What Threatens America - Channels for Addressing Grievances, Cont.

Someone once said that when you're driving on a highway anyone going faster than you is crazy, and anyone going slower than you is overly cautious. 

I think this is true for a lot of things - we're not objective about it.  I want to tie this into two different things, and the connection is probably not obvious at first.

In Iraq back in 2006/2007 the Sunnis and Shia were really beginning a civil war.  I remember reading about how the moderates (who I love, since they seem the very people necessary to stopping the spiral of self-destruction) were targeted.  When people actively believe something, anyone who disagrees is a threat.  Like a person going slower than you on a highway.  It's almost worse when you think they 'ought' to be a supporter, because then it can feel like a betrayal.  (Like white supremacists who think white people who support minorities are somehow race traitors.)  And so the groups fighting bring pressure to bear, creating a situation where everyone has to pick sides.  If you're not with us you're against us, and a target.  (This is also a weakness in the jihadi movement, as they can splinter into separate groups arguing over whose beliefs truly represent what they claim is God's will.) 

In situations like this people get sucked into fighting 'the enemy', and forget that the key terrain is often the people in the middle.  And so you can win the battle and lose the war.

To bring this back to American politics - activists are called that because they are passionate about a cause.  They are activated to take action...which in some ways as good, since that's the only way change happens.  In other ways it's bad, since they can find anyone who doesn't share their passion a threat. 

We've had a two-party system for a long time, and in a way the people who are most involved in their parties are activists.  That's why my political science classes said that politicians cater to their base in the primary, then tone it down and pivot to the middle in a general election.

The thing is, when you're an activist like that, when you truly believe in your cause, you will support actions to 'win' that can be destructive to the larger whole.  You forget that the key terrain is the general public and you focus on defeating 'the enemy'.  Defeating Democrats, or defeating Republicans, or whoever.  That's probably why our Founding Fathers considered parties a threat, representing factions that were dangerous to the public interest.  Didn't do much good, as political parties started almost right away.

I brought that up for a couple of reasons.  First, because parties have made choices over the course of our national history that made sense in terms of winning, but ultimately are detrimental to the public interest.  Gerrymandering is the first one that comes to mind.  So, for example, Indiana has a political system more conservative than the views of it's population.  Part of what makes this so bad is that people don't feel like voting matters.  If you're district is set up so that it's always red or always blue, what does it matter whether you vote or not? Your district is still going to reflect - or not reflect - your views.

The parties have also manipulated the system so that it's easier for them to get elected, and significantly harder for any third party or independent candidate to win.  Candidates of the major parties automatically are put on a ballot, while anyone else has to jump through hoops.  Those hoops can involve getting more signatures, petitioning state officials, and more.

I brought that up because I've noticed some of the Democratic supporters seem very offended that Bernie ran as a Democrat, since he's been an Independent so long.  There have been arguments that the primary system is biased against him, and these defenders will say "but he's not truly a Democrat, and it's our party's primary in the first place.  We can do it however we want."

If they were taking about selecting the chair of the Democratic National Committee I would agree 100%.  But we're talking about a presidential election here.  We're talking about nominating someone who is supposed to serve all of America, and not just the Democratic Party.  And we're talking about a system that has made it so hard for anyone to run who isn't a Republican or a Democrat that it's to all intents and purposes impossible.  Like activists who are so focused on defeating the enemy that they forget where the key terrain really lies.

I know they don't think their threatening the public interest.  After all, you don't get that active and involved unless you believe it truly is in the public interest.  But the interests of any political party are not necessarily the interests of the public.

This, btw, also holds true to the Republican attempts to force their political representatives to toe the party line.  It makes them more cohesive in Congress, makes it easier to push the agenda of the party...and it also means they are less representative of the people who actually live in their districts.  (and just as in Iraq, the moderates become 'the enemy' and are targeted.  Less bloody targeting, but they lose critical funding and find it harder to get re-elected.)

In the short run it doesn't seem like an obvious problem.  In the long run, you wind up with more people feeling disenfranchised, disaffected, and upset by a system that isn't very responsive.

What Threatens America - Channels for Addressing Grievances

I want to devote some thought to how we address grievances here in America.  I wanted to start, first, with the follow up to some of the issues I've posted about before.  In Flint, Michigan a couple of lawsuits are in progress as we speak, the Governor has issues a public apology and vowed to drink the water himself.  It's still an ongoing topic, not something I would say is done by any means, but things are being done to address the grievance. 

In Ferguson, Missouri even though the specific officer involved was not indicted the federal Dept of Justice investigated the police department and determined that it had engaged in misconduct against the citizens of Ferguson.  Again, this is still an ongoing issue...and there are people who think not enough was done (and others who think too much was done).  I'm not trying to judge how it was addressed, so much as pointing out that various groups are trying to address it.

So it sounds good, right?  We have grievances, they're being addressed, nothing to worry about?

Except that these specific instances are also examples of deeper underlying grievances.  Racial differences.  Class tension.  Elitism.  Leadership that fails to address a problem before it blows up into a full-blown crisis.  (This last one is not the best point, since who knows how many situations were addressed before they became a crisis?)

Note that I said "racial differences" instead of "racism".  That's because the different opinions about incidents like this reflect different cultures as well as actual racism.  "Law-abiding" primarily white citizens who support and respect law enforcement (and I count myself and most everyone I know in this category) have a hard time understanding why people - people who used to get arrested for loitering and other minor offenses in order to force them to work on various projects; who saw law enforcement bring out dogs and hoses against men, women and children - don't trust the police.  Are some of these incidents truly about criminal behavior?  Or is some of it because an officer doesn't feel they are given the respect due as a representative of the law?

Yet I actually want to focus more on class grievances - in part because that is what Trump appears to be tapping into.  I've seen article after article over the last decade that has talked about the shrinking of the middle class.  Stagnant wages.  Greater disparity in income.  We know this is happening.  You have to be living under a rock to be unaware of this...

And yet nothing serious is being done.  During the Great Depression we had the Public Works Administration, during the Great Recession we had austerity.  We have respected economists saying we actually should have had even more stimulus, we have article after article talking about our aging infrastructure...and none of it seems to translate into actual policy changes. 

I read economic articles talking about 'recovery', how the companies who were bailed out during the financial crisis were able to pay everything back, how things are better...yet none of it seems to trickle down to the average person.  Getting by is just as much of a struggle now than it was 8 years ago.  (and then we get articles saying "we need consumer spending to grow the economy", and I have to laugh.  Where do you think the consumers get the money to spend?  They're tapped out...they're going to keep being tapped out until debts are paid off or wages grow.)

I can get into nitty gritty details more at a later time, I kind of wanted to point out a few other things first.

A few years ago a study showed that the collective preferences of ordinary citizens has almost no effect on policy, whereas the collective preferences of our wealthiest citizens have a much greater impact. 

In other words - the wealthy don't seem to care about the struggles of the everyone else, and they're the ones who actually make policy. 

This is a pretty massive and difficult topic, so I'll probably post some more later.

A Side Note on Counter-insurgency and Leadership

Before I went on to the next topic I wanted to touch briefly on the third condition for an insurgency - leadership.

Just as you can put out a fire by targeting any one of the three parts of the fire triangle, so you can try to fight an insurgency by targeting leadership.  This, however, has some serious drawbacks and I don't recommend it as the sole course of action.

The basic problem is that if you get rid of leaders without addressing the underlying grievances all you are doing is postponing the problem until another leader crops up.  Spending resources constantly looking out for that next leader is exhausting, and any potential leader only has to succeed once.

I think that's what some of the more tyrannical rulers try to do.  Some may even be aware that it's only a temporary fix, and may try to address the underlying issues...but it's hard to say whether or not they will succeed.

Going this route seems a bit like catching a tiger by the tail.