in politics has given rise to doubts about what social media can do and its impact on democracy. So is social media good or bad for democracies? Can it promote genuine change in political systems? And how far can it create and enhance the liberal public sphere integral to sustaining democracy? *** Although the movement in Egypt managed to institute popular elections, resulting in the inauguration of Mohammed Morsi, the fifth and only civilian President of Egypt, in the chaos of rapid political change, Egypt’s long standing social and economic problems were only exacerbated by the chaos of the country’s post-revolutionary environment. The economy was contracting, investments had dropped and crime had risen due to the dissolution of police forces. Jim Sleeper, a political science professor at Yale University, explained, “Social media does not by itself ensure democracy, it can open things up, but cannot by itself ensure binding commitments. [Social media] is a good accelerator, a good stimulant but it does not provide the social order that democracy needs.” Furthermore, social media’s ability to spread information and sentiment, to bring people together rapidly and spontaneously, also meant that the public was more susceptible to manipulation. On September 12, 2012, mobs of people stormed the US Embassy in Egypt, tearing down the American flag and scaling the embassy walls. Later

it was discovered that the protest was planned by Salafists, who instigated the riot by circulating an objectionable video ridiculing Islam’s prophet, Mohammed. According to Eric Trager, an expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, when the video started circulating, the spokesman for the Salafist political party called on people to go to the embassy, while the brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri tweeted that people should go to the embassy and “defend the prophet.” “The instantaneity of social media, the fact that people just click and glimpse and react quickly makes them subject to manipulation,” said Sleeper. “Like radio in the past, social media brings instant intimacy and the ability to react quickly, but that might make it possible to stampede people and get them going.” *** In mature democracies like the US, social media is also playing an increasingly game-changing role in politics. Today, Facebook has 140 million active users in the US alone and both President Obama and Mitt Romney post and tweet regularly in an attempt to win votes. The influence of social media is also evident as a political tool. Battling deadlock in Congress to raise the debt ceiling last summer, President Obama, armed with 9.4 million Twitter followers, took to the website to pressure Republicans to compromise. The president tweeted: “The time for putting party first is over. If you want to see a bipartisan #compromise, let Congress know. Call. Email. Tweet. – BO.” The people called, bombarding the Capitol switchboard, and tweeted, effectively spamming their representatives with the hashtag to #compromise. The force of social media in increasing political engagement is also reflected in the United States’ 2010 midterm elections. According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, Facebook users who FALL 2012 I

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saw a “Vote” message in their newsfeeds were more likely to vote than those who saw no such message. The study concluded that people are more likely to vote if they’re told their friends — or friends of friends — have. Furthermore, social media create an effective platform for everyday citizens to publicly engage in wide-reaching political conversation from the comfort of their own homes. During the two recent party conventions, seven million public comments were posted on Twitter and Facebook in response to the evening TV coverage, according to an analysis by Bluefin Labs. And 2.5 million of those remarks were made during the final 90 minutes of the Democratic National Convention, a new record for social response to a single electoral event. Gone are the days when public political commentary was reserved for the educated elite or those with privileged knowledge. These days, anybody can be a political commentator with a click of the mouse. *** The unprecedented national debate enabled by social media also has immense potential, especially in increasing political engagement and providing a diversity of viewpoints in countries where the media industry is less developed. In Singapore, for example, the media industry is dominated by two government-linked conglomerates. But the Internet has provided a space for independent alternative news sources such as The Online Citizen and political bloggers to thrive; this in turn puts increased pressure on the government to liberalize the use of media. Prior to the 2006 elections, the Singapore government maintained a tight control on online media, legislating that even private or individual political bloggers had to register with the Media Development Authority. Online bloggers protested this legislation and called for greater political liberalism by defying this act of censorship. In the run-up to Election Day on May 6, 2006, more than fifty websites with political content emerged with the number of posts peaking at 200 40

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per day. This resulted in amendments made to the Films Act, allowing greater freedom to distribute political films and transmit personal political views by any individual to another using the Internet. Yale political science professor Nikolay Marinov, who teaches a course on International Democratization, observed, “The outcome of such collective effort can be very visible and in places where alternative means are less developed, social media will play a larger role. People learn from each other’s experience and that acts as a toolkit [for social media], so everyone can pretty much yield it and you need relatively little money and other resources to make a difference.” Besides providing space for independent news sources and political viewpoints to arise, social media like Facebook have also driven and enhanced the spread of diverse viewpoints. (Amongst your thousands of friends, surely some of the think differently from you.) During Singapore’s 2011 general elections, Facebook gave people a place to write extensive notes concerning pertinent political issues. This fostered

debate as people shared, commented and responded with Facebook notes of their own, multiplying the number of people in the conversation. *** Yet while social media can inspire Americans and Singaporeans to be politically engaged and rally Egyptians against a tyrannical government, it cannot provide a long-term solution for alternative governance, nor can it guarantee that the rallying force it enables will not be manipulated to create chaos and disorder. Social media can provide a platform for alternative viewpoints and a common medium for people with diverse viewpoints to engage in conversation, especially in countries where there were none before. But one should be cautious of conflating political discussion with political action. At the end of the day, as Sleeper put it, “Social media is good at aerating the soil, getting more nutrients, more sunlight in… but it doesn’t guarantee the result. It is necessary but insufficient.”

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Samantha Lee is a junior in Pierson College.

ISLANDS OF DISCONTENT Cindy Hwang interviews Jessica Chen Weiss Jessica Chen Weiss is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Research Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. Her research focuses on Chinese politics and international relations, nationalism, and social protest. The Politic: Why do you think the dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku [or Diaoyu] Islands has become so acrimonious on both sides? What stake does each country have in the islands? Both sides claim sovereignty, and with the discovery of seabed resources— natural gas and oil deposits—these islands took on a salience that they hadn’t had beforehand. They were a

subject of controversy even during the normalization of relations between China and Japan in the 1970s, but according to the Chinese side, both sides reached a tacit consensus to set aside the territorial dispute. But in more recent years, Japan, which controls the islands de facto, has denied that such an agreement was reached. That statement was made by a relatively nationalistic foreign minister who is no longer in that position, and then I think there’s a real concern on the Chinese side that the Japanese are taking actions unilaterally to assert sovereignty over the islands. So for both countries, it’s an issue that politicians find difficult to show moderate opinions on, because doing so invites other domestic voices to criticize them for being insufficiently

patriotic and selling out the national interest. An important factor has been the activities of activists on both sides, with high-profile landings by Hong Kong activists, and then, in retaliation, activists from Japan as well, so both governments are effectively reacting to these provocations. But because the provocations are so high profile, it raises the stakes for both sides to communicate their resolve and take actions that seem to be defending their claims of sovereignty over the islands. Full the full interview please visit www. thepolitic.org

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RUBBING SHOULDERS: SINO-AMERICAN RELATIONS Geng Ngarmboonanant interviews Yuen Pau Woo Yuen Pau Woo is the President and CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, a Vancouver-based think-tank on Canada-Asia relations. The Politic: United States will be holding its presidential elections in early November. How will the issue of a rising China affect the election? If Romney wins, how will U.S.-China relations change? The question of China’s rise is already in the presidential election and campaigning of course. There is a stream of campaigning that is all about how the two candidates are responding to the “China threat.” Usually it’s about how China is unfair and so on. So Romney will accuse Obama of being soft on China, and Obama accuses Romney of shipping jobs to China. Specific al-

legations in the case of Obama’s attack is that Romney when he was at Bain, bought a company and in the name of efficiency and making more money shipped jobs over to China. On the other side, Romney’s accused Obama of not being tough enough with the Chinese on issues like dumping of products, the currency, and so on and so forth… While foreign policy rarely is the deciding factor in U.S. elections, my sense is that it already has crept into the election and will have some salience in the decision-making. Certainly when they go to the third debate, China’s going to feature very prominently, and both of them will compete with each other to be more aggressive. Romney himself has already made a very bold promise, and that is if he is elected president, he will declare

China a currency manipulator. There is a provision in American law where you can deem a foreign country a currency manipulator, and if that designation is accepted, then the government has the ability to impose countervailing tariffs on all goods from that country to the amount of the current manipulation. If you believe that China’s currency is 30 percent undervalued, you could impose a 30 percent tariff. Romney has said on Day 1 of his presidency, he will declare China a currency manipulator. If he did do it, that would be very serious – that would be economic warfare. All of us who work in this field are wondering what will happen on Day 2. And we don’t even want to think about what will happen on Day 3. For the full interview please visit www. thepolitic.org.

Economic Development, One City at a Time

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ver the past half-century, foreign aid programs have typically focused either on massive, nationwide reform or on micro-targeted, individual empowerment initiatives. Yet despite billions of dollars in directed investments from governments and NGOs, the material wellbeing of much of the third world has stagnated. Programs aiming to strengthen rule of law through fundamental institutional reform, for example, often suffer from limited transparency and can even strengthen existing political cultures by fueling the rise of corrupt political elites. At the other end of the spectrum, targeted programs such as microloans and village education initiatives suffer from lack of organization and often misread the true needs of nations. While many programs aimed at individual empowerment show signs of progress, they have not yet proven replicable enough to benefit large populations. Still, economists argue that the problem does not lie with underlying

By Dimitri Halikias economic theory. To Paul Romer of New York University’s Stern School of Business, the solution is clear — the charter city. Romer, who has spent his career studying the determinants of long and short-term economic growth, argues that the single most influential factor in effective economic development is good rules. This is where charter cities come in. The charter city model seeks to identify uninhabited regions in underdeveloped nations and build new, structured cities from scratch. These cities would operate under autonomous charters that would offer clean and efficient political and economic rules that cannot be found in most underdeveloped nations. They would also be administered jointly between two nations. The host nation would provide the land and open access to its citizens, while a developed nation, such as Canada or the U.S., would serve as the “guarantor” of the city’s institutional reforms. Economists and political scientists

have long recognized the need for fair, straightforward rules in the development of prosperous nations. These rules can explain the economic inequality between culturally identical nations such as North and South Korea. In Romer’s vision, charter cities would allow for free entry and exit, legal equality, and a largely unregulated market economy. By building upon large areas of land, charter cities would accommodate the arrival of millions of immigrants seeking greater political and economic stability. In many ways, the charter city concept is modeled after the remarkable success of Hong Kong. Hong Kong was open to Chinese immigrants, but British colonial leaders administered its political and economic institutions for over 150 years. In that time Hong Kong transformed from an underdeveloped fishing village into a global center for international trade and finance. Following his rise to power, Deng Xiaoping recognized Hong Kong’s remarkable economic success, and emulated it

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by designating four cities as “Special Economic Zones” in 1980. These municipalities adopted radical free market reforms and were allowed to experiment with extensive economic freedom, independent of the rest of the country. These cities proved so economically successful that within a decade the entire country began the transformation to a more open economic system. As Romer put it in a 2009 TED talk, through its actions in Hong Kong, “Britain inadvertently did more to reduce world poverty than all the aid programs that we’ve undertaken in the last century.” Yet while the strength of the Chinese political machine made economic reforms possible, political instability poses a major challenge to the creation of charter cities in the developing world. Honduras made headlines in 2011 when it passed a constitutional amendment allowing for the creation of a new special development zone (known by the Spanish acronym “RED”). This zone was

Shenzhen, a charter city success story. 44

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given extensive political autonomy, but was to be administered by a Presidentappointed governor and an apolitical Transparency Commission. In 2011, Romer joined the Commission and established a nonprofit organization, “Charter Cities,” to provide pro bono economic advice. In September of 2012, however, Romer withdrew from the initiative, citing political instability and a lack of transparency. In his statement to the news media, Romer declared that Honduran government contracts with private companies over the handling of the project represented “a departure from the standards of transparency that the administration had led me to expect.” This sentiment was echoed by Brandon Fuller, the Director of Charter Cities and a research scholar at the Urbanization Institute at NYU Stern. He explained in an interview with The Politic that “the organization was not getting the information we needed to give good advice.” Much of the current confusion with the Honduran project — which is scheduled to continue — is due to apparent government violations of its commitment to transparency, as well as an ongoing constitutional challenge to the RED. Tellingly, the Honduran government that instituted these reforms only came to power two years ago through a military coup. This situation is indicative of the biggest challenge facing the Romer’s vision of charter cities: the question of political stability. Dean Karlan, a Yale University developmental economist who studies the effectiveness of aid programs, noted that “good governance can help focus people on effective decision-making in terms of evaluating what programs work.” Karlan underscored the importance of anti-corruption programs, adding that the “deep sad irony” of initiatives aimed at larger scale systemic reform is that the countries in the most need of help may suffer from the least transparent governments. Government transparency, both to its people and to the international com-

munity, is a necessary component of a strong charter city, but this precondition is indeed difficult to meet in much of the underdeveloped world. Many prospective host countries have unstable political regimes that could preclude the establishment of charter cities. While the charter city model is firmly based in the principle of economic freedom, the questions of political freedom and accountability are not clearly addressed. Said Fuller, “we see this charter city structure as highly flexible.” Some countries may seek to adopt political models similar to those in East Asia, in which authoritarian political rule is coupled with liberal economic policies. Independent observers, however, warn that by imposing free market reforms but not respecting civil liberties, the charter city program may simply empower a series of increasingly authoritarian regimes. They fear that by serving as a “guarantor” of the city, developed nations may further destabilize the nation. Yet as Fuller noted, “You can look at models like Hong Kong and Singapore as significant improvements in government transparency. [In the] aspirational vision, the [charter city] process will lead to the rise of democratic institutions, but that might not be the case in all countries.” And according to Romer, the charter city model is notable for its commitment to individual freedom of mobility and economic choice. To him, this liberty distinguishes charter cities from colonialism and even some contemporary foreign aid programs. Indeed, if political instability can be overcome, charter cities can perhaps overcome the logistical barriers that have long inhibited true economic development, and provide a basis for lasting, nation-wide economic reform. Dimitri Halikias is a freshman in Ezra Stiles College.

1. How many Vice Presidents were later elected as President? (a) 14 (b) 8 (c) 7 (d) 5

7. Who was the only President who was neither elected as President nor Vice President? (a) Andrew Jackson (b) Rutherford B. Hayes (c) Gerald Ford (d) William McKinley

9. Who is the only President to have served on the Supreme Court? (a) John Quincy Adams (b) William Howard Taft (c) Harry Truman (d) Benjamin Harrison

2. Who was the only bachelor President?

8. Which of the following Presidents did not serve as a general?

10. Which President sold the presidential yacht?

(a) James Buchanan (b) James Garfield (c) James Polk (d) James Madison

(a) Dwight Eisenhower (b) William Henry Harrison (c) Thomas Jefferson (d) James Garfield

(a) Franklin D. Roosevelt (b) Barack Obama (c) Bill Clinton (d) Jimmy Carter

3. Who was the last President without a college degree? (a) Teddy Roosevelt (b) Herbert Hoover (c) Harry S. Truman (d) Abraham Lincoln

Check out our website www.thepolitic.org to score your historical knowledge and see how you stack up against The Politic staff.

4. Which of these elections was not decided by the electoral college? (a) 2004 (b) 1912 (c) 1828 (d) 1800 5. Which President was elected with the greatest number of electoral votes? (a) Richard Nixon (1968) (b) Ronald Reagan (1984) (c) Barack Obama (2008) (d) Franklin D. Roosevelt (1936) 6. Which President ran for a third term and lost? (a) James Madison (b) Andrew Jackson (c) Teddy Roosevelt (d) James Buchanan

Fall 2012 I