This jockey can win no matter which horse finishes first

Article

Why Steve Bannon Might be the Winner of the GOP's Health Care Civil War

Summary

Gabriel Sherman writing in New York magazine says Steve Bannon has positioned himself so that Pres. Trump, and to greater extent,  Paul Ryan and Congress will shoulder the blame if the American Health Care Act fails.

Quote

"The failure to repeal and replace Obamacare would be a stinging defeat for Trump. But it would be an even bigger defeat for Paul Ryan, who has all but staked his Speakership on passing this bill. And in the hall of mirrors that is Washington, the big winner to emerge out of the health-care debacle could be Steve Bannon. That’s because Bannon has been waging war against Ryan for years. For Bannon, Ryan is the embodiment of the “globalist-corporatist” Republican elite. A failed bill would be Bannon’s best chance yet to topple Ryan and advance his nationalist-populist economic agenda."

Understanding

Powerful people encounter at least two compelling priorities -

1. How do I use my position to do what is right?
2. How do I preserve my power? 

How powerful people work through those internal questions can lead to great good or great corruption.

Mr. Bannon's alleged goal of deconstructing the administrative state gains some juice if the AHCA fails. Bannon's agenda might gain even more momentum if the AHCA passes and disappoints. That scenario could strengthen the argument of the Freedom Caucus that government has little or no business in health care and entitlements are an archaic vestige of the Deep State.

We might be wise to review Machiavelli's The Prince or look carefully at how Thomas Cromwell maneuvers in Hillary Mantel's historical novels on the court of Henry VIII. The forces of power are at play in the public strong-arm tactics of Pres. Trump and in the shadows where men new to power privately whisper and smirk.

Stop it

Article

Trump's warning on illegal immigrants proves grimly prophetic

Summary

Sean Hannity focuses on some recent crimes and his own experience to make a case for Pres. Trump's immigration policy.

Quote

"President Trump is right: We can never forget those whose lives were destroyed by illegal immigrants. And we need to demand a secure border and an end to local policies that allow illegal immigrant criminals to prey on innocent Americans."

Understanding

Hannity cites unattributed statistics to make his case, so I wanted to see what other data might indicate -

1. A NY Times article from March 6, 2017, "Here’s the Reality About Illegal Immigrants in the United States" references Migration Policy Institute estimates that about 300,000 of the 11 million undocumented residents of the United States have committed a felony in the past decade.
2. The FBI's annual report "Crime in the United States" estimates there were 1,197,704 violent crimes committed in 2015
3. In 2015, CNN cited findings from a Mother Jones article that assembled data on mass shootings the U.S. since 1982. The racial profile of the mass shooters was -

• 64% white men
• 16% black men
• 9% Asian men
• 11% Latino, Native American or unknown

About 300,000 felonies in the last decade compared to over a million violent crimes in one year. Nearly two-thirds of the mass shootings in the U.S. by white men versus an indistinguishable amount attributed to Latinos.

Hannity's priority is hard to justify or defend. I can only guess his personal motives but I won't since I don't know him. His public persona has the style of a bully and the conventional wisdom is that bullys are insecure, frustrated and hurt. Some bully because they are copying behavior of people they admire.

That potential for copycat behavior is frightening. Hannity copies Trump. How many will copy Hannity? Empathy is not part of the solution here. This behavior needs to stop.

Flunking out but not giving up

Article

The Alt-Right is What Happens when Society Marginalizes Men

Summary

Owen Strachan says stereotyping alt-right males as childish, vicious losers avoids facing the plight of contemporary men as an  important social concern. He says young men are "angry, flailing and dangerously volatile." He warns that dismissing their perspective is foolish and dangerous.

Quote

"It leaves you susceptible to groundswells that sweep over a culture seemingly without warning—the Tea Party, Brexit, Trump. Many folks on the progressive side assume that because they have won the college campus and now dominate the urban centers of power that the cultural game is over."

"But what looks like a fortress-grade progressive order is really an unstable element, as we have seen several times over. The ideological insurgency will never have Ivy League degrees to award, coveted Beltway bylines to dole out, or global-power conference invites to issue. But the insurgency is finding its audience, and the audience is destabilizing and even remaking the public-square, and all without central coordination or control of leading cultural institutions."

Understanding

It's finals week at my college, so here is a response to this content as a multiple-choice question -

1. Oh see how alt-right apologists are trying to normalize their behavior and create sympathy for these victims of political correctness
2. Why yes young men are falling behind and we should try to help them rather than  judge them by the most extreme behavior of their tribe
3. The fundamental problem is gender stereotyping that prescribes roles and norms which limit how men and women can freely express ourselves 
4. All of the above

I choose #4 which leads to no immediate solution other than treading warily, yet optimistically, forward looking for opportunities to connect and reconcile.

Looking past the fear

Article

Watch Out Conservatives: Natural Disasters Can Create Opportunities for Dictators

(Thanks to Will Sommer and Right Richter for this reference.)

Summary

Rachel Alexander writing in Townhall warns that the eminent earthquake in the Pacific Northwest could lead to dictatorial rule.

Quote

"If the wrong person becomes president of the U.S., a natural disaster could allow them to seize dictatorial control. Although President Trump is a strong leader who promotes freedom and democracy, the left is doing everything it can to oust him. The left has a recent track record of taking leaders out using sham legal witch hunts. This is the easiest way they may take Trump out."

Understanding

Alexander cites a list of fears in this article -

1. Natural disasters
2. Left-wing conspiracies
3. Thwarting Pres. Trump's power
4. Secular persecution of Christians

Passion,  whether it is righteous or paranoid, can engulf reason and coherence. Wisdom comes with time, patience and a willingness to see past the initial outrage to understand how and why someone cares so deeply about something that seems so strange.

States rights after all?

Article

A Blue State Secession Model I Can Get Behind

Summary

The National Review columnist points out that Kevin Baker's essay in The New Republic supporting blue states like California, Oregon and Washington seceding from the union makes liberals sound like constitutional conservatives.

Quote

"After all, did the Founders envision a federal administrative mega-bureaucracy that stripped virtually every major social policy from the states, often leaving them marginal players (compared with the feds) in their own citizens’ welfare?" 

Understanding

Federalism is the political system where central and regional governments share power equally. Conservatives argue that the United States skews the balance to favor Washington D.C.

The irony of liberals now wanting less federal interference is worth noting. The National Review columnist suggests this ideological agreement could lead to bipartisan collaboration if we could just stop being angry.

I have a hard time swallowing that proposal because I can't get over how the "states rights" argument was used against the civil rights movement. So here I am stuck in the past, fighting and old battle and not forgiving.

It's just that I worry it's not an old battle. The struggle continues and my fears keep me from the common table where I could talk to conservatives about his issue. Huh. That sounds familiar too.

Building on a shared moral foundation

Article

Socialism's Rising Popularity Threatens America's Future

Summary

We should feel alarmed that a survey by the American Faith and Culture Institute (AFCI) found that 40% of the adults in its study prefer socialism to capitalism. The article's author blames education where, he says, "The benefits of socialism are taught from the Ivy League to the local community college."

Of particular concern to the survey researcher and the article author is that 70% of the survey respondents who identified as liberal reported they support traditional values. The researcher warns, "liberals may redefine 'traditional moral values' to include beliefs and behaviors that are not at all traditional or moral from a biblical perspective."

Quote

"Conservative and traditionally minded Americans can no longer assume that their neighbor believes what they believe or that he defines the terms of political discourse the same way. The country has changed."

Understanding

The AFCI uses a 15-pont checklist of belief statements to categorize people into those who view the world with a biblical perspective versus those who do not.

My summary of the list is that being on the AFCI team means worshiping the literal text of a document composed within the particular cultural constructs of the eastern Mediterranean between 1,500 BC and 200 AD and curated by religious, male elites in church councils during the fourth and fifth centuries of the current era.

People, liberal or conservative, seek a coherent system to guide how we live in society. Conservatives tend to prefer relying on concrete, time-tested principles.  Liberals tend to prefer applying their values to an interpretation of a particular situation.

While the strategies differ, we can share a moral foundation. The contradictions in our approaches don't have to make us afraid to talk to each other about our differences since, at the root we share so much in common.

Shared wickedness

Article

How To Be A ‘Woke’ White Person: Join The Alt-Right

Summary

The author criticizes white liberals who engage in the racial political debate for the purpose of signaling their own virtue as a weapon to take away moral authority from some people.

Quote

"The result was that rejection of racism, instead of becoming a universal creed above partisan bickering, got reduced to a narrow partisan cudgel, a way of beating up people who disagree with you and making you feel good about yourself by comparison."

"But now it has gotten out of control, and blacks and other minorities have started to realize the extent to which they were being used as a tool of somebody else’s self-validation."

"The Left has embraced a racial politics that doesn’t seek to gather people together in a common cause, but instead seeks to divide them into separate groups in a never-ending ritual of power struggles. They had better be careful what they wish for, because at the rate they’re going, they just might get it—and smash everything to pieces."

Understanding

Blaming the Left for turning racial politics into "a narrow partisan cudgel" doesn't gather us together in common cause. The rhetoric of this argument contributes to our divisions. The final sentence even evokes mob violence as the threatening outcome of the Left's agenda.

Manufacturing and focusing on bogeymen will not resolve our racial divisions. Both the Left and Right ends of the political spectrum are guilty of stereotyping and name-calling. Acknowledging that we share those sins in common might help bring us together.