Trump's Immigration Ban Is a Perfect Storm of Wrongs

Life is often a minefield of quandaries. Fidelity to principle is pitted against the needs of the moment. Legal and procedural correctness clash with spiritual concerns. It is rare for these various gauges of right and wrong to output the same reading, but President Trump’s executive order on immigration is that unicorn of error, wrong in just about every way imaginable.

Legally Wrong

Trump’s order suspends immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the U.S. by citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days and entry by Syrian refugees indefinitely. As Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) and Cato Institute analyst David Bier have noted, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished the old quota system, effectively banned discrimination against immigrants on the basis of national origin. Trump’s order is therefore illegal.

Logically Wrong

The order’s defenders have likened Trump’s ban to the Obama administration’s delay in issuing visas to Iraqi nationals in 2011. This is, of course, a fallacious comparison. Obama’s State Department slowed down processing in response to a concern that two individuals were improperly screened. At no time was a ban enacted.

However, a faulty analogy is hardly the only logical sin committed. In instituting the immigration ban, Trump gave his rationale as “protect[ing] American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States.” Yet as per a Wall Street Journal study, of the 180 people charged or implicated in jihadist terror plots since 2001, only 11 hailed from the seven countries affected by the ban. In other words, the solution is largely unrelated to the problem it portends to solve. We English professors – and, almost anyone who’s taken a freshman composition course, really – have a term for this kind of dissociative nonsense: non-sequitur. It does not follow.

Ethically Wrong

Interestingly, the immigration ban omits countries whose nationals have been implicated in terror plots but who are partner to some of Trump’s business ventures. Trump as ethically conflicted is old hat, nor is he unique among politicians in that regard. But Trump prioritizing his self-interest at the possible (albeit by no means certain) expense of national security while simultaneously claiming to champion it is, at least until the next atrocity manifests itself, a new low.

Morally Wrong

The callousness of turning away those seeking refuge from war and conflict (despite the existence of a rigorous vetting system) speaks for itself. However, beyond merely shutting the door on Syrian refugees and freezing the issuance of new visas from the aforementioned countries going forward, Trump’s order also affects existing visa and green card holders. By revoking previously granted permission to enter, Trump has, improbably, turned the U.S. government into more of a liar than it already is.

Beyond that, the order has had the deleterious effects of separating children from parents, betraying Iraqis who assisted U.S. armed forces, and endangering the safety of foreign nationals who defied their governments by championing democratic values.

As America’s character has long been shaped by the contributions of immigrants, Trump’s order is at odds with the country’s civic values. It also violates the moral values (of compassion, of kindness to strangers) of the faith that Trump and many Americans – including many of his supporters – claim to practice.

Politically Wrong

Even by that most disfavored of measures – political expediency – Trump’s order is a false move. While it has had the short-term effect of appeasing the nativist element within Trump’s base, it risks shrinking that base. Moreover, it may prompt more Republicans who see themselves as vulnerable in 2018 congressional elections to distance themselves from the president as some already have. Lastly, it leaves those Republicans who have not spoken out (on legal and procedural grounds if nothing else) with no leg to stand on should future Democratic presidents roll out broad, sweeping executive orders of their own.

Despite a long history of abuses in its name, national security rightfully remains a priority that any president should take seriously. But Trump’s executive order – illegal, illogical, impractical, and immoral – is about as far from an ideal solution as one can conceive of.

What Just Happened: An Election in Five Theories

Disclaimer: I did not vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

The U.S. presidential election has come and gone, and after witnessing days of hair-tearing and hand-wringing from some and schadenfreude and victory yelps from others, the only certainty is that there is no certainty. Everyone has his or her own pet theory about the outcome, ranging from aware to solipsistic, credible to conspiratorial. Here are but a few of them:

1. The Conventional Wisdom: People Wanted Change

The Theory: This view holds that every decade or so, voters tire of the status quo and seek to take the country in a new direction. As a particular party’s successful candidate becomes more of a known quantity, the benefit of a doubt recedes and best hopes are replaced by more realistic (if not outright pessimistic) expectations. And as the president lives under constant scrutiny, one who wins reelection has eight years to make mistakes and bad decisions, become embroiled in scandal, or simply wear voters out. Thus – excepting diehard partisans – voters who backed one party’s candidate in a given election may find more reasons to go a different way eight years later.

Analysis: My father is an advocate of the idea that the country’s political inclinations are like a pendulum in constant motion, gradually swinging one way for several years before reversing course and swinging the other. Given all the shenanigans in the run-up to Decision 2016, this explanation seems almost too simple to be true, but the last sixteen years indicate that it very well may be. In 2000, Al Gore lost states that Bill Clinton had won in 1996, thus ending eight years of a Democrat in the White House. But even though voters returned George W. Bush in 2004, by 2006, they had tired of Republicans enough to vote in Democratic majorities in the House and Senate before putting a Democrat back in the White House in 2008. Obama, in 2008, won several states in the West and South that went for Bush four years prior. Though voters reelected him in 2012, in 2014, they gave Republicans control of the Senate to complement a stronger Republican grip on the House. Based on these trends, what happened this past Tuesday shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise.

2a. Personality Power: Hillary Clinton Is Especially Terrible

The Theory: This view holds that Hillary Clinton, despite her political longevity and experience, lost the election because she was a uniquely horrible choice. Factor out sexist voters who wouldn’t support a woman regardless or partisans who wouldn’t vote for a Democrat if a gun was held to their heads, and Clinton still leaves plenty to hate. For some, it is the scandal-ridden Clinton brand and all its attendant baggage. For others, it is Clinton’s personality and character or perceived lack therefor. For others still, it is her conduct: the e-mail fiasco, the “stolen” Democratic primary, etc. And some oppose her strictly on policy grounds, be it criticism from the left (war hawkishness, chumminess with Wall Street, NAFTA support) or right (enthusiasm for gun control and Obamacare). Given such an odious option, voters who previously supported Obama and would have supported Sanders swung to Trump or stayed home.

Analysis: It’s hardly revelatory to suggest that Clinton was a flawed and controversial candidate and for many, a bad option. But it is naïve to suggest that she was a uniquely bad option. Disappearing e-mails were a feature of the Bush administration as well, and Trump stands accused of deleting several pertaining to a lawsuit he was facing, in defiance of a court order. In a sea of crooks (some larger, some smaller), “Crooked Hillary” is just another fish. Besides, even if one assumes the worst about her, this isn’t necessarily a reason why so many voters turned out for Trump. After all, in 1991 voters were given a choice for governor that came down to a corrupt Democratic establishment figure (Edwin Edwards) and a white nationalist outsider (David Duke). They voted for the crook, not the racist.

2b. Personality Power: Donald Trump Is Exceptionally Great

The Theory: This theory holds that Trump won out because unlike both Clinton and his primary challengers, he is not a politician. He is a successful, charismatic businessman, and as a Washington outsider, a good choice for shaking up the established order.

Analysis: This theory does not hold up to rational scrutiny. Though he may have name recognition, Trump is not a particularly successful businessman as his six bankrupt hotels and casinos attest. In terms of character, Trump possesses many of Clinton’s negatives (dishonesty, opportunism) to an even greater degree than Clinton herself, something that was painfully apparent to anyone who watched even one of the debates. Granted, Trump’s “outsider” status probably did appeal to some voters, but the idea that he won simply because he wasn’t “from Washington” and in spite of his many, many flaws treats the entire electorate as a single-issue constituency.

3. The Whitelash: Trump Drew Bigots to the Polls

The Theory: This idea holds that Trump exploited the fears and prejudices of disillusioned working-class white Americans by scapegoating Mexicans, Muslims, and others who aren’t like them. His rhetoric, under the guise of addressing problems head-on and breaking the shackles of political correctness, empowered bigots, driving them to the polls in a determined effort to “take the country back” while they still could.

Analysis: There are undoubtedly bigots among Trump supporters. His candidacy enjoyed open support from white nationalists that he was slow to repudiate, and in the days following his election, numerous accounts have been shared of harassment and intimidation aimed at minorities. But 60 million people voted for Trump, and it is a mistake to assume that all, or even most of them, share that mentality. After all, Trump himself is a socially tolerant (his opposition to abortion being skin-deep and politically expedient) New Yorker with a Jewish son-in-law and an immigrant wife. And despite the appeals to white identity politics, he received more votes from black and Hispanic voters than Mitt Romney did in 2012 and an endorsement from civil rights elder statesman Charles Evers. Furthermore, taking the view that Trump supporters, if not bigots, were at least “comfortable” with bigotry implies Obama supporters to be comfortable with drone strike assassinations and those who backed Bill Clinton to be comfortable with perjury and sexual misconduct. Lastly, this theory conveniently grants some leftists political cover for their own bigotry: witness the vitriolic (and, sadly, unironic) attacks on whites – and white women, in particular – for supporting that bigot, Trump.

4. The Silent Majority: Trump Addressed Issues That No One Else Did

The Theory: In this view, Trump spoke for disillusioned working-class Americans who felt betrayed by NAFTA, were worried about the security of their country, and were tired of being told to check their privilege when all they saw was a lack of it.

Analysis: This theory is decidedly more plausible for several reasons. First, it presumes a certain degree of economic illiteracy, specifically regarding the benefits of free trade. Inasmuch as Trump picked up a lot of support from non-college educated voters, that isn’t that much of a stretch. Second, it doesn’t assume that voters saw Trump as an ideal candidate but rather as a vehicle for bringing their concerns to the table. They were voting for the message, not the man. Third, though there are substantial differences between them, Bernie Sanders struck a few similar chords, embodied the same anti-establishmentarianism, and drew a lot of Democratic support. “The system is broken/people are getting screwed” may not seem like much of substance to run on, but this appears to have been a message that resonated.

5. The Bubble Theory: Voters Immunized Themselves to Competing Worldviews

The Theory: This theory holds that voters tend to huddle around their ideological compatriots. To Clinton voters, who turned to mainstream media (a deeply problematic term that I’ll stick with here for the sake of convenience) and left-of-center commentators for information, Clinton was a clear frontrunner and Trump stood no chance. To Trump voters, who obtained information from Brietbart, the alt-right media, and Wikileaks, Clinton never stood a chance. The latter bubbles happened to be larger than those in the former realized.

Analysis: There is quite a bit of support for this theory as well. For all of his significant shortcomings, Trump proved to be a masterful self-promoter, and he played the mainstream media with ease. Every time he said something ignorant, untrue, or outrageous, the media would report it, which he and his cheerleaders like the Brietbart crowd would spin as evidence of media bias, which in turn energized his base. The mainstream media also empowered him by exercising poor editorial judgement. There is a journalistic obligation to speak truth to power, yes, but when you run a spread listing all the people Trump has insulted while simultaneously allowing the Clinton campaign to influence how she is covered, you’ve ceded the ethical high ground. Moreover, the occupants of both bubbles failed to exercise critical thinking. If those in the Trump bubble can be castigated for soaking up alt-right conspiracies aimed at destroying Clinton (of which there are many, of varying degrees of inanity), then those in the Clinton bubble can be similarly called to task for their willingness to readily believe things (like Trump supposedly mocking veterans with PTSD) that, in context, turned out not to be true. Through this lens, the 2016 election in some way mirrors the 1972 election where New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael infamously remarked that she only knew one person who voted for Richard Nixon. Those who didn’t see Trump coming are her ideological offspring.

As noted, it is hard to pinpoint any one reason why the election turned out the way that it did but rather there was a confluence of factors at play. If you are among those displeased with the outcome, you can look to those factors and hopefully learn from them. Recent history says that control of Congress will change no later than 2020 and the presidency no later than 2024, but do you really want to wait that long?

Unsettled Dust: Barack Obama and Presidential Legacies

Perhaps it’s a testament to how badly their successors have bungled things, but the past few American presidents have enjoyed some serious image upgrades after leaving office. Richard Nixon, the jowly Watergate-tainted hippy hater, was later recognized by no less than Noam Chomsky as “the last liberal president.” Ronald Reagan went from being denounced by opponents as the Great Prevaricator and the Teflon President to someone whom Democrats berate Republicans for not being more like. Bill Clinton, once viewed with scorn as a cancer upon the White House, was later praised by the likes of conservative media icons David Horowitz (Front Page Magazine) and Christopher Ruddy (NewsMax) for his centrist domestic and economic policies. Even George W. Bush, derided as everything from an ineloquent buffoon to a war criminal, is now being credited by former critics for his compassionate approach to immigration.

            It is highly likely that Barack Obama will enjoy a similar reappraisal after leaving office. Of course, there are those who believe that no such reappraisal is necessary and that Obama has acquitted himself well during his time in the White House, but the rest of us, troubled by everything from drone strike assassinations to the botched implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the swirl of lies that preceded it to multiple attempts at executive overreach and end-runs around Congress, are going to take some convincing.

Still, it would take either a profoundly unimaginative mind or a troubling degree of irrational rage not to envision Obama’s eventual legacy in a better light, no matter how grim one’s present perception. With that in mind, here are the five things that we will likely come to appreciate about our 44^th president.

He was temperamentally well-suited for the office.

Even before he took office, Obama had garnered a well-deserved reputation as a compelling and inspirational speaker. This is a point that his critics often concede, usually with a disclaimer that his style masks a lack of substance, that he should not be trusted precisely because he can nail a speech. However, faulting a president for talking a good game is nothing if not myopic. After all, Reagan’s ability to inspire and uplift through speech craft was at the crux of his appeal. He did not single-handedly fix America’s economy or win the Cold War, but he made many Americans believe these things were possible. Similarly, regardless of its substance, “Yes We Can” worked to energize the electorate and invite hope.

Like his ability to speechify, Obama’s calm affability is both widely noted and curiously polarizing: the unflappability of “No Drama” Obama is sometimes taken for apathetic detachment, the sign of one too aloof and disengaged to lead. This too is an oddly selective criticism, especially when considering the antithesis. Lyndon Johnson threatened, cajoled, intimidated (and, reportedly, exposed himself to) others to get things done, but he left office highly unpopular, and the Democratic coalition that he tried to keep together through force of personality splintered and collapsed by 1968. Obama’s comparatively easygoing nature has not only allowed him to avoid inspiring personal (political is another matter) acrimony a la the temperamentally unsuited Johnson and Nixon but has enabled him to win the respect of political adversaries like arch-conservative former Sen. Tom Coburn. It is reasonable to demand that a president do more than talk and play nice, but thirst for the former should not blind us to the value of the latter.

He was the least crooked president in more than twenty years

Obama’s presidency has been far from scandal-free. As mentioned previously, he lied to the American people about the Affordable Care Act, and the conduct of those in his administration was considerably worse. During his presidency, the IRS also inappropriately targeted conservative groups, the fallout from the ATF’s “gunwalking” operations resulted in an (admittedly partisan) contempt charge for then-Attorney General Eric Holder, and then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s now-infamous mishandling of e-mails reeks of incompetence if not also impropriety.

Thanks to his predecessors lowering the ethical bar, however, the scandals of Obama pale in comparison to the scandals of those who occupied the Oval Office before him. Mishandled e-mails and the inappropriate use of an executive branch entity (the Justice Department instead of the IRS) to target political opponents were both featured during George W. Bush’s presidency as well, and his administration added manipulation of intelligence and an appalling defense of torture to the mix. When Bill Clinton wasn’t busy perjuring himself regarding his affair with a White House intern, his administration engaged in dubious fundraising and the pardoning of campaign contributors. Go back further and you’ll find administrations that sold weapons to America’s enemies (Reagan), partook in illegal wiretapping and breaking and entering (Nixon), and were the fruits of vote fraud and organized crime “assistance” (Kennedy).  That Obama, a product of notoriously corrupt Chicago, would preside over an administration that was, relatively speaker, cleaner than those of several of his predecessors is quasi-miraculous. That it will likely be cleaner than that of his successor is depressing.

He got bin Ladin

It is patently preposterous to personally credit Obama with the successful takedown of Osama bin Laden, but doing so would be in keeping with a longstanding tradition of recognizing presidents for things in which they had no direct hand. Thus, if we are to acknowledge that SEAL Team Six deserves the plaudits for doing in the erstwhile al Qaeda leader, then we must also acknowledge that Bush had relatively little to do with toppling Saddam Hussein (“Mission Accomplished” iconography to the contrary), and that Reagan did not bring the Soviet Union to its knees. Inasmuch as we are going to continue to reward presidents for the victories that happened to occur on their watch, however, Obama deserves credit here.

He’s leaving us with a better economy than what he inherited

In 2009, a Time magazine cover depicted a fedora-wearing Obama cruising in a 1930s roadster, a classic Franklin Delano Roosevelt pose. For Obama’s supporters and opponents alike, the parallels are obvious. Obamaphiles hoped that the 44^th president would mimic the 32^nd president by taking bold executive action upon entering office while Obama skeptics dreaded the same. Like Obama, FDR inherited a bleak economic situation. His response, the New Deal, ruffled a lot of feathers, but it did not actually end the Great Depression. Similarly, within his first 100 days in office, Obama championed and signed a stimulus act that cost $831 billion yet did not have the short-term impact on unemployment that was promised.

However, while Obama was not the economic savoir that some supporters hoped for, he was also not the radical socialist despot that his detractors made him out to be. While it may take years for the impact of the Affordable Care Act to be fully realized and while the debt to GDP ratio continues to grow at an alarming rate, several other indicators show an economy that is healthier now than it was eight years ago. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate is down from 7.8 percent in January 2009 to about 5 percent now. According to the Office of Management and Budget, federal spending deficits, which jumped from $458 million in 2008 to $1.4 trillion in 2009 in the thick of the recession, are back down to an estimated $615 million, still depressingly high but nevertheless trending in the right direction.

Of course, the earlier point about crediting presidents with things not of their making still holds – presidents don’t “run” the economy and cannot be expected to singlehandedly “fix” it – but again, precedent shows that legacy is largely a product of happenstance. In 1980, Reagan famously asked voters if they were better off than they were four years ago. The answer, for many, was no. That their discontent was arguably a product of a global energy crisis that had its roots in the Middle East did nothing to absolve incumbent Jimmy Carter of his perceived failings. Were we to put that question to voters today, the answer for many would be yes: unemployment is down, and gas is cheaper. How much of that is actually the president’s doing is as immaterial now as it was 36 years ago.

  He brought U.S.-Cuba relations into the 21^st century

One area where Obama did have a more active hand was in the Cuban Thaw: a series of diplomatic maneuvers that included a relaxation of travel restrictions and the normalization of relations between the two countries. Critics were quick to blast this move as appeasement of a dictatorial regime. However, this ignores the fact that the sanctions that were in place for more than half a century not only failed to topple said regime but actively aided it as a propaganda tool. As Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) noted, allowing Americans to travel abroad is an expression of freedom for Americans, easing restrictions on trade and remittances has improved life for Cubans, and since the thaw began, the island’s private sector has grown considerably. Obama may have failed in his quest to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, but he deserves credit for breaking with outmoded Cold War thinking and pursuing positive change that benefits both countries.

            From the time he emerged on the national political scene, Obama has been subject to a slew of ridiculously conspiratorial innuendos and smears. He has been denounced as everything from a Kenyan-born secret Muslim to an anti-white racist to faith-hating atheist, and his administration has been accused of conspiring to confiscate guns from citizens and imprison them in FEMA-run concentration camps. These ludicrous assertions detract from the Obama administration’s very real failings: a president willing to overstep the boundaries of his office when it suited him, an executive branch that has appeared at various times incompetent or dishonest, and a signature healthcare law that is looking worse every day.

            Despite these shortcomings, Obama is likely to be missed in some ways, even by those who once held him and his presidency in the lowest esteem. We’ve already seen this from rightwing media star Glenn Beck, who recently lamented his “freaking out” over the Obama years. As America braces itself for the onset of Donald Trump - he of the lawsuit-addled business empire, grossly misogynistic personal conduct, penchant for crass remarks, and disregard for anything other than his own authority - others will likely reach similar reappraisals. The dust of history is yet unsettled, but as an orange storm looms, it is not hard to see what form that dust may eventually take.

Lopping the Head off the Statue: The NC GOP’s Assault on Responsible Governance

There is nothing like the hyperbole of war to raise ire of the faithful. Dare to wish someone happy holidays? War on Christmas! Question the wisdom of a $15 minimum wage? War on workers! These pronouncements tend to rally the zealots, the perpetually aggrieved, and the activists in search of a fight while leaving the more rational lot of us rolling our eyes. With that in mind, the notion that the North Carolina Republican Party has declared war on anything (education, democracy, etc.) can’t help but read like exaggerated wolf-crying (to say nothing of selectively partisan bellyaching). And yet, when examining the totality of the state legislature’s sweeping “reforms” – both proposed and enacted – one cannot help but notice some very real flames beneath all the smoke.

Before delving into the pervasive awfulness of the GOP’s legislative program and Gov. Pat McCrory’s abettment thereof, it is important to understand how the Tarheel State got to such a low point. Ask a progressive, and the answer will be that deep-pocketed conservative donor Art Pope bought himself a few elections. But this fairy tale is naïve at best and disingenuous at worst. The fact of the matter is that for as unpopular as state Republicans have made themselves since taking power, North Carolina suffered in various ways under the leadership of the Democratic politicos that preceded them. The decade prior to 2011’s Republican ascendancy saw increased spending and ballooning debt as well as the unethical use of education lottery fund money to plug shortfalls in the general fund. It saw the criminality and corruption of Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance and Speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives Jim Black. It saw the sketchy campaign financing and state-funded travel abuses of Democratic Govs. Mike Easley and Bev Perdue. These things – and more – happened, and voters noticed. Ergo, Republican victories and Democratic sour grapes.

However, the combination of legislative control with McCrory’s 2012 election victory and some changes to the makeup of the state’s courts led to a consolidation of Republican political power, and GOPers wasted little to no time being corrupted by it. Despite some noble attempts at restoring fiscal sanity, McCrory has become the Chris Christie of the South, a self-serving opportunist who spent lavishly on renovating the executive mansion that he occupied and worked to actively shield his former employer/current financial backer Duke Energy from having to pay for its role in negligently allowing coal ash to spill into the Dan River. Not to be outdone in the self-interest, the legislature passed a racially gerrymandered redistricting plan that was as bold as it was asinine. The attempt to pack as many black voters into a district as possible (and thus dilute their political power) meant that I (in Greensboro) shared congressional representation with the fine folks down in Charlotte, a good ninety (!!) miles away.

Were this the full extent of Republican malfeasance, it would be hard to classify it as anything more than business as usual. After all, Govs. Easley and Purdue had their own ethical lapses, and Democratic legislatures in years’ past were no strangers to gerrymandering. Having the party in power misuse its power is not unique to North Carolina Republicans or to North Carolina, for that matter.

No, what separates recent legislative and executive actions from the typical sorry state of American politics is the aggressively reckless shortsightedness with which Republicans have conducted themselves. In attempting to appease rural conservatives and solidify their hold on offices, they have taken an all-or-nothing approach that not only risks tainting the Republican brand but the state’s reputation as a whole. They’ve done this by following what has sadly become a predictable and familiar strategy:

1. Exaggerate the nature of a problem (or elevate a non-problem to the level of a problem).
2. Formulate that is disproportionate to the problem at hand. Said response may or may not actually address the problem, but it is likely to create or exacerbate other problems in doing so. It will almost certainly include a conservative wishlist item or a component that attacks Democratic politically.
3. Insist that said response is necessary and justified in light of the problem. Downplay the potential for long-term harm and/or frame skepticism as partisan overreaction (which, to be fair, there likely would be plenty of regardless).

We have seen this strategy used to usher in changes to everything from voting rules to higher education governance to discrimination policies. On more than one occasion, these changes were rushed through under dubious circumstances. And in just about all instances, North Carolina loses.

Consider, for instance, North Carolina’s voter ID law. Enacted seemingly to thwart voter fraud, it requires North Carolina voters to prevent proof of identity in order to vote. While impersonating a registered voter at the polls can theoretically happen, testimony from the director of State Board of Elections indicates that it is a very infrequent phenomenon. The law, therefore, constitutes an exaggerated response to a non-problem. Moreover, while requiring voters to prove who they say they are is not an unreasonable request, the rub is in the exact nature of that proof: a driver’s license or passport. For those who do not already have one, obtaining this ID ranges anywhere from mere inconvenience to bureaucratic nightmare. Republicans are right to object to creeping bureaucratization in many aspects of life – healthcare, for instance – and entirely hypocritical for promoting it here. This, of course, does not even address the law’s restriction of early voting. Remind me, how does increasing the likelihood of a traffic jam at the polls protect against voter fraud?

At least the voter ID law had the pretense of addressing a problem. When it came to the University of North Carolina system, the Republican-controlled Board of Trustees offered the vaguest of justifications for forcing out system president Tom Ross and even praised him as they pushed him out the door. Of course, the fact that Ross is a registered Democrat is likely the culprit, but good luck getting (now former) board chair John Fennebresque to admit that. The board then followed this by conducting an overly secretive search process that resulted in the appointment of Margaret Spellings, the former U.S. Secretary of Education. While that credential may sound impressive, it is worth noting that Spellings’ background in higher education is as a paid director of for-profit Phoenix University’s parent company. In all fairness, this is not the first time that a political appointee was named system president under suspect circumstances – paging Erskine Bowles – but the opacity and tactlessness with which this switch was handled easily trumps past politicking.

The latest legislative fiasco and the one that has garnered the most attention as of late is HB2,  North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill,” (a misnomer if there ever was one). The bill was rushed through the state legislature in an extremely hurried vote during a one-day session in response to a non-discrimination ordinance passed by the city of Charlotte that prohibits sex or gender discrimination in public accommodations. In other words, transgendered individuals in Charlotte were free to use restrooms that matched their gender regardless of their anatomy. Supposedly enacted in the interest of “safety,” the state law not only undoes Charlotte’s ordinance and prevents local governments from passing similar ordinances in the future; it mandates that anyone in a state facility – be it a school or a government office – use the bathroom that matches the gender on their birth certificate.

This is an all-too-predictable application of the contentious GOP strategy. First, what it purports to address is actually a non-problem. There is not an epidemic of transgendered individuals sneaking into restrooms to commit sexual assault, and existing law already prohibits such assaults regardless. Second, the response is disproportionate. Not only does the law go far beyond the transgender bathroom access issue (more on that later), but it also sets policy for all state facilities. While there is something to be said for preserving the right of businesses to set their own bathroom policies – those that are LGBT-hostile can be boycotted – inasmuch as transgendered individuals are part of the public, denying them the ability to use a bathroom that corresponds to their gender in a building that their tax dollars help finance is grossly insulting. Third, inasmuch as McCrory’s after-the-fact attempts at damage control try to paint the uproar this legislation has caused as a tempest in a teapot, there have been some very real and very ramifications that neither he nor the legislature apparently bothered to consider. Not only does this stupid monstrosity of a law require that male-presenting trans individuals use women’s restrooms in school and government buildings (think about that for a moment, folks), but the resulting uproar has seen governments issue travel bans to North Carolina as well as businesses threatening to boycott the state. That, plus the likelihood of pending legislation, makes for a waste of money that we can ill afford.

As if the bathroom provision was not contentious enough, this law also does the following:

• Sets forth a statewide nondiscrimination policy that deliberately omits sexual orientation while preventing local governments from setting policies that include it.
• Prevents those fired in violation of that very same discrimination policy from bringing suit in state court (they can still file federally and bring a complaint to the state Human Rights Commission).
• Prevents a municipality from setting a minimum wage that is higher than that of the state.

Remember, ladies and gentlemen, that defenders of this law have claimed “safety” as a justification. What any of these other provisions have to do with safety is beyond me, and likely beyond anyone reading this as well.

Furthermore, while there are sound theoretical arguments for abolishing a minimum wage altogether, inasmuch as that is unlikely to happen, a local wage is far preferable than a state wage. Yes, it leaves open the door for Seattle’s unrealistic foolishness, but it also acknowledges the reality that costs of living and costs of doing business (permitting/compliance fees, rents, etc.) can vary immensely within a state. By pretending that $7.25 an hour means the same thing in Jones or Rockingham Counties that it does in Charlotte and Wilmington, economically illiterate Republicans have declared themselves proud residents of economic fantasyland.

Sadly, despite the rashness, brashness, expense, and incompetence displayed thus far, it is hard to imagine GOPers changing course now. The angrier anyone who isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool supporter becomes, the more they must believe they are doing something right. Even McCrory, who is usually in-tune with the attitudes of the business community and has bucked his own party on occasion, seems lost given his HB-2 cheerleading. What is underfoot now is not Republicans taking the turn at the wheel to which their election victories entitled them, nor is it an attempt to govern by conservative principles after years of liberal largesse. No, this is the hijacking of the entire state’s future to serve the needs of a rural, homophobic, anti-intellectual contingent dead set on building and maintaining a permanent majority.

Having lived in this state for more than a decade and endured the governance of both major parties, I put little stock in the idea that Democrats are what is best for North Carolina. But if nothing else, they are not this. If the state is a statue that Democrats did a poor job of maintaining throughout the years, Republicans have “repaired” it by lopping off its head because they never really cared for it anyway.

Clickbait Nation: Guns, Refugees, and the Politics of Fear

It may or may not be a vile world out there, but it certainly is a viral one.  The spread of information rapidly outpaces our ability to analyze, contextualize, and respond to it. When a discussion does take root, it is often swept away by the coming wave of The Next Big Thing. Clickbait – the use of sensationalistic headlines to steer traffic toward vapid or misleading Web content – has become the new paradigm for what passes for discourse. One need only look at the painfully puerile panic over guns and refugees to see just how much the viralization of information has contributed to us collectively losing our damn minds.

Clickbait’s success hinges upon its ability to grab a reader’s attention, and it often accomplishes this by evoking the exceptional. “The one…,” “the most…,” “the last…,” and so on all communicate the idea that what lies beyond is remarkably different from what you have experienced before. This is undoubtedly an effective lure, but it should theoretically have its limitations. We may be awed by a lightning strike, but we should still have some cognizance of the fact that it is a relatively rare occurrence.

Instead, we find ourselves pulled into discussions of what we can do to prevent lightning from striking us next. The exception is treated not as an exception but as an (unsubstantiated) harbinger of a new norm. Statistically speaking, most of America’s guns are not used to commit violent crimes, and statistically speaking, most people of Middle Eastern descent are not terrorists by any measure of the word. Yet rather than kowtow to this (admittedly mundane) reality, we fixate endlessly on the improbable. What if one out of one hundred guns sold is used to shoot up a school? What if one out of one hundred refugees becomes a mad bomber? As long as that mere possibility exists, no matter how remote the probability, some of us will be driven to preempt it, no matter how great the cost.

Another salient feature of clickbait is its reliance on oversimplification. Complexity and nuance do not lend themselves to neat and shiny packaging. A clickbait article may tell you that a certain substance has amazing health benefits, but it may leave out the quantity that needs to be consumed or the duration of the regimen needed to achieve those benefits. Similarly, we are so taken in by the “threats” posed by gun ownership or by Syrian refugees that we overlook complexities such as the extent to which guns are already regulated and prospective refugees are already subject to a long and difficult process. Of course, there are loopholes that can conceivably be exploited, but again, safeguarding against every possibility is nigh impossible.

Though not necessarily an intended aim, clickbait goes hand-in-hand with mass distraction. When we read about one woman’s amazing story or one child’s heartbreaking poem, we may be simultaneously ignoring the stories of other women and children even as those other women and children may be more impactful. Accordingly, guns – which are not among the top ten causes of death in America – receive a disproportionate amount of attention relative to heart disease, the leading cause. And those who fixate on the dangers of imported Jihadism have a tendency to overlook the fact that domestic racists have contributed to more terrorist violence following September 2001.

Lastly, clickbait tends to make ideological assumptions of its audience and manipulate accordingly. Conservative clickbait sites like Twitchy, for instance, play on the audience’s antipathy toward President Obama by frequently name-dropping him in headlines no matter how tenuous the connection between POTUS and the issue at hand. Meanwhile, progressive clickbait sites like Upworthy like to spin underdog tales and “you go”-isms even when the facts don’t exactly fit the mold. In doing so, clickbaiters hope that merely ideological affinity will be enough to get the message across.

So too it goes with guns and refugees. One needn’t cast a conspiratorial gaze to see the “othering” and ideological bell whistles that are inextricable from both issues. By percent of households, gun ownership is highest among red states in the Deep South and Northwest and lowest among states in the Northeast. Thus, what masquerades as a safety issue can easily be read as an assault upon rural sensibilities by coastal elites (ironic, given the earlier use of gun control measures in southern jurisdictions to keep people of color from bearing arms). Similarly, regarding refugees as enemies in waiting uses a legitimate concern to mask naked prejudice. Were all those who fled Communist Cuba secretly Castroite agents? Were all those who escaped the Eastern Bloc intent on establishing red cells on American soil? Or is the fear of enemy infiltration really only a problem now that Syrians – and Syrian Muslims, especially – are the population in question?

Strip away the distraction and decontextualization, and what we are left with is fear: fear of being shot, fear of being blown up, fear of people who look, behave, or believe differently than we do. This fear is nothing new – moral panics stretch back across the centuries – but what is of more recent vintage is the speed at which the wheel keeps on turning. For every hysteria that is exposed, a new one comes to the forefront. For every exceptional happening, we are asked to accept, absent any evidence, that it will be an exception no longer…unless something is done. Wide-eyed, reckless calls to action, stoked by the allure of bright, shiny informational tidbits, are unlikely to produce the intended results, especially not without also producing unintentional consequences. With that in mind, I would not hypocritically suggest we “do” anything about clickbait. I would, however, humbly suggest that we take a moment to think before – and after – we click, click, click.

Wrestling with Reality: The Ultimate Warrior and the Transcendence of Narrative

         

         The Ultimate Warrior died yesterday, which must come as a shock to those who believed he had died – or, at the very least, should have died – years ago. Born James Hellwig, the Warrior was for several years one of the most popular professional wrestlers in the world. A  heavily muscled, paint-faced, tassel-wearing dynamo, he stood out as a cartoon superhero even among the legions of over-the-top characters that populated the late 80s/early 90s WWF. And while his ring work as sloppy and predictable and his shouty, rage-filled promos never made a lick of sense, he had an aura that attracted young wrestling fans the world over. When his catchy theme music hit and he ran full speed toward the ring to grab and shake the ropes like a lunatic, we knew that, despite the size (think Andre the Giant), strength (Andre again), or technical superiority (just about everybody else) of the opponent, we were in an awesome display of sheer willpower. But the most remarkable thing about the Warrior was not that brief-but-memorable time in the spotlight; it was the direction his life took in the years thereafter.

            Owing to its carnival roots, professional wrestling has long been about working the crowd. While there have been plenty of actual wrestlers, athletes, and legitimate tough guys (the late All American, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams embodied all three) in the business, it remains a scripted production, a performance piece. There are good guys and bad guys and storylines designed to elicit pathos, sympathy, anger, and inspiration. The primary difference between the WWE and any other show is the physicality and the potential for harm, both real and imagined. The agonizing blows we saw on screen were faked for our entertainment while the actual damage (drug abuse, alcoholism, legitimate injury) occurred, pre-Internet uprising, out of the public eye.

            The Ultimate Warrior both exemplified and subverted this reality. On the one hand, the Warrior began as a picture-perfect example of professional wrestling’s fraudulence. Though an accomplished bodybuilder, Hellwig’s actual wrestling skills were poor - try watching his matches at a remove from childhood admiration, and his inability to do more than warm up the crowd and clothesline the competition becomes painfully obvious. But give him some facepaint, that entrance music, and an opponent who is willing to make him look good, and his lack of grappling ability becomes a non-issue. Suddenly, as the Ultimate Warrior, he is eminently credible as a charismatic hero in a pseudo-sport where the chief requirements for heroism are looking like you can beat someone up and not antagonizing the audience. To put it bluntly, this was a man who looked like he could kick some ass, and he did, and people cheered him for it.

            At the same time, however, the Ultimate Warrior’s ascendance turned the professional wrestling script on its head. Even in an era of big egos and rampant substance abuse, Warrior’s unreliability, unprofessionalism, and steroid use were so blatant that WWF owner Vince McMahon fired (and re-hired) him on several occasions. In addition to sparking countless death rumors (Hellwig appeared smaller post-steroids, leading fans to speculate the character had been given to another performer), this brought a dose of external reality to an industry that thrived on creating its own. The Warrior’s departures showed that what happened outside the ring – pay disputes, McMahon’s ongoing steroid trial, etc. – had the ability to completely discredit what went on inside it, and no amount of narrative gloss (i.e. a worked “injury” or a fake burial a la The Undertaker) could reset the pulled-back curtain.

            This pattern of defying expectations would extend to Hellwig’s post-ring career as well. One of the many reasons for his rocky relationship with McMahon was that Hellwig sought to profit from the character he embodied and helped to create while the WWF saw the Ultimate Warrior as company property. This prompted Hellwig to legally change his name to Warrior in 1993 and later sue the WWF for rights to the character, sparking rumors that he had lost his mind and cementing his reputation as an egomaniac. Yet while Hellwig was demonized for chasing a paycheck, comic book artists Jack Kirby and Joe Simon are often celebrated as tragic figures who fought – unsuccessfully – for the ability to profit from iconic characters they helped create. One man’s martyr is another man’s leech, and visa versa.

            As the 90s faded and the new millennium dawned, Warrior’s reputation as a megalomaniacal has-been continued to grow. He appeared in WCW to work a brief, disastrous program against old WWF frenemy Hulk Hogan, for which he collected a hefty sum before retiring. He published a comic book starring (surprise!) himself. He became a prolific blogger and a conservative pundit, responding, sometimes abrasively to fan inquiries, and using YouTube videos to attack nemesis in the industry. In short, the man who had once been one of wrestling’s biggest faces (good guys) became for many a consummate Internet heel: caustic, incomprehensible, self-absorbed, and more than a little petty.

            This was the narrative that defined The Ultimate Warrior for the last years of his life. It was one that was soundly reinforced by his corporate nemesis: the WWE. McMahon’s company rounded up several of Hellwig’s former coworkers for a “documentary” that makes Michael Moore’s agitprop look subtle and balanced. Like many narratives, however, the Warrior story plays loose with facts to tell a tale, and like many narratives, it is subject to revision.

            For starters, take the notion that Warrior bought into his own hype. When he wasn’t hurling put-downs, Hellwig made it clear in his writings and videos that the Ultimate Warrior was a character he played and wrestling was a proud chapter in his life but definitely not the entirety of it. This awareness of the limitations of one’s celebrity separated Hellwig not only from the quintessential has-beens (such as perpetual spotlight-seeker Hulk Hogan) of any field but from many poor, deluded still-ares (I’m looking at you, James Franco).

            If the Warrior’s egoism was at least partially a narrative embellishment, so too were other aspects of his supposed lunacy. To be certain, Hellwig’s writings, like his wrestling promos, sometimes came across garbled: standard capitalization and punctuation were not part of his regular moveset. And yes, he made more than his share of inane, ignorant, or idiotic remarks. Incorporating “Queering doesn’t make the world work” into a speech for college students, for example, paints him as a second-rate Ted Nugent. But for a supposed rightwing caricature, Warrior had no problem deviating from the script, such as when he excoriated Republicans for their heavy-handed intervention during the Teri Schiavo fiasco. Though abrasive and politically incorrect to a fault, Warrior was guided more by conservative philosophy (the Western canon and Greek mythology in particular) than by irrational hatred.

            One salient aspect of Warrior’s creed that shined past the murk of his ranting delivery was a belief in the power of the individual to shape his or her own destiny. This belief explains how a still-fit competitor walked away from a well-paying career to pursue personal interests rather than acquiesce to its demands. It also explains how a man years removed from the spotlight and seemingly universally loathed in the business that made him famous could achieve reconciliation with a company he quit – and sued – on numerous occasions. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

            A few days before his untimely demise at the age of 54, the Warrior was inducted into the WWE’s Hall of Fame. In a class containing other once-formidable names (Mr. T and Jake “the Snake” Roberts chief among them), he stood out as the headliner. His hair was short and gray, and he limped when trying to replicate his signature energy, but his message, delivered sans quixotic shouting this time, is the same as it’s always been. To paraphrase, he said every man, by his actions, can make his own legend, and he thanked his fans for keeping his legend alive.

            In retrospect, the speech turned out to be an early eulogy. Three days later, while walking to his car with his wife, the Warrior collapsed, was rushed to a hospital, and pronounced dead. In the wake of his demise, legions of former colleagues – including past nemeses Hogan and McMahon – have taken to Twitter to pay respects.

            By conventional wisdom, none of this should have happened. The late 80s/early 90s Warrior was popularly imagined as roided-up rockstar and seemed doomed to burn out rather than fade away. Conversely, the post-wrestling Warrior was taken for a washed-up, selfish provocateur, poised to fade into obscurity and pass bitter and alone. Instead, neither happened. The Warrior died a husband and a father, at peace with his legacy and reconnected to an industry that gave him his start. In death and in life, the Warrior, like any good practitioner of individualism, did not allow the narratives thrust upon him to define him. He wrote his own.

Acceptable Targets

Bigotry is an overtly ugly word, but should it be? After all, it is something many of us are guilty of, and in today’s social, political, and cultural climate, sensitivity to it is often a matter of whose ox is gored. Those who seek dignity for the poor have been known to categorically vilify and dehumanize the rich. The quest for racial equality has deteriorated into racial gamesmanship. Christians who decry prejudicial media treatment and undue restrictions upon their faith are at the forefront of anti-Muslim propaganda and mosque-blocking efforts. It is, in short, a world in which there is plenty of vitriol to be dished out, but none, it appears, to be taken. In light of that, why still cling to the hypocritical notion that bigotry can – or should – be extinguished? Why not dispense with the mock-offense, sit back, and let the hatred flow?


There is, of course, an alternative, but for some, it may be too tough a pill to swallow. Any sincere effort to combat bigotry must begin by acknowledging the truth that there are no acceptable targets. This is something that bears repeating, so here it is again, with emphasis:

THERE ARE NO ACCEPTABLE TARGETS!

In essence, this establishes bigotry itself – as opposed to its victims or its perpetrators – as the problem. It cements the notion that the hatred of one’s race, creed, sex, ethnicity, and so on is unconscionable, regardless of what that race, creed, sex, or ethnicity happens to be. By committing to this idea, you elevate an opposition to bigotry above the factionalism and “get-mine”-ism that is all too tempting a lure. You may even have a shot at that rhetorical unicorn: the moral high ground.

Whether this seems like a no-brainer to you or whether you believe that it overlooks some underlying complexity, congratulations, you’re both right! For better or for worse, history weighs heavily on human relations. If one group of people regards another as inferior and perpetuates that myth across the generations, it isn’t easily unlearned or undone. Similarly, if one group comes to identify another as an oppressor, the distrust, suspicion, and malice engendered by such a view can be difficult to root out. However, the past’s ability to explain and inform the present and future does not extend to a mandate to govern them absolutely. The prejudices of our forefathers, no matter how seemingly “justified” in their day, needn’t be our legacy to bear.

Another stumbling block to the adoption of No Acceptable Targets is the difficulty posed by the concept of degree. Life is seldom an either/or proposition; there exists a plethora of silvers, grays, and greys. Those who dwell in off-white may understandably find those who occupy the deep charcoal difficult to fathom, let alone identify with. However, the distance between A1 and A100 doesn’t transform either of them into B.

To put that in more concrete terms, those who have faced high-stakes bigotry may find it difficult to have any empathy for those who endure its lower-stakes form. Whites and heterosexuals who bemoan the lack of a pride/power movement to call their own will inspire eye-rolling in those who have faced legal discrimination (i.e. job loss) due to orientation and skin color. Feminists who protest male hegemony in this country will seem like baseless whiners to women who have endured the oppression of life in rural Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, experiencing a milder form of prejudice doesn’t immunize one from its bite. Nor, it should be noted, does experiencing a harsher form empower anyone to bite back. Remember, when it comes to bigotry, the enemy is the idea, not those who wield it.

A coda: I do not envision a world in which we will all hold hands in harmony, and if one were to miraculously come to pass, I would want no part of it. I dislike a wide variety of people for a wide variety of reasons. Ignorance inflames me. A lack of forethought causes face to meet palm (And God help you if you’re a Red Sox fan). No one, lest of all me, is asking anyone to abandon the good ship animosity. What I do ask, however, is that you allow it to be steered by reason. Let your hostility and your sharp words fall on those who have wrought it through their actions and not through something as shallow, superficial, and silly as a group to which they happen to belong.

The Age of the Nontroversy

“Americans are tired of partisan politics” is not only an empty (and hypocritical, when spouted by political partisans) platitude but an ignorant one. From the early days of the Federalist/Anti-Federalist divide, partisanship has been an American institution. We would not be who we are without debates and disagreements over the size, scope, character and authority of government. As such, the idea that we should come together “for the good of the country” is facile. However, this partisanship of ideas is quite a bit different from partisanship as it is often decried today. A more accurate description of what Americans are really tired of is point-jockeying: the concerted effort by Team Red and Team Blue to see which side can appear better – and make the opposition appear worse – in the eyes of the electorate. This mindless competition is a testament to the triumph of political ambition over political principle, and nothing seems to encapsulate it better than the nontroversy.


The nontroversy (as in “non-controversy”) occurs when a statement or action that shouldn’t be particularly controversial is granted controversial status by either ignoring context and past precedent or presuming malicious intent for nakedly political purpose. To a certain extent, the nontroversy is a product of public officials facing intense exposure and media scrutiny. When you live under a microscope, your sins are amplified for all to see. With this comes a certain loss of proportionality.


However, blaming the nontroversy on the media (who are supposed to hold the powerful accountable, after all) ignores the inherently manipulative – and inherently political – nature of the phenomena. After all, a nontroversy would not be a nontroversy were it not for a talking head or political hack raising a big stink to help spur coverage. Unsurprisingly, those who decry a “biased” or “sensational” media are often among the first to try to use it to their advantage.


The ascendancy of the nontroversy can be traced to two factors: time and speed. We are, as of this writing, fewer than two months away from a presidential election. With the stakes high, the pressure for candidates to eke out an advantage is immense. But we are also living in an increasingly interconnected, fast-paced world. Audio and video can be recorded, often sans context, and shared with lots and lots of people in a matter of seconds. When this happens, it is no surprise that deep understanding never develops: there isn’t time for it.


To see the nontroversy in full bloom, one needn’t look further than a pair of statements made within the past year by the two leading presidential candidates. On July 13, President Obama gave his now-notorious “You didn’t build that” speech in which he expressed the view that social institutions, not individual effort, were responsible for one’s successes. This, predictably, generated a firestorm of criticism from Obama’s opponents, with most common charge being that it revealed Obama’s hatred of capitalism and individualism. And while the president’s remarks do smack of a certain amount of annoying contempt for the idea of self-sufficiency, they qualify as a nontroversy for several reasons. First, Obama did not say anything particularly surprising. A belief in and preference for public institutions is keeping with his views and those of his party. To treat this outburst as sudden blasphemy is disingenuous. Second, many of the condemnations were issued by those whose views differed little from those of the president. Substitute “God” or “family” for “a teacher” in Obama’s remarks, and you have the conservative (though not the libertarian) creed in a nutshell. And yet, despite the exaggerated and largely meritless controversy, “You didn’t build that” continues to linger in the public imagination as all that is wrong with Obamaism.


Another example of a nontroversy can be found in Mitt Romney’s September 17 comments that the “47 percent” of Americans that support Obama are “dependent upon government” and “believe they are victims” who deserve entitlements. Just as predictably, this drew loud criticisms from Romney’s opponents, who were quick to brand him heartless and attempt to tie his remarks to voter suppression. And while Romney’s words were both poorly chosen and inaccurate, this too is a classic nontroversy. Prior to seeking office, Romney established himself as a businessman. As such, his denunciation of those who do not generate income and depend on government assistance for survival is in keeping with his perspective and that of his compatriots. Further, contempt for people who don’t support you is hardly native to Romney. The very same people who have criticized him for expressing such sentiments would do well to remember another nontroversy: Obama’s denunciation of “bitter” small-town voters who “cling to guns or religion…as a way to explain their frustrations.”


Of course, in heaping scorn on the nontroversy, one should also be wary of the opposite: the tendency to downplay something controversial for partisan reasons. Because the political environment is so toxic, charges of “They do it to!” will often stick. But when this approach is employed to mitigate something as inherently noxious as calling for the internment of Muslim-Americans during the War on Terror (ala Michelle Malkin), it is every bit as pernicious as blowing something out of proportion. (In other words, the fact that a Democratic administration oversaw mass internment during wartime doesn’t make it OK for a Republican to suggest that we do likewise).


Being that any emanation from betwixt a public figure’s lips will attract attention and invite interpretation, it is likely that the nontroversy is here to stay, a permanent reminder that politicians and their surrogates view us as simpletons with political amnesia who will be swayed by their phony outrage. But just because a stink is raised doesn’t mean that we must open our nostrils to it and breathe it in. In the words of the immortal Chuck D, don’t believe the hype.

The Disappointment Presidency

The Disappointment Presidency

            History does not unfold in a vacuum, and neither do presidential terms. Nearly four years have passed since Barack Obama was elected, and in order to evaluate his tenure in the Oval Office, one must examine the circumstances that led to that election. Unfortunately, this means revisiting the unhappy presidency of George W. Bush.

The Fail Guy

            The Bush years can best be described as the Failure Presidency. Though not the bumbling hayseed satirists made him out to be, the ineloquent, reductionist Bush was overmatched from the start. In all fairness, the September 11 attacks would have posed a huge challenge to any leader, and Bush did acquit himself quite well in the immediate aftermath. However, things were mostly downhill from there. A self-styled “compassionate conservative,” Bush oversaw huge increases in spending and government regulation. Under the aegis of spreading democracy and fighting terrorism, his foreign policy propelled America into two wars, alienated allies, and, paradoxically, incited Jihadists across the globe. From warrantless surveillance of American citizens to the botched federal response to Hurricane Katrina to outright kidnapping and torture, the Bush administration became synonymous with corruption, cronyism, abuse of power, and incompetence. By the time Bush left office, he had a 19% approval rating, and the country’s economic downturn was well underway.

            These are the circumstances upon which Obama capitalized to assume the presidency. At first glance, it would appear that he wouldn’t have had to do much to triumph over a Republican brand that was badly tarnished. But as John Kerry’s woeful 2004 campaign taught us, merely being the other guy is not enough. Fortunately for Obama, he was able to offer something new, even if that something was more stylistic than substantive.

Hope and Change

            “Hope and Change” were the buzzwords that steered the Obama 08 campaign, and while one would have to be naïve to have seen him as a transformational figure, there was certainly a kernel of truth to those words. Yes, Obama was inexperienced, but along with that inexperience came a (relative, and certainly by Chicago standards) lack of corruption. Moreover, Obama seemed to offer a conciliatory style and a broad-minded approach to governance. Whereas Bush filled cabinet positions by rewarding those who had served him well, Obama favored a “best and brightest” strategy, mixing Democratic stalwarts with recruits from the ranks of academia and Republican appointees. And as a multiracial man (then) under the age of 50, Obama revitalized the idea of America as a land of opportunity.

            From a policy perspective, the hope Obama represented was considerably more feint, albeit still present. On the negative side, his foreign policy inexperience and affinity for large public spending boondoggles (high-speed rail, anybody?) were apparent from the start. However, based on both his campaign and his Senate career, it was reasonable to expect that his presidency would offer a greater respect for civil liberties and a less trigger-happy approach to diplomacy. Furthermore, when was the last time a Democrat of his stature had good things to say about charter schools and merit pay for teachers?

            Both because he was not Bush and because he offered something more than not being Bush, Obama created a significant number of expectations, expectations which he abetted by vowing swift action within the first 100 days of his presidency. But after more than three years in office, he has fallen well short of achieving those goals. If the Bush administration represents the Failure Presidency, then the Obama administration, with its broken promises and inadequate governance, represents the Disappointment Presidency.

The Economy, Stupid!

            If polls are any indication, no issue was more influential in determining the outcome of the 2008 presidential election than the economy. By the time of the election, the 2008 financial crisis was already underway. The causes of this crisis were many, but for sake of argument, let us accept the Democratic line that Republican mismanagement precipitated economic decline. Was that the case, then surely some time under Democratic governance would right America’s economic fortunes.

            The actual results of that governance, however, paint quite a different picture.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national unemployment rate for January 2009 – the month Obama took office – was 7.8%. Throughout Obama’s term, that rate escalated as high as 10%. The most recent data puts it at 8.1% for August 2012. While the unemployment rate is not the sole indicator of economic health, these numbers nevertheless point to a failure to right the ship.

            It is a failure that is inexcusable for several reasons. First, Democrats, including Obama, have turned job creation and protecting the middle class into their mantra. For them to fail at this task is both bitterly ironic and a damning indictment of their competence. Second, this lackluster “recovery” follows a very costly stimulus package, strongly supported by Obama, that was pushed as being necessary to avoid precisely this outcome. Third, blame cannot be placed elsewhere. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress during Obama’s first two years in office, thereby ensuring passage of his favored programs. The idea that this can somehow be attributed to the Bush administration is laughable. After all, there came a point during the Bush years when neither the September 11 attacks nor Clinton-era policies could excuse the current administration’s failures. We have since reached a similar point under Obama.

The Song Remains the Same

            To his supporters, the image Obama projects as a statesman is one of cool-headed rationality. To his detractors, it’s one of kowtowing weakness. Unsurprisingly, his predecessor elicited a similarly divisive response. Depending on whom you asked, Bush was either a resolute leader with strong moral vision or a belligerent, myopic blowhard. What is surprising is that despite the differences in perception of the two leaders’ styles, their policy remains substantively unchanged in several areas.

            Like Obama’s domestic policy, the Bush Doctrine is best characterized by a drive toward massive action. Cloaked in the rhetoric of peace, freedom, and democracy, Bush and a complicit (lest anyone forget) Congress immersed America in two costly, bloody wars and raised the possibility of several others. Moreover, the Bush administration asserted, rather chillingly, that it had the right to detain American citizens indefinitely without charge vis-à-vis the troublingly broad “enemy combatant” designation. To be certain, this approach to foreign policy was not without positives: it contributed to the downfall of Saddam Hussein and the toppling of a theocratic Afghan regime. However, it also saddled the nation with political, moral, and economic costs that we are still paying for today.

            For critics of this doctrine, Obama was supposed to have represented the antidote. Unlike many wavering Democrats, Obama was never tainted by a senatorial vote in favor of authorizing a war. He explicitly campaigned on bringing an end to the War in Iraq and promised to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Within months of his inauguration, Obama was in Egypt promising “A New Beginning” in American-Middle Eastern relations.

            A few short years later, and the new beginning looks suspiciously like the old way of doing things. Guantanamo Bay remains open, a sad testament to Obama’s lack of political willpower. Troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, but they remain entangled in Afghanistan, and skirmishes in Pakistan have threatened to cause even more regional instability. Whereas the Bush administration was content to detain and possibly torture American citizens that had been dubbed enemy combatants, the Obama administration has outright targeted them for killing. Just as with the Bush Doctrine, there has been an upside to such an aggressive foreign policy approach. Osama bin Laden has finally been rooted out and exterminated, and, the troubling circumstances of his and his son’s deaths aside, Anwar al-Alwaki is presumably preaching his murderously anti-American vitriol in hell. The larger concern, however, remains the present and future costs of a course of action that Bush began and Obama betrayed supporters by enthusiastically co-opting.

The Worst in All of Us

            At the dawn of Obama’s election, many of those who feared what Obama represented politically nevertheless had praise for him personally. His willingness to confront the complexities of race drew plaudits from Republicans from Peggy Noonan to Mike Huckabee, and his smooth rhetorical style offered an appealing contrast for conservatives to the increasingly-embarrassing outbursts of Bush and Sarah Palin. Obama’s character, temperament, and eloquence thus inspired some hope that the debates regarding his governance could, at least for a while, be limited to the policies rather than the man behind him.

            Of course, this was not meant to be. Like many presidents of recent vintage (Bush and Clinton in particular come to mind), Obama came to inspire unshakable gut-level antipathy among his detractors. Though perhaps at its fiercest among the “Birthers,” this sort of irrational distaste has not been limited to the lunatic fringe. Newt Gingrich, a man Republicans have considered presidential material from time to time, condemned Obama for failing to bomb and then for bombing Libya within a span of a few short weeks. Obama opponents have variously tried to depict him as a godless secularist, a secret Muslim, and a disciple of Jeremiah Wright. The glaring lack of logical coherency common to these criticisms suggests that if the president switched wholesale to the Ronald Reagan playbook, Obamaphobes would lambast him for being unoriginal.

            But if a sizeable swath of Obama opponents are divorced from reality, so too are a number of Obama supporters. Witness the spectacle of those who elected an anti-war president defending that president’s war-mongering as evidence that he isn’t spineless. Grimace as every critical observation is, conspiratorially, tagged with racist intent. Or, simply laugh as Obama sycophants like Tim Kaine praise him for “putting results ahead of ideology” while simultaneously ignoring a good many of those results.

            To be fair, blame for the rabid rhetoric (pro and con) that Obama has inspired cannot be laid solely at his feet. While a more partisan, gloves-off Obama has emerged over the last few years, he has yet to fan the flames to as great an extent as his predecessors. From a rhetorical standpoint, the disappointment of the Obama presidency isn’t sinking down into the muck as much as it is no longer giving us reason to believe we can do better.

            In a mere matter of weeks, the Disappointment Presidency will either receive a second chance or meet its fateful end. Undoubtedly, what one thinks of the alternatives to another Obama term will influence one’s decision to support or reject it. But an examination of broken promises, changing positions, and a failure to deliver should make one thing clear: in 2012, the answer to “Yes We Can” is “No, You Probably Won’t.”

Harold Ballard and the Lessons of the Market

For better or for worse, we have a predisposition toward action. We perceive doing something as better than doing nothing at all, even if that “something” may be detrimental in the long run. Unfortunately, this bias contributes to a distrust of the free market and allowing things to simply run their course. It is as if we would rather crash the plane into the side of the mountain ourselves than trust the autopilot.


Of course, this distrust of the market is also fueled by some negative misconceptions of capitalism. In the minds of many, the very word raises the specter of greed and oppression. This stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of capitalism’s aims. The profit motive is inherently amoral, which means that it can (though not by design) be a force for good. However, too many are willing to conflate amoral and immoral (that is, inherently wicked), and in an effort to right capitalism’s perceived wrongs, leave us with something far worse: the tyranny of good intentions. Why tyranny, you ask? The market, left to its own devices, generates winners and losers. While it would be naïve to deny the existence of dishonest competitive practices, a free market at least maintains some semblance of a correlation between effort (a quality product, an unbeatable price, an innovation not found among the competition) and outcome. When the state intervenes, winners and losers are declared by fiat, often with disastrous results.

One great illustrator of this concept is the mismanaged sports franchise. There are plenty of failing (or should-be-failing) businesses out there, but due to their high media visibility, when a sports franchise is run into the ground, people tend to actually notice. And while sports franchises can fail for a variety of reasons (wrong market for the sport, for instance), the blame can sometimes be placed squarely at the top with the owner.

Of all the terrible sports owners (I’m looking at you, Ted Stepien), perhaps none combined incompetence and sheer malevolence more potently than the late Harold Ballard, owner of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs for three decades. Though he had charitable moments, Ballard was, by many accounts, a miserable human being. Bigoted and misogynistic even by the standards of his day, Ballard regularly denigrated European players and once told a female journalist, “Women are best in one position – on their backs.” He served a prison sentence (which, fortuitously, allowed the team to sign Swedish star Borje Salming) for siphoning funds from the Leafs’ ownership group for personal use and proved himself to be a notorious skinflint. His other exploits, as per Wikipedia, include:

- Intentionally delaying a Beatles concert, turning up the heat in Maple Leaf Gardens, and selling soft drinks at an outrageous markup.

- Telling longtime Leaf and team captain Dave Keon that he had no place on the team, then demanding high compensation from any team who tried to sign him, effectively blacklisting Keon from the league.

- Continuously undermining Keon’s successor as captain, Darryl Sittler. This culminated in trading Sittler’s close friend Lanny McDonald to last-place Colorado out of spite.

- Hiring back aging Punch Imlach, a man noted for his autocratic style, as general manager in order to soften his own image. When Imlach suffered a heart attack, Ballard forced him from his job.

In short, Ballard embodied the characteristics – greed, ruthlessness, etc. – that capitalism’s critics say are endemic to a market system. If ever there seemed a likely candidate for intervention into how a franchise was run, Ballard’s Leafs were it. And while the league stepping in might have benefited the Leafs in the short-term, the long-term, unintended consequences would have been a net negative for the NHL. Consider the following:

- Though Toronto was talented in the late 70s and early 80s, it is unlikely that the Leafs would have overcome the dominant Montreal Canadiens and New York Islanders even if Ballard and Imlach hadn’t stripped the roster.

- Had the league vetoed Ballard’s trades or even tried to force him to sell, other owners would likely have taken umbrage to the intrusion. The NHL could have risked turning its most loathsome owner into a martyr.

- Had the league attempted to buy the team outright (and later sell to a willing buyer a la the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets), this would have directly lined Ballard’s pockets, literally at the expense of the other teams.

- In many cases, the players that Ballard underpaid or spitefully sent away flourished elsewhere. Both McDonald and Bernie Parent went on to win the Stanley Cup with other franchises and were elected to the Hall of Fame.

- In other cases, when the WHA scooped up Ballard’s former players, small-market franchises were given their first taste of star power.

Had the NHL intervened during Ballard’s reign, the unforeseen benefits of his calamity would have been forsaken and several negative consequences would have come to bear in their stead. Though a “Save the Leafs” campaign would have been well-intentioned, its authors likely would have done more harm than good.

Now, compare Ballard’s Leafs to another failing company, such as an auto manufacturer. Their antipathy for executive compensation aside, critics of capitalism would likely regard a car company as something worth saving due to all the blue-collar jobs on the line if the company goes under. Thus, the intention may be noble, but here again, refusing to let the market run its course has unintended results. Bailouts insulate automotive executives from the consequences of their mismanagement. Competitive pressure, on the other hand, forces them to change their losing ways. Furthermore, the money intended to bolster the workers who are at risk for losing their jobs may be absorbed by the corporate bureaucracy and find its way into the pockets of those very same overpaid, underperforming executives. Lastly, since bailouts are taxpayer funded, a rift is created between those whose jobs are deemed worth bailing out and those who received no such assistance. Thus, while unpleasant to countenance, the outcomes made possible by “heartless” capitalism can easily be far more benign than those created by “compassionate” intervention.

In the end, the rationality of the free market is undermined by our desire to do good and our belief that we know what is best for others. A little humility would allow us to see that we can’t reliably predict what are good intentions will eventually amount to, but this is something we seem loath to accept, especially when the Harold Ballards of the world make for such inviting targets. Still, history has taught us that when a man seems intent on burning down his house, sometimes the best thing to do is not to hand him a house but to embrace what arises from the ashes.