Ben Carson’s America

With Ben Carson taking the lead over Donald Trump in Iowa and perhaps nationally there will be new media focus on him in the third Republican debate.  So far he has not gotten much scrutiny, but that will soon change.

            What does Ben Carson’s America look like?  In many ways perhaps not so different from that of Trump’s, Fiorina, and most of the rest of the Republican presidential field.  More style than substance has distinguished the various GOP candidates from one another, but in so many ways they share along with the congressional Freedom Caucus (the Tea Party) faith in what I shall call the five Cs: Conservatism, Constitutionalism, Capitalism, Christianity, and Caucasianism.  It is these five Cs–especially let’s call them the Five Fundamentalist Cs–that really is the core of  what Ben Carson’s America looks like.

            Carson’s campaign slogan is “Heal, Inspire, Revive.”    Ted Cruz’s is  "Reigniting the Promise of America.”  Trump’s is “Make American Great Again.”  All three speak to an America in decline, one that has drifted away from it basic principles or values.  They want to bring America back to an ideal they once saw in the US but which they see having slipped away, especially under Obama.  It is a retro image of America–no, not a benign Norman Rockwell one–but nonetheless one that  looks at the country with a halcyon view of the past.  It is less looking at the world though rose colored glasses or one that has golden tones.  It is instead that world of the five fundamental Cs.

            It is a conservative America, one hostile to change and resistant to new ideas, especially those based on science and reason.  Thus it is an America that denies global warming, ignores the reality about immigration, cannot come to grips with the fact that vaccines work and do not cause autism, and questions whether other countries have ideas from which we can learn.  But on the other hand, Clinton sold us out in Benghazi, Planned Parenthood got rich selling dead baby parts, and Obama is a Muslim who is not an American citizen.

            It an America of constitutionalism.  No, not a constitutionalism that generally emphasizes individual rights but one of limited government, especially a federal government.  It is a belief that all government is wrong, but especially the federal government since the New Deal, and there is a need to strictly enforce the Constitution to limit the size of the government.  It detests presidential power–at least as used by Obama–and selectively wants to give absolutism to the Second and Tenth Amendments–but sees no constitutional impediment to waterboarding or restrictions on government spying on its own citizens in the interest of national security.  Nor does the Fourteenth Amendment means what is says when it declares all who are born in the US are citizens.  And even if it does mean that, we should change it in the interest of getting the Constitution right in terms of what it is supposed to mean.

            It is an America of capitalism.  It is no coincidence that the Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (the book giving the first expression and description of capitalism) both came in 1776. Markets are good, government is bad. Who needs regulation, such as the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act, as Trump recently remarked.  Business can figure out how to protect the environment much in the same way that the Obamacare is not needed because the private sector can find better ways to insure more people than the government can.  We do not need to tax the rich, the benefits of capitalism will trickle down to all of us.  Welfare disincentivizes the poor and crowds out charity, taxes discourage individuals and businesses from investing, and left to its own devices, privatized government services will do it faster, better, and cheaper than all those lazy overpaid government workers.

            It is an America that is Christian. God Bless America. We are one nation under (a Christian) God.  Muslims are not welcome and are suspect, especially unfit to be president.  Jews are tolerated, and non-mainstream Christian faiths such as Seven Day Adventists are not really Christian.  The Constitutional Framers never intended a separation of church and state.  Government should be able to enforce morality, ban abortion, prevent gays and lesbians from marrying.  Christians should be able to invoke the First Amendment to discriminate, to refuse to provide for birth control for women, and force everyone to pray in public school.  With God on our side America can again be a great nation–just let’s not remind anyone about all the times true Christian politicians have been caught with their pants down.

            Finally, it is an America that is Caucasian (and male). Especially ironic in part for Carson.  But it wants a color-blind America–or at least one that says that the only color that matters is white and that all of us should act that way.  It denies racism still exists, all lives matter and not Black Lives Matter, and that police target racial minorities.  We need to erect a big wall across American borders (Even Canada for ex-candidate Walker) to keep not just the illegals out but perhaps also to keep all immigrants out.  America was better when it was almost all white, but now immigration is flooding America with lazy, welfare-dependent rapists and murders who just want to come to the US to steal our jobs.  Oh, except for those agricultural jobs, according to Carson, that pay so low that no real American’s want them.

            Ben Carson’s America is what they think the country was like 50 years ago.  Or maybe 100 years, of perhaps what it was in 1787 or 1776.  It was an America where God made America a shining city on a hill where rich white guys ruled and where everyone else knew their place, whether it was on the plantation, in the kitchen, or working for the businessman who knew best how to invest his money and provide for us all.

            This is Ben Carson’s America.

Boehner and Dayton: A Tale of Two Politicians and Parties

In addition to the Pope’s visit, two end-of-week stories made headlines.  One was the resignation of Speaker Boehner, the other the miserable roll out of the medical marijuana program in Minnesota.  Both stories deserve comment because they illuminate broader problems for the Republicans at the national level and the DFL in Minnesota.

“The Crazies Have Taken Over The Party.”
Speaker Boehner’s resignation really should have shocked no one.  His entire tenure as speaker has been tense.  Made speaker when the Tea Party arose and which  lead to the Republicans capturing majority control of the US House during the 2010 elections, Boehner has always been pulled in several directions.  One is being leader of the House of Representatives, seeking to broker deals with the Senate and President Obama.  This is the pragmatic and institutional aspect of his role as speaker.  But many in the GOP (as was true with Nancy Pelosi when she led the Democrats and the House as Speaker) view the speaker as both their party and ideological leader, expecting that person to push their agenda.
While all speakers face this pull as institutional, party, and ideological leaders, some are better able than others to bridge the three.  Boehner did his best, but seldom pleased his most conservative members.  On several occasions he negotiated deals to keep the government open or avert a debt crisis, but he also failed on occasion too.  For the ideological purists in his party, he too failed.  He failed on abortion, failed to cut taxes enough, failed to challenge Obama and the Democrats enough.  There were constant rumors and signs of ideological battles and tests of his leadership, but finally it became too much.  Boehner said that he was stepping down to protect the House and not let the constant leadership battles threaten the institution.
The issue that finally seemed to do it is the one now linking the defunding of Planned Parenthood to funding to keep the government open.  The purists are willing to shut the government down to defund PP and expected Boehner to be both their ideological and party leader to help them here.  But Boehner as part leader knew that past government shutdowns have hurt the Republicans in the past and would probably again do so this year, risking electoral problems in 2016.  Finally, as an institutionalist he knew shutting the government down was not good.  Thus, his tri-lemma–represent the ideologists who have taken control of the party, protect the GOP from self-destruction in the house, and protect the House and the government as an institution.
In the end, the ideologies have won.  They have won not simply in knocking off Boehner (a person they did not ever really trust), but they have taken control of the institution and of the party.  Peter King, Republican from NY, describes what just happened as “the crazies have taken over the party.”   Mainstream media says this move makes it less likely that there will be a government shutdown soon.  Maybe.  Or maybe a weakened Boehner or future speaker will be able to control the ideologies even less, perhaps increasing the chances of a shutdown or more confrontations as we getting closer to the 2016 elections.  Stay tuned.
But there is also something else the mainstream media is missing.  One has to view the resignation of Boehner in conjunction with the Republican presidential polls showing that the three outsides–Trump, Carson, and Fiorina–are leading over the institutionalists or more mainstream GOP.  Consider also polls showing a Republican base entrenched on issues over hostility to immigration  reform, proposals to address climate change, abortion, taxes, and just about everything else, and it  is easy to see why Trump, Carson, and Fiorina are leading.  It is looking to be the year that the Tea Party revolution started in 2009 has finally won.  The Republican party has been made over–if not by Tea Party followers, definitely by the ideologists.    The Party is being pulled ideologically further and further to the right at the congressional and presidential level, representing a demographics and ideology perhaps far from the ideological center of American politics.  Whether this means in the short or long term their demise is a matter of debate.  How Democrats respond will be interesting to see.

Dayton’s Dilemma
The roll out of medical marijuana is effectively a disaster on all fronts.  Yes the legislation was terrible and misconceived from the start.  Instead of just legalizing marijuana or allowing for a deregulated medical use, Minnesota chose to over-regulate its medical use.  Few people would be allowed to use to, but only in an expensive processed form that would not be covered by insurance.  Doctors would be expected to write prescriptions for its use even though they had no financial incentive to do so and risked their medical license to do so because marijuana is still illegal federally and doctors could potentially be sued or prosecuted for suggesting its use.  There was a costly process to select vendors to sell medical marijuana and they would have start up and operating costs  that far exceeded our friendly neighborhood dope dealer.  Bad policy design leads to bad implementation and that is what we are finding out now.
In the last week stories have emerged that the rollout of the medical marijuana is going poorly.  The prices are too high, too few people qualify, stories to buy the product are few, and the vendors are losing money.  There is talk now of qualifying more people for medical marijuana, perhaps giving the program financial solvency.  This will ultimately fail.  The basic policy design  is flawed and tinkering around the edges probably will not fix it.  In too many ways the policy was  captured by too many special interests who all wanted a piece of the pie, and by flawed assumptions about who wanted medical marijuana and why.
On one level one cannot fully blame the Dayton administration for the faulty policy design.  Dayton originally did not want medical marijuana.  But there is a troubling pattern here.   Consider perhaps the three most significant initiatives of the Dayton administration–the Vikings Stadium, MNSure, and now medical marijuana.  All three have had major policy design failures and all three have had terrible roll outs.  With the Vikings stadium MN has one of the worst stadium deals in the country.  MNSure’s rollout was so bad even Dayton was willing to put on the table this last session killing the Minnesota health care exchange and opting into the federal one.  Now medical marijuana and the concession it needs a major fix.  This is not a good implementation history for Dayton and the Democrats, and it is a certainty that such a pattern will be an issue in the 2016 state legislative elections.

Jerry Springer Without Jerry: Thoughts on the First Republican Presidential Debate

Let’s be serious–this was not a debate it was pure entertainment.  More accurately, the first Republican presidential debate (including the junior debate for the also-rans or wannabees) was pure politainment.  It was the spectacle of demonstrating what happens when we merge politics and entertainment, we get politainiment.  It is about the transformation of news into entertainment where the focus is on ratings and making money, and it is about the effort of candidates to become media personas to succeed in politics.  This is what Ronald Reagan did, as did Jesse Ventura.  Now we have FOX, Donald Trump, the first debate,  and might I say, the departure of Jon Stewart from Comedy Central all occurring on the same night.  Welcome to politainment and the 2016 election cycle.

Jon Stewart and Comedy Central never pretended to be real news but so many people treated like it was.  It was pure politainment representing the fine line between politics and entertainment.  But FOX national news (as opposed to the local FOX affiliates) has be pure partisan politics pretending to be news.  It has brilliantly figured out (in ways that MSNBC has yet to) how to break down the walls of partisanship, news, and entertainment and package it into a multi-billion dollar force that serves as the unofficial house organ for the Republican Party and often crackpot conservatives theories.   Thus Fox is conflicted with competing demands of pushing ideology, making money via ratings, and entertaining.  This is the context of the Thursday so-called debate.
Had this been a real debate the first question would not have been about honoring party endorsements and third party candidacies.  It would have been one asking candidates questions about global warming, ISIS, unemployment, or their stand of the treaty with Iran and what alternatives they had.  I heard so many people say the journalists did a good job asking tough questions.  No, they were terrible in terms of encouraging a debate on serious matters of public policy.  Instead they were provocateurs do their best to ask questions to hype ratings and get a fight started–no different than what Jerry Springer did so successfully.

The debate was made for Trump.  He is the ultimate politainer of our age.  Setting up with an opening question to get Trump mad was brilliant entertainment. It made for perfect theater.  And in setting up a format where Trump was the star–and also the object to be attacked–perhaps Fox was also trying to protect mainstream Republicanism from what it has become–Trump.
So much has been made of Trump’s racism with his immigration comments and sexism with comments about women and allusion to Ms. Kelly and her menstrual cycle (at least he did not say she was “on the rag” or was PMS but you knew he wanted to say that).  But the fact of the matter is that the other candidates are just as harsh on immigration.  They have all taken extreme positions on abortion and women’s health.  Even though no federal funds pay for abortion, they all want to cut Planned Parenthood off from federal funds that pay for women’s health.  Jeb Bush said too much money is being spent on women’s health.  Huckabee said he would send in federal troops to prevent abortions.  Rubio will not support abortions even when a woman’s life in endanger.
Trump scares the Republican Party because he actually is what the GOP has become, except he is not shy to run away from his racism and sexism.  The rest of the party wants the benefits of racism and sexism but without owning up to it.  They pretty up their policy positions–no immigration, no abortions, restrictions on voting–but want to deny the real reasons or implications of their policies.  Texas tried to justify its voting restrictions but a Fifth Circuit this past week upheld a lower court decision finding a racial impact to its voter ID laws.  Trump is laying bare where and what the Republican Party is and has become, and   faced with that reality FOX is trapped.  Does it come to the defense of the kinder and gentler Republicanism that wants and cake and eat it too or does it exploit Trump for all the money and ratings they can garner?  This is the problem for FOX and the Republican Party now.