Why Bolton is Out--and does it matter?

John Bolton’s departure–whether fired or resigned-- as National Security Advisor for US President Donald Trump is only the latest example of a presidency that is disorganized and incoherent when it comes to American foreign policy.  His departure will do little to change the basic tone or goals of an administration whose chief characteristic when it comes to foreign policy is one at war with itself; or more accurately, a president in conflict with the US foreign policy establishment.
There are two ways to think about US foreign policy–its goals, strategy, and tactics, and then its decision making style.  While much has been made of how much Trump represented a significant break with past foreign policy practice, he still comes within the normal range of a board set of goals that goal back decades.    Before Trump the US was committed to super power supremacy and support for free trade policies that favored its interests. It supported multi-national alliances such as NATO, and support for western democratic principles remained a core foreign policy objective for the US.
Despite Trump’s political rhetoric, the basic goals of US foreign policy did not change.  This was true  part because Trump’s selections for his advisors have come from the traditional US  foreign policy establishment, including John Bolton.  Although there may have been many within the US foreign policy establishment and then Trump administration who wished to take more aggressive and perhaps in some cases a more militaristic approach toward Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, such as Bolton, those who advocated more diplomatic means, both camps shared common US goals regarding these countries to contain their influence or limit nuclear capacities.
But the real problem within the Trump administration was not so much a difference of tactics or strategy among his advisors so much as it was the personal foreign policy style of Trump.  Repeated stories reveal how he ignores his advisors, does not read intelligence reports, and how he acts on personal instincts and emotion.  Trump also demands personal loyalty.
Bolton’s problem was twofold.  One, he had very strong opinions and he was not afraid to share them, even with the president. This raised the question of personal loyalty.  Second, the Trump administration’s foreign policy team has already changed over several times in less than three years, reflecting the erratic nature of the president’s personality driven approach to making decisions.  These shifts in teams reflect Trump’s own lack of a worldview or consistent way to think about foreign policy.  He has ranged from more military muscle when he brought in all the generals, to less militaristic and more focused on trade wars.    Trump right now seems focused on trade, the economy, and a more isolationist foreign policy that relies less on threats of military might than what suited Bolton.
In some ways, Bolton was out of fashion with this period of Trump’s presidency.  In reality it does not matter if Bolton was fired or resigned.  This debate is for the issue of appearances.  If he resigned, Bolton becomes another former Trump advisor who gets to criticize  the president, if he was fired the president gets to show leadership and claim Bolton failed to do his job.  The difference in resign or fired is in whose is actually making the decisions in US foreign policy, the bureaucrats and advisors or the president.
In terms of Bolton’s replacement it is not clear what foreign policy phase Trump is now in.  But at least short term Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will become even closer to the president in advising on national security matters.  Pompeo and Trump appear for now to work well together, and perhaps Bolton is out because he lost the battles he was picking with the Secretary of State.  Any replacement for Bolton will have to be someone who get along with Pompeo, suggesting perhaps Brian Hook, Pompeo’s advisor, might be a leading candidate.
Overall, look for little change in the Trump administration’s post Bolton foreign policy.  It will remain a presidency where decisions are intensively personality driven and where Trump is at odds with his own foreign policy team and establishment.

Are They High? Why the Minnesota DFL is pushing marijuana legalization

            The Minnesota DFL is making legalization of marijuana a 2020 election issue. Governor Walz has instructed his agencies to prepare for it and Democrats are kicking off a statewide listen tour to tout legalization’s benefits.  Does such a strategy make political sense or are the Democrats high?

            From a public policy perspective, the current criminalization “war on drugs” has failed. I argued that in a Texas Tech Law Review Article 26 years ago, well before it was fashionable to advocate for legalization.  The current criminalization approach has failed to stop drug usage, imposed racially arbitrary sentences, and cost hundreds of billions of dollars in government enforcement and lost personal freedom and productivity due to incarceration.  Maybe for some, usage of marijuana is a matter of personal freedom to use a harmless drug.  However, as we have seen with the opioid crisis and some research on prolonged use of marijuana, use of any drugs ought also to be viewed as a public health issue with the question being what is the best way to regulate a specific drug to address it real or potential health issues.  Criminalization has failed with marijuana and legalization of some sort is the answer.  From a public policy perspective the question is what type of legalization.

            But policy change requires political opportunity.  The DFL sees the time as now to advocate for it., despite the fact that the Republican State Senate Leader Paul Gazelka has said legalization will not happen next year.  So if legalization is dead next year why push it?

There are several reasons.  The first is polling data that suggest 64% of those surveyed by  Gallup favor legalization, including in Midwest states such as Minnesota..  However, what legalization means varies by person.  A Mason-Dixon poll found recreational legalization support only at 37%.  Neither poll indicated that recreational legalization was a top issue for many voters.  Thus, while it appears that there is majority support for legalization, it is less clear that recreational use is a top political or policy priority for a large percentage of the voters. 

For the Minnesota DFL, they may be hoping that supporting marijuana legalization is the 2020 equivalent of the 2012 marriage amendment.  In that year the Republicans placed on the ballot a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages.  The theory was that support for the amendment would be so strong that it would help the GOP maintain control of the state legislature and win Minnesota for presidential candidate Mitt Romney by energizing the party base.  It backfired.  Instead, it energized the DFL, especially young voters, and it resulted in flipping the state legislature to Democrats who in 2013 legalized same-sex marriages in the state.

More specifically, though, Democrats may be reading numbers from the 2018 election.  That year two pro-legalization parties in Minnesota qualified for major party status.  In the race for State Auditor, the Legalize Marijuana Now Party received 133,913 votes, whereas in the race for Attorney General,  Grassroots Legalize Cannabis received 145,748, or 5.28% and 5.71% of the statewide vote for those offices respectively.  In running for office, the two pro-legalization parties opted  not to run against one another to prevent splitting of votes.  This is important because one can argue that those who voted for one of the pro-legalization parties are those who view the issue as their top priority. This means not that 10% of the voters supported pro-legalization parties, but something around 5-6% of those casting votes in either the State Auditor or Attorney General races.

The Minnesota Secretary of State indicated that 2,611, 365 individuals cast ballots in 2018.  Assume that the 145,748 Grassroots Legalize Cannabis vote is a fair estimate of those who support legalization as a primary or top issue.  This works out to 5.58% who voted for a pro-legalization party.  In the counties of Hennepin, Ramsey, and St. Louis,  31,976, 14,720, and  5,471 respectively voted for a pro-legalization party or candidate.  In total, these three counties constituted 62,167 or 42.7% of the pro-legalization vote in the state.  The other 56.3% was clumped in urban areas or college-town areas, with thin support in more rural areas.  Even in suburbs, support was  less.  For the Attorney General’s race, in Edina and Eden Prairie, two typical and more affluent suburbs that might be likely to support legalization, 2,462 out of 62,523 voters or 3.94% of the voters went for the Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party.

What do all these statistics suggest?  Perhaps they underestimate support for recreational legalization as a top priority.  But they do indicate a small percentage of the population cares about the issue and the DFL feels it cannot ignore it.  Failure to support legalization may mean more voters drift away from the party, making it harder to pick up a Senate majority or mobilize voters for statewide races.  Yet, the geographic distribution of support for legalization  is clumped, strongest in areas where the DFL are already strong.  Moreover, if the race for control of the state, especially the legislature, goes through the suburbs, especially with suburban women, it is not clear that a  strong legalization approach makes sense.  In talks I have given, when legalization is raised, many suburban women exclaim “Another thing I  have to protect my children from.”

Perhaps marijuana legalization will do the same in 2020, mobilizing young voters to come out and vote. Or perhaps it will alienate suburban (female) voters, or it leads to a counter-mobilization by the GOP who are already motivated to come out to support Donald Trump.  This is the gamble the DFL is taking going into the 2020 elections in its advocacy for recreational marijuana.

When are the private lives of public officials our concern?

Please note: This piece originally appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Note also: I took some time off this summer from blogging; I hope to be more active again this fall.


When are elected officials’ personal lives a matter of legitimate public concern? U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis refuses to discuss her personal life, including her marriage and possible extramarital romantic relationships. She declares it is not the public’s business. While generally an elected official’s personal life is not the public’s business, there are cases where it is. For Omar, her personal life has become a public concern, and she has an obligation to respond to questions about it, much in the same way Donald Trump does.


Generally what others do in their private lives is none of our business. Traditionally in American culture there is a public/private wall. Matters that do not affect others are private.  If they do impact others perhaps the public has some right to know more or do something, but generally only to prevent harm to others. Our society is premised on the belief of a right to privacy; that no government official has the right to tell us what to do with our private life, including our sexual behavior.

The same rule traditionally applied to public officials. The focus in theory was on their stand on public issues. Running for or serving in public office did not constitute a privacy waiver.

This public-private wall when it came to public officials cut two ways: It respected the privacy of public figures and didn’t deter people from running for office out of fear embarrassing things in their private or family lives. And yet the wall hid many stories, the many extramarital affairs of President Kennedy for example, the affairs that so many other male elected officials had, as well as other issues. Should the public have been informed about them? Should we not hold public officials up to a higher standard of personal conduct?

One theory says that what public officials do in their private lives is not the public’s business so long as private behavior does not impact their job. Another holds that the public has a right to know and judge because personal behavior tells us something about public performance.

Supporting the latter theory, few of us can lead dual lives – be ethically good or bad in private but the opposite in public. Most of us live more integrated lives – who we are and how we behave in our personal lives is suggestive of our public behavior. Character matters. There is a connection between private and public ethics. This is what the “Me Too” movement is about in part. To be ethical as a public official one needs to be personally ethical. I as a voter may not know or grasp complex issues of public policy, but if I can trust a person’s character then I will trust that person to make good choices as an elected official.

Increasingly the belief that one’s personal life is a marker of public ethics accounts for part of the erosion of the right to privacy for public officials. So, too, does the increased celebrity culture of American politics, by which candidates for office make their personal biographies the centerpiece of their campaigns. Traditionally, the private lives of Hollywood or musical stars is the core of gossip and celebrity magazines. This is because these individuals often make their private lives public through interviews, their music, or simply out of desire to get media attention to help their careers. These individuals have generally chosen to put their private lives in play to advance their careers.

Public officials open their private lives to public scrutiny, too, when they put their personal behavior into play. A personal affair of a politician may not be the public’s concern, but if the candidate runs as a “family values” candidate it may be relevant. Additionally, elected officials who do things privately that break the laws they are sworn to uphold may be an example. Is it illegal to pay someone so that they will not disclose an affair you had with them? Generally no. But in the case of Donald Trump, paying Stormy Daniels to silence her so the story of the affair would not affect the 2016 presidential election violated federal campaign finance laws. Or maybe his business dealings implicate his presidential duties, which is why his tax records are relevant. He should be held accountable for his behavior to make sure his personal interests do not compromise his public duties.

Ilhan Omar refuses to comment on her private life. This is despite legitimate questions regarding her marriage status and how it may relate to immigration, tax, and Minnesota election laws. The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board already adjudicated that Omar misspent campaign funds and perhaps used them for private purposes. Now there is a Federal Election Commission complaint regarding her possible misuse of congressional campaign funds to pay someone who worked for her and with whom, as alleged in recent divorce filings, she may be romantically involved.

Trump, Class, and Identity Politics in the 2020 Presidential Campaign

Donald Trump has made it clear his 2020 presidential campaign is about identity politics. Unlike 2016 where  economic anxiety and nationalism were pretexts for race and identity, in 2020 white nationalism and racism toward immigrants, Muslims, and people are color are out front and central to his message.  Trump is no long Richard Nixon of 1968 using code words for race, he is George Wallace of 1968 overtly running on race.
Yet Trump is not the first and probably the last candidate to run on identity politics.  Appeals to it have a long American history, dating back to and encouraged by the constitutional framers.
America was born a nation of identity politics.  It was a nation defined by being White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant (WASP), but also a nation hostile to Catholics, Jews, Native-Americans, and Blacks, the latter who were kept as slaves.  The US was defined both by who “we” were, and by the “other.”  The US is the only country that has the concept “Un-American”; no other national has a similar phrase to identify and define.  Identity is inborn in the logic of American politics, as scholars such as Richard Hofstadter and Perry Miller point out.
But while cultural values may drive identity politics, American political institutions inflame it.  Historian Charles Beard controversially contended in his 1913 An Economic  Interpretation of the Constitution that one the constitutional framers did was to recognize the potency of class politics and seek to transform it into identity or group politics. 
James Madison’s Federalist Paper number 10 opens recounting the dangers of factions or groups that can divide a society.  But he tells us that “the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.”  Decrying the impracticality or desirability  of eradicating property differences as a threatening liberty, Beard seeks Madison’s call in Federalist 51 that “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition” and in Federalist 10 for “greater variety of parties and interests” to check one another.  Pit groups against one another, divide up the people, and prevent a majority from suppressing the rights of the minority who, in the eyes of Madison according to Charles Beard, were the property holders.
The Beardian gloss on the Constitution and the  Federalist Papers saw the brilliance of American politics in how the framers recognized the potency of American politics and sought to transform, sublimate, or displace it into interest group politics.  Eventually mainstream American political science would call a variant of this politics pluralism–the competition of groups for power desegregates it, producing the power-sharing supposedly characteristic of American politics. In theory, such politics would be less confrontational and conflictual than class, arguably allowing for more compromise and sharing of power as coalitions of groups change to pursue their interests.
Nice theory, but there is a problem.  Combine the institutional framework of America’s constitution and pluralism with the deep seated culture of identity and one gets a political system that institutionally encourages identity politics.  Of course racism toward African-Americans has always been there, as has that toward Native-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans.  But over time persecution of the Irish, Italians, Catholics, and other groups have also been a mainstay of America and its politics.  Political campaigns have been defined by both by the “us” and who are the real Americans, and the “others,” those Un-Americans whom we need to purge from out soils.  Moreover, appeals to identity have proved to be anything but less conflictual than class politics; instead they have elicited some of the most passionate and hateful fights in American history.
Throughout American history class and identity have dueled as contenders driving American politics.  While class is always there, and has become more so as the gap between the rich and power in the US has exacerbated since the 1970s, the focus of American politics has mostly been dominated by identity politics in the last 50 years.  For progressives supportive of a civil rights agenda, there are good and important reasons to do that.  But as Tom and Mary Edsell pointed out in their 1991 Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics, progressive identity politics produced a counter or chain reaction in reactionary identity politics that is at the core of the  ideology of Donald Trump’s political message to white working class America today.
Donald Trump’s attacks on Representative Ilhan Omar and three other female members of Congress who are persons of color simply elevates and removes any lasting doubt about intentionality of Trump’s narrative of identity politics in 2020.  It lays bare and returns American politics to its roots, one where race and identity are central.  It shows how combining cultural identity  that defines us versus them, with institutional design, and not party polarization produce a potent recipe for that politics that is driving the 2020 presidential campaign.

The Nixon-Trump Southern Strategy Goes North: The Midwest, Race, and the 2020 Presidential Election

Donald Trump’s recent tweet telling Congresswomen  Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Pressley, and Omar  (all female and people of color) to leave the country is the most recent example of his effort to take Richard Nixon’s old southern strategy and apply it to the Midwest.  Trump is betting that it will work as effectively in 2020 as did it work for Nixon in 1968.  Whether it does, tells us a lot about where the US is today in terms of race relations.

Consider some American history.  From the US Civil War until the 1960s political scientists such as V.O. Key refer to the “Solid South.”   Republican Party opposed slavery and Democrats resisted civil rights.  The result was that the US South voted consistently for Democrats at all levels of office, but especially for president.  The south was a mainstay for the Democratic Party.

But beginning in the 1960s the Solid South cracked, and it did so over civil rights.  First it was the 1954 Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision that demanded integrated schools.  Then it was President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the 1964 Civil Rights bill (and where he reputedly declared that with the signing of the bill the Democrats had lost the south for the rest of the century).  These two events launched a chain reaction of events. In 1963  George Wallace inaugurated his Alabama governorship by declaring “"segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," and he mounted his 1968 presidential campaign on opposition to civil rights.

While never as overtly racist as Wallace, Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign centered on race.  Nixon ran as a law and order, war on drugs, get tough on crime president.  Given the unrest in urban cores in the US and the civil rights demonstrations, these phrases of Nixon were code words for race.  The strategy worked–Nixon won, and he did so by winning several southern states no Republican had secured in 100 years.

The Republican Southern strategy of appealing to race and white conservatism was well described by Kevin Phillips, the architect of Nixon’s 1968 campaign and author of the 1969 The Emerging Republican Majority.  It described a majority of white working class American who in reaction to civil rights and cultural progressivism, would break away from the Democrats and vote Republican.
Largely the strategy worked.  Subsequent Republicans appealed to race and also to economic insecurities and anxieties to move working class Democrats over.  At first they were called “Reagan  Democrats, then perhaps Tea Parties, then perhaps now Trump Democrats.  Race was covert in moving them.  But sometimes, such as in the presidential race between George  H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, race was overt.  In that campaign the “Willie Horton” ads depicted a Black felon who had raped and murdered a woman.  Polls and evidence suggested these ads were decisive in helping Bush win by peeling off white voters from the Democrats.  All this was part of the Republican Southern Strategy.

And it worked.  By the mid 1990s Democrats had all but disappeared from the South at all levels of office.  The solid south was now a Republican south.

Enter Donald Trump.  His 2016 presidential campaign was famous for at least two points.  One, it appealed to the economic and racial anxiety of white working class America.  Two, it was a Midwest strategy.  Attacks on Mexicans and immigrants as rapists, drug smugglers, and criminals who take American jobs and collect welfare were a mainstay of his 2016 campaign. No surprise that such rhetoric appealed to many southern whites, but what surprised many was its success in appealing to working class whites in the Midwest.    These were individuals who had seen their coal mine, auto, or steel plants disappear.  Trump offered an answer–it was immigration, immigrants, and off-shoring of jobs that was to blame.  Bringing back coal was less about really bringing back coal than it was code word for race.  And it worked.  Trump split the Midwest–one described as a firewall for Democrats, by winning all the states there except for Illinois and Minnesota.

What Trump did in 2016 was to take Nixon’s Southern Strategy that split the Solid South  in 1968 and use it in the Midwest to break the Democrats’ firewall.  Only now for 2020, the rhetoric  is more explicit–it looks more like George Wallace than Richard Nixon.  Attacking Representatives  Congresswomen  Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Pressley, and Omar was explicitly and outwardly racist.  The House of Representatives will condemn it, the media will attack it, many Republicans will renounce it.  But it may work as an effective 2020 strategy, further motivating Trump’s base to show up and vote.

Longer term the Trump’s Southern Strategy in the Midwest will fail.  Demographic trends  point to working class whites as a decreasing percentage of the electorate each year.  But right now this group is still the largest voting bloc in America.  For Trump to win in 2020 he needs the Midwest, but he needs his base to come out to vote in even greater percentages than in 2016.  Were he to win in 2020 it suggests that America is not yet “post-racial.” that large chucks of the American electorate still resonates to racial cues, and that Nixon’s 1968 Southern Strategy is not dead but has shifted to the Midwest.

Unconventional Minnesota Political Wisdom and the 2020 Elections

Three conventional wisdoms pervade the 2020 Minnesota political landscape.  They are: 1) Donald Trump cannot win the upcoming Minnesota’s presidential race: 2) Ilhan Oman is safe to win re-election in the Fifth Congressional District; and 3) the DFL will hold the State House of Representatives and pick up control of the State Senate.  While all three of these scenarios are entirely possible and maybe likely, there are reasonable scenarios where all three could be wrong and that the Republicans have a good 2020 year in Minnesota.

            Consider first the case for convention wisdom.

            Minnesota is the most reliable Democratic Party presidential state in the country, with the last time a Republican winning its electoral votes was in 1972 with Richard Nixon.  Yes, Donald Trump got to within 50,000 votes of beating Hillary Clinton in 2016, but that was a fluke.  Clinton was a horrible candidate, was beaten badly by Sanders in the caucuses, and did not come back to campaign during the general election while Trump did, especially during the closing days of the election.

            No Republican has won state-wide office in Minnesota since Tim Pawlenty did it in 2006.  In 2018, Senator Klobuchar won 60% of the statewide vote, with Governor Walz nearly winning  54%, Senator Smith 53%, and Keith Ellison (for Attorney General), the weakest performing statewide DFLer at 49%.

            The DFL flipped 18 seats to retake the Minnesota House.  Had the State Senate been up for re-election, convention wisdom is that they would have flipped it too given that there are several vulnerable Republican senators located in suburbs that the DFL won in 2018 House  elections.

            In the Fifth Congressional District, Ilhan Oman won election with 78% of the vote. The last time the Republicans won Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District was 1960.  Since taking office Omar has acquired a national base and has already raised at least $800,000 if not now nearly $1,000,000 for her reelection.

            As of June 019, Trump’s approval rating in Minnesota was barely 40%.

            Conventional wisdom looks terrific for the DFL going in to 2020 given these statistics.  Trump’s low approval should help the DFL easily hold the state house, pick up the state senate, assistant Tina Smith win reelection, and perhaps allow the Democrats to pick up the First and Eighth congressional seats lost in 2018.  Given all this, this should be little hope for optimism among Republicans and that Minnesota is a lost cause for them. 

Yet Minnesota Republican party chair Jennifer Carnahan  and Donald Trump are optimistic the Republicans can win  the state in 2020.  Perhaps it is not so bleak for the GOP next year and that the conventional wisdom that DFL holds unto may not be correct.

Here is the counterventional wisdom.

Trump’s core base remains highly motivated and if anything, even more united perhaps that before.  Trump has consolidated support in Minnesota outside the Twin Cities metro region, especially in the Iron Range, which used to be a strong DFL center.  The Iron Range has been moving Republican for years.  Trump has indicated he wants to move Minnesota in 2020—the only Midwest state he did not win in 2016—and he plans to campaign  here a lot.

Evidence suggests that Minnesota was moving Republican even before Trump and that the DFL base may be contracting.  In 2008 Obama won  42 of the 87 counties in the state, in 2012 he won 28, and in 2014 Dayton won 34.  In 2016 Clinton wins only 9 counties.  In 2018, Walz wins only 22 counties, Smith 20, Ellison 14.  From 2008 to 2016, the GOP presidential vote increased 47,500, the DFL vote decreased 205,000.  According to CNN exit polls, the partisan voter identification for  the DFL was 37%, for Republicans 35%.  This was the narrowest gap between the two parties in decades for a presidential election, and the lowest partisan identification for the DFL in decades according to presidential exit polls.

In the Fifth District, Omar has made several moves that potentially could alienate voters.  He comments about Jews and Israel, even if not accurately reported, have created a storm of controversy among many voters for her.  With a congressional district with a high percentage of Jewish voters, this is a cause of concern.  Omar is also dogged by campaign finance violations, new allegations about her immigration and marriage status, and perhaps concerns about false tax  returns.  She has become a major foil of Donald Trump who constantly tweets comments about her when he comes to Minnesota, and it is clear that part of his 2020 Minnesota presidential run will be to make it a referendum on Omar.

A critical realignment may place many of the large Twin Cities suburbs in the hands of the DFL for a long time.  This does potentially suggest DFL state senate pick ups there.  But as several 2019 special elections demonstrated, the DFL is vulnerable in rural and greater Minnesota.  The Senate currently is 35-32 GOP.  There may be about four vulnerable suburban GOP senators, but  there is an equal number of DFL ones in greater or rural Minnesota.  For the Democrats to capture the state senate  they may need to flip six or more seats in order to offset losses.

A counterventional GOP strategy begins with Trump campaigning heavily in the state, strengthening his support in rural and greater Minnesota areas.  Democrats did well in 2018 because Trump himself was not on the ballot and with him now actively campaigning in Minnesota it will energize the GOP even more.    Nationally, if Minnesota has become a swing state, it competes for Democrat dollars that could also go into Ohio or Florida, much richer and perhaps even more critical electoral vote states (Yet if Democrats nationally lose Minnesota or have to really defend it, they are in trouble in the 2020 presidential race).

As part of Trump’s 2020 Minnesota campaign, he and other Republicans ratchet up the attacks on Omar.  If her political and personal problems continue to mount, Omar because a potential problem for state Democrats who need to distance themselves from her.  Within her district, while very popular, it would not be impossible to beat her.  Scenario one:  Within a DFL primary someone challenges her.  In the last week reports have been that Minneapolis Councilwoman Andrea Jenkins’ name is being polled as a possible candidate.  In a district where identity is important, Jenkins could split DFL support, giving voters who dislike Omar’s political views and personal problems an alternative.  Scenario two:  Someone like Jenkins opts not to challenge in the DFL primary but go to a general election instead.  Possibly splitting the DFL vote and picking up the GOP in the district elects her.  Scenario three:  In a three way race featuring  Omar, Jenkins, and a centrist pro-Israel Republican, the latter sneaks in to win the Fifth.

Whether the counterventional wisdom or even the strategy is viable is a matter of much debate.  However, it does suggest that the DFL  may not have it easy in 2020 and that there are avenues for the GOP to do well in 2020.

Minneapolis Residential Discrimination: Why Eliminating Single-Family Housing with Neo-Liberal Zoning will Fail

The spatial distribution of housing in Minneapolis and all of the Twin Cities metro area is a

product of race and class.  Yet curing this discrimination does not reside in the elimination of single-family housing through changes in zoning or a comprehensive plan.  Such an approach, call it neo-liberal zoning, is destined to achieve the same results in land use that neo-liberalism achieved economically over the last 40 years domestically and internationally.
Residential housing patterns are the product of discrimination.  Private discriminatory preferences coupled with market decisions were enabled by racial covenants, government redlining, and zoning to produce the segregation patterns we see today. Countless books, such as Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton’s classic American Apartheid, tell this story well.  Nearly 25 years ago at the Institute of Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota, I helped author a study pointing to the Twin Cities Metro region being the third most segregated urban area in the nation.  More recently, the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity located  persistent segregation in the placement of low income housing and education policy choices that concentrate low income people of color in specific neighborhoods and schools.
Fixing this segregation demands a metro-wide solution.  Yet Minneapolis has acted on its own via its 2040 comprehensive plan to address this problem.  It solution mostly includes elimination of single-family zoning, believing that intensification of land use along with market incentives will encourage the building of more housing.  Presumably this market-driven approach will mean more housing in more places, thereby fixing the economic and racial residential discrimination.
Both the New York Times and current Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson laud this market-driven fix.  Unfortunately, this approach will fail, exacerbating existing problems.
The Minneapolis approach to liberating the market to address its housing woes is neo-liberal zoning.  Neo-liberalism is the term used to describe a series of US domestic and international economic policies that begin with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (in the UK)  and continued through Bill Clinton and Tony Blair and into the present with Donald Trump.  Neo-liberals believe that a return to market fundamentalism–cutting government regulation and business taxes along with globalization in free trade–would rejuvenate domestic and world economies.  The reality, as many economists such as Thomas Piketty, Amartya Sen, and Joseph Stiglitz have described and statistics show, is that neo-liberalism has produced the greatest gaps between the rich and poor in the US since before the Great Depression.  The rich have truly gotten richer, with the middle and lower classes gaining little.  Maybe we are overall richer as a nation as a result of neo-liberalism, but the externalities of these policies have produced powerful economic inequities that overlap with race.
The elimination of single-family zoning to encourage intensified land use across the  city rests on a similar logic that will yield parallel results.  In theory the breaking up of  large single family houses in South Minneapolis will produce more housing, but it is doubtful it will be low income or affordable.  Conversely, permitting the break up of existing homes in North Minneapolis into multi-family units or their demolishing and replacement with multiple units too will not guarantee affordable housing in integrated neighborhoods.  This is a recipe for gentrification as developers will enter areas, buy homes, and dislocate current residents by building  more high end units. 
The Minneapolis comp plan fix ignores the realities of how housing markets  work.  While there may be a local demand for affordable housing, housing is also a national market  sensitive to price, profit, and cost issues that often are not local.  Developers have few incentives to provide affordable housing, and Minneapolis’s neo-liberal zoning amounts to no more than government sanctioned market red lining.
Beyond the fact the neo-liberal zoning will not fix the segregation problems, elimination of single family zoning will produce additional problems.  One, there is an inherent value in preserving  a mixture of uses both from a historic preservation perspective, but also in terms of how a multiplicity of uses, ages, and styles of buildings and residential options appeals to the widest variety of individuals.  As Jane Jacobs, perhaps the greatest 20th century scholar on cities wrote in her Death and Life of Great American Cities, cities are generators of diversity, it is that which makes them interesting and centers of commerce.  Two, phasing out single family zoning does not eliminate a demand for these types of units and people seeking them, often middle class and those starting families, will flee to the suburbs. Three, for many, single family homes represent a sense of community, connectedness, and stability that are worth preserving.  Finally, given how interconnected  residential and education discrimination are, tackling one without addressing the other dooms solving both problems.
Minneapolis’s population is exploding and more housing is needed to address that demand.   This housing needs to address all income levels and needs, and be spatially distributed in a way that is economically and racially fair.  Unfortunately, Minneapolis’s neo-liberal zoning policies will do little to address these issues.

PS:  David Schultz is Hamline University Professor of Political Science.  He is a former city director of code enforcement, zoning, and planning and  a former housing and economic planner.  He also served on the St. Paul Housing Board of Appeals, appointed to it by then Mayor George Latimer.