Auctoritas – Page 2 – Liberty and Authority

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Racism is Not a Southern Problem

On August 14, 2017

There is a tendency in much of the United States to look at the heritage of racist hatred and oppression as a Southern problem – as an issue in the distant past or at least one confined to the old Confederacy. This allows us to wash our hands of any contribution to that oppression and excuse our own friends and neighbors for their racism while feeling smug and superior. It’s convenient, but it’s not at all in line with reality.

This week’s news has been dominated by the violent results of a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia organized by White Nationalists and attended by Neo-Confederates, Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, and racist bigots of all stripes. In line with that smug superiority, the reaction among many of those outside the Deep South has been shouts of “not my country” and “this isn’t us.” It makes us feel better. It’s also a lie. Racist hatred is not a problem unique to the South.

Charlottesville is not some far-right fascist Mecca. It is a fairly typical mid-sized American city. It is a college town, home to the University of Virginia, and in that respect, not especially dissimilar from Athens, Ohio, Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Bloomington, Indiana. In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton won the entire state of Virginia, but in Albemarle County, of which Charlottesville is the county seat, she won by more than 24 points.

The people who attended this rally are not the Southern caricatures that some would like to imagine. They are not the men from Duck Dynasty or the Dukes of Hazzard. They came from all over the United States to lift the fasces, wave the confederate flag, and offer Nazi salutes and chants. James Fields, who is being charged with murder of a counter-protester after driving his car into her protest traveled from Maumee, Ohio. He isn’t a Southerner. He lives just across Lake Erie from Canada. You can’t get much farther north. Peter Cvjetanovic, the young white nationalist whose torch-lit screaming photograph spread across the internet traveled to Charlottesville from Reno, Nevada. The rally happened in the South, but because of American racist hatred, not some unique Southern variety.

As Americans, we bear a collective responsibility for what happened in Charlottesville and what happens every day in every city, town, and neighborhood in the United States. All across the country white people earn more money, are more likely to be hired for a given job, and they have greater access to better education. This is not just some Jim Crow Era past in another place, it’s here and now.

The racist agitators will tell you that this is all about “white guilt,” misplaced remorse for the sins of people long dead. On the contrary – guilt is about how you feel. No one cares whether you feel bad about slavery. This is not about guilt, but responsibility – responsibility for the present condition of this country: a country where Nazis and Klan members can brazenly express their vile ideology without so much as a white hood because they have no fear of social repercussions. Responsibility gives an opportunity take action. Speak out, object to the racist ideas expressed by your family, neighbors, or coworkers. Donate to organizations opposing the rise of Nazism and white supremacy. Most importantly, vote for candidates who actively work against racism, not those who offer mealy-mouthed objections while voting in support of a president who courts white supremacists and keeps actual Nazis on his staff.

This rally from its inception to its violent result was an act of terrorism, designed to intimidate liberals, academics, immigrants, Jewish people – anyone who might oppose their racist Nazi agenda. The torches, the chanting, the signs and the Nazi salutes – all of this was done consciously and deliberately. A liberal college town was not chosen by coincidence. They are terrorists. The first President in the 21st century and the previous Republican to occupy the White House had some words on this topic: “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.”

Distraction

By auctoritas

On July 26, 2017

In Uncategorized

This morning, at 5:55AM Eastern, the President of the United States announced via Twitter that transgender persons will be banned from serving in the armed forces in any capacity. Two things happened immediately thereafter. First, his opponents immediately expressed outrage and dismay at this attack on the rights of a vulnerable group of people. And second, many of his opponents set to arguing among themselves about whether and to what degree this transgender ban was a distraction from the current effort of the United States Senate to fund a taxcut to the wealthiest Americans by slashing healthcare benefits and subsidies to the poorest.

It is a distraction in that it has altered both the media and public discourse to include transgender rights rather than a laser focus on healthcare, and has encouraged infighting among the president’s opponent’s about this issue’s relative importance. However, to call it JUST a distraction is short-sighted. When people say that this or that is “just a distraction” they often mean that it’s “not important to me personally.”

One of the keys to following this presidency is the understanding that nearly everything he says and does is a distraction but also that nothing is. What I mean by that is this: the president and his administration can offer up multiple controversial policies with minimal effort, and if any of them succeed that one will be declared the most important and celebrated as a triumph.

As a political strategy it has the potential to be very effective. It can split the opposition into camps fighting each other about what issues are worthy of focus. It can overwhelm those who are already despairing into feeling that there is too much and nothing can be done. It can goad the opposition to rapidly shifting focus and eroding follow through on prior efforts.

However, what the administration’s strategy offers in breadth it lacks in depth. It’s true that none of us can do everything at once, but all of us can do at least two things. Most of these statements from the president are mere statements and have no orders or legislation behind them. Opposition can be emphatically voiced while work continues on other topics. One effective way to oppose this type of strategy is for each of us to pick two topics to focus our efforts. The first should be some major piece of legislation or policy currently considered by Congress, whether the budget, healthcare, or immigration. The second should be whatever issue is most important to you in your own life or is an immediate concern. Call or write to your Congressional Delegation about each of these. Express your personal connection. Voice your opinion. Avoid arguing with others about what’s most important, they have their own assignments. Focus on what you can do, and do that.

Against Apathy

By auctoritas

On May 22, 2017

In History, Politics

Oppression thrives in apathy. It operates on indifference. It succeeds because people have given up. Once people broadly accept that nothing can be done, it becomes true. It doesn’t matter whether a weight is one pound or one thousand pounds. If no one will try to move it, it cannot be moved.

A tyrant nurtures this sense of resignation. He is a schoolyard bully or an abusive boyfriend writ large. He nourishes distrust, warning that anyone else would be worse. He crows about his successes, no matter how minor. He taunts defeated opponents, building them up after the fact to grow his own strength by the telling. Yet his power is contingent on limited resistance. He doesn’t win by defeating everyone. He wins only when enough people give up. It was as true for Benito Mussolini as in your high school cafeteria. It’s true now.

What do we do about it? How do you fend off defeatism? You need to recognize that you don’t have to do everything. You just have to oppose injustice where you are able. The goal is not to be Superman, and save the city yourself. The goal is simply to help where you can. That’s it. If you are able to make phone calls, keep making phone calls. If you are able to write letters, keep writing letters. If you are able to march, march. If you are able to donate money, keep donating money. It isn’t important that your individual actions are effective on their own. It is, however, vital that you continue to work toward the liberty and justice that this nation should stand for, both for yourself and for the others who will be encouraged by it. Even on days when you have given up hope, you can still have resolve. Victory comes from saying “Yes, we can,” one more time than they will say, “no you can’t.”

Nearly as important is appreciating and celebrating success. Any victory no matter how small will be treated as a triumph by an oppressive regime. The opposition must do likewise wherever they are able. Seeing and celebrating small successes undermines the narrative of inevitable failure. It reminds you of what you’ve accomplished, and reinforces for everyone else that they, too, can still make a difference. Celebrate when a good bill passes into law, at any level. Celebrate when your candidates win. Celebrate the defeat of any oppression, however temporary. Every time you do, it supports others who might consider giving up. Some people will say that there’s nothing to celebrate until some kind of final victory. Those people are wrong. Human being work best when they feel like their efforts are effective. Acknowledging smaller successes does not prevent continued work toward a larger goal.

The myth of history always centers itself on great leaders: Alexander the Great, Cicero, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower. Everyone loves to hear about the victorious hero. But the rarely spoken truth about these heroes is that they didn’t do anything. Alexander was king, but Macedonian soldiers and cavalry defeated Persia. Cicero delivered speeches, but the Senate and the Roman people protected the Republic. Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, but Union soldiers won the war and government agents and the slaves themselves ended chattel slavery. After the Supreme Court issued a ruling against segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, Eisenhower did not personally fly to Little Rock and enforce the ruling. Nine brave students integrated the schools themselves, protected by members of the United States army. History is always made by individuals acting on behalf of a cause. We are those individuals.

The effort to resist the current administration has often been compared to a marathon rather than a short sprint to emphasize the scale and to warn people to pace themselves. If we’re going to compare our efforts to the field of athletics, it seems more appropriate to use a team sport. Let’s say that this is a football game: The quarterback can’t win it by himself. We all have to play our part, whether that’s running the ball, blocking the defense, or even punting effectively. Do what you can, as well as you can. One touchdown or one interception won’t win the game. Cheer anyway. It makes the next one come easier. By that same token one bad play won’t force a loss. Halftime is in 2018. If we work together, we can get there with our Democracy intact and go into the second half with the lead.

Jeff Sessions Isn’t Dumb

By auctoritas

On April 21, 2017

In Politics

“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power,” the Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions said in an interview on Mark Levin’s conservative radio talk show. The reaction on social media has been a mixture of righteous outrage and dumbfounded ridicule that the Attorney General could be so dumb as to be amazed by this event. While the statement is self-evidently ridiculous, dismissing the Attorney General’s remark as dumb words from a dumb guy is naive.

I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power – Jeff Sessions

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has worked in government for more than forty years. He was initially hired as an Assistant United States Attorney in 1975. He has a college degree. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama School of Law which has produced numerous federal judges. The role of the judiciary as a check on executive power does not come as a surprise to him. Sessions is familiar with Marbury v. Madison, the landmark case before the Supreme Court in 1803 which established the basis for judicial review. Further, he is familiar with the Constitution itself, whose Supremacy Clause establishes the rights and obligations set out in the Constitution as having greater authority than federal law and executive orders.

The State of Hawaii joined the Union fifty seven years ago. Sessions was 13. I’m sure he remembers when the flag added a fiftieth star. Prior to that it had been a United States territory since before Sessions’s father was born. Calling it merely “an island in the Pacific” is a way to make the Americans who live there separate from us, distant from “real America.” It’s a deliberate rhetorical choice to downplay our common heritage and an implicit appeal to white supremacy. It marks those “pacific islanders” as not like the rest of us. Language has power. Jeff Sessions well knows that that “island in the Pacific” is one of the United States, and the judges there have the same duty and authority to enforce the Constitution as those in his native Alabama.

This is not an issue of Sessions being unfamiliar with the law nor with confusion over his new role as attorney general compared to senator. He did not make this argument dismissing the authority of a federal judge in a court of law where it would be unconvincing in the face of centuries of precedent. Rather, Sessions was speaking through a conservative radio show to an audience of partisans. He was not stating a sincere belief in the judge’s lack of legal authority. He was rallying conservatives around the idea that any opponents of the current administration are illegitimate, even sitting federal judges exercising their authority under the Constitution of the United States.

The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned! – February 4, 2017

Sessions’s remark is part of a pattern to undermine the authority of the opposition. In the aftermath of the failed Muslim ban, the president himself attacked the federal judges who ruled against it, calling their legitimacy into question. He raged on Twitter, calling Judge James Robart, who was appointed by George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate a “so-called judge” and promising that the ruling would be overturned. Presidential advisor Stephen Miller went so far as to say that the powers of the president “will not be questioned.” The administration wants to be seen as having supreme authority and any limits to be invalid. These are not off-the-cuff statements made without thought, but a deliberate effort to undermine the checks and balances placed on the presidency. Former CIA officer Evan McMullin compared these efforts to his first hand experience with foreign autocrats. All Americans should be similarly concerned.

Becoming the Villain

By auctoritas

On April 14, 2017

In Politics, Popular Culture

Mythology can tell you a lot about a society. In ancient Greece, they told stories about Herakles, Odysseus, and Jason that held up their strength, cunning, and courage for admiration. At the same time, these stories warned of the peril resulting from hubris and disloyalty. Likewise, the Romans had tales of Aeneas and Cincinnatus to underscore the importance of duty and family. Here, in the United States, we have created our own mythological heroes.

In the early months of 1941, while Nazi Germany was waging a war fueled by propaganda of inborn racial supremacy, two Jewish Americans writing for Timely Comics created a mythic hero for 20th Century America. Writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby told the story of Steve Rogers, a small and sickly young man who becomes a powerful super soldier as a result of scientific achievement and his own courage rather than genetic superiority. As Captain America, he punches out Hitler on the cover of his very first issue. An American icon, he demonstrated incorruptible virtue, and his stories depict him using his strength to promote freedom, justice, and equality. In the 1970s, amid the Watergate scandal, the character left the service of the United States government, and opposed the President of the United States for the sake of those principals.

Since 2016, the current run of Steve Rogers, Captain America written for Marvel Comics by Nick Spencer, has depicted the character as a sleeper agent of sorts for Hydra. If you’re not familiar with the details of the comic book mythology, Hydra is a terrorist organization dedicated to world domination. Narratively, it had origins in Nazi Germany and was created as a stand-in for the Nazis themselves after the end of the war in order to give Captain America a lasting group of antagonists. In effect, by being rewritten as a Hydra double agent, Captain America has become a Nazi. And rather than depict this as a tragedy, the storyline downplays the Hydra organization’s connections to Nazism, recasting them as morally gray.

It is impossible to overlook the parallels to the current political situation in the United States. The current president has appointed white nationalists to be his advisors, Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller. He has appointed Sebastian Gorka, whose ties to a Hungarian Nazi organization have recently come to light. The president chose the notoriously racist Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to head the justice department, who has rolled back police oversight and civil rights protections as one of his first actions.

During the campaign, the president himself refused to condemn David Duke or the Ku Klux Klan or reject their support, pretending not to know anything about them. His administration has rejected civilian refugees from the Syrian civil war, but this week launched ineffectual but dramatic air strikes causing hundreds of civilian deaths while failing to destroy the targeted airbase. His press secretary, Sean Spicer explained this attack in a confusing statement that minimized the horror of the Holocaust and the war crimes perpetrated by Hitler. Days later calling the United States Armed Forces “my military,” he authorized the launch of the largest, most expensive non-nuclear bomb in their arsenal. With a nickname right out of a comic book, the “mother of all bombs” sounds like something a super villain would deploy.

In the comic books, Captain America has become a Nazi. In real world, the White House has become headquarters for a complete cast of comic book style villains. Their ranks are filled out by Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and capped with a bombastic billionaire who gloats about taking pleasure in vengeance. But that’s just the government. This president has the approval of a mere 36% of Americans. The American people, by contrast, voted against this regime by more than three million votes. The American people are making phone calls, writing letters, donating money and attending protests. And, while Captain America as a Nazi may illustrate where we have gone wrong, every good myth has multiple versions. The version of Captain America that fills the movie screens still speaks on behalf of justice and still punches Nazis.

Personal Responsibility

By auctoritas

On April 6, 2017

In Politics

John McCain voted to end the filibuster today. He claimed to do so with great regret. He claimed to have no choice.

Lindsey Graham voted to end the filibuster today. He said they had “no other option.”

The Republican party has long claimed to stand for personal responsibility. The words are enshrined in the name of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. The idea is a core tenet of the 90s Republican Contract with America. Personal responsibility is apparently a virtue among people struggling to feed their families. Strangely it seems not to apply to Senators who talk out of both sides of their mouths and refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions.

McCain, Graham, and others consistently criticize the president’s choices and actions publicly and then vote to support his agenda in the Senate. If an action is necessary however unpopular, our representatives owe it to us to have the courage to defend it publicly, to explain their support for it. Yet these Senators want headlines for speaking out against the president while they quietly vote to support him and hope he takes the blame for actions they aided.That isn’t personal responsibility. That is conduct unbecoming of a United States Senator.

The Immigrant Problem

By auctoritas

On March 16, 2017

In History, Politics

Consider the problems around refugees and immigration. This country has had a huge influx of people looking for a better life. It has been going on for decades. Many of these immigrants are poor – not the best and brightest. Some of them come in legally, but many have snuck in by way of Canada. They do not assimilate to American culture. They have a foreign religion and worship among themselves, reciting prayers in a foreign tongue. When they speak English at all, it’s broken and with a heavy accent. Many of them are criminals and are involved in street gangs. Specifically, I want to talk about the ones who joined our military only to betray their sacred oath and join members of their foreign religion to wage war against the United States. I’m talking, of course, about the Irish-American military deserters who formed St. Patrick’s Battalion and took up arms against the United States.

Following the Great Famine, thousands of Irish emigrated to the United States seeking a better life. Lacking land and money, many joined the American Army. These foreign soldiers faced discrimination and abuse on account of their foreign origin and Catholic religion. In 1846, when the United States began a war of territorial expansion against Mexico, an Irishman, John Riley (born Seán Ó Raghailligh in County Galway) organized Irish deserters into a unit of the Mexican Army, the San Patricios. They fought under the flag of the Irish Harp and fought against the United States in the Mexican-American War. While the Irish San Patricios were renowned in Mexico for their bravery, the United States ultimately won the war, seizing Texas and northern Mexico.

Irish Catholic immigrants fought in a declared war against the United States as part of a foreign army. Those involved lived in Mexican exile or were punished in courts martial. Those deserters who were captured were branded – literally branded with hot iron – as traitors and hanged.

Relevant today is what didn’t happen: Loyal Americans of Irish origin were not rounded up and deported. There was no blanket ban on Irish or Catholic immigration. Their children grew up as Americans. They adopted American values and American accents. They ascended to the highest levels of success in both business and government. An Irish-American president is commemorated on the fifty cent coin. Today in the United States, if those Irish deserters are remembered at all, they are celebrated in song and film.

Assimilation does not happen over the course of a single night. But for many of us of Irish ancestry, we choose not to remember the difficulties our ancestors faced in integrating into American culture. We pretend that our people were model citizens and not at all like those immigrants today from Mexico or Syria who cause trouble. But the hard truth is moving to another country is a difficult transition for anyone. The same forces of nativism and alienation that tormented my Irish ancestors in the 1840s are faced by the current generation of immigrants.

In fact, the discrimination immigrants face today is far more overt. Today’s discrimination is sanctioned by our government. The president has issued executive orders banning immigration into this country according to religion. He has proposed a massive slash in government services in order to finance a giant wall to keep other immigrants out. Families are being split up and immigrants are being deported for seeking medical care, for practicing their religion, for speaking out. Even American citizens are being detained at the border for no reason apart from their religious beliefs. None of these have raised an army battalion. None of them deserve this treatment. This nation is founded on the belief that all people have an equal right to liberty and justice. We’ve always had a hard time living up to those ideals. But in 2017, more than any time since the abolition of slavery, we are failing spectacularly.

Tip Your Server

By auctoritas

On March 14, 2017

In What To Do

As the Republican party puts their agenda into action, the poorest Americans are going to be facing cuts to their benefits. The new healthcare plan will cause millions to lose their insurance. In the past, I’ve encouraged people to donate to non-profits and free clinics that support the poor. But, you can also help people more directly.

Tip. Tip generously. Tip at every opportunity. Tip anyone who accepts tips. Tip your server. Tip your bartender. Tip your valet. Tip your hairdresser. Tip your barista. If you’re eating some place that doesn’t have a drive-thru, you probably have higher wages than your server. Odds are good she has been put in a tough spot, either losing health insurance or facing premium increases. If you’re a liberal, think of this as reallocating wealth to help those in need. The government under the new administration isn’t going to do it, so you can do it yourself. If you’re a conservative, you understand that it’s the responsibility of individuals rather than the government, so you, also, have this opportunity to do it yourself. Yes, some of these people have greater needs than others, but nearly all of them have greater needs than their customers.

I can’t raise the minimum wage. I can’t fix the broken economy, or the broken healthcare system. I can give an extra $5 to Bianca the barista and $10 to Ken the single father who makes my drinks. And the cash I tip goes directly back into the economy. Tipped employees are buying diapers and groceries and haircuts of their own. Economic stimulus and helping the less fortunate by one small action. I can’t get a better bargain.

iPhones, Obamacare, and Expired Meat

By auctoritas

On March 9, 2017

In Politics

I’ve written previously about my experiences with government benefits. I was on Medicaid as a child. I’ve been on welfare. I’ve lived in neighborhoods that people are warned about. My education was bought in part with grants and loans from the United States government. Today I have a degree, a job with a very good salary, and I own a home. By all accounts I’m a success story for government aid. But today I don’t want to talk about how government aid gave me a ladder to success, but the people for whom it is a lifeline to keep from drowning.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a man who will make $174,000 this year, went on CNN to talk up the Republican healthcare plan. He told America, “Rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care. They’ve got to make those decisions themselves.” There are so many things wrong with that statement, but I’m going to focus on one insidious idea: that people use government aid because they squander their money on iPhones and T-bone steaks and Cadillacs. It’s a compelling myth. It makes us feel good about our own financial choices. It saves us from feeling bad about people living in poverty. It allows us to feel like the universe is in some way fair – that you and I are successful because of our morality and righteousness, and those who are living in poverty are profligates who deserve it. The easiest stories to believe are the ones that let us feel like we’re better than other people. But just because something makes you feel good doesn’t make it true. Stories that make you feel good are how salesmen get you to make bad decisions. Tell someone he looks like the kind of man who knows how to impress and would never cheap out on his wife, and he just may walk out of the store with a diamond twice as big as he intended. These kind of stories have power even when they’re lies.

So let me tell you a different story, one that isn’t a lie even though some details have been changed for the sake of anonymity. A few years ago, when my spouse and I bought our house, we were getting rid of some furniture before we moved. One thing we no longer needed was a large chest freezer that we kept in the basement. We could have gotten a little money for it, but it was faster and easier to put it up on Craigslist for free, as long as we didn’t have to deliver it. These are the kinds of decisions you can make when you do not need to worry about $20. That weekend a man and his family came to get it. I’m going to call him Mitch because that’s a generic white guy name and because of the senior senator from Kentucky.

Mitch and his family arrived in a full-size van that was nearly as old as I am. At the time we were living in a place in the middle of the city. It wasn’t a bad place to live, but it had seen better days, and those better days were probably before the First World War. Nevertheless, his daughter told me with wide-eyed sincerity that our home was beautiful. Mitch and I talked while we tried to figure out the best way to move the freezer up from the basement. He gushed about how we were a blessing and thanked us several times. He talked about how times were tough and how hard it was to take care of a family. That’s when Mitch told us what his plan was for the freezer. He was going to buy meat in bulk from the meat packing plant, and the expiring clearance-priced food from the supermarket to save money. He didn’t have an iPhone 7 or a leased Audi. He was going to Safeway to buy expiring meat so he could freeze it and feed his family.

I know it’s tempting to say that stories like this are the exception and that most people in poverty just don’t work hard enough or save enough to escape. It’s tempting to believe the lie. There are many hard-working Americans whom Obamacare already does not do enough to help. They need more than a lifeline; they need the kind of ladder out of poverty I had. The Republican replacement – what they’re calling the World’s Best Healthcare Plan of 2017 in some kind of cruel joke – leaves these people behind completely. It takes the opportunity to buy healthcare and replaces it with a tax cut for multimillionaires. One surgery. One tumor. One car accident. That’s all it takes to lose everything, no matter how hard they work.

Faction and the Founders – It’s Not Like They Didn’t Warn us

By auctoritas

On March 3, 2017

In History, Politics

James Madison

In the past year one idea has been repeated so frequently that it’s become a cliche: Americans are more divided than ever. We have made our political parties a defining element of character. We talk about whether we’re from blue states or red states. There are more protests and political activity since the Vietnam War and disagreement over those protests dominates the conversation on social media. This division didn’t begin with the 2016 election, but in this new administration it has crystallized. As I have watched all of this, I keep thinking about history and the founding of the Republic.

Americans being divided is nothing new. Two hundred years ago, as our Constitution was being considered, James Madison in Federalist No. 10, warned about the danger to the United States inherent in dividing ourselves into parties and factions, and when one group becomes too powerful. He defined “faction” in this way: “a number of citizens … who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the … interests of the community.” Madison further argues that humanity is naturally inclined to divide ourselves into groups on account of our differences in wealth, religion, and background, but that those divisions can become an enemy to liberty when our impulse to protect and promote that group exceeds our love and support for the larger community of our fellow citizens, “A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning Government, and many other points, … have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other, than to coöperate for their common good.” Unfortunately, that’s where we have found ourselves as a nation.

During the Obama administration, and especially since the 2016 election, the elected portion of the Republican party has become this kind of faction. The party made their animosity for President Obama clear when Sen. McConnell announced that preventing his reelection would be their priority as a party and Sen. Cotton decided to block one of his appointments, not for the individual’s politics or qualifications, but out of spite. The Republican Senate leadership refused to consider any Supreme Court nominee from President Obama for spurious reasons, and announced that if Hillary Clinton were elected, they would block any nominee of hers entirely. Republican House majority leader Kevin McCarthy even admitted that the interminable Congressional hearings and investigations around the Benghazi attack were arranged in order to damage Clinton politically. This is not what anyone would call cooperation for the common good.

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning Government, and many other points, … have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other, than to coöperate for their common good.

Under the new administration, the Republican party has taken complete control of the executive branch as well as the legislature. This has given them the opportunity move on to the “vex and oppress” stage of Madison’s warning. Newly elected presidents typically are conciliatory and make statements about representing all Americans and wanting to reach across the aisle. The new administration has done the reverse. The president has made explicit statements that he represents Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul has made the statement that Congress wouldn’t be spending time investigating alleged corruption of fellow Republicans. The president has appointed individuals to his cabinet who are manifestly unqualified, billionaire political donor Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, and Rick Perry as Secretary of Energy, a politician who had no idea what the Department of Energy even did. The Republican Senate leadership confirmed them rather than oppose a Republican president.

The Republicans are quick to put their purported values aside in order to support the administration. Compare their actions to their own words. In December of 2015, Mike Pence called the proposed Muslim ban, “offensive and unconstitutional.” Yet, when the president signed the executive order, far from objecting, Pence applauded. The Speaker of the House offers the same story. During the campaign, Paul Ryan called such a ban “not reflective of America’s fundamental values.” But by the time the executive order was signed, Ryan had apparently changed his mind about the nature of American values. He firmly supported the president and defended it publicly. Sen. John McCain and Sen. Marco Rubio both expressed dissatisfaction with the selection of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, a man with no diplomatic experience and troubling ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin. McCain went so far as to compare the likelihood of his supporting Tillerson’s with flying pigs. When the final votes were cast, McCain and Rubio were both in the “yea” column. Tillerson was confirmed and the president’s agenda was supported. During the 2016 campaign, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee expressed concerns about the Clinton Foundation and suggested that government services were for sale.
But now that his own party has won the White House, Chaffetz has unconcerned about the president’s ties to his family business or his debts to foreign nations. He pronounced the president “exempt” from conflict of interest laws and declined to investigate. This was never about American values or conservative principles. The primary goal of the Republican party has become maintaining power for their own faction.

Among the Republicans who are not involved in government, over the past several years, an entire parallel system has built up around supporting the party and demonizing any opponents. The right wing has its own internet dating networks so they won’t have to accidentally meet political opponents. The faction has a news channel in Fox News which devotes the majority of its programming not to news but to editorial content attacking Americans who are outside their faction, whether that is President Obama picking basketball teams, rap musicians, feminists, or non-Christian religions, and especially journalists and newsmedia outside the right wing infosphere. None of these things have any significant news value or relationship to policy, but they’re associated with the opposition. As it happens, Madison anticipated this as well: “So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions, and excite their most violent conflicts.” In fact, the conservative faction has made even more arbitrary and ridiculous distinctions. The faction draws lines over restaurants, music, nearly the whole of talk radio, even what kind of car you drive. None of this matters from a public policy perspective, but it serves to draw cultural lines between us and them and to reinforce who is in-party and who is an enemy.

When anyone points this out, the faction members are quick to argue that “they do the same thing.” This is manifestly false and an attempt to distract from the issue by employing a false equivalence. Fox News has no counterpart on the left. MSNBC briefly attempted to fill the role, but has moved away from that. CNN and the broadcast networks are more interested in entertainment and sensationalism than pushing an agenda or a party line. There are liberal propaganda outlets like US Uncut, but they lack the institutional support from within the party that Breitbart and Drudge have. And when they attack conservative media, they attack conservative propaganda outlets, not legitimate, if editorially conservative, newspapers like the Wall Street Journal. The Republican party rarely in recent years sees members vote across party lines when it will make a difference. By contrast, Democrats routinely defect to support GOP initiatives when it suits their interests.

James Madison is not the only one to have warned us about the danger inherent in party politics or when one faction completely seizes the reins of government. George Washington himself gave this warning in his farewell address:

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension … is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.” – George Washington

How We Respond

Unfortunately, and perhaps counter-intuitively, the only way to counter a political faction whose loyalty to their collective has taken priority, is by acting collectively. That runs the risk of creating another corrupt faction, but it isn’t inevitable. We can work together toward a common goal without drinking the Kool-Aid. Read a real newspaper. Don’t get your information from opinion pages, blogs, and cable news channels. Determine what your principles are. Write them down. Actually write them down. Decide now where you will draw the line for the politicians you support. What actions will cause you to put your support elsewhere. That doesn’t preclude joining the Democratic or Republican Party if that gives you a voice or furthers your principles, nor does it preclude compromise. It’s okay to develop a fondness for people in your group but that must not override your loyalty to your principles. But the guide for your actions and for your votes must be those principles, not gaining or maintaining power for your friends, for your party, for your in-group. Once the votes are cast and your representatives are elected, whether your candidate wins or loses, you have the power and the duty to communicate with the winner and urge that person to act in accordance with your values.

For me the basic guiding principles are Liberty and Equal Justice. The candidates and parties whose actions work against those principles risk losing my support.

Liberty and Authority

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How We Respond

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