Dear Abby: Comment Response March 17, 2009
Posted by jdf15 in Politics.Tags: Democrats, Politics, Republicans, Youth Vote
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*UPDATE*
Thrust, parry. Instead of reposting, I will just redirect you once again to my good friends at NextGenGOP.
A bored google image search just led me to this gem. Just thought I'd share.
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Original Post:
A fellow Duke student posted a comment on my column today. While I cannot engage her criticisms about my column (and was happy to see that other people basically said what I would have anyways), I did decide to check out her blog, NextGenGOP. She also posted today, on the topic of youth liberalism.
After reading her piece, I decided that I ought to return the favor and leave her a similarly helpful albeit longer comment. Below, I have reposted her piece “Kids These Days,” followed by my response. Alternatively, you may read her post (and my response) on her blog (here), which I actually recommend – it is very nicely designed. Enjoy:
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Kids These Days – Abby Alger
The question I am asked most often is why I am a Republican. It’s a query accompanied with a smirk by liberals, particularly Baby Boomers. (They hope my answer will contain overtly racist, sexist, classist, ageist, heterosupremacist, insertcategoryhereist opinions or—better yet!—upbringing of the same type so that I can be made to recognize my sins, repent, and achieve salvation/redemption/eternal life on the government dole.) And it’s a query increasingly accompanied with a bit of anxiety, edge, even desperation when it comes from Republicans mainly—conservatives, less so.
I’m in the generation that’s the least Republican since Pew started tracking such things. Depressing, not dire as a statistic, but indicative of a broad force at work. It’s something in the cultural water that turns the kids these days into knee-jerk Democrats of the leftist stripe. And it’s got to be in the water—and not just in being liberal at 20 because you have a heart etc.—because it’s a sort of blind, stupid activism that delights in conformity to the (now-confirmed) left-wing echo chamber, rather than overthrowing The Man to bring in a new era of enlightenment, happiness, peace, and drug legalization.
So what is it about Generation Me/Generation Next/Millennials that makes us so blindly leftist? Below are my initial thoughts. I invite fellow writers here to join in the chorus.
I think the answer, at that abstract, 30,000-foot view, is simple and explainable by characteristics of the era. The story goes something like this: being a limited-government, fiscally conservative Republican is, well, kind of boring. You let people do what they want to do. You provide for the common defense, the national infrastructure, some social goods (e.g. education), and enforce laws that keep people from stealing, killing, and the like. It is remote, even impersonal. The government does not care who you are or what you do. It just gets out of your damn way.
But I’m in the generation that believes it is amazingly interesting. The internet, which brought to us delights like LOLcats, rickrolling, and Rathergate, also brought us navel-gazing on a scale unseen before now. As Matt Labash put it in this week’s Weekly Standard, “The very fact that they are on Facebook has convinced people that every facet of their life is inherently interesting enough to alert everyone to its importance.” In other words, me me me now now now pay attention pay attention pay attention to me me me.
Unsurprisingly, this also affects political discourse. What I feel is infinitely more important than what I know or what you can prove with logic or numbers. “That offends me [or aggrieved groups X, Y, and Z]” is a sufficient answer to settle any intellectual debate. Take away your cold facts; my intuition and desires are enough to settle complex debates. Sound familiar yet?
And I’m in the generation that believes it depends on what the meaning of is…is. However young we were during Bill and Monica, we got the lesson. There are no moral absolutes, no unimpeachable standards of right and wrong. There is only legal and illegal. What the law prescribes is allowed; what it does not discuss is a black hole. (Here there be anarchy, so we never go there.) But then, even that is flexible. A tax cheat collects our taxes, a corrupt crook stayed governor of Illinois for weeks, and a perjurer held the highest office in the land.
This whole process makes us curiously dependent on the government and our legislators to decide what is good, what is bad, and what the penalties are for transgressing those boundaries. We dwell, quite literally, in the nanny state. Even worse, we enjoy it. We press for its growth and slow encroachment on each part of our lives.
As Republicans and conservatives, how do we communicate to this generation? We tell them to grow up or we wait until they do (i.e. when they get their first paychecks). The only upshot of Obama’s budget is that he may hasten that process nicely…
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Dear Abby – My Response
As much as I hate to add a discordant voice to your one-woman “chorus,” I accept your invitation.
Do you honestly believe that young people lean left just because we seek conformity? Or because fiscally responsible governance is “boring?” Wake up.
Liberalism is not in the water (that apparently only young people drink). It is a product of an open mind that cares about the world it lives in. The free market and <6 year election cycle are ill-suited to addressing long-term challenges. Yet somehow I still care about my long-term future. I’d like the world to be a clean, safe place both for myself now and my kids later. And sadly, that makes me a Democrat.
We’re liberals because we think everyone deserves a chance. And we’re liberals because we think everyone deserves a choice. For a party that prides itself on government “getting out of your damn way,” you certainly enjoy legislating your values. But if you really want to know why our generation is so “blindly” Democratic, I’ll tell you the answer, but you’re not going to like it:
We are Democrats because of Republicans. Our generation awoke politically to the travesties of the Bush administration and its Congressional accomplices. I don’t have to list the deeds of that gang, you know them well. And we’re still paying for them today in money and blood.
Growing up in that climate, how could we become anything but Democrats? Even if we DIDN’T support the liberal policy agenda or happen to care about the environment, in a 2-party system we really had little choice BUT lean left. Our generation wasn’t born Democratic, we were pushed there, away from the Republicans abusing our government and hijacking our country.
And do you really want to talk about criminal politicians? People in glass houses, for god’s sake. Our guy got a blow job. Your guy deceived us into an unending war et plenty of al.. You do NOT want to go here. If our country were as interested in transparency as you claim to be (in your profile) and our current president wasn’t trying to turn a new leaf and leave the past where it is, we WOULD have to legalize drugs – to make room for Republicans in our prisons (perhaps not for quantity, just quality).
Also, it’s cute that you scoff at Democrats for wanting peace. You’re right, it IS confusing why more young people aren’t Republicans.
Unrelated point but worth mentioning: it’s a little hypocritical to disparage our generation because it “believes it is amazingly interesting” and draws undue attention to itself…on a blog that you started so the whole world can access your personal insights. Yes, I know I have a blog too. But my life and opinions are amazingly interesting.
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I lamented during the election about my inability to find active young Republicans. It is nice to have finally found them.
Power Vacuum March 17, 2009
Posted by jdf15 in Media, Politics.Tags: Bobby jindal, Democrats, Michael Steele, Obama, Politics, Republicans, RNC, Rush Limbaugh
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Chris Rock can predict the future. During Spring Break, I listened to a recording of his stand-up in which he identified the need for a charismatic black leader who could make people believe in themselves. That 1999 routine was just meant to generate laughs, but a decade later it is eerily prophetic.
After years of mismanagement, the Democratic Party finally has a capable, charismatic leader. The Republican Party does not.
With the political tides so thoroughly turned, parallels can be drawn between early Bush II Democrats (especially in 2003-2004) and the current Republicans in how they’ve handled their full minority status. It is early to judge the Republican response, but recent events and polling statistics can still offer insight.
During the last administration, Democrats faced an America that had [at least once] elected a “man of the people;” no Bush-bashing is necessary to establish that Republicans were benefiting from a simple, straightforward message and a president capable of little more. Oops.
Throughout that ordeal, though, the Democratic Party stuck to its goals instead of hopelessly recreating the contemporary success of their opponents. People liked Bush because it seemed like you could have a beer with him. Anybody could envision that a similar experience with John Kerry would be tedious, but Democrats rallied behind him to champion their message anyways.
Today, in a roughly comparable position, Republicans have adopted a different strategy. Ignoring the possibility that voters support President Obama’s policies and not merely his physical qualities, the Republican Party has been trying to emulate just the facade of the recent Democratic success.
During the campaign, the media and public were enthralled by Obama’s youthful vigor and followed each of his daily visits to the gym. The Republican response? Elevate young conservative rising star, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Only they appear to have picked this fruit a little early.
Despite Jindal’s relative youth, the unpolished, childish simplicity with which he talked down to the nation in his rebuttal to Obama’s speech to Congress was unfortunately familiar. That speech showed that Jindal’s age will have little impact on his party’s preference for the failed policies we voted against in November. And he clearly wasn’t ready for the national stage.
Sidenote: Jindal was so…underwhelming that immediately after his speech people around the country decided that he sounded exactly like Kenneth the Page, the dim country boy character from NBC’s 30Rock. Apparently he thought so too, and actor Jack McBrayer recorded a response to Jindal in character (video).
Similarly, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele’s performance to date casts doubt on the argument that he was selected simply because he was the most qualified candidate. It is perhaps fortunate, then, that neither of these men are really viewed as the party’s current leader.
According to many pundits, Rush Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the Republican Party. And while Limbaugh does have influence, he also has a penchant for saying things respectable people don’t. Steele briefly condemned his remarks as “incendiary” and “ugly,” only to grovel a day later when King Limbaugh got mad. That hierarchy seems clear, but the country is remarkably divided about Limbaugh.
A Rasmussen poll recently found that 44 percent of Democrats but just 11 percent of Republicans view Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party. How did that happen? Well, we appear to be witnessing the return an ancient phenomenon: Democrats controlling a media narrative.
Last October, Democratic strategists discovered that only one in ten voters under age 40 views the talk show host favorably. Since then, many Democrats and now even White House officials have engaged Limbaugh directly, propagating this unflattering caricature of conservative America. But while happy to bask in the spotlight, Limbaugh rejects any leadership responsibility.
This guy's been divorced three times and addicted to pain killers, but what the hell. Why shouldn't he be a figurehead for the party of "values"?
So while there is confusion about exactly who is leading the party, a January Rasmussen poll shed some light on the type of leader Republicans want; 43 percent of respondents thought that their party had become too moderate, and 55 percent said that Sarah Palin should be the model for the future. A scant 24 percent thought Sen. John McCain was the correct model.
And that’s fine with me. Not because I could tolerate a President Palin (that hurts just to type), but because the harder she pushes, the harder we push back. As David Plouffe explained, “[Palin] was our best fundraiser and organizer in the fall.” Extreme conservatives certainly mobilize their base, but it is clear that when these figures act on the national stage, they galvanize Democrats by alienating moderate, young, and minority voters. And this could explain why the Republicans have responded so differently.
The current Republican retreat to the right could yield wonderful results (for me). With many minorities and especially young voters heavily favoring Democrats, the Republican future is grim. At this rate, the current Republican recession will long outlast the financial one they bequeathed to us.
Recent Republican bumbling reveals an admission that something must change if the party is to have a future. But it must go more than skin deep. If conservatives aren’t prepared for this makeover, they will remain powerless. At least until a Democratic president trashes the country.
A version of the post ran in The Chronicle at Duke University.
Unfortunate Evolution February 24, 2009
Posted by jdf15 in Congress, Media, Politics.Tags: Bias, Creationism, Darwin, Democrats, Evolution, Fox News, Intelligent Design, Journalism, Media, Media Bias, Politics, Republicans
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On the cover of its November 2004 issue, National Geographic posed the question “Was Darwin wrong?” But when you flipped to the article inside, the answer was printed in big, bold font: NO. Even the main evolution page on Wikipedia doesn’t mention any controversy, and for all of the free encyclopedia’s faults, that’s saying something. Yet just in time for Darwin’s 200th birthday, Gallup released a new poll showing that a scant 39 percent of Americans “believe in the theory of evolution.”
That’s appalling. This shouldn’t need explaining, but there is no substantive controversy about evolution. There are still questions to be answered about some of its mechanisms and intricacies, but within the volumes of predictive, verifiable data we have gathered, there is not a single piece of evidence that refutes the theory. And for clarification, that’s scientific theory, rigorously tested and tantamount to fact, like the theories of gravity and plate tectonics. This differs from the colloquial “theory” you might use to guess how you made it home from the bar without remembering. To paraphrase physicist Murray Peshkin, saying evolution is “only a theory” is like saying it’s “only science.”
Yet just last month, Dr. Don McLeroy (a dentist) led conservatives on the Texas Board of Education in a renewed crusade to wedge religion into the classroom at the expense of basic education. This review of the state’s science standards will face a final vote next month, but similar battles have already been fought in at least ten states over the past decade, often buoyed by alarming levels of public support. In Kansas, the most infamous case, teaching evolution was actually banned for two years. Thank goodness we aren’t trying to pass any evolution legislation.
We are, however, expecting legislation on important science-based issues like climate change, and the outlook there is just as bleak. In my first column this semester, I wrote about a May 2008 poll showing a partisan divide among Americans who understand that humans contribute to climate change. A similar Rasmussen poll recently found that this rift has widened: now just 21 percent of Republicans acknowledge anthropogenic climate change, compared to 59 percent of Democrats. As Stephen Colbert once said, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias” (video in this previous post). So it is understandable that Republicans have not exactly championed our nation’s academic pursuits. But an anti-scientific sentiment can have dangerous consequences, especially if it goes unchecked.
Watching the major congressional battles since this summer (especially on offshore drilling and climate change) I have noticed a trend: the national media, particularly on TV, have largely abandoned their watchdog role and have been covering these debates without substantive fact-checking as “he said/she said” stories. Facts and fabrications have been placed on equal footing to avoid “taking a side.” The election was covered the same way. But this is a terrible journalistic paradigm.
Balance is nice, but isn’t accuracy a more important journalistic value? Calling out a politician for lying is not partisan, it’s the media’s responsibility. Obviously it would be best if people just told the truth, but that’s not happening. And the stimulus coverage was more of the same.
Media Matters analyzed twelve cable news programs’ coverage of the stimulus debate. Of the 460 guests interviewed, only 25 of them – that’s 5 percent – were actually economists. No wonder the potential impacts of the bill were so vulnerable to political spin. And Think Progress found that savvy Republicans were only too happy to exploit this opportunity, appearing on cable news programs twice as frequently as their Democratic counterparts. But one network took coverage to a new low.
The following may shock you, so brace yourself: Fox News has a Republican bias. And last week, they were as tactful as a skirted starlet stepping from a limo. On Feb. 10th, anchor Jon Scott put up a graphic showing the costs of the stimulus package that was copied verbatim from a press release by the Senate Republicans Communication Center, same damning typo and all. “Fair and balanced” my Democratic donkey. Kudos again to Media Matters for “exposing” such a blatant attempt to disseminate partisan propaganda as reporting. But at least Fox had the courage to apologize – for just the typo (video thanks to Howard Kurtz).
Um, yeah...not so much.
Our country is being steered by a misinformed public and polarized politicians unrestrained by accountability. Science itself is under attack. These are complex problems with varied causes. Yet they have one thing in common: objective media coverage could combat them all.
But that’s not going to happen. Believe it or not, journalism is evolving. With the expansion to the internet and growing popularity of blogs, niche news is on the rise. People seem to want their news told from their perspective, and media outlets will provide what consumers demand; Fox News, the Huffington Post, even Jon Stewart are thriving. And with newspapers experiencing serious financial difficulties, the days of the objective reporter could actually be numbered. If you think bipartisanship is a myth today, try to imagine it at the bottom of this slippery slope (a logical fallacy, I know, but the point stands).
I wish I could end this column with a solution, but I honestly don’t see one. It would be comforting to believe that some omnipotent, not explicitly Christian deity was guiding this media transformation, but judging from its current trajectory, this looks like anything but an Intelligent Design.
A version of the post ran in The Chronicle at Duke University.
The Spam We Need February 10, 2009
Posted by jdf15 in Congress, Election.Tags: Bipartisanship, Congress, Democrats, House of Representatives, Jim Demint, John McCain, Partisanship, Politics, Pork, Republicans, Senate, Spam, Stimulus, Zach Wamp
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For at least the next two years, the impotent Republican minority in the House of Representatives will produce nothing but drama and headlines. And the theme of this show will be partisanship. President Obama promised us a new era of bipartisanship, so whenever he supports a Democratic policy, Republicans are crying foul. Disregarding the fact that liberals got “partisan-ed” pretty hard during Bush II years, let’s examine what bipartisanship really means today.
First, “partisan” does not deserve such a negative connotation; it describes how our legislature functions. Two parties with widely differing ideologies will obviously support the solutions they believe will work, as they have for centuries.
When Obama won, the phrase ‘mandate for change’ surfaced – the sense that a clear majority of Americans trusted that this Democratic president had a better platform to fix our country. For Obama to now embrace Republican plans for a stimulus package (mainly tax breaks) would violate the trust of every person who voted for him. Americans elected Democrats into the White House and clear majorities in the House and the Senate. This is not a product of random chance.
2008 election results with states scaled by population. See all the blue?
Worthy or not, Republicans successfully cast themselves as the party of “tax breaks.” And if that is your single, shortsighted priority for our government, it seems clear you should vote Republican. But in November, America did not. So last month, when Obama was asked why there weren’t more Republican ideas in his stimulus plan and he replied “I won,” his response was not only delightfully honest but informative.
Bipartisanship means understanding, respecting, and listening to the opposition. Obama is doing that. Sometimes it means making compromises too, but not on everything. I’m no economist, so let’s try this from a civics perspective: in a democratic republic, citizens vote for the people they think will choose what is best for their country. Because Republican policies and leadership failed us so spectacularly during the last eight years, we voted them out of power. We already tried pure tax breaks – they didn’t work. And there’s a reason Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So maybe this time our government should actually govern?
But no, Republicans want to give tax breaks another whirl. All 188 of them in the House voted against the stimulus bill (which still passed easily). But they are quite proud of their completely ineffective yet unanimous opposition. They even view it as a victory because Obama spent time meeting with them. Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) explained, “if he comes and meets with us like that and it doesn’t have an impact, it begins to hurt his credibility.” …Or alternatively, one could interpret that to mean that Republicans are equally unwilling to compromise on their core beliefs and voted with their party. What’s that called again? Oh yeah, “partisan.” Bipartisanship is a two-way street, not the unilateral acquiescence of a ruling majority.
While Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) proposes a $3.1 trillion tax break “stimulus” alternative, his fellow Republicans oppose the current $838 billion plan as wastefully large. Highlighting minor expenditures (like the efficiency measures I last wrote about), they’ve framed the bill as a giant helping of congressional pork. But this label doesn’t quite fit.
Legislative “pork” is normally funding for projects that benefit only a small constituency, frequently within a single congressperson’s district. Most of the “controversial” stimulus expenditures fund broader objectives, such as anti-smoking campaigns. These seem more like “riders,” unrelated and often contentious provisions attached to a larger, important bill that is likely to pass. But this comparison doesn’t work either, because these expenditures themselves are the bill. That would make the stimulus package some kind of conglomeration of self-propelling riders, or maybe “meta-pork,” but that’s a little confusing.
Given the difficulty of classifying this project and our penchant for labeling legislation as meat, I propose that this bill is most like spam: nobody really knows quite what it is, it’s probably a lot of different things mashed together, and whatever it is, it’s going to be around for a while. It’s not your first choice, but you’d certainly eat it if you were starving.
...yum.
This stimulus spam is not perfect, but our economy is famished. Barring a government-wide “kumbaya” moment, continued debate will accomplish little. I concede that some of the proposed expenditures would not provide short-term economic stimulus and perhaps should be removed, but the Democratic agenda has long been stifled and a crisis is indeed a terrible thing to waste. And it’s worth mentioning that many of the “jobless” investments, like the anti-smoking campaign or computerizing medical records, would surely save money in the long run.
Regardless, the performance of our economy during this administration will be attributed to, or blamed on, Democrats; if we’re shouldering all the risk, we might as well do this our way (if we can get the votes in the Senate). Claims of partisanship are the crutch of an intellectually bankrupt Republican party that has nothing new to offer.
Last week, Sen. John McCain sent an email to his supporters with an anti-stimulus petition. He wrote, “With so much at stake, the last thing we need is partisanship driving our attempts to turn the economy around.” But is partisanship really worse than a prolonged, deeper recession? I don’t think so.
A version of this post ran in The Chronicle at Duke University.
A Chilling Experience January 13, 2009
Posted by jdf15 in Climate Change, Election.Tags: Antarctica, Climate Change, Global Warming, Politics
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My family does not take normal vacations. Many people head home for the holidays, go skiing or perhaps seek warmer weather on a beach somewhere. I spent much of my winter break aboard a small ship called the National Geographic Endeavour exploring Antarctica. Yes, it was cold, but at the time it was actually warmer there than at home thanks to the Southern hemisphere summer and an impressive winter storm here in the U.S. Apparently if you’re from Chicago, flying south for the winter works no matter how far you go.
Christmas Day found us returning to Argentina via the Drake Passage, home of some of the world’s most violent nautical conditions. We had relatively mild crossings-strong but favorable winds and mere 20-foot seas, but even these were sufficient to put most people in bed (or the bathroom) with a seasickness that trumped preventative medication. And we were lucky.
Storms in the Drake are frequent and powerful, capable of generating sustained swells of 60 feet and rogue waves much larger. In 2001, the Endeavour herself was struck by a wave over 100 feet tall and had to be escorted back into port by the Chilean navy. The two-day trip through the Drake each way is the supplemental price to visit the White Continent.
The Drake can be rough, but Antarctica is beautiful.
As one might expect, the group of people who opt for such adventures is largely self-selecting: suffice it to say that politics were a safe topic for conversation. Although I did befriend a future petroleum engineer from the University of Texas who was quite cavalier with his indifference towards climate change, even he voted for Obama. And he was certainly an outlier.
The passengers on board were generally well educated and environmentally aware. The extreme to this side of spectrum was the president of a major conservation organization, traveling with his family. His wife founded and directs a separate group of conservation photographers who use images to raise awareness about underreported environmental crises. Once we’d entered the calmer waters past Cape Horn, she showed one of their presentations about climate change.
After the video, another woman approached her and asked a question to the effect of, “Are people really causing global warming? I’ve heard that it’s natural.” Apparently disbelief was visible on my face, because I found myself sharing a silent moment of frustration with an MIT professor who had also overheard the query.
Statistically, this misinformed woman is not unusual. While a majority of Americans now accept that climate change is occurring, a May 2008 Pew poll found that only 47% of Americans correctly attribute some of this warming to human causes. Responses were highly correlated with political party affiliation: broken down, that 47% included 58% of Democrats and just 27% of Republicans polled. It should not be surprising to hear, then, that the domestic political debate on climate change is in a word disgraceful and pollutes discussion about every facet of the issue.
The concept of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change via fossil fuel emissions was first theorized as early as 1896 by the Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius. It has been recognized as a major problem for decades. The question of whether it is happening should be (and really is) long settled, but America stubbornly rejects this reality. And despite some obstructive political postures abroad, no other country can claim to foment such indefensible, inertial denial as ours. At least the international conversation has advanced some during the last 113 years.
Last month, representatives from about 190 countries convened at the United Nations climate negotiations in Poznan, Poland, to discuss climate change. Brazil and Mexico chose this forum to announce concrete plans to reduce their national emissions. South Africa and South Korea released their own plans just this summer, joining the larger standing commitment of the European Union. Despite some shortcomings, the Poznan convention set the stage for a meeting next December in Copenhagen, at which the group hopes to formulate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
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- Poznan isn’t very photogenic, so here are more photos from Antarctica.
Yet for all the climate progress around the world, enthusiasm is often short-lived. Personally, interactions like that I overheard aboard the Endeavour always temper what optimism I may have had. America will not act on global warming if its citizens (and politicians) don’t understand the basic facts about fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect; people will not tolerate emissions reductions if they don’t think greenhouse gases cause climate change or that it’s not a problem. And even on a holiday cruise in the Southern Ocean, which ought to be a hotbed of-to borrow an ultraconservative term-”enviro-facism,” I discovered a woman who does not understand that people are causing global warming.
In the coming months, I plan to examine the causes and consequences of a misinformed American public, as they will certainly continue to frame political and environmental events both in the US and around the world. Only with broad public support can we enact policy strong enough to avert whatever future climate effects may otherwise manifest themselves. I hope to be wrong, but I don’t think America today is ready to embrace the changes we really need.
So we have some work to do. And one week from today, we will finally have a president who understands this.
A version of this post ran in The Chronicle at Duke University.
That Sinking Feeling November 17, 2008
Posted by jdf15 in Climate Change.Tags: Bush, Climate Change, Corruption, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Exxon, Global Warming, Jason Burnett, Maldives, Politics, Stephen Johnson
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In April 2004, President Bush was visibly stumped when asked to name his biggest mistake since 9/11. Last week, he was asked the same question again. He is no longer speechless, but he still has no substantive answer – when pressed, he said he wished he’d phrased a few things more “artfully,” without naming a single action he regrets (video). A certain president-elect may be able to think of a few.
I am referring, of course, to President-elect Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives. Located off India’s southern coast, the Maldives is composed of 1,192 islets, about a quarter of which are inhabited. It is also one of the island nations that will be the first victims of rising sea levels.
A resort in the Maldives. Limited-time offer...
Sea levels have risen about 8 inches in the last century as a result of melting terrestrial ice and the thermal expansion of warming seawater. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific authority on global warming, projects that sea levels could rise up to two feet higher by the year 2100. That may not seem like much, but for a country whose highest point is 7.5 feet above the water (with most ground well below that), this is cause for concern. Especially when you consider that after the 2004 earthquake that unleashed tsunamis around the Indian Ocean, 82 people died and the Maldives suffered $375 million in damage – when it was struck by a wave barely a meter high.
As anyone who’s ever tried to defend a sandcastle from the tide knows, the ocean is pretty difficult to stop and normally wins. And Mr. Nasheed has apparently spent some time playing on his country’s vanishing world-class beaches. In order to secure the future of his people, he recently announced that he will set aside a portion of the Maldives’ tourism revenue to establish a fund. With this money, he plans to buy land in India, Sri Lanka or Australia as an “insurance policy” for the nearly 400,000 Maldivians should their country succumb to the effects of climate change.
Who is responsible for this climate crisis? Many people (myself among them) say the United States. Although it would be unfair to blame climate change solely on our current president, the Bush II administration has certainly contributed. In 1988, George H. W. Bush said, “Those who think we are powerless to do anything about the greenhouse effect are forgetting about the White House effect.” But he could not have imagined just how powerful that White House effect could be. Or that it would be used to preserve the dangerous status quo.
For the last eight years, politics have unequivocally trumped science, even at the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2001, Bush picked Philip A. Cooney to be his chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Cooney, who had no scientific training and previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute (the oil industry’s main lobbying group), was soon discovered to have edited and removed sections of finalized government research to make climate change seem less serious. Cooney resigned two days after his actions were exposed – and promptly took a job at Exxon. Sadly, this was not an isolated incident.
Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that White House officials consulted with Exxon for advice before Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol. A House of Representatives committee report in 2007 found that the Bush administration has edited congressional testimony on climate science and key legal opinions, and kept scientists from talking to reporters. And despite the unanimous recommendation of his advisers, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson denied California’s waiver to implement higher vehicle emissions standards after reportedly being pressured by Bush himself. This denial was completely unexpected and unsupported; EPA officials scrambled pitifully after the fact to assemble some sort of justification, which is currently under investigation.
But the most incredible story comes from Jason Burnett, a former associate deputy administrator of the EPA who resigned this summer. In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are a pollutant and as such must be regulated. The following December, Burnett emailed a White House office the EPA’s proposed rule to limit emissions. When officials heard he was sending that email, they called him to order him not to send it. When he told them he already had, they actually demanded he recall the email (this can be done in some programs). He refused. In June, the New York Times discovered that because White House officials did not want to act on the information in the EPA email, they simply had never opened it. They just left it in the inbox with the justification that they don’t have to act since they haven’t read it (The Daily Show reports).
This is the kind of administration I cannot wait to see leave.
Bush at the G8 Summit in Toyako. As he left, he said "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter!" and, in the words of Britain's Telegraph, "punched the air while grinning widely." Seriously.
Climate change is real and largely our fault. I don’t agree with all of President-elect Obama’s environmental policies, but I do look forward to having a leader who actually understands the threats we face and will treat them with the gravity that they deserve. And just in time: neither the Maldives nor America can afford any more of the same.
A version of this post ran in The Chronicle at Duke University.
The Student Vote November 3, 2008
Posted by jdf15 in Election.Tags: Corruption, Election, George W Bush, Politics, Voting, Youth Vote
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My fellow Young Americans: Please wake up.
As a kid, I had a friend who was epically bad at “hide and seek.” Employing some flawed, kindergarten-level logic, he concluded that when he closed his eyes, he became invisible (to other people too). As childish as that is, there is an analogous situation among some of our peers today. Our government’s decisions affect everyone who lives here, but many young people tune out as if ignorance could shield us from energy crises, potentially lost abortion rights, and… well, economic Armageddon. Compared to older age demographics, today’s college students are largely apathetic about politics.
It was not always this way.
During the 1960s, college campuses were bastions of political activism. Students followed politics closely and demonstrated when they felt the government had misbehaved. That generation was incited by the Vietnam War and united by the energy and experiences of the Civil Rights Movement. Today, we have a similarly unpopular war in Iraq and a government marred by frequent allegations of corruption, but our campuses are torpid in comparison.
So what has changed? The anti-war sentiment in the ’60s was strengthened by self-interest – some students protested because they didn’t want to be drafted. But our parents’ generation was motivated by idealism and indignation as well. The complacency among today’s youth is symptomatic of a greater problem.
We have grown up in an era of scandal. That in and of itself is not so remarkable; today’s politicians did not invent the abuse of power. Yet from George Tenet’s WMD controversy to the Abramoff lobbying fiasco and a long list of disgraced Congresspersons, we have seen our share of corruption. What separates the misdeeds of the last eight years is that they have gone largely unpunished. The Bush administration deceived the nation into a costly war, tortured detainees, and exercised illegal partisanship in its firing of federal prosecutors. But when the media break these stories, nothing happens. Congress has called high-level officials to testify, but even the Attorney General and Vice President have ignored subpoenas or claimed incredible memory loss under oath. With the exception of Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valarie Plame case, this administration has protected itself from repercussions (even before lame duck pardons).
As a result, we have become desensitized to corruption. Every American faces the same truth that an individual vote makes little difference. However, older voters have lived through different administrations and seen how votes can affect their lives. For today’s college students, many of whom were barely teenagers when George W. Bush was elected, the government appears to be a static entity. In 2000, likely the first election today’s young voters followed, Bush won without the popular vote by a Supreme Court decision. Then voting controversies plagued the 2004 election. That doesn’t inspire trust in democracy. College students are less likely to cast a ballot than their elders, but we have just as much at stake, if not more. Our generation needs to be more politically active.
I know we’re not all sitting around shirking our civic duty; many of us do care and work hard to better our communities. So why don’t we vote? According to CIRCLE (the acronym is annoying; I refuse to expand it out of spite), students don’t vote because politicians don’t target us. A researcher at Yale explains that campaigns don’t target youth voters because we historically do not donate much money. Others blame the decline in civics classes, and students themselves point to registration difficulties, convenience and the question of whether a single vote matters. In the face of these setbacks, youth voter turnout has been slowly rising since 2000, but it still barely broke 50 percent in 2004.
Lame slogan, but an important cause. Young people need to vote.
According to the 2006 census, there are 29.5 million potential voters under 24, and nearly a quarter of the American electorate is under the age of 30 (which technically comprises the ‘youth vote’). But even college students alone could wield significant electoral influence. And it appears that this year our voices will be heard. A recent survey of students in four battleground states found that an astounding 94 percent were registered to vote. But it’s not official until your ballot is in the box.
Tomorrow is Nov. 4. If you haven’t voted yet, please head to the polls and show the country that we’re ready to take America in a new direction. It’s time to take our future back.
A version of this post ran in The Chronicle at Duke University.
Defending Presidential Elitism October 9, 2008
Posted by jdf15 in Election.Tags: America, Bush, Candidates, Debate, Education, Election 2008, Elections, Elite, Elitism, Joe Six-Pack, McCain, Obama, Palin, Politics, President, Secretary of the Treasury, Vice President
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It’s debate season, folks, and my oh my has it been underwhelming. Many have complained that the debates have lacked substance; the candidates aren’t answering the questions. Personally, I am disappointed that the debates have lacked entertainment. No gaffes, no real arguments, few jokes or memorable lines…do they really expect us to stay focused through two hours of interlocking stump speeches? But every once in a while, the moderator asks a question for which a canned response is not prepared. The candidates deftly pivot away from most of these situations (some more overtly than others), but you can still learn from their answers if you’re paying attention.
On Tuesday night, Tom Brokaw asked the presidential hopefuls (makes the race seem predestined, doesn’t it?) whom they would pick to be Secretary of the Treasury. Senator John McCain seemed annoyed to be knocked off script, retorting with a grumpy “Not you, Tom” while he scrambled for an answer. Still fumbling, McCain stalled by laying out his qualifications for a good treasury secretary: “I think the first criteria, Tom, would have to be somebody who immediately Americans identify with (video).” Really? That’s your first priority in selecting the person to navigate our country through an economic crisis of this (or any) magnitude? John – can I call you John? – I don’t want to be able to identify with the Secretary of the Treasury. On any level. This person should be so far out of my league I can’t even hold an intelligible conversation with him. I don’t understand the economy. Sure, I took my macro- and microeconomics. I even turned some decent grades. But does my winning personality qualify me to rescue our financial systems? Hell no. Pick someone who has the skill set and experience to get us out of this mess!
You shouldn't look at the Secretary of the Treasury (or the President) and think "man, I want to have a beer with that guy." The Secretary of the Treasury should look more like this...but, you know, be good at his job.
My friends, that Senator McCain would fall back on this line (and put it in practice with his vice presidential nomination) is symptomatic of a real problem in our country today. Why do we so desperately want to elect leaders with whom we can identify? The fact that I didn’t end the previous sentence with the preposition basically disqualifies me from running for office. Senator Barack Obama is an academically accomplished man. After graduating from Columbia University he went on to earn a law degree from Harvard. He was even the president of the Harvard Law Review – I don’t know how to put this, but that’s kind of a big deal. After that he became a law professor at the University of Chicago. You may have known this, but you certainly didn’t hear it from Barack.
Today’s candidates have to hide their education. For those who finished in the bottom 5 of their class, that’s convenient (or would be if underachievement wasn’t so mavericky). Yet McCain and his voluptuous veep didn’t start this trend – there’s no way you can have this discussion and not arrive at our current president. Even George W. Bush, who actually looks good on paper with his degrees from Yale and Harvard, didn’t point to his past to placate concerns about…“mental preparedness.” Why? Because his average guy persona appealed to voters (and he only got C’s). If a candidate flaunts his education today, he is labeled “elitist.”
Elitism is a strange charge to level against presidential candidates. At the risk of quoting Jon Stewart too much: “Doesn’t ‘elite’ mean good?…I want someone who’s embarrassingly superior to me.” (Video- the entire segment is great, but the elitism bit starts at 6:50). On a tangentially related but similarly awesome note, I present the following question courtesy of Kathleen Reardon at the Huffington Post: “Is it sexist to want the person flying the plane to be a pilot?” Back on track, though, presidential candidates are running to be the most powerful person in the world. Being President of the United States is like being the CEO of a global superpower (this may not be true by the time you read this, but that’s another story). Can you imagine someone hiding her educational credentials while applying to lead a Fortune-500 company? No. And she wouldn’t even get a moment’s consideration without them, even if you’d want to have a beer with her. So why are we so comfortable electing “normal” people president?
The average American is not qualified to lead the country. This should not be debatable (although with enough preparation, one could childishly pivot to talk about job creation instead). Nor is it contrary to the American Dream. There are plenty of successful people who don’t live in the White House and unsuccessful ones who do. Being able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps does not mean that anyone can be president, regardless of what your mother may have told you. I wanted to be a lion. Life’s not fair.
Compare Bush (or Sarah Palin) to the early presidents in our nation’s history. Picture them having a conversation. It hurts. I doubt Thomas Jefferson would think highly of our recent selections. Now I’m not saying that the founding fathers got everything right – for example, I imagine they might be surprised to learn that a black man is now running for more than 3/5 of the presidency. But they understood the value of a meritocracy. Or at least that it takes more than an ordinary person to succeed in a decidedly extraordinary position.
Let Average Joe enjoy his 6-pack. I’ll drink with him (although the case is my weapon of choice). Our president should wash down his arugula with a glass of fine wine.
If you can’t beat them, silence them September 10, 2008
Posted by jdf15 in Election.Tags: Bias, Factchecking, McCain, Media, Obama, Palin, Politics
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Senator Obama warned us that this election wouldn’t be a landslide, but once the party primaries sifted out, I confess that I did not believe him. The Republican Party has been steeped in scandal, and it seemed like not a week passed without news stories on GOP corruption. How could our country objectively look at the positions, candidates, and last 8 years and not elect Barack? I realize this logic is naively flawed, but it has now been strangely validated – this week I discovered that the McCain campaign reached the same conclusion…and crafted a devious plan to compensate for it.
Anyone who tuned in the to Republican National Convention last week (or follows the news in any way) is aware of the recent escalation of “media bashing.” Traditionally, the media have served as objective watchdogs of governmental power, reporting abuses to the electorate as they are uncovered. With the consolidation of power under this administration and a GOP audaciously albeit creatively circumventing numerous laws, it is no surprise that Republicans have found themselves receiving increasing amounts of negative coverage. As more scandals were uncovered, the national tone of reporting became increasingly anti-Republican. This is not evidence of media bias, it is a result of unprecedented levels of illegality by GOP lawmakers and appointees. The media calls out democrats when they misbehave as well, but that has been rare under this administration because there is only so much mischief a weak, powerless party can achieve.
In researching and following developments in environmental policy, I have been appalled by the blatant lies told by industry front groups and even brazen GOP lawmakers in their fanatical quests to sacrifice our country on behalf of the energy lobbies that fund their campaigns. Of those politicians, my personal favorite is Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who served as the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee for 5 years (and still serves as minority leader today) despite being the most outspoken climate denier in our government’s history. This specimen deserves and shall receive his own post in the future.
But I digress. The point here is that when politicians lie, accurate reporting will necessitate the refutation of the lie in question. This is not partisan coverage, it’s the presentation of fact. Since in recent years the Republican Party has chosen to wage a PR campaign of self-preservation rather than tell the public inconvenient truths (sorry), it has found itself increasingly at odds with the media. Stephen Colbert summed up this mentality perfectly during his presentation at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2006 (which also happens to the best (read: funniest) speech I have ever seen – watch the first half, you’ll thank me).
After mentioning Bush’s low poll numbers, Stephen complains: “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
So what does this have to do with the campaign? Everything. As Republican lies have become more outrageous (keep looking for my post on offshore drilling, I will get to it soon), the media cannot help but favor Democrats even while bending backwards over themselves to be “fair and balanced.” And as investigative journalism increasingly gives way to the sensationalist coverage of ‘he-said, she-said’ campaign sound bites, it has become even easier to paint the media as biased. Add Sarah Palin to the mix and I once again find myself begrudgingly blogging about the brilliance of McCain’s strategists.
Palin has two major strengths in this assault on the media. First, because she was relatively unknown and so thoroughly unvetted, the media were completely scrambling to figure out who she was when her name was announced. Her virtual anonymity left them asking unusual questions and even chasing down rumors. This discredited and marginalized even the most trusted names in news. McCain spokespeople expertly spun the situation, grouping mainstream outlets with the tabloids in their outraged denunciations so that they could level disgraceful yet not technically untruthful charges against the media as a whole. Second, Palin is a woman. Although the Daily Show demonstrated the humor of juxtaposing the Republican denials of sexism while Hillary was running with those same peoples’ now furious denunciations of sexist media coverage on Palin, I fear this opportunistic hypocrisy will be lost on much of the public.
And this matters. The McCain campaign knows they could never win this election by the merits of their platform. That is why they insist this election is not about the issues. So in a deliberate stroke, they have masterfully silenced the media, effectively removing a crucial voice from the political debate. Campaigns will always point out the flaws of their opponents, but even truthful charges from an opposing campaign will rarely pierce the dogma of a loyal supporter; we rely on the media to research and report what is true and what is false, particularly regarding negative campaigning. Without the media to serve that crucial role of independent fact-checker, we are left simply with a shouting match in place of a debate.
The Obama campaign has been accurately (if quietly) pointing out McCain’s lies and contradictions, but the elitist charge seems to have stuck and people are suspicious of a campaign’s statements about a challenger. Now that the McCain-Palin campaign has successfully discredited the only other mouthpiece for their shortcomings, for many, the only remaining trusted narrative about that campaign will be its own – and they have nothing but nice things to say about themselves.
