A Darn Good New Year’s Resolution

Jan. 1, 2025

It was not a man of the cloth who originally called up our “better angels.”  No, the appeal comes from America’s greatest orator.

Abraham Lincoln closed his first inaugural address thusly: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Leave it to Lincoln to coin a phrase.  The rest of that closing passage has fallen away but the last few words not only survive, but guide – and inspire – to this day.

And so it is with the little side project by Our Common Purpose to identify a catchphrase that in the best of worlds would stop political extremists dead in their tracks.  Ideally this pithy one-liner will serve both as a snappy comeback when someone says something outrageous and as a label for official actions that go overboard.

Every instinct is to go negative, to fight fire with fire.  That was the tone of the examples put out by Our Common Purpose as a side question in its latest public opinion survey (you’ll be reading about the main thrust of that survey in the months ahead).  And so it was with many of the avalanche of counter-suggestions that came in from respondents.

Among my favorites was “stop the madness,” which efficiently makes a double point in three words.  If you didn’t read it before, check out the summary of the other submissions at Seeking a Snappy Retort to Extremism.

But herein enters the inspiration of good ‘ol Abe Lincoln.  As bad as we think division is today, it doesn’t hold a candle to what he faced.  And yet he somehow found it within himself to call upon our better angels.

In that spirit, there were better angels who submitted positive rejoinders to Our Common Purpose.  Of those, the one that stood out is the familiar phrase “We are better than this.”

One could lean to several possible variations.  I wondered in the last post about “We need to be better than this.”  Bill, a follower of this blog, came along with “We can be better than this” or perhaps “We might be better than this.”

After due consideration of the alternatives, I’ve gone back to the base form.  Adding in any of the so-called modal verbs (can, might, could, should, would) introduces an element of doubt.  They connote possibility.  “We are better than this” is assertive.  It displays conviction.

Admittedly a conviction that many have come to doubt. Are we truly better than this? Depending on the situation, the message could be directed at failures to:

• • Respect each other. This includes civility, actual listening, and ultimately working together.
  • Respect our founding ideals and democratic norms. This includes working within the system to effect change.
  • Prioritize country over factionalism.
  • Balance our respective interests. This includes looking out for the underdog, but there are other interests to account for as well.
  • Act reasonably. This includes practicality, awareness of consequences and societal standards.

As we enter the new year, “we are better than this” is a vow to remember and to use whenever appropriate.  While the offenses might at this moment in time seem weighted in one direction, we need to remember that every action has a reaction.  We wouldn’t be in this fix if both sides didn’t have some serious work to do.

For all concerned, “we are better than this” makes for a pretty darn good New Year’s resolution.

— Richard Gilman

Seeking a Snappy Retort to Extremism

Dec. 8, 2024

“Just stop.” “Are you done?” Or perhaps “enough is enough.”

Here’s proposing that we moderates need a convenient way to register our disappointment with the loony-tune words and actions that dominate the political landscape.

Neither side is immune from bone-headed decisions that are not in the best interests of the country. Nominating Kash Patel to head the FBI is one of perhaps multiple examples. Pardoning Hunter Biden might be another.

Call us what you will, we moderates are mousy, milquetoasts, mealy-mouthed. We are frequently if not constantly tongue-tied. What can we say to express our exasperation at the craziness?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a pithy one-liner that we universally use to express our collective frustration and let the offender know what he has said or done is truly out-there?

This gem has to be brief. It has to have something of an edge, a bite to it. While one phrase might not fit all needs, ideally it would cover two different situations:

• As a snappy comeback when someone says something outrageous.
• To call out officials, whether elected or appointed, when they go overboard.

It would be best if the catchphrase was so catchy that it catches on with everyone, for there would be power in the numbers. Make it a meme on social media, put it on T-shirts. Imagine wearing that T-shirt. Imagine wearing it in public.

In search of the perfect words, I asked the 2,500 respondents to the survey done by Our Common Purpose in September to react to a few possible slogans and to propose ones of their own.

To be entirely transparent, not everyone wanted to play this game. On the multiple-choice question, 18% answered “none of the above.” Three individuals commented to that effect. Those three comments: “I tend not to be confrontive so it is hard for me to come up with a cool response.” “Retorts don’t help the situation.” “Need more than retorts.”

No argument, we need more than retorts. But having a stock rejoinder is better than stunned silence. Best case, it gives a bit of voice to the voiceless.

Many respondents to the poll took up the challenge.  You might say the people are speaking; their suggestions fill seven pages of a Microsoft Word document. Here are the highlights of what came back (get your brain and keyboard ready to weigh in with your own one-liners):

The favorite word is “stop.” “Stop” by itself. “Just stop.” “Stop already.” Then there’s “stop” in various combinations with 50 or so single or strings of words. “Stop the madness.” “Stop the insanity.” A number of “stop the lies.”

Among the more imaginative: “Stop the bull cookies.” Who knows, maybe that will stop the Supreme Court in its tracks.

The one option in the poll’s multiple-choice question that included the word “stop” was “stop the lunacy.” It did okay but not great, finishing as the preference of 15% of respondents.

The multiple-choice answer with the highest response was “enough already.” It scored 29%.   The sister thought, “enough is enough,” was submitted by eight respondents – the highest for any new phrase added to the mix.

Finishing second in the multiple-choice parade was “cut the bull” at 16%. Respondents filled in several variants, including one that sounded particularly young and with it: “Miss me with the bull crap.”

Many responses were clustered around “common.” Common ground, common sense, common good. Although no one taking the polls is provided any information about the sponsor of the survey or the reasons for it, those suggestions, along with companion ones calling for us to “work together,” happen to be the mantra of Our Common Purpose. It’s reinforcing to see such sentiments come in spontaneously, even if they might not have enough zing for this particular purpose.

That said, one of the better formulations is “common sense, no nonsense.”

Some targeted extremism. “That’s too extreme.” “Too extreme to be considered.” And before going any further, I have to acknowledge that a few of the contributions were themselves too extreme. The tersest example being “you fat pig.” But these were few and far between, and this is all you will hear about this more intemperate category.

In addition, there were others who want to admonish. “Grow up.” “Wise up.” “Shut up.” “Wake up.” “Get real.” “Be real.”  So on and so forth.

Some called up America. “We’re all Americans.” “There’s no place for that in America.” “For the good of the country, please stop.” “Country over party.” And then there was this somewhat wordy prescription: “Don’t strive to be the best person on America’s team, be the best player for America’s TEAM!!!”

On the whole, most tried to be constructive. Many were subtle, even gentle. Some reasoned, some fell back on logic. “And you think this why? “Are you sure you want that?”

Some cajoled, some were conciliatory. A number of contributors got on the “peace train.” “Keep the peace.” “Give peace a chance.” “Peace” was sometimes coupled with “love.” And four contributors harkened back to the plea of Rodney King, “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Some preached God and Jesus. “Love not hate like Jesus.”

Others preached “be kind.” “Play nice.” “Play fair.” “Just relax.”

One of my favorite submissions is “Bless your heart!” The intent of this southern phrase depends on the context, but in this case would be interpreted as genteel dismissal that likely would disarm most any offender. The submitter, sure enough, is a 70-year-lady who hails from Alabama.

Others offered familiar phrases. These might work well in personal interactions, although I wonder whether they can be used to call out the latest bone-headed move by Congress. On the other hand, maybe their familiarity is helpful.

“Really?????”

“Oh please”

“Are you done?”

“Seriously?” “Come on now, are you serious?”

“Whatever”

“Next”

By now your mind is spinning, as is mine. So many choices. There are a number of approaches and some good possibilities. My short list includes:

“Stop the madness”

“Country over party”

“For the good of the country, please stop”

“Common sense, no nonsense”

“Enough already”

I like “stop the madness” for its apt double meaning. And there’s one other strong submission that isn’t mentioned above. It’s not original but it might be best of all: “We are better than this.”  Open to discussion is whether it’s better that way or we need to be better.

This musing is anything but conclusive. What about you? What can you imagine wearing on our T-shirts? Like any of the above? Other ideas? Have a clever friend? Pass this along.

— Richard Gilman

‘70% Club’ Represents the True Ideal

Nov. 24, 2024

A Republican-dominated U.S. Congress will soon be grappling with how to move forward, with only the Senate filibuster to hold it in check.

Chances are, however, that whatever comes of the mandate they imagine will not match up with what most voters want.  Over and over, in a succession of polls conducted by Our Common Purpose, the majority of Americans – Republicans included – say they wish for middle ground.

The most recent survey, taken in September, asked whether we as citizens and voters should encourage our elected representatives to: a) Drive a hard bargain by staying true to the political positions staked out by their side OR b) find middle ground that incorporates valid viewpoints from both sides.

The poll found 71% favored finding middle ground.  That preference is shared by 67% of Republicans, along with 74% of Democrats and independents.

The result of this particular survey, conducted in September by Survey USA of 2,500 respondents whose demographics match the nationwide voting population, is akin to similar responses to similar questions asked in previous surveys.

The question in November 2021 was whether elected officials should hold to their party’s stance or engage in give-and-take with the other side.  Of all respondents, 72% favored give-and-take.  That included 66% of Republicans and 76% of Democrats and independents.

Say hello to the 70% Club.  Seven out of every 10 Americans believe we should be looking for middle ground.  Maybe it’s not entirely coincidental that about 70% of Congress votes for must-pass legislation, such as the federal budget, when at last their party leadership releases them from toeing the party line.

The survey in January 2023 took it up still another notch.  The question posed in that go-around was whether on controversial legislation we should work it out or fight it out.  A whopping 93% said work it out.  The result was so resounding that one wondered if respondents could have taken “fight it out” in a literal sense.  The high numbers though repeated themselves. In that same survey, 96% said Americans should work together toward achieving our overall objectives.

Without question, the good intentions that people express in abstract terms become exponentially more difficult when applied to specific issues, especially the tough ones.  The differential between the two shows up in the portion of Our Common Purpose’s September survey dealing with the seemingly intractable issues we face.

The survey indicated that on a number of those issues, there’s plenty of room to find middle ground – if we go looking for it. But none of the preferred approaches to those issues, even expressed in generalities, come anywhere close to the 70% threshold.  That kind of consensus doesn’t come automatically or naturally.  It takes putting people in a room to work through the issues, coalesce around a program, add substance and build support.  In Congress, that requires working across the aisle.

Last winter’s bipartisan bill on immigration was a textbook case of Congress doing what it needs to do.  Had the pending legislation not been scuttled by Donald Trump, the vote on it could well have made it into the 70% Club.  But as we know, that effort came to naught.

Now with Republicans soon to take control of both houses, Congress is about to revert to its bad habit of trying to pass – or to oppose – legislation entirely along party lines.  Republicans will attribute their every action to the mandate they perceive, even if Trump didn’t manage to get a majority of the popular vote — finishing a whisker under 50%.

More importantly, their policy positions – in fact the policy positions of either side – do not fully reflect the will of the people.

The Our Common Purpose poll shows that while 60% of Republicans want to close the border, a plurality of all voters favor keeping it open with limits on the number of crossings.  While 45% of Republicans would outlaw abortions, a plurality of all voters favor allowing them up to a certain point in time.  While 44% of Republicans fall back on the 2^nd Amendment, a near majority of all voters favor tighter gun controls.  While 25% of Republicans deny climate change, a near majority of all voters want to phase in controls on carbon emissions and another sizeable group wants to enact them immediately.

This is not to dump on Republicans. Were their positions reversed, Democrats would have the very same problem — except from the other side of the fence.

The poll shows that while 32% of Democrats would continue current border policies, a large majority of voters – including many Democrats – want to tighten things up.  While 35% of Democrats want to lift all curbs on abortion, a majority of voters want at least some restrictions.  While 42% of Democrats want immediate reductions in carbon emissions, a near majority of all voters want to phase in controls.

While both parties will retreat to their respective corners and come out fighting, common-sense Americans realize that neither party has a corner on what’s best for the country.  The real ideal for the people is politicians working together to craft legislation that makes sense to most everyone, probably not to all the extremists, but to most everyone.  And in so doing, elevate the results into the 70% Club.

In one survey after another done by Our Common Purpose, voters couldn’t be more consistent.  Do they expect the country to fully match up with their own vision of how things should be?  No, most don’t expect that.  Are they willing to combine the view of others with their own?  Yes, 78% say they are willing.

Once more, there’s that magic percentage. By some standards — for instance, in education — 70% might not be a lot. In politics, it’s a super majority.

Before We All Go Off the Deep End

Nov. 10, 2024

Both sides are taking it to the extreme in their reactions to Tuesday’s election.

President-elect Trump interprets the result as a mandate.  Actually as “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” One can see where he might get that idea, given the large margin of his victory and likely GOP control of both houses of Congress.

On the other side, the sky is falling. Peter Baker of The New York Times writes, without conceding even the slightest exaggeration, that “Trump has now established himself as a transformational force reshaping the United States in his own image.”

What ties these views together is the belief that this is a watershed moment, that we are embarking on a new era and there’s no going back. There’s little doubt the next four years will be tumultuous. Unfortunately, all the apocalyptic talk only adds fuel to the fire. Extreme views repeated over and over have a way of becoming self-fulfilling.

As always, however, we should approach such unbridled assessments with considerable caution. There are two ways to construe Tuesday’s result:

 The one supposed above suggests we’re witnessing a long-term structural change. Trump is deemed to have created a movement that extends well beyond his MAGA base, for instance among Latino voters, who have re-aligned behind him and his successors for the long haul.

 The other perspective is much more short-term in nature. In this view, Trump’s new-found support could be here today, gone tomorrow. That’s what happens in a democracy.  Whenever blocs of voters are unhappy with the state of the country, they shift their weight in the other direction. As a result, the political pendulum swings back and forth on a regular basis.

The sitting president takes the blame, fairly or unfairly, for anything that goes wrong on his watch. Voters unhappy with their lot in life (think pandemic) rejected Trump in 2020. In similar fashion, voters unhappy with their lot (think inflation) rejected Joe Biden, and by extension Kamala Harris, in 2024.

This is not anything new. Since 1988, neither party has occupied the Oval Office for more than two consecutive terms. And on top of that, control of Congress has slipped from one party to the other in sometimes disastrous midterm elections.

Our system of democracy is self-correcting. The extensive polling done by Our Common Purpose over the past few years shows as much as anything that the voting public wants balance between too much of this and too much of that. The system has a sixth sense that the country is drifting too far in one direction or another, and it tries to fix that by reversing course in the next election.

So which was it on Tuesday? Is the new support for Trump permanent or provisional? No question, Trumpism is a phenomenon.  But then so was Barack Obama in 2008.

Here’s a humble prediction. Caught up in the aura of a mandate, the Trump administration will overreach. It will ram through too much of one thing or another, with damaging consequences. Voters will react accordingly.

Assuming Democrats can get their act together between now and then, our system will again self-correct by electing a Democrat to the White House in 2028. The victor’s substantial majority will be deemed a mandate, and excited observers will proclaim the dawning of a new era. All that will soon prove overstated. In truth, it will be just another case of the system trying to re-balance the country.

These wild and frequent swings back and forth wouldn’t occur, wouldn’t be necessary, if someone were to put a premium on establishing and maintaining balance in the first place.

— Richard Gilman

Women United on Abortion? Not Entirely

Oct. 13, 2024

A strong majority of American voters favor assuring access to abortions, and yet not all women are on board.

Just as many men as women are pro-choice.  On the other hand, just as many women as men are pro-life.  Gender is hardly the deciding factor as voters go to the polls with abortion on the ballot in 10 states and looming large in the presidential race.

The biggest nemeses for pro-choicers are Republicans, evangelicals, and rural communities.  No news there.   What is a little surprising, however, is that those groups are predominated by women.

These observations come out of the latest nationwide public opinion survey conducted by Survey USA for Our Common Purpose.  Topical questions such as abortion were not the primary purpose of the survey, which you’ll be reading much more about in the coming months, but the results do kind of jump off the screen.

This particular poll has Kamala Harris running neck and neck with Donald Trump, 45% to 45%, thanks in good part to disproportionate support from women.  Harris had an 8-point lead among women; Trump a 10-point lead with men.  The confidence interval of this nationwide voting sample of 2,300 registered voters conducted from Sept. 13 to 19 is +/- 2.6 percentage points.  While the sample size is not sufficient to predict the outcome of the presidential election in battleground states nor predict the outcome of abortion measures state by state, it does provide an ample window on which way the nation is leaning.

The poll shows 62% of respondents favor allowing some level of access to abortion, represented by lines 2, 3 and 4 on the table below.  Men tend to giving less leeway, by a small margin.  Women lean a little more to no restrictions, again by a small margin.  Overall though there is no gender gap.  In fact, of the six topical issues explored in this poll, abortion drew the smallest percentage differences between men and women.

A less favorable way of looking at the same results is that a differently constituted majority, in this case represented by lines 1 and 2 above, would like to impose tighter restrictions than existed under Roe v. Wade, either by prohibiting abortions entirely or by allowing only a shorter timeframe.

The highest number of opponents, no surprise, are Republicans, evangelicals, and rural residents.  What is something of a surprise is that within these groups, the more frequent opponents — albeit by small margins — are women.   Their belief systems overcome any bond of sisterhood.

The latest iteration of the women’s movement has succeeded in making the abortion issue front and center, managed to energize supporters, and likely will draw a number of women to the polls who otherwise would not have voted.

The incongruity is that other women have made a choice of their own, and that’s not to allow the right to choose.

Election Reforms Could Curb Extremism

Sept. 15, 2024

For those who believe the division and dysfunction within Congress is structural in nature, some amount of help might be on the way this fall.

The faces of the problem are hard-liners such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and their polar opposites Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, but they are not necessarily the problem itself.

The real culprits are features of our election system, specifically gerrymandering and closed primaries, that make it easy for extremists to land in Washington and then face no accountability back home.

It’s one of the great paradoxes of modern politics that independent voters are becoming ever more prevalent, yet because of closed or even semi-closed primaries in many states they have little or no say in choosing the candidates they will vote on in November.

Take the case of Arizona. It gets well-deserved recognition these days as a swing state, with the voter rolls showing as many unaffiliated voters as there are Republicans and far more than Democrats. The state went for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.

By contrast, the state’s representation in the U.S. House of Representatives won’t be mistaken for middle-of-the-road. In fact, its nine-member delegation is among the most extreme in the country.

Four of the six Republicans in the delegation belong to the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, which is saying something when one considers that the group only has 39 members. Arizona matches the four from Florida and Tennessee, and exceeds the three from much bigger Texas.

With the caucus’s most ardent obstructionists, including some of the Arizonans, once again jamming up discussions on the federal budget, it’s fair to say that these individuals don’t make it their first priority to work together across the House.

But what is one to expect when two of the four ran unopposed in the last general election? Their districts provide them unassailable registration advantages, with roughly twice as many Republicans as Democrats.

This is not entirely a one-way street. The pattern is repeated on the other side of the aisle. Two of the three Democrats in the delegation belong to the most liberal group in the House, the Congressional Progressive Caucus. They’re able to do so with impunity because they also enjoy huge registration margins back home. One of the two represents a district with three times as many Democrats as Republicans.

That’s Arizona. High percentages of Republicans live in rural counties and certain portions of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Then the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission comes along, and in the course of “fulfilling” its cautious interpretation of certain requirements, tilts the table even more.

Even with all this, however, the extremism would take a hard hit if the state’s plentiful independent voters had an easier time of participating in primary elections. The good news is that this could change in a major way this fall. Arizona is one of seven states that will vote on reforming how elections are conducted.

Initiatives in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon are going after the whole enchilada. They seek both open primaries, in which all candidates and all voters are treated equally without regard to their political party affiliation, and converting to ranked choice voting in the general election. Oregon would take it a half-step further by applying ranked choice voting to its primary elections as well.

Activists in the remaining three states – Arizona along with Montana and South Dakota – are content just to seek open primaries.

Arizona is going at it in roundabout fashion. For starters, it has two conflicting initiatives on the ballot. The one enacts open primaries. The other keeps primaries pretty much the exclusive domain of Republicans and Democrats. If both initiatives somehow pass, the measure with the higher vote total will prevail.

If that confusion isn’t enough, the open primaries measure doesn’t specify whether, like Montana, the top four candidates make it to the general election or, like South Dakota, just the top two candidates move on. Arizona will leave it to the Legislature to decide. What a mess that will be. To top if off, depending on what the Legislature decides, the state could back into instituting ranked choice voting in the general election.

Even with these zig-zags, it still is worth the trouble. Bringing to bear the moderating voice of all those independents will have considerable impact on congressional primaries across the board.  Their influence surely will be felt in the two or three districts that could flip to either party.

And even in the six districts with lopsided registration advantages, the single primary ballot and the size of the independent bloc will encourage moderate candidates to throw their hats in the ring. We have to hope that just the prospect of such will cause the incumbents to think twice before going to the extreme.

— Richard Gilman

Which Value Will Capture Middle America?

Aug. 18, 2024

The two candidates for vice president were selected in part because they represent, and are hoped to attract, Middle America.

On the surface, this would seem a gross miscalculation on someone’s part.  How could two men who are so different in their worldviews and their politics be considered worthy of consideration by the same basic constituency?

The answer is they can be, albeit in contrasting ways.  How this plays out in the next few months not only could have a major bearing on the election but will serve as still another litmus test of where we are as a nation.

Democrat Tim Walz and Republican J.D. Vance wasted no time in trading barbs over whom is more authentic.  Their posturing about “camo-hats” and the like is good fun but, beyond the fact that neither Walz or Vance hail from New York or California, their backgrounds really aren’t that comparable.

Walz is drawing plenty of attention for growing up in remote farming communities of northern Nebraska.  To Democrats, who long ago wrote off the heartland, he is the best thing going.  Vance, who well chronicled his troubled upbringing in Hillbilly Elegy, grew up in the shadow of a struggling steel mill in a densely populated corridor between Cincinnati and Dayton.

Of much more significance, they place differing emphasis on two values that are core to Middle America.

While I don’t pretend to speak for the heartland, my conversations five years ago with community leaders of another Nebraska farming community contributed greatly to Our Common Purpose’s 10 core principles for America.

Many topics were covered in those lengthy discussions in Superior, Neb., located just 225 miles to the south of where Walz grew up, but two overriding impressions endure:

• Hard-working townspeople willingly contribute to their communities every way they can. This is the blessing, and the curse, of living in a small town.  When there are only so many to do it all, everyone has to do their share.
• Correspondingly, they have little patience for able-bodied individuals who aren’t pulling their weight. Small towns offer no place to hide for those they see as living off the system.  Complaints about locals they believe abuse the food stamp program quickly turn into disparaging references to welfare queens in New York City.  They expect people to take responsibility for themselves.

The two vice presidential candidates are different manifestations of that culture.

Walz likely would place the accent on the first of the values, beginning probably from boyhood.  While much has been made of his football background, small schools can field a team only if every kid turns out to play.  Teacher, coach, National Guardsman, all that stuff, Walz seems to have been a contributor to his local community.  I haven’t heard him express himself on those who don’t but he likely takes a gentler position than his opponent.

The second value is a long-standing viewpoint of conservatives, and Vance eagerly takes it up.  He has been hammering the “lazy poor” ever since Hillbilly Elegy.  On the other hand, given the dysfunction of his childhood, I don’t know he would have been exposed to much of a community-minded commitment in his youth.

The two men offer a choice between honoring the way people have tried to live their own lives versus the impatience they feel toward those who don’t work so hard.  I suspect many Middle America voters identify to varying degrees with each of those perspectives. Which will speak loudest to them over the next couple of months is yet to be determined.

Either way, Middle America has been given a boost.

The political theorist Isaiah Berlin, about whom you will be hearing a lot more from me in the coming months, has conjectured that large groups are just like individuals.  They hanker for status and recognition.

Middle America obviously is an amalgam of many such groups.  Between small towns and big cities, there is as much diversity as one would find anywhere else.   At the core, however, they all identify themselves as being part and parcel of flyover country, which to them is long overdue for a little recognition and respect.  Now with the brain trusts of both political parties reaching into their midst for VP candidates, they find themselves in an enviable position.  But what will they choose to do with that?

The answer to the question “who shall govern me?” is, according to Berlin, somebody or something who “I can represent as ‘my own’, as something which belongs to me, or to whom I belong.”

Many of these are red states, and that isn’t about to change, but which vice president candidate would these voters choose if that were a separate ballot question?  Who are they going to feel most comfortable in representing as their own?  Walz or Vance?

This is a true test of how midwestern sensibilities fit today’s political landscape.  In flyover country, I’d guess it’s very much up in the air at the moment where they will land.

— Richard Gilman

Olympics Offer Chance to Pull Together

Aug. 8, 2024

Good ‘ol Team USA is once again piling up the medals at the Olympics.  Across the country we’re cheering.

Cole Hocker Wins the 1,500
Steph Chambers / Getty Images

We exalted as swimmer Bobby Finke valiantly led the grueling 1,500-meter freestyle from start to finish in world-record time.  Familiar faces Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky again came through in the clutch, adding to their story tale careers.  Cyclist Kristen Faulkner surprised everyone by suddenly breaking away from more seasoned competitors as they raced toward the Eiffel Tower.  On the track, it seems like every day another USA runner is sprinting from behind to win.  Gold, silver, bronze, at last look the medal count is approaching 100.

Holding our breath in suspense as each event unfolds is another of those instances when we as a country are able to set aside our political differences to pull in the same direction.  The Games show we Americans are perfectly capable of coming together when we want to.

When asked in one of the Our Common Purpose polls to evaluate whether we are united or divided by each of a potpourri of 28 national institutions, values, services and events, “rooting for American athletes in the Olympics” was among the top finishers.

On the poll’s 201-point scale from minus 100 for divided, 0 for neutral, going up to plus 100 for united, there was no partisan difference on the Olympics.  Those who voted for Trump in 2020 rated it at plus 52, those who voted for Biden at plus 51.

The composite of plus 51 was just a couple of points behind Thanksgiving, liberty and our patriotic holidays, and a few points ahead of how we respond when the country is attacked, the opportunity to vote in regular elections, and national symbols such as the American flag.  Truly, an Olympian performance.

By comparison, politicians from both political parties finished far back in the pack at minus 25.

Not to say we’re totally together.  Our most-pressing differences have nothing to do with Republican versus Democrat but which Olympic sports we’re following.  Some of us stick with the tried and true.  Foil fencing, anyone?  Some are more inclined to experiment. Skateboarding?  Sport climbing?  Kayak cross?  Breaking?  To each his own.  That’s part of the beauty.  Athletes of all persuasions get their moment to excel. We can enjoy the competition on our own terms without anyone forcing their views upon us.

Too bad that the Olympics come along only every four years.

Court Creates False Equivalency

July 19, 2024

Forty years ago there was Nixon v. Fitzgerald.  Then this year along came Trump v. United States. The two proceedings are now linked forever, and not for the better.

In Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the Supreme Court granted the president absolute immunity from liability for civil damages arising from any official action taken while in office.

In Trump v. United States, the court extended the immunity to cover criminal charges for any official actions and a wide swath of unofficial actions as well.

The Roberts court of today references Nixon over and over in its ruling on Trump.  The two cases certainly have basic similarities. Both involve presidents.  Both involve actions they took, or at minimum tacitly approved.  Both landed on a Supreme Court anxious to uphold the separation of powers between branches of government.  And a court hell-bent on seeing to it that there be no further incursions on presidential prerogatives.

All this has obscured the fact that two cases differ markedly in the particulars. And it’s not just that one is a civil matter, and the other is criminal in nature. By using the logic of one as the primary precedent for its decision in the other, the court has made a legal leap to shield anything and everything that happens in the Oval Office.

Nixon v. Fitzgerald was decided in 1982 but it goes all the way back to 1968 when a whistleblower by the name of A. Ernest Fitzgerald, a civilian working for the Air Force, broke the news to Congress that there were cost overruns in the development of the C5A cargo plane.  Lyndon Johnson was president at the time but Richard Nixon was soon to take over.

It was on Nixon’s watch that Fitzgerald’s job was conveniently eliminated in an Air Force reorganization.  The facts are disputed as to whether Nixon himself was directly involved in the decision, although several of his aides certainly were.  One thing led to another, and Fitzgerald eventually sued.  Given his tangential role. Nixon’s name wasn’t added to the lawsuit until a full eight years later.

Even so, the court worried that the president could become “an easily identifiable target” of lawsuits filed by anyone harmed by a government action.  It suggested that “diversion of [the president’s] energies by concern with private lawsuits” would:

• “Raise unique risks to the effective functioning of government.”
• Impede “the maximum ability to deal fearlessly and impartially with” the duties of his office.
• “Frequently could distract [him] from his public duties.”

Those concerns resulted in immunity for the president in civil matters.  While Trump’s case is of course a criminal matter, the Roberts court quotes liberally although not always literally from Nixon.

For one example, one of the court’s stated objectives in Trump to ensure that “the president can undertake his constitutionally designated functions effectively, free from undue pressures or distortions” was said to have originated with the Nixon decision.  For some reason, however, that phraseology is nowhere to be found in Nixon.

Regardless of whether the words have been quoted properly in Trump, the use of them to justify immunity for Trump made sense to six justices but to a common man they are a drastic reach.  

Nixon was a disinterested party, or at most a barely interested party, when it came to Ernest Fitzgerald.  His aides thought they were acting in the best interests of the government, if not the public, in ousting someone they regarded as a disloyal employee.  They might not have made the best decision but regardless Nixon didn’t initiate the action and stood to gain nothing from it.

Trump on the other hand is accused of being the initiator and would have been the obvious beneficiary if the 2020 election results had been overturned.  In contrast to Nixon, the self-interest and the stakes were huge.  Trump had four more years in the White House riding on the outcome.

His actions weren’t inhibited at all, as the court fears would happen, “by needless worry as to the possibility of damages.”  And it borders on laughable that the court should seek to protect him from undue pressures and distortions, when the central point of the indictment against him is that he was the perpetrator of the pressure and distortions.

While the court utilizes the similarities between Trump and Nixon to establish the distinction between the president’s official and unofficial acts, as was discussed in this space last week, it is not troubled a whit by the differences between the two cases.

We’ve now learned that it’s not beyond the law to use the language of one proceeding to permit much or all of what happened in the second, even when the circumstances and what’s at stake are so different.  Not beyond the law, and yet well short of reason.