One one level, I’m pleased that DT has chosen a very smart guy for his first Supreme Court Justice nominee.
In this 2009 portrait of the Supreme Court, Scalia is third from the right.
But on the other hand, Neil Gorsuch is as much of a right-wing ideologue as his late mother Anne, who attempted to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Administration when she ran it for Ronald Reagan. And then there’s the little matter of timing: A nominee was already selected by President Obama when his term still had nine months left. I thought Obama was making a huge mistake in not pushing hard on this. Even if Clinton had won in November, it was a terrible precedent. Merrick Garland is every bit as smart as Neil Gorsuch, and is not an ideologue for either side. He belongs on the Court.
Thus, I wrote the following email this morning to my Democratic Senators, both of whom have already made public statements opposing this nomination—feel free to use it as the basis for a personalized letter to your own Senators:
Thanks for Opposing Gorsuch nomination–Please Organize Other Democratic Senators
Dear Senator Warren (Senator Markey):
Thank you for being such a strong advocate of justice in the opening weeks of the Trump era. As a constituent and a citizen, I’m very grateful–and I ask you to step to the plate again to lead the fight against Neil Gorsuch. I see that you’ve already said publicly that you will not support this nomination, and thank you for that as well. I urge you not only to publicly oppose this nomination, but to build opposition among your fellow Democratic and Independent Senators. This latest unacceptable nomination must be stopped. Here are two talking points that may help:
1. There is already a nomination on the table: the moderate centrist Merrick Garland. The Senate’s disgraceful failure to act on that nomination should not invalidate it, and the horrible precedent that a president in his last year isn’t entitled to nominate has to be undermined.
2. Trump did not even get a majority, or anything close to a majority. There is no mandate to install SCOTUS justices with a radical right-wing ideology such as Judge Gorsuch’s. He is obviously very smart and scholarly, but has been an adamant champion of some of the worst judicial decisions while regularly sharing his view that the courts should not be used to expand the rights of ordinary citizens. As examples, he has written decisions that favor Christianity against other religions, and has called corporate campaign contributions (presumably including those allowed under Citizens United) “fundamental right” that should be afforded the highest standard of constitutional protection. All of this is well-documented in his Wikipedia profile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gorsuch . I repeat: there is no mandate to appoint a right-wing ideologue.
Shel Horowitz – “The Transformpreneur”(sm)
If you feel as I do, please contact your Senators. Again, I freely give permission to modify what I’ve written to send your own message.
I’m starting this post at 2:30 a.m. on January 21, as I prepare to board a bus to Washington, joining the Women’s March for human rights that will greet the newly sworn in US president on his first full day of office. Hundreds of thousands are expected in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, and many smaller communities. Post-event note: at least 3.3 million to 4.6 million demonstrators came out around the US, plus hundreds of thousands more elsewhere in the world in more than 600 events. I’m finishing it the next day.
Several people have asked me, “Why don’t you give him a chance?” And my father-in-law, a liberal, shocked me with a different question: “He won. Why are you still marching?” Later, someone else asked me the same question on Facebook.
Marching at the Women’s March on Washington with my wife and children (from left: son-in-law Bobby, daughter Alana, wife Dina, me, son Rafael)
The Chances DT Has Failed to Take
I have given him not one chance but many, and he has failed to take them. I feel it is my patriotic duty to speak out against his agenda, to remind him that he not only has no sweeping mandate—he lost the popular vote “bigly”—and to remind my fellow Americans that his election was not clean and his behavior has not met any legitimacy tests.
This was already abundantly clear during the campaign. Back in August, I wrote an open letter to DT that called him out for his racism, misogyny, and bullying.
Despite my harsh language, when he eked out his narrow victory, I was still willing to give him lots of chances. But here’s what happened, just to name a few:
I gave him a chance to appoint experts in their fields to run the massive government departments, Most of those he has appointed are business people with no experience managing such a large bureaucracy and in many cases have stated opposition to the missions of their departments. The few who do have relevant experience are scary: for Attorney General, a man rejected by his own Senate for a judgeship because of racism; for Homeland Security, a Guantanamo torturer; for Secretary of State, the head of our largest oil company—a company that has foreign entanglements in Russia and elsewhere and created possibly the most effective corporate disinformation campaign ever, attacking the thoroughly documented science of climate change (which even Energy Secretary nominee Rick Perry, a former climate denier, now admits is real).
I gave him a chance to start telling the truth. Yet just as during the campaign, I’ve seen one outrageous lie after another. Examples: the ridiculous claim that he really won the popular vote and the above-mentioned false kvetching about the media distorting his inauguration’s attendance figures.
I don’t want to make this blog into a book, so I will stop there. I would love to have been wrong on this. I would have deeply delighted in the emergence of a new and different DT, one who really was trying to “make America great.”
My Patriotic Duty One final reason why I marched: the most important one of all! As a patriotic American who believes this country is already great and that DT’s and/or his surrogates’ policies on the environment, women’s rights, minority rights, education, freedom of the press and other freedoms in the Bill of Rights, and a whole host of other issues are not just the wrong path, but take us down the ugly (and utterly unacceptable) road that Germany and Russia took in the 1930s. I not only refuse to be part of that takedown, I feel it is my duty as someone who cares about my country to stand up and say NO. When my as-yet-unborn grandchildren ask me, decades from now, what I did to protect our country and planet at this critical time, I will be able to stand proudly, as my mother did about her role in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, and say that I was there. I stood up for what’s right.
For many of us, we are one month away from the greatest threat to democracy in the history of our country. The incoming administration presents a threat greater than the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams…the persecution of antiwar activists in World War I and the Palmer Raids that followed that war…the McCarthy witchhunts…the George W. Bush coup and the illegal, immoral wars that resulted.
Tonight is the first night of Chanukah. The word “Chanukah” means “dedication,” and celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after throwing out the occupiers. I am dedicating this blog post to all those who feel threatened by a president-to-be who has repeatedly spoken out in hatred and incited violence against Muslims, immigrants, people of color, women, even people with disabilities, and who has done nothing to quell the violence of his supporters against these groups as well as people who identify as LGBTQ and Jews.
It also happens to be my 60th birthday. I made my first action for social change at age 3, and became serious about activism at 12. I’ve been doing what I can to create a better world ever since, and I will “not go gentle into that good night”
I have personally been actively organizing ever since the morning after the election. I’ve attended meetings on how to be an ally for people facing hate crimes in the streets or ICE agents on their doorstep. I’ve written to DT making the business case for keeping the Paris climate accord and I’ve written on how social entrepreneurs can still thrive in the coming years. I’ve signed what feels like hundreds of petitions, made dozens of phone calls, reached out to dozens of activists to show a path of hope and action, attended a “where do we go from here” mass meeting with about 800 people, and marched in front of the nearest state capital while the electors voted—and in the streets of nearby cities for several rallies.
Demonstrators at the Connecticut State Capital as electors voted December 19, 2016. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
I’ve just read two different articles that I wish I’d written.
First, in the Washington Post, a great analysis by Erica Chenowith of the power of nonviolent action, with links to excellent primary sources. She lists 10 different ways nonviolent resistance out-accomplishes violent resistance—with examples including the tens of thousands saved by nonviolent resistance to the Nazis. This is a tiny fraction of the total. The brilliant nonviolence historian Gene Sharp listed 193 different nonviolent activist tactics, decades ago. By now, the number is probably much higher.
And second, an essay by Barbara Kingsolver on why we cannot sit back in paralysis, how we have to act. She recognizes that many of us are grieving. More importantly, she recognizes our tendency as liberals, to make our accommodations and be good citizens, just as we were under Reagan and both Bushes.
But, she says, this time is different. We have no obligation to cooperate with a president who:
Trumpets an agenda of repression, completely at odds with the wishes of most Americans (even many who voted for him)
Has no mandate (having lost the popular vote by the largest margin of any “winning” presidential candidate in history)
“We went to bed as voters, and got up as outsiders to the program,” she writes. And provides a nice list of ways we can agitate and organize, even if we see ourselves as polite Boomers who long ago left behind the 1960s-70s politics of the streets.
Personally, I never left the streets behind. But it’s been nice, in recent years to march as often to celebrate victories as to protest injustice. We may not have that luxury very often in the next few years. But that doesn’t mean we crawl into a hole and give up.
Its perhaps fitting that I found both of these stories through Mary Jane Sullivan, whom I met on an activist bus to an organizing conference in 1978, and who was my housemate for my last year and a half in Brooklyn, 1979-80. Like me, she has spent her whole life fomenting positive change. There are millions of Boomers like us, and millions of Millennials like my kids, who still see activism as a key component of our lives.
I have been a fan of your since you took office. However, after following your Facebook link to the Planned Parenthood funding survey, I have to say I felt tricked, deceived, and betrayed.
I’ve used this blog to call out unethical marketing from various companies over the years. And even though you and I share many political views (including a strong commitment to women’s rights)—I have to call you out on this.
The initial question that led to the dead end
I had no problem with the initial one-question survey. But then I opted in to the follow-up questions.
First, as a survey instrument, the questions were useless. Each had only a yes or no option, written in language that showed a clear bias toward one answer. Yes, you’ll be able to prepare a press release that could cite a number like 95 percent of respondents—but it’s meaningless. You’d be laughed off the page, or worse, publicly shamed, by journalists who bother to look at the source data.
Second, after I checked off my answers and tried to submit, my phone took me to a page demanding money. I say demanding rather than asking, because there was no way out except by giving money. My submit button was refused when I left the field blank and refused again when I put in a zero. And when I exited the page without contributing, it tried to post to my Facebook page that I had just contributed to you. I have no way of knowing if my responses were actually counted—but I can tell you I did not appreciate being trapped and manipulated like this.
I don’t have a problem being asked for money at the end of a survey, when it’s my choice whether to give or not. But this felt like a shakedown, quite frankly. It left a very bad taste.
I would find this unacceptable from any politician and any charity. But since you were “the very first member of Congress to put her official daily schedule, personal financial disclosure and federal earmark requests online” and cited by The New York Times for your commitment to transparency, I find this an especially bitter pill.
As a marketer, I am saddened to see you resorting to Trumpian tactics based in dishonesty and lack of transparency. You’re better than this. In Michelle Obama’s famous line, “When they go low, we go high.”
Sincerely,
Shel Horowitz, marketing strategist and copywriter
On Monday, the US Electoral College will be officially deciding whether Donald Trump will be president of the United States.
Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Alexander Hamilton had several reasons for proposing this convoluted structure. Some of them were not so noble, like giving more power to slave states. But one is worth noting: providing a check against the office going to someone unfit to hold it.
And just because that body has never found a winner unfit doesn’t mean it can’t. This time, there are a whole bunch of reasons why it might want to exercise that power. Some of them are about his complex financial empire, some about his personal actions—and some about the questionable integrity of this year’s voting process. Any one of these should be enough to say, “Hey, wait a minute, this is not OK.” Here are ten among many.
His opponent winning the popular vote by an astounding 2,833,224 votes
Trump has been named in at least 169 separate lawsuits—for fraud, antitrust violations, discrimination, and sexual harassment (among other issues). One is especially worth highlighting: A consolidated fraud case (including two class action suits plus one filed by New York State’s Attorney General that Trump settled for $25 million alleged that his Trump University was a scam
This, unfortunately, isn’t even the whole story. I haven’t discussed the ludicrous lack of government experience among his Cabinet picks…his own inexperience in any government position…the consistent lying…the well-documented cheating of vendors…the lease he has with the federal government for his new Washington, DC hotel which bars any government employee…his insistence on remaining Executive Producer of Apprentice, as if running the country were a side hustle…the extremist agenda he has embraced…his refusal to meaningfully condemn the hundreds of hate crimes in the aftermath of the election…and on and on it goes.
I hope the Electors in the Electoral College do their patriotic duty, and (in the words made famous by Nancy Reagan) “just say no.”
I do not condone the violence on either side. But I’m sorry, when you have just elected a president who has given license to bullies and attackers for months, it is time for Trump voters also to say “this is not OK.”
Spectators applaud an LGBT pride march. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
And if DT is really going to take his own “president for all Americans” election-night rhetoric seriously, he needs to issue a far stronger and more convincing demand to stop that behavior than the wimpy few words he reluctantly issued after a CBS reporter asked him directly to rebuke the attackers. And those who voted for DT for reasons that have nothing to do with the subjugation of women, people of color, and non-Christians need to speak out loudly and publicly. Hate crimes of any kind are not OK—and the Right as well as the Left both need to say so.
Trump voters who refuse to speak out and call for cessation of the violence are proving Hillary’s “deplorables” comment. The way to prove her wrong (and I think she is) is to speak out loudly that you, as a Trump voter, will not tolerate violence and threats against racial/religious/sexual minorities and women. That we as a country are better than this. That we can disagree and still be a democracy.
I am putting a safety pin on my coat as a sign that I am someone willing to intervene if I am a witness to a hate crime. I’ve been trained in nonviolence and conflict de-escalation (though it was long ago). If you’ve had some training, think about joining that movement. And if you haven’t, find a way to get that training. Google “nonviolence training” with your city’s or state’s name. And if DT actually implements his proposed Muslim registry, I will be part of a movement to flood that database with non-Muslim registrants so it becomes useless. These are personal risks I am willing to take. We have seen too many times what happens when good people do nothing while others perpetuate evil in their name.
I understand if those actions might be more than you’re willing to do; here’s one that’s totally safe: Sign this petition. Please note in the comments section of THIS that you’ve signed, or better yet, share your own personal letter that you’ve written to Trump.
Two kernels of wisdom to help us all understand what happened on Tuesday.
First, this story in the Boston Globe, “The red state no one saw coming.” A few things worth noting there. First, Hillary’s campaign has only themselves to blame for being complacent, for not shoring up a weak base in states, like Wisconsin, they took for granted.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
When Sanders trounced her by 13 points in the Wisconsin primary, she didn’t see the warning signs. She didn’t see that people were hurt and angry and demanding change. She didn’t bother to campaign in Wisconsin, while Trump visited five times in the past few months. She didn’t even start running ads there until the final week. And a thin wisp of a margin lost her the state. Rinse and repeat in other places, and you see the pattern. The Globe article notes that some Sanders voters switched to Trump, and this pattern (in my very unscientific observation via Facebook and elsewhere) shows up all across the country. Others, of course, stayed home or voted third-party.
Yes, there were those who voted for Trump out of bigotry. But according to Elizabeth Warren, in a powerful post-election speech, more of his voters were voting for economic change. They supported (she claims) the liberal parts of his agenda, such as trade reform, restoring Glass-Steagall (which I don’t remember him supporting), and rebuilding our country’s infrastructure while creating jobs. Undeterred by the lack of specifics and in many cases holding their noses over his character issues, they voted for a Republican with an old-line Democrat domestic agenda and an appeal to the racist populism that propelled the Democratic Party even into the 1960s. The above link takes you to the video. Full transcript: https://www.elizabethwarren.com/blog/president-elect-donald-trump. Watch or read it; there’s much to learn about how we frame this election and where we go from here.
The US election is tomorrow, and I’m hoping for a result that utterly repudiates the racism, misogyny, and general hatred spewing from the mouth and keyboard of Donald Trump. That hope got me thinking about a column that ran in our local paper this summer.
The writer is progressive and I usually agree with him. But when he wrote about his experiences as a counterprotestor at a Trump rally, tossing insults at the attenders with his child in tow, I had a growing sense of unease.
Children from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, D.C. help First Lady Michelle Obama plant the White House Vegetable Garden, April 9, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)
He forgot Michelle Obama’s excellent advice at the Democratic Convention not to stoop to the level of those we oppose.
Yes, it’s very easy to get caught up in a temporary good feeling, hurling insults at Trumpsters and feeling like you’re striking a blow for what’s right and true. But it negates the other side’s humanity. It demeans people. It ignores the phrase popularized by 17th-century Quaker theologian George Fox, “that of God in every [hu]man.”
And it accomplishes the reverse of the desired goal! No one’s mind is changed by being insulted. If anything, when people are belittled, they are more likely to harden their hearts, reinforce their defenses, and stand resolute against what they perceive as the rowdy mob.
Think about the mindset of a Trump supporter encountering a protestor hurling insults. Many of Trump’s supporters are already feeling attacked; that’s why they respond to ideas like building a wall to keep Mexicans out or blocking any Muslim from entering the US. When they get insulted, they’re going to feel even more attacked. Instead of changing their minds, they’re more likely to come away from an encounter with a name-calling protestor feeling more justified in their condemnation of protestors. Instead of being touched at a human level, they wall themselves into the gated communities of a mind that now finds more safety in Trump’s lies and empty threats.
He writes, “what became clear as we shouted back and forth is that there is no common ground whatsoever between Trumpistas and the rest of us.”
But I disagree. When we focus on our differences, on the “otherness” of our “enemy,” we lose sight of what binds us together—yet our commonalities are still there. We all want a word where we feel safe, can earn a decent living, and can raise our children to feel like they matter in this world.
Are there some Trump supporters who are attracted to Trump’s blatant racism and misogyny, the constant lying, incessant bullying and name calling, and all the rest of his hateful message? Of course. But I don’t think it’s anything close to a majority of his voters. He has learned the fine art of framing. Helped by a vitriolic, slanderous 20+ year campaign against his Democratic opponent in right-wing media, he has framed his opponents as crooked and incompetent liars, who are bringing this country down, and he portrays himself as the Messianic savior who can turn the whole thing around, even without clear policy positions—and he’s managed to get enough people to believe this to win the nomination.
Trump is a master of crowd psychology. He speaks to the amygdala, the “reptilian” part of the brain that doesn’t care about facts—and he knows how to work an audience. I’m guessing that he’s probably read many works on manipulating the psyche, including Neurolinguistic Programming. I’m guessing that he has carefully studied the methods the Nazis used to get elected in 1933. This makes his refusal to be bound by facts more understandable. Catch him in a lie and he denies he ever said it, or denies it means what it appears to—because to admit and apologize would pry loose his grip on the minds of his followers. If we mirror his nastiness, we fertilize the field where his metaphorical bacteria can grow. But when we take the high road, we defuse his manipulations with a powerful natural antibiotic: the truth of our common humanity.
Let’s not stoop to Trump’s level. Let’s honor Michelle Obama’s call to take the high road. Rather than call our opponents nasty names, we must win them over to the promise of a better world than Trump can offer: a world that helps them achieve our common universal desires—without stomping on the backs of others.
“When they go low, we go high.” Let’s go really high tomorrow, and show that as a country, we are better than that.
Here in Massachusetts, we get to vote on some interesting referenda.
Lifting the Charter School Cap
UPDATE, OCTOBER 6, 2016: I’ve been convinced in the intervening weeks that this particular charter school vote is not one I can support. I am not convinced of the motives of this bill’s supporters, and I see a greater threat to the public schools in the way this measure is structured. Below is what I’d written on September 18, before I was really aware of the issues with how this referendum is structured. All my other points about the other issue and candidate remain accurate.
One is on lifting the current cap on charter schools. These schools are publicly funded and privately run, funded primarily by a state per-pupil allotment. They range from liberal experiments in educational democracy to corporate-sponsored throwbacks to long-abandoned educational models promoting rote learning and obedience. At the moment, 32,000 Massachusetts students are on waiting lists for charter schools.
Preschool girl with a creative project. Photo by Anissa Thompson.
It’s important to separate whether the charter school experiment is a good thing from the funding formula. Bias disclosure: both of my kids attended charter schools for elementary through high school, so I’m a quadruple alumni parent. It’s also worth pointing out that my wife and I both attended the same New York City high school for gifted children. This was a public school, but in many ways the experience was closer to an academic-achievement-oriented charter school in today’s world.
The switch came for us when the public school second grade teacher insisted on teaching reading by lowest common denominator. Our daughter, who had always loved school through preschool, kindergarten, and first grade, very quickly started hating it. She didn’t want to sit through whole-class reading lessons using a book with two words on each page, paced to the slowest kids in the class–and the school administration was not responsive. We moved her to Hilltown Cooperative Charter Public School, an arts-based school that emphasizes love of learning through multiple modalities–and she thrived there.
We worried that my son, five years younger than my daughter, could have been a bullying victim in the traditional public school, as I was. He was a sensitive, feminine, non-sports-playing classical musician, avid reader, and a member of a tiny ethnic minority in our town. And our town’s school culture is heavily focused on sports. But he did well in the zero-bullying-allowed culture at Hilltown. Both of my kids went on to thrive in the performing arts charter high school they attended afterward (which was, incidentally, much more ethnically and racially diverse than our town public school). My son drew on that training to attend a major music conservatory for both his undergrad and graduate studies.
Hilltown also did its best to follow its mission and be a lab school for new educational methods, which it was eager to share with other area schools. However, the school’s outreach efforts were rebuffed over and over again. My wife was on the board for a while, and she told me how almost every outreach gesture was brushed away by the local traditional public schools.
I vote an enthusiastic yes for the idea of charter schools–but the funding formula borders on criminal IMHO. Removing resources from the traditional public schools just adds to the spiral of despair, increases bureaucracy, denies resources to kids who are in many cases already begging for more, and cuts off real learning.
Yet I will vote for more charter schools–because they were there for my kids when traditional public schools failed them–but reluctantly, because I think the funding formula strikes a blow against public schools with every student who leaves. And whether or not the vote passes, I think we charter school supporters have to be part of fixing that rotten funding formula. And as a vote to give a few of those 32,000 waitlisted students the same opportunities my children enjoyed.
Recreational Marijuana
I will also vote, reluctantly, for pot legalization, though I don’t like the way the industry is moving. I see it becoming another outpost that extracts money from the poor, uses questionable marketing tactics, and encourages people to detach from reality rather than step up to the plate and work for change. It’s also likely to concentrate clout in the hands of a few big players, squeezing out any mom-and-pop businesses. And I worry about fostering a culture of chemical dependence, and of course I worry about problems when people drive while stoned.
However, we already have all of that, with alcohol. And pot is actually a much more socially benign form of blocking the real world than alcohol. Pot smokers don’t get aggressive or violent, and don’t drive nearly as dangerously, as drunks. And criminalizing this behavior causes deep and lasting damage. It:
Ruins the lives of people who are using a much milder drug than many legal ones
Diverts scarce law enforcement and criminal justice resources away from crimes that actually hurt people
Causes a tremendous financial burden to taxpayers (it’s not cheap to keep someone in jail for several years) and contributes to prison overcrowding
Jacks up prices to levels that may lead to property crime
Once again, I’m voting for the lesser of evils. Criminalization is a failed solution.
The Presidential Race
And yes, dammit, I will vote reluctantly for a deeply flawed Democratic presidential candidate who in many other years might not get my vote, even though I live in a “safe” state where I could vote third-party, and have voted for independent candidates in the past.
I want such an overwhelming margin of defeat for Trump’s agenda of racism bullying, misogyny, lying, cheating his suppliers, suppression of the media, egomania, etc. that he never shows his face in politics again. Let’s compare Clinton and Trump:
She is far too likely to get us into another war. He would make us a puppet of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Her support of Israel’s ultra-right government is troubling. His support of anti-Arab and anti-black and anti-Latino positions is equally troubling. And his consistent egging his supporters on toward physical violence against dissenters is straight out of the Nazi playbook.
She has a history of standing up for the rights of women and children. He embraces racial stereotyping and stands up only for the rights of his own various business enterprises—including the “right” to cheat vendors and lenders out of legitimate payment.
She’s uncomfortable with the press. He actually bans reporters from media outlets he doesn’t like.
She embraces secrecy in ways that make me deeply uncomfortable. He says the first thing that comes into his mind, regardless of the implications–but is the first major party candidate in decades to refuse to release his tax returns, which makes me wonder what he’s hiding.
I could go on and on. If you want more, start with longtime political observer Adolph Reed’s article, Vote for the Lying Neoliberal Warmonger: It’s Important. And to those on the Left who say a Trump presidency would revitalize the opposition, I would respond that repression doesn’t often create a climate of change. For every success like the freedom struggles in South Africa and India, there are many more like Prague Spring being crushed by the Russians–where the hopes and reams of the people are squashed like bugs. We didn’t see a popular uprising during Reagan’s or even George W. Bush’s presidency; why would we suddenly see one under Trump and his suppression of the press?
In other words, I find myself facing the lesser-of-evils in three different votes on my November ballot. And while I can’t say I’m OK with it, I find voting for the lesser evil better than the non-action that triggers the greater evil. Better still: taking action to get voting reforms so we no longer need to vote lesser-evil.
Regardless of where they fall on the liberal-conservative spectrum, many of my friends face a choice between a candidate they find deeply flawed and one they find completely unacceptable. They differ on which candidate they will vote for with gritted teeth and a hope for a better future vs. the one they see must be stopped at all costs—but fundamentally, it’s the same question. And I know plenty who find neither candidate acceptable and will either vote third-party or skip that line on the ballot.
The US presidential election has become a shambles. As a country, we deserve better.
And we can get better! Proof is as close as this coming Tuesday’s primary election in my own Hampshire County, Massachusetts.
One district over from me, much-loved State Representative Ellen Story is giving up the seat she was first elected to in 1992. Six candidates are on the ballot to replace her, and all six bring impressive credentials, endorsements, and a track record of community service. Ellen herself has no major enemies—pretty remarkable in 24 years in state politics, especially in a fractious town where even Town Meeting takes two weeks. In my town, we do Town Meeting in one night, twice a year.
I’ve listed a few simple reforms in bold, below. Adopting them throughout the US would go a long way toward reclaiming our democracy.
Reform #1: IRV The state rep election is a perfect case study of why we need ranked voting (a/k/a Instant Runoff voting). You name your first choice, and if your candidate is eliminated, your vote goes to your second choice. If that candidate is eliminated, the vote goes to your third choice, and so on down the line until there’s a clear victor. We need this locally, and we need it nationally. Several other countries use it, as do a few cities in the US. For the first time in a US national election, people would be able to vote their consciences without feeling they were throwing their support to the worst candidate if they picked someone unlikely to win.
I don’t vote in that election, but I’ll be happy with whoever wins. And I do get to vote in two county-wide races. I consider two of the three candidates for Sheriff highly qualified, as are both of the candidates for Governor’s Council (an obscure Massachusetts office that helps select judges). I’m voting for Melissa Perry and Jeff Morneau, but I don’t think I’ll be badly served as a voter if my first choices don’t win.
The Key Difference Between Local and National Elections
Reform #2: Undo Citizens United and Change the Way We Finance Campaigns
Why did these races draw so many strong candidates while at the national level, we have to scratch our heads and hold our noses?
I believe we can sum up the answer in just two words: CAMPAIGN FINANCE. These local campaigns are cheap to run and use little paid advertising. So the candidates are not beholden to any special interest.
On the national level, campaigns cost billions and special interests hold major sway over the candidates they fund. It’s not a coincidence that the only candidate who was able to galvanize progressives was also the only candidate to fund his candidacy through direct populist appeal to small individual donors. Nobody thought a year ago that Bernie Sanders would be any kind of serious candidate. Yet he won numerous primaries and—for the first time in decades—proved that you can run a national campaign without becoming a puppet of your funders. As the devastating effects of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowing essentially unlimited corporate money to flow to campaigns become palpable, this is key for the future direction of American politics.
Reform #3: Hand-Countable Paper Ballots We will never know who really won the US presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. In both cases, the decision hung on a single state, and in both states, the outcome was highly suspect. These are only the most dramatic among many elections that were very close. In far too many, the use of electronic voting machines without paper ballots means there’s no way to tell if the votes were counted accurately. This is simply unacceptable. Electronic voting machines and regional tabulation machines are far too easy for a hacker to flip—or to simply go out of alignment and count votes for people the voter didn’t vote for. The law should mandate that an electronic total is preliminary, and that election officials will hand-count within the week if the margin of victory is narrow or if there are any reports of irregularities. And those ballots should be properly archived so they can be checked later if accusations surface on the basis of new information.
Reform #5: Eliminate Winner-Take-All Electoral College Nebraska and Maine have been apportioning electoral votes by who wins each Congressional District. Why are the other 48 states still using the weird 18th-century throwback of giving all electoral votes to the person with the most? This disenfranchises any of us who live in a “safe” state. Our vote doesn’t really count unless we live in a swing state. Isn’t that crazy?
Left and Right can agree on these and a few other reforms. Let’s join forces and get this done.
