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It’s Not Too Late To Learn From 2016

The 2016 election? Really?  Why write about that [shudder], now? Is there anything left to be said about the 2016 election?

It’s not just because I did not have a blog back then that I address it now. Looking forward convinces me of the importance of looking back. My impression is that we are not paying attention to the most important lessons to be learned from 2016. We should.

Our Discontent

In watching election coverage the night of November 6, 2016 and into the next morning, I bounced around from one station to another (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, at least). The single most telling item I remember seeing was mentioned only once and quickly. A PBS exit poll asked voters willing to identify who had received their vote whether they believed their candidate was trustworthy. As I recall it, 63% of those who voted for Donald Trump said they did not believe him to be trustworthy. Only slightly fewer, 61% I think, said the same about Hillary Clinton despite having voted for her.

Think about that. Nearly two-thirds of those who bothered to vote did not trust the candidate they voted FOR. Imagine how they felt about the candidate they voted AGAINST. The most astounding thing about this is that I don’t doubt it. I, and almost everyone I know, couldn’t stand either candidate. I know a few, very few, who were happy, more or less, to vote for either Hillary or The Donald. The overwhelming sentiment was a visceral, almost desperate, need to vote against the other one. A friend put it succinctly the day before the election: “Do you realize I would gladly vote for Richard Nixon tomorrow?”

I don’t recall questions like this even being asked in past election exit polls. Another one was whether the voter would feel “scared” by a presidency of the other candidate. Of those who voted for Clinton, 70% said yes; for Trump, it was 60% for a Clinton presidency.  That questions of this sort were thought to be appropriate for this election speaks for itself.

Before and Since

I noticed in the months leading up to the election that I had never seen so few campaign signs on lawns, or bumper stickers on cars, for a presidential race. While there may have been more elsewhere, I did a lot of driving around that time. I do think a few more appeared after the election – the blue ones in defiance and the red ones to gloat. My overall impression remained a lack of enthusiasm for either candidate.

When people told me how depressed they were after the election, I said I had been depressed about the election for months before it happened. I never had to explain what I meant.

It was the “Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils” election to end them all.

Well, maybe not. That may be the optimistic view, believe it or not. It was the “Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils” election to end them all, so far.

Here We Go

Not long after the votes were counted in the 2018 mid-terms, we were under way for 2020. You could tell by the number of hats being thrown into the ring – more than following a hat trick at a hockey game. For a while there, it seemed like it might be easier to have announcements made by Democrats who were not running for president.

The declared Democrats, or as I have begun calling them, the Committee to Re-Elect the President, have been competing feverishly to see who can most quickly and thoroughly alienate voters like me. These folks, apparently lacking the wherewithal to realize the effect of what they say, usher in our latest silly season with grand pronouncements.

Meanwhile, in the coming months, notice how often and how gleefully President Trump makes reference to the following: “socialist”, “socialism”, and especially “Green New Deal”. He recognizes his best chance when he sees it.

Speaking of the incumbent, and his outrage-of-the-day approach to the presidency, it should not be a given that an individual who has demonstrated clear unfitness for office be the 2020 Republican nominee. It does not takes a far-left looney to suggest the incumbent does not merit re-nomination. Indeed, the most devastating analyses of Donald Trump’s behavior have been written by leading conservative columnists like George Will and the late Charles Krauthammer. If you have not had a chance to read them, you owe it to yourself – regardless of your political persuasion. These pieces should be required reading for GOP leaders.

We have more than a year and a half to go before the 2020 election, but already I can’t stop wondering, yet again: How low can we go? (See post of 1/25/19, “Doing the Limbo Inside the Beltway”.)

The Most Important Takeaway

I realize how irresistible it is to analyze the horse-race aspects of why and how the election was decided. (How did Hillary do with left-handed, suburban Asian women, by the way?) What political science experts should be studying most urgently, though, is how we ended up having to choose between two candidates most Americans detested. Who finds this acceptable? How could this happen? Is there a way of ensuring it does not happen again?

What is the purpose of major political parties if not to develop and provide excellent candidates for office? The worst thing about the 2016 election was the choice we had. In a nation of 327 million, many of whom are astonishingly accomplished, this is the best we can do?

Perhaps we have made the job of President, or the process of attaining it, so distasteful that no one who would be ideal to serve is willing to seek it.

Is the primary system so flawed that it is time to go back to the “smoke-filled rooms” (even if without the smoke)?

The Citizens’ Role

I have referred to “voters like me”. So, who are we? Perhaps I am alone, but I suspect there are millions who take one issue and one candidate at a time, judging them on their merits. For President, we are looking for someone who is smart, sane, honorable, effective, and sensible. If we can get some creativity and wisdom, great. Is this really too much to ask?

We are not sanguine about where the next crazy swing of the pendulum is going to take us. We’d prefer to tamp down the pendulum’s swing, and the rhetoric, using the available energy to find solutions that work. While we may tend to lean one way or the other, at our core we are neither red nor blue. We are sick and tired – of sleaze, foolishness, dishonesty, grandstanding, useless belligerence, and so forth.

We’ve got to act accordingly. We must hold both individuals and political parties accountable by refusing to reward bad behavior with mindless election or re-election of the sub-par.

We must understand that our votes in primaries are at least as important as in elections. As 2016 illustrates, there’s only so much we can salvage on Election Day if we have two unacceptable choices. If forced somehow to pick between primary and election to make sure we vote and get it right, we should choose the primary.

We need to encourage and nurture good people all along the way in the hope that one of them eventually makes it to President.

One Final Thought: Timing

There must be other problems with our primaries as well, but I believe I have never cast a vote that mattered in a New Jersey presidential primary. Effectively, I have been disenfranchised, as has everyone in the state.

The reason is timing. New Jersey’s primaries are so late that the identity of each party’s nominee is a fait accompli before we ever get to the polls. Thus, unless we have nearly a dead heat going into a convention, it is virtually impossible for our votes to matter. If, as argued, the primary can be more important than the election, this qualifies as a big deal.

Meanwhile, a good early showing in Iowa or New Hampshire can go far to propel someone to viability. That “good showing” need not even be a win; doing better than pundits predicted can do the trick.

This juxtaposition strikes me as ridiculous, and easily fixable. While fixing it, perhaps we can stumble upon someone who would make a fine president. How about at least one stellar candidate from each party? There’s still time, but only if we get busy.

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Life as a Zero Sum Game: It Ain’t Necessarily So

As discussed in my welcoming post on January 13, and in “What’s the Matter?” on February 5, one of the reasons I write is to explore tendencies we have to make ourselves and each other unnecessarily miserable.

Today’s focus is on something that sounds academic and esoteric. It’s neither, actually. Approaching the interactions, relationships, and transactions of life as a series of zero sum games has consequences. Many of them are unfortunate.

Zero Sum games

Although academic tomes are written on the subject (see Economics, Psychology, Game Theory), zero sum is a simple concept at its core. It is a situation in which the value or benefit available is finite and fixed. With only so much to go around, it follows that for certain participants to get more, others must get correspondingly less. The pluses and minuses must balance out to the zero sum of the game’s name.

Often, zero sum works its way into our dealings sneakily, as an assumption. For me to do well, obviously, you must do poorly. One reason this thinking is prevalent is because it’s insidious. When this tendency grows into something out of hand, I am looking to destroy you, more than simply do well for myself.

Are there real zero sum games in life?

In a few situations, zero sums are probably unavoidable. Readers may think of other examples, but the following come to mind.

Elections have the fixed value of one and only one winner; all other candidates must lose. Elections can remain “too close to call” only so long. There will be no sharing of a mayoralty, Senate seat, or Presidency, so any tie must be broken.

Sports provide zero sum situations. For a team to win the World Series, the other must lose it. Ties were so undesirable in hockey that they instituted a brief overtime followed by a shootout that is found unsatisfying enough to be scrapped for unlimited sudden-death in the playoffs. Boxing does have the occasional draw, generally pleasing no one. Note, though, that if one boxer is jubilant with the result and the other is fuming, you probably have an indication of who really won.

Downside I: skewed perspective

Adopting a zero-sum approach can lead to peculiar perspectives, however, including with sports. Take the Buffalo Bills of the early ‘90s, who have received a lot of grief for losing four consecutive Super Bowls. They’ve been called “flops” and even “losers”. The latter is remarkable when you consider the accomplishment of winning four straight conference championships. They are the only team ever to do so. The truth is they lost in the Super Bowls to teams that were simply better than they were (the ’90 Giants, ’91 Redskins, ’92 and ‘93 Cowboys). Indeed, the NFC was far superior to the AFC back then. Could the Bills have avoided some vilification by losing earlier in the playoffs one of those years?

Music fans are notorious for this. It’s not enough to love so-and-so’s playing; he’s got to be “the greatest guitarist who ever lived”. I can’t tell you how many different guitarists I’ve heard fervent arguments for being the GOAT.

Critics are not exempt. In his insightful advocacy for the genius of Ornette Coleman, the otherwise superb Jazz critic Martin Williams would sometimes feel the need to write something snarky about John Coltrane. Is there really only so much greatness available to go around?

Now, it can be fun to argue like this, especially in sports and music, and even more so regarding performers from different eras. Zero sum’s skewed perspective is a counterproductive way of approaching public policy and viewing life, however.

Downside II: needlessly lost opportunity

While so many of life’s controversies are presented as zero-sum games, it ain’t necessarily so (with apologies to Gershwin) in at least two respects.

Interests that on first glance seem to be competing are not always diametrically opposed. In fact, it may be that the real interests involved need not be in opposition at all. This is a major underpinning of modern thought on negotiation, since Fisher and Ury’s 1981 classic Getting To Yes, at least. The simplest example they give is of two people negotiating over an orange. They eventually just cut it in half. One eats the fruit of his half orange and throws out the rind. The other uses the rind to cook and throws out his half of the fruit. With the slightest interest in knowing the other’s interests, each could have had all he wanted.

Secondly, if all anyone cares about is how the pie is to be split up, no one is thinking about increasing the pie so everyone can be fed. Who says the value available is set and limited to what we currently have?

Among concepts central to the training required of professional mediators, these two are prominent. First, carefully identify the parties’ real interests (as opposed to their stated positions). Second, look for creative ways to expand the pie.

It gets worse

Real trouble ensues when Zero Sum combines with “Us vs. Them” (see 2/19 post), as often occurs. It’s a bad combination. “You people are always the problem. You’re always wrong.  I’m going to make it my business to see that you never get what you want.”

Among the Us vs. Them scenarios that smack us in the face every day is The Right vs. The Left. On the hot button issues, each camp would have you believe they are entirely correct, those other people are not only completely wrong but evil, and you are either with them or against them. Each side has its orthodoxy and believes it must “win” at all costs.

Sorry, but rigid extremes are not our only choices, and are seldom the best ones.

Specific example: the Environment

It is useful to take a quick look at what passes for discourse these days in a specific area, the environment. Let’s portray a condensed version of what we’re likely to hear from both sides:

The Right: “These environmental activists are crazy. They’d happily forego 10,000 jobs to save the habitat of a species of worm that may or may not be endangered. For them, the risks of a project are never low enough and the environment cannot be clean enough. According to them, humans are the only creatures on earth that do not deserve to be here. Ultimately, if we do nothing with anything, progress will cease, the economy will grind to a halt, and no one will be feeding their families.”

The Left: “These huge corporations care only about maximizing profit and nothing about the environment. There’s nothing they won’t befoul to make a buck. If we leave them to their own devices, the planet will be unlivable before we know it . We’re already well on our way to catastrophe, so regulatory efforts to this point have been completely inadequate.”

My perspective

I am a big fan of both jobs and the environment. There may be a few exceptions, but in general this is not be a zero-sum game where economic development is possible only with corresponding environmental degradation. Likewise, environmental progress need not cripple the economy. To the contrary, there is great opportunity to create jobs in new technologies cleaning up our surroundings or in doing whatever we do more cleanly. After passage of the Clean Air Act, the invention, design, production, and installation of scrubbers formed a new industry. Jobs bolstered the economy and we all breathed better.

Some pipelines should be built; others not. We can figure this out, but not if we just yell slogans at each other across the chasm.

To Righties: Caring about people having safe air to breathe, clean water to drink and nutritious food to eat doesn’t make you crazy. To Lefties: striving to keep your company viable and profitable for the benefit of your employees, investors, and customers doesn’t make you callous. I have no doubt there are both environmentalists and industrialists who are both crazy and callous, of course, and other bad things as well. But, I don’t think most of the former get up in the morning saying “What industry can I wreck today? How many jobs can I end?” And I doubt many of the latter aspire to poison us all or kill polar bears.

Taking on tough issues is hard work. Gathering the facts, analyzing the evidence, creatively considering all the options, and consulting the experts is required to give us a chance to make sound public policy. Speaking of experts, excuse me while I pause for the following.

A brief open letter to scientists

Dear Scientists,

Please be scientists. Don’t fudge, don’t skew, don’t spin. Leave politics to the politicians. I don’t give a damn who you voted for. More importantly, I shouldn’t be able to tell from your work. You know better, from years of training and hard work in the scientific method. We’re relying on you for observations, critical information, and objective professional perspective. Give it to us straight; wherever the facts lead, we can take it. But we must have the facts. Thank you for your kind consideration.

Not just public policy

Other noisy, contentious issues abound in which our “leaders” are too busy striving to smite those fascists or communists, or whatever they’re calling the other side, to do the hard work of addressing the problems. (It hasn’t helped, of course, that media commentators on both sides of the divide have found it quite lucrative to fan these flames.) It is almost irresistible to write about Immigration, for example – and it will be the subject of a future post. For now, suffice it to say that we are not addressing the issue’s most important aspect.

Meanwhile, the damage inflicted by the Zero Sum approach is not limited to public policy. Any relationship, including marriage, in which a difference of opinion is viewed and treated as a zero sum game – requiring a winner and a loser – is heading for trouble. We can do better.

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong

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What’s The Matter?

Admit it. You dread reading or watching the news, avoid discussing politics with most people, and will do almost anything to escape conversation on any topic with some people. If not, you are probably one of those folks everyone else is avoiding.

It seems nearly everyone is either angry, upset, incredulous, or disengaged. Some are all of these, and more. Institutions to which we traditionally turn seem to be weakening, if not crumbling. Life has become satire, as if we were Yossarian living out the book Catch 22 every day. I’ve got to stop saying “You can’t make this stuff up”, because I’ve been saying it nearly constantly for quite a while, and it’s getting old.

What The Problem Is Not

Oddly, it occurs to me that the problem is not that everyone is acting in their own interest. First, as human beings, it seems to me, we have little choice. Self preservation is in our nature. Second, and getting closer to the point, doing well puts us in position to do more good. There’s a reason why the airlines tell us to get our own oxygen masks on before helping others in an emergency.

No, the problem is not people acting in their self interest. It’s just that we are so often wrong about what is in our best interest – and increasingly so – with consequences that range from frustrating to tragic to catastrophic.

It’s closer to the truth, actually, that what’s wrong with us is that we are NOT acting in our true best interests as human beings, when behaving badly, whether acting alone or in groups.

Individually

We make these mistakes as individuals in countless roles in various settings. Among them are as citizens, workers, neighbors, family members, lovers, friends, leaders, officials, public figures, thinkers, artists, writers, and other creators.

We err in big decisions and in small; in private or on the world’s stage; often or once in a while.

Collectively

One would hope that collective wisdom would help us get it right when it comes to discerning our true best interests. Herd mentality often sends the stampede in the wrong direction, though. Such mistakes are made, again, in any number of settings, as within neighborhoods, towns, counties, states, and countries; professions and occupations; religions; races and ethnicities; genders; clubs and associations; socioeconomic groups; and political parties.

Recurring Mistakes

So, what are we talking about here? What “mistakes”? What are we wrong about? There is no point pretending that the list is short, if we were to get into all the nutty stuff we human beings do, but there are some real killers worth exploring, as we will in future posts. Among them are these:

The perceived need for Us versus Them (If you’re not just like me, you must be inferior; the need for enemies.)

Regarding all interactions and relationships as zero-sum games (Since the good in the world is finite, you must do poorly for me to do well.)

Racism and other systematized, irrational hatreds (That it’s morally wrong is a given; the extent of the irrationality involved is staggering.)

Not dealing with people or issues on the merits (Making decisions on the merits requires hard work; alas, we are often lazy, at least.)

Where We Are

I have lost count of the number of people who have told me stories about incidents that have happened to them or someone they know that go something like this: “I can’t (be your friend, talk to you, work with you, etc.) if you (believe in, voted for, like, etc.) (fill in a the name of a person, an attitude, a belief, etc.).” While we’re busy creating the largest possible divides between us with name-calling, insults and the recitation of brainless slogans, genuinely and significantly bad stuff is happening in our communities, our country and our world. Raise your hand if you think any of this is in our best interest. I thought so.

But, enough about the Congress and the White House.

You don’t have to be a cynic or even a skeptic to notice that the unacceptable has become the expected. That is the biggest mistake of all, and we’re all complicit in this one. It’s time to call out the unacceptable for what it is and behave accordingly. Like Yossarian, I hate stewed tomatoes (my favorite line in the book).

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong


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Doing the Limbo Inside the Beltway

It was during the Kavanaugh hearings, as many friends of mine (conservatives and liberals) asked, “Is this as low as we can go? Is this rock bottom?” After saying “Probably not, unfortunately”, I found myself thinking of a record from the early ’60s. Having scored a mega-hit with “The Twist” and followed up with the requisite “Let’s Twist Again”, Chubby Checker climbed the charts once more in 1962 with “Limbo Rock”.

After singing the first verse, Chubby twice exhorts the dancers to “limbo lower now”, then bellows “How LOW can you GO?!”

Judicial Appointments

How low can we go? The hearings went pretty low, alright, with virtually all involved competing to see who could look worst. I found striking the response to complaints about Senator Feinstein’s apparently strategic use of Dr. Ford’s allegations and Senator Booker’s theatrics, for example, which went something like this: “Are you kidding? What about the Republicans’ refusal to even consider Merrick Garland?”

Well, what about that? Justice Scalia died in February of 2016. President Obama nominated Judge Garland on March 16, 2016. In a recent (1/22), lengthy piece by Charles Homans in the New York Times Magazine, there is (among other things) an account of how Senator McConnell used his renowned skills to block consideration. In the piece, Senator McConnell is quoted as thinking the decision not to fill the Scalia vacancy “the most consequential thing I’ve ever done.” It was President Obama’s constitutional duty to nominate a successor and the Senate’s corresponding duty to provide advice and consent. If a justice were to die a week before a presidential election, no one is reasonably going to expect full consideration for a rushed nomination. But eight months? Where does this end? There is always going to be another presidential election sometime in the future in which we can “let the people decide”.

“Are you kidding?” one can hear the reply. “What about the Democrats introducing the filibuster to obstruct President George W. Bush’s nominees to U.S. Circuit and District Courts?”

And so on.

How Low Can We Go?

Then there is – what else? – the Shutdown. The President of the United States has shut down the government, the executive branch of which it is his job to run. For this one, we get to hear from both the House and the Senate.

Before I get too deeply in the weeds of this foolishness, which has received all the ridicule it deserves elsewhere, (wall? fence? concrete? wood? slatted? continuous? paid for by Mexico? metaphor for border security?), I assume you see where I’m going. Conversations at this level weren’t impressive on the schoolyard playground when in third grade (Oh yeah? Yeah! Oh yeah? Yeah! Sez who? Sez me! Whadda ya gonna do about it? You’ll see! Oh yeah? Yeah!) and are certainly not impressive now. It’s not just the level of the discourse, though; it’s the content.

The Problem

My point here has nothing to do with how we felt or feel about Judges Garland or Kavanaugh, or the “Wall” or immigration. The problem is the people we are sending to Washington to serve in the executive and legislative branches of our government. Why are we talking about $5 billion to be spent on anything now? Is it budget time? Do we even do budgets any more, or is it just a series of never-ending spats over continuing resolutions? As far as I can tell, no one is even suggesting the serious discussion about immigration policy and enforcement we so badly need. The first principles that actually make America special aren’t even in play when grandstanding, obstructing, strategizing, spinning, outright lying, and the like take the place of the most basic functions of governing, like, you know, debating and approving a budget on time, or fairly vetting judges.

Note that this post could just as easily been about this: If it’s a terrible idea for presidents to rule by Executive Order when they can’t get the votes for legislation when it’s YOUR president, how can it be a great idea when it’s OUR president? Is it too much to ask for discussion of important matters on the merits? Why do we put up with this?

Why, indeed?

How low can we go? As low as we’re willing to tolerate. It is we who send these folks to Washington. Can you imagine “leaders” who think it persuasive to say, “The other side’s behavior is as bad, or worse”? Competition can be good when those acting in our interest push each other to greater heights. Lowering the bar – can you bottom this – is what we have had for quite a while. Those of us who are fed up need to make it clear we are paying attention and looking for opportunities to send home those who perform poorly and behave badly.

That’s our duty as citizens. No knock on the Limbo, where lowering the bar brings out greater skill and effort, but we need a new dance.

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong