Condemned to Repeat It

Stories

11/20/2020

“History,” as William Cronon has said, “is the stories we choose to tell about the past.”

Or, as I tell my students, there is (upper-case) “History” (the discipline and the practice and the stories) and there is (lower-case) “history” (all the stuff that has happened in the past). One of the things I am glad many of my students pick up on is that what they’re told in textbooks (and the History Channel and Wikipedia) is just one (highly digested and extremely coherent) version—one story told by one author in one time and place—and that there are many other ways to see the events, trends, and people of the past.

That’s an important part of using History as a means of teaching critical thinking: getting students to be aware of and weigh differing interpretations of the past: ‘were the Germans responsible for the start of WWI or was it the Serbs?,’ ‘was the American War of Independence about democracy or a contest between elites for which group should rule the colonies?’ We need to be aware of potential biases (sometimes explicit and plausible, sometimes not) or novel insights in interpretation. Being aware of that historians choose and how historians choose which kind of story to tell about the past is an essential part of Cronon’s point.

There is another layer to the issue of history as stories; and that is the question of the very use of narratives or stories. Humans love stories. Almost all of us love hearing stories (and some of us like telling them, too). Whether they claim to be factual or clearly dispense with any claim to the “truth,” we can get easily wrapped up in the telling of tales. Part of this is driven by emotional satisfaction from heroic epics, romances, and the resolution of tension.

But a bigger part comes from the comfort of coherence, from the psychological security of feeling able to understand a situation and taking that comfort and applying it to my own life. If the world makes sense (i.e., is coherent) then perhaps I have a better shot at controlling it or at least I will feel less afraid because there are fewer unknowns/surprises. If “History” has “lessons,” then perhaps I can learn them and apply them and have some control over my future. That’s the theory, in any case.

If I have a reliable theory of the origins of anti-Semitism, perhaps I can take steps to prevent its recurrence or deal with its effects. Love stories and hero’s quests (even if fictional) provide more positive role models, but to the same effect. A story that makes sense encourages me to believe that the world is subject to understanding and (to some degree) control; even if, in fact, much/most/all is random and contingent.

This practice may be deeply based in human cognitive evolution and worked well enough when proto-humans were running around East Africa. Now, however, the world is much more complex and driven by the workings of human minds (not just animal behavioral patterns). It’s no wonder that modern historical analysis developed about the time of the industrial revolution as the pace of change and complexity in human societies began to skyrocket. We needed tools to try to make sense of this world and History (the practice) promised to explain change and subject history (the past) to order and usefulness.

History also depends on claims of rational (i.e. legible/understandable) human behavior. But, as we all know from our own lives and trying to understand our own friends, families, colleagues, etc. this is a dicey game. It usually ends up being about me projecting my own idea patterns on others. Why did Truman order the dropping of nuclear weapons on Japan in August, 1945? Did this “cause” Stalin to react in certain ways, leading to the “Cold War?” Many theories/factors have been advanced, most of which are quite plausible. But how to weigh and sort them? Without understanding Truman’s psyche (or Stalin’s), it’s a mug’s game. And, yet, we Historians draw from whichever version we prefer to create all sorts of stories about post-war international relations and geopolitics.

Even without this logical gap in our ability to analyze human behavior, we Historians face two other hurdles: the past-ness of historical behavior (how can we really imagine what people from another culture thought?) and recent neuro-science claims that human consciousness is unknowable. It’s no surprise that some have argued that History (at least the part that tells stories filled with causation and explanation, including pretty much all “popular” history) is, in Henry Ford’s words, “bunk.”

It will come as no surprise to those who have read the initial entries in the blog that I have some sympathy for this view. What I may take as the “lessons” of history are usually projections of my own feelings and ideas. Now, as a card-carrying Historian (AHA member #8429936), I still think there is value and use in studying the past; just not as much as many of my colleagues. How I choose to order the events of the past, how I connect a string of individual’s decisions over time, how I “understand” history—all are great tools for me to see myself.

And, while I’m working on that, I still like getting wrapped up in a good story.

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Party Time

11/13/2020

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Trump’s election in 2016 was an overdetermined quirk. His defeat in 2020 was not, however, a return to “normal.” Among the many aspects of the defunct old order is the Republican Party, whose behavior (both corporately and in terms of the “leaders”) has been even more egregious and surprising than the rise and fall of a certain solipsistic putz.

With a few exceptions (McCain, Kasich, Romney (from time to time), and a smattering of second-tier Bush-ites), the lust for power and fear of a non-white-male-dominated America has led to a smorgasbord of craven kow-towing. The jettisoning of institutional values in Congress and the administration was breath-taking until it became routine. A recitation of the list would be numbing.

Rumblings about Trump continuing in politics are media noise. He may run a fund-raising/celebrity/reality show scam, but between the COVID carnage and his upcoming personal and financial travails, his cult of personality will grow quickly stale. What will be even more interesting than who seeks to assert some mode of post-Trump leadership (Haley, Cruz, Cotton?) is the question of what they will stand for. Even leaving aside the pettiness, crudeness, and idiocy of many policy decisions, there is little left of what used to be Republicanism.

In his typically unintentional irony, Trump regularly referred to any number of traditional Republicans who dared not to fall completely into (his) line as “RINOs”: “Republicans In Name Only.” (as usual, the best way to read Trumpian critiques is to reverse the pronoun, i.e., he criticizes others for his own character traits).

The problem is that such a critique assumes that there is something substantive to being a Republican. There used to be, of course, but what is left?: tax cuts and deregulation based on trickle-down economics: yes. Balanced budgets and deficit reduction: No. Federalism and deference to local groups: No. Compassionate Conservatism: No. Liberal Internationalism: No. Respect for the Military: No. Fierce devotion to individual freedom: spotty at best.

Even plausible policy positions (regardless of whether I agree with them) on immigration, education, judicial interpretation etc. have been drowned in Trumpian vitriol. Nor is it apparent who has the moral standing to bring any sort of coherent, politically viable collection of “conservative” policies to the public forum.

There may be a Republican Party going forward, but it is likely to be, itself, RINO.

The Democrats are not in much better shape. Once the target of indignation is gone, they will likely revert to their infighting, wrestling with climate, identity politics, coherent foreign policy etc. AOC has already started down this path. Other “progressives” join her in conflating policy hopes (which I generally share) and political feasibility. In our polarized political discourse, most tugging from the wings generates animosity on the other wing and fear in the center.

My argument is not about which ideology should prevail in either group, a topic that has already engaged the commentariat; rather it goes to the shells/labels/institutions which carry some set of ideas forward.

Change is in the air. The world is different, the country is different. The parties (at least their shells) remain. They are stale, corrupt, and well past their “sell-by” dates. As a political society, we are overdue for a realignment. The Nixon/Johnson switch in the loyalty of the South is fifty years old. The Progressive line up through FDR is pushing 100.

The nineteenth century saw all sorts of party births, deaths, and realignments. It’s doubtful either Adams or Jefferson would have recognized their progeny fifty years after they had passed. The British went through a tortured period of transition from Liberalism to Labour from the late 19C through WWII. Many countries have a lengthy roster of current parties and a bewildering list of historical incarnations. A substantial number have really just been personality vehicles who collapsed after their leader left the scene. Their ideological consistency has been fortuitous in the moment, and then evanescent. Is the GOP next in this line?

What may keep the shells of both Democrats and Republicans alive in the US is that they have insinuated themselves into the legal process of politics. Their sclerotic duopoly controls gerrymandering, access to primaries and election rolls. A robust antitrust model would blow them apart and re-open the political markets to competition. Why is it that taxpayers should pay for a private group to select its leaders? The Methodists don’t line up and the federal trough when they elect a new presiding Bishop, nor is Walmart’s Annual Meeting subsidized (at least directly) by the State of Arkansas. Some states go so far as to provide that in case of a vacancy in their US Senate seat, the incumbent’s state party central committee gives the Governor a short list of acceptable replacements.

The duopolistic nature of the system is most evident in the high art of electoral district line-drawing. Now armed with sophisticated mathematical models parties design districts for incumbency rather than community (with no small degree of racial and class discrimination). Early-19C Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry (and his salamander-shaped legislative district map) would be envious. The recent move in some states to neutral citizen-driven apportionment processes offers some hope on this front, but the entrenched parties and pols (and their judges) will likely make this slow going.

This is not rooted in an aversion to the “two-party” system; although splintering may be the result, at least for a while. Coalition governing is no panacea, even if it is no worse than what we have. A bit of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” is called for. Let’s shuffle the cards and see what shakes out.

Besides the structural benefits, noted above, a re-shuffle would energize the process and allow for new leadership, new alliances, and new ideas to emerge. If we need a new political culture of engagement in this country, tossing out the Ds and the Rs (or, at least, not preventing their implosion) would be a good start.

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A Path Forward

11/6/2020

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Some years back, when I was managing the merger and integration of businesses, I was told “The hard stuff is easy and the soft stuff is hard.” I have found it to be true in many circumstances. Combining payroll systems or marketing logos or divisional structures can be a real pain, but they pale in comparison to corporate culture. Every group of people has language, attitudes, and an ethos by which they relate to each other and operate whatever activities they have as a group. Sociologists call these “institutions” (not to be confused with formal organizations) and they usually take a lot of time to consciously change.

The same points apply to societies in general and to US democracy in particular. As we look to next year, we see our culture has been severely battered over the past few decades and we need to figure out what to do. As noted above, the “hard” stuff is (relatively) easy. Legislative agendas are afloat, including social justice, health, environment, and dozens of other areas. Although the likely blockage of Mitch McConnell will render significant steps (and anything that AOC would prefer) nugatory. Relations with Europe and China will be repaired, capable people will be appointed to senior positions and some progress will be made.

More challenging is the “soft” stuff. Political polarization, exacerbated by mercenary mass media, makes it seem that, as a society, we can’t talk to each other. Norms of courtesy and comity have been discarded (not least in relationships within our governmental bodies). This has been largely the work of the soon-to-be-erstwhile Administration and its craven allies. However, those on the ‘left’ are hardly innocent. Hillary Clinton’s infamous reference to Trump supporters as “deplorables” was insulting, over-generalizing, and destructive. The schadenfreude over anti-maskers getting infected is of the same ilk. Judgmentalism is rife on both sides.

The question is not whether I like everybody in this country (much less agree with them); rather, it is how can I contribute to mending the body politic. This requires sympathy rather than disparagement, an effort to listen to and through what others are saying, and listening to more than MSNBC/Fox News. Pretty much everyone I know (even in that bizarre bubble of culture known as the Bay Area) is complicated and contradictory. Underneath the vast majority of our fellow citizens there are some common values; unfortunately, they (we) have slipped into simplistic, Manichean thinking (both as to ourselves and each other).

More fundamentally, I have to decide that while it would be easier and nicer to imagine a country where everyone (more-or-less) agreed with me, that is not the case. Unless I am prepared to jump ship, I am part of this place and I will be better off with a community that accommodates and compromises than one which embraces some sort of ideological fantasy. There is no history of social revolution in this country (1776-83 replaced one set of white male elites with another); nor, as evidenced by the down-ticket strength of the GOP, (media hype over the “Proud Boys” notwithstanding) is one foreseeable (much less likely).

It means discarding easy (red/blue) labels and categories. It means making some hard choices on tough issues: social justice, abortion rights, and gun rights, among others, that aren’t fully aligned with my views. It means making an effort to find real concerns underneath the rhetoric and respecting them. It does not mean throwing away what I believe, but dealing with the reality of a complex and diverse population.

It also means working to engage others in conversation and encouraging everyone to participate in our shared endeavor. Civics lessons shouldn’t be limited to those under 22. This needs to be a conscious choice—setting a new habit—to value our political community as much as our political policy preferences. After all, what are our choices:?

God smites all evil people, leaving just those who are right-thinking (i.e., us).
We assume that it’s a generational thing, and that in twenty-or-so years, enough of “them” die off to foster necessary change.
A modest-sized progressive majority makes the desired changes and “they” roll over and accept it.
We battle it out indefinitely and have a miserable and dysfunctional body politic for a while.

It would be nice to have leaders who would lead us in a constructive direction. The corrupt political class (on both sides) is caught up in power dreams and few have stepped beyond this. On the other hand, it’s not (just) their fault. As Joseph de Maistre said (1811): “Every country has the government it deserves.”

Real leadership is cultural, moral and inclusive; in attitudes, not budgets.

I’m sure there are many who would say I’m being naïve, a Pollyanna, or that I have ‘sold out.’ I am eager to hear alternative ‘real-world’ solutions to our predicament.

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Agendas

10/31/2020

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Agendas

Well, after a grueling and seemingly interminable election cycle, next week we can all take a few days off before starting in on the 2024 campaign.

In the meantime, it would be good to consider how to handle the next four years. While most of you (dear readers) hope and expect the Dems to come out ahead, we were all stunned with the upset of Hillary in 2016; so let’s not blithely assume all will go well.

Of course, it may not be exactly next week that we know what we’ve got; election contests have been known to go into December (2000) or January (1800); but soon enough, in any case; and, hopefully, peacefully.

If Biden wins, but (thanks to Cal Cunningham’s libido or other factors), Mitch is still running the Senate, then we can look forward to four years of hardly any substantive legislation. At least much of the bleeding, in terms of foreign policy and administrative actions, can be stanched. But, that’s about it substantively. Trump’s greatest shortcoming has been the lack of moral leadership and that is something that Biden will change.

If Trump wins, all bets are off. Some folks will move to Canada/Costa Rica, but most of us will have little choice but (relatively comfortable) unhappiness and anxiety. Suicide rates among certain metropolitan elites will go up. Hands will be wrung and great damage to the country and world will result. Jobs, hope, and lives will be lost. No one will be surprised at assassination attempts and more domestic unrest. Barr, DeVos, and Trump unleashed. Many terrible thoughts run through my mind, but the question is: After hands are all wrung out, what is to be done?

   1. Hunker down.
   2. Create a bubble of tolerable friends and family
   3. Take care of those who are most at risk.
   4. Resolve to come out the other side in 2024, just as we have come out into
       2020 (not pretty, but ….)
   5. Find hope and gratitude (Jesus and Buddha are both available).

If the Dems take over (and there are no crises/disasters in the interregnum), don’t expect miracles. The Senate filibuster will have to be dismantled (this is a risk since the pendulum WILL swing), but getting a majority for action will not be simple. Moral leadership in the pandemic will be welcome, but huge challenges—scientific, logistical, and economic— lie in the way of moving to the ‘new normal.’ After all, the Dems are not in great/coherent shape themselves, they only seem that way by comparison.

Beyond the policy front, it is important to remember that in terms of the composition and views of “America” much has not changed. Trump’s incompetence and venality have been exposed for a while. If COVID had not shown up nine months ago, with all its personal and economic carnage, it’s quite likely we would have four more years. Similarly, if Trump had shown a modicum of political nous and really focused on re-election rather than ranting, he would have had quite a good shot. As it is, the degree to which you are worried that he might still be re-elected indicates how little is different. Was Obama a fluke? Was Trump? We have no idea how my historian successors will characterize early 21C America. Even if some Trumpians fade into the woodwork, we have to recognize the fact (not fake news here) that a lot of the country preferred his dissimulation and bluster. As a nation we have to try to understand their anger/fears and see if at least some of the root causes can be addressed.

At a policy level, it would be great if Joe and Nancy and Chuck et al. came together and knocked out a high-level legislative agenda in the first 100 days. Besides repairs, there is much to be done and much is mapped out: environment, health care, taxes, voting rights, infrastructure, economic stimulus and jobs. The gating factor is not substance: solid policy choices have been mapped out; it is (as ever) political will. Speed and momentum are more important than details in changing the national energy and attitudes. Lay down some markers, fill in the gaps and details later in the year and into 2022. Surprise everyone with a touch of compromise in order to get things done; quickly, if imperfectly. It is likely too much to expect the more aggressive wing of the party to rejoice with incremental (if meaningful) progress on all these fronts; but we can at least hope that they don’t get too righteous. This election is a referendum on Trump, not a mandate for drastic change.

At a personal level, what is to be done? My list above still pretty much applies:

   1. Hunker down.
   2. Create a bubble of tolerable friends and family
   3. Take care of those who are most at risk.
   4. Resolve to come out the other side in 2024, just as we have come out into
       2020 (not pretty, but ….)
   5. Find hope and gratitude (Jesus and Buddha are both available).

May the Force be with us….

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The Comforts of History

10/23/2020

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As both a historian and a (recovering) lawyer, I have often wondered whether people make too much of history and precedent.

On the legal side, I suppose, the ritual invocation of precedent (a key component of our English-originated common law system) is designed to assure that judges move the law only incrementally so that social change will be kept within tolerable bounds (for both political and psychological reasons).

Sportscasters, on the other hand, reciting statistics such as “Crawdad State has won seven of the last eleven meetings with the University of Clamato” are just using the past as filler. It’s not like the performance of any player from ten years ago or more has any effect on today’s contest. These commentators (from many branches of journalism) conflate a label with a thing. The Crawdad Pincers may still wear all red uniforms, but there is no thing there; just a tradition, a label, a memory—each a social construct.

Still, such constructs can be powerful; as alumni who receive pleas for donations can attest. Traditions do make us feel warm-and-cozy. They reinforce a sense of belonging and identity. They are hardly confined to athletics. We Americans used to say (until the 1970s) that we had “never lost a war.” Pride in victory, pride in continuity, pride in ‘us-ness.’ Alas, past results are no guarantee of future performance.

Historians have studied how we construct traditions; which may or may not have anything to do with the past. Leaders of national states or those that aspire to have done so to great effect over the past 150 or so years. Scottish tartans and Bastille Day were both invented in the late 19C. Confederate war memorials were not constructed until the 20C.

Why is it that we so value the (apparent) venerability of what we do and what we believe? I suspect it has something to do with the values expressed with regard to the common law: continuity and community. More, we seem to be hungry for self-validation by reference to the past. Finally, its usually easier to avoid being blamed if I can cite hoary precedent.

All of these are incentives to construct (at both the personal and societal levels) a useful past and put at risk our ability to construct an accurate one. If, as William Cronan has said, “history is the stories we choose to tell about the past;” then we need to be circumspect about accuracy (not so much falsification as artful selection). A reading of history rooted in continuity, community, self-validation, and security is conducive to comfort.

Perhaps our veneration of the past is a left-over from when tribal elders were consulted before group action. Chains of memory were the only way to access wider experience. In the era of modern historical practice (the last 200+ years), this may no longer make sense. We have, perhaps, too much history; too rich a vein of human experience is accessible to mine, and so we have examples, and counter-examples, and counter-counter…etc. This is one of the great and fun things about delving into history, but it doesn’t make it easier to extract lessons for the present.

Nor if such histories are then used as the basis for future action. The ability to cite precedent for one’s actions is likely to be solipsistic and therefore problematic. There are likely many examples of this in terms of personal behavior, but I will touch on two at a more macro level: boundaries and race.

Countries rise and fall, but like the Crawdad Pincers they are not things. Does the fact that England once ruled India mean that if it were to regain global hegemony, it should claim: “this used to be British territory, so we have a right to it now”? That seems to be the offered rationale of much of China’s bullying the other countries bordering the South China Sea, war between Iran and Iraq, or Bolivia, Chile, and Peru, or Russia and Ukraine. A simpler response to the China’s (et al.) claim is: “so what?” Why does past status (especially centuries-old) create entitlement to the future? At what point does it not matter anymore? In Anglo-American law, we have concepts such as adverse possession (which times-out old claims to land) and statutes of limitation (which puts all manner of old wrongs to bed on the ground that we have all moved on and it would be too much trouble to figure out the exact events of the past, much less their relative equities and those of all who came since).

Indeed, to apply a variant of the Chinese claim, everything in the world should belong to Kenya (or Tanzania or wherever the first humans lived), since they (or their descendants) were “there first.”

Another variant of the problem arises with claims to racial and ethnic identity. We are all Africans. For some of us, our ancestors left earlier or later and stayed (for some generations) in South Asia, East Asia, Beringia, North America, before making their way to South America (similarly for other migration patterns). Why is it that the three hundred (or thousand) years of lineage in Poland or Ghana or Vietnam should be definitive?

Much of the answer has to do with the traditions and cultural/community identification noted earlier. But these are modern choices—constructs made (in many cases) in the last two hundred years—and all this is to leave out the issues of genetic mixing which will (when fully understood) make a hash of everyone’s claims of cultural purity/identity. Its great to celebrate cultural traditions (Ok, maybe a little less schmaltz in the gravy and don’t get me started on Riverdance), as long as we don’t take them too seriously.

This is not to say we shouldn’t do old history, but merely that we need to be mindful of its uses, abuses, and the limits of what it can tell us.

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Viruses, Damn Viruses, and Statistics

10/17/2020

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The pandemic has revealed real problems with many institutions—American and globally. Public discourse, hobbled by delusional leadership and lame/mainstream media enamored of simplistic rationales, has struggled with figuring out where we are. It’s likely to take several years to get the story straight. Meanwhile, misapprehensions of the nature of science, historical perspective, and statistical analyses have undercut public understanding and sensible public policy.

Let’s start with science.

There is no such thing. By which I mean that there is no “thing”, no organization, no clear voice, and no offer of definitive answers. There are thousands of smart people around the world, most of whom in relevant fields have been busting their collective butts to figure out the nature of the beast that besets us and how to deal with it. However, it is not in the nature of science to “know” much of anything. There are working hypotheses with varying degrees of evidence behind them. Even questions which have been studied for centuries sometimes get turned on their heads in light of new information and ideas. Just ask Newton and Aristotle.

To expect, in the middle of the largest real-time experiment in global history, with the immense pressure of daily death counts and crashing economics, that initial guesses (masks, isolation, gloves, ventilators, risks by age cohort) would be even mostly correct reflects more our collective desperation than an appreciation of what scientists have to offer (most of whom have been careful to speak precisely about the meaning of their ideas). Trumpian critiques (if that is not too exalted a characterization) also reflect more of their speakers’ inability to cope with a complex, dynamic, and uncertain environment than a concern with the effects of early ideas that turned out to be incorrect, incomplete, or in need of revision.

Since Francis Bacon wrote, four hundred years ago, the nature of science has been to accept (revel in) this uncertainty and revise ideas in light of experiment and experience. Indeed, attacks on “science” are rooted in a coded resentment of scientists’ epistemological flexibility and ability to tolerate the limits of what we (as a species) know of our world.

Second is history. Global political, environmental, and medical crises have combined to make it feel like the end of the world is at hand. And, while I am moderately concerned about the first, and quite pessimistic about the second, the coronavirus is not the pandemic that will end humanity: not even close. This is NOT to downplay in any way the loss of millions of people around the world; their suffering and that of their families, the economic hardships that will continue to bear down on billions of the global poor, or the exhaustion of thousands of devoted care-givers.

There are many ways in which history can give us a little dose of perspective on our current situation (even with due allowance for past and current statistical deficiencies). The “Spanish” Flu of a century ago has been commonly cited as a precedent for our situation. However, that pandemic killed about 3% of the global population (the equivalent of 200-250 million people today). The Coronavirus toll looks to be in the neighborhood of 1% of that (i.e. .03% of global population), although the impact in South Asia and Africa is still at very early levels. The smallpox which Europeans brought to the Americas in the 15C/16C killed about 90% of natives over a century. Even the famous “Black Death” of the 14C wiped out about 30% of Europeans. So, even if a vaccination shows up in reasonably soon and global inoculation is completed in four years, we are facing a serious, but not species-threatening, situation.

Similarly, from an economic point of view, global GDP looks like it will take a hit of less than 10%. This would push us back to the levels of 4-5 years ago. If the effects were confined to not being able to see the live-action version of Mulan in theaters or missing the 2020 Pantone color of the year in clothing and houseware stores; these would seem like “acceptable losses.” (btw, it’s “Classic Blue”). The impact on hundreds of millions individual workers and their families (as compared with consumers and corporations) is devastating; but the impediments to relief are entirely political at both the national and global levels. The problem, as Shakespeare said, “lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.” The pandemic has presented us with a challenge and we haven’t stepped up.

Finally, statistics. Much could be said here about the numbers thrown at us daily in the media; the marking of mortality milestones: 200,000 Americans dead, 1 million humans dead. Tote boards in the corner of TV news shows. When will California hit 1 million cases? When will India surpass the US as the home of the most infections? Maps with buttons sized to the number of cases or dead in a particular jurisdiction (as if county or state lines mattered).

Little of this is helpful in understanding the actual scope and impact of the pandemic. The virus doesn’t pay attention to borders and population density is crucial to seeing what matters to people on the ground. Local angles are much more insightful than aggregates. Here are a few interesting points that show that the mass media’s reliance on big numbers/raw data is deceptive:
* There are more cases in Guatemala (pop: 15M) than China (1.4B).
* Eight out of ten of the hardest hit U.S. states (cases per capita) are in the South.
* California has 10% fewer cases per capita than the US average, even though it has more cases than any other state (although Texas and Florida are catching up!).

And these are just the reported numbers. When all is said and done, historians of the pandemic will likely see that the death tolls are twice as big as the numbers being reported and that case counts could be off by a factor of 20. So, while I hasten to add that correcting for these problems tempers, but does not undercut my point about historical perspective; it seems likely that the public consciousness of the size of the problem is pretty weak.

If it were merely a matter of getting the record straight, we could let historians sort it out over the next 5-25 years. But the misunderstandings lead to knee-jerk public policy and contribute to the loss of trust in the “system.” More people will get sick and die and more workers will lose jobs as a result.

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A Democratic Crisis

10/9/2020

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(This is the first in an occasional series about making changes to the Constitution)

A Democratic Crisis

No, I’m not talking about Bernie/AOC vs. the ‘moderates;’ thankfully, they have figured out that four more years of Trump would not only prevent any of Bernie’s goals in his lifetime, but make them pretty tough in AOC’s, and have gotten in line.

Nor am I talking about that hardy perennial: the electoral college, although it is connected to my topic today. The EC is a democratic problem, but it is one that is fixable by constitutional amendment or, more likely, by any of several statutory/inter-state agreements ending the “winner-take-all” problem which drives the biggest share of the difference between the EC vote and the popular vote.

Neither is it the upcoming final battle over the minority filibuster in the US Senate to determine whether the will of the “majority” (presumably the President, the House, and the Dem’s slight likely edge in the “upper chamber”) will crash upon the rocks of Mitch McConnell’s long-talking and desperate GOP minority; although this, too, is connected.

Rather, it is the simple fact that the Constitution provides for two senators per state, regardless of size. This is democratic if you’re a state; but not if you’re a person. Supreme Court precedents of “one person, one vote” mean nothing if the Constitution expressly says otherwise. Almost a quarter-millennium ago, when the US was set up, this was grounded in theory, “rough justice,” and political deal-making. The distribution of population among the states has changed pretty dramatically in the meantime, with the result that small states’ voting power in the Senate is larger than it ever has been, and increased urbanization is going to make it worse. If current partisan polarization continues (which also has a big state/little state differential), things will come to a head in about twenty to thirty years.

The equal representation of the states was one key to the legendary deal at the Convention in Philadelphia in 1787; the compromise between those who wanted the US to be represent the “people” (i.e., the white, male, usually property-owning people) and those who saw the US as a federation of independent states of equal dignity, sovereignty, and power who came together to form a “more perfect union.” The result, a House of Representatives allocated every ten years by population was conjoined with a Senate which represented the states (originally elected by state legislatures, not popular vote). An ugly and perhaps necessary compromise among many which enabled the deal to be done and the country to move forward.

However, unlike every other provision of the Constitution, the provision for equal representation can’t be changed; at least not through the ordinary methods of amendment. Article V says that “no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” So, fixing this problem requires unanimous consent.

Not bloody likely. Flying pigs and parkas in Hades are more likely than Wyoming and North Dakota agreeing to give up a second Senator; after all, what can California, Texas, and Florida do about it? But before we get to the likely denouement of this constitutional conundrum, let’s look at the data.

I’ve taken the population data of the states at every census and added the projections for the next twenty years. To illustrate the issue of inter-state inequality, I’ve ranked the states by population and divided them into four groups and compared the top quartile with the bottom quartile. So, for the 16 states in 1800 (when Jefferson was elected) the average state in the top quartile was 6.5 time more populous than that in the bottom quartile. By 1850, the ratio was 9.5, by 1900 it grew to 14.6 and it crept up from there to 16.7 by the last census in 2010 (with a total US population of 309M).

We have had a long-term problem, continuously getting worse. Indeed, by now, the size of the problem has tripled from our nation’s founding. In 2010 a majority of the nation lived in the most populous nine states (i.e. represented by 18 Senators), while the least populous 12 states (with 24 senators) together comprised only 11M. Going forward, in 2030, US total population is projected to be about 358M, of which the top 12 states will have 223M and the bottom 12 will have 13.3M, for a ratio of almost 17:1. Hardly the picture of representative democracy.

Historically, we can look back to the British Parliament which hadn’t undergone ‘redistricting’ for centuries, with the result that by the early 1800s, booming cities such as Birmingham and Manchester, were drastically underrepresented as compared with rural areas. In the US, the provision for redistricting the House every ten years, means that such a mis-match doesn’t arrive. But the Senate, fixed as it is on state boundaries, has got a democratic problem. Vermont, Wyoming, Alaska, and North Dakota have a combined population about equal to that of Brooklyn.

But for the unanimity requirement in Article V, we could see a constitutional amendment that resolved this sensibly, for example, leaving every state with one senator and allocating the other fifty by population, or, to be truly democratic, we could divide the country into fifty districts with about the same population (about 6.5M each at today’s numbers) and they would each elect two senators. Lots to argue about in the details; but conceptually, not too complex.

So, let’s gaze into a political crystal ball and see what’s actually likely to happen. Issues arise around allocation of resources, or partisan differentials between rural/conservative views and cosmopolitan/progressive views lead to an impasse. Tensions mount. Die-hards for the dignity of Delaware or Montana insist on their traditional power. What do the large states with big metropolitan areas and more diverse populations do?

Here’s two ideas: First, there could be noises about secession; but since that didn’t work out so well last time, it would be couched differently, likely as a new constitutional convention to reconceptualize the United States and ensure democratic representation. I will talk some other time about what might come up at such an event, but if representatives of two-thirds of the people propose and ratify a new constitution, it’s hard to see how anyone (even a conservative Supreme Court) will stop that.

Second, the large states could start to split up. Texas’ admission to the Union in 1845 envisioned that it might into five states. California could split into ten states of 4M each (concurrently enacting an ‘inter-state compact’ among them to keep the scale efficiencies of certain functions in a single administration in Sacramento. Ditto for Florida, Pennsylvania and others. With at least a majority of the Senate in line, Congress could just admit San Diego, Pittsburgh, and Houston as new states and there is little Rhode Island or South Dakota could do about it.

Of course, the threat of either such course might do the trick and force a compromise. Small states would be smart to do so (they’d get a better deal), but they won’t until they’re forced to.

Stay tuned, and let me know in 30-40 years how this all turns out.

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Ending American Imperialism

10/4/2020

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The current surge of social justice energy across the country faces a “target-rich environment.” Issues of race, gender, and class are on the table. Coming to terms with our history towards Blacks, Hispanics, and Natives, who live in our “fifty states” will take courage, ingenuity, and humanity. And there are other issues to be addressed.

While there is much to be said about the history of American “imperialism” (even under a narrow definition), the American Empire exists in the 21C. We still have over 4 million subjects. I will not rehearse the moral and political reasons for ending this state of affairs; most are pretty straightforward. The results cannot stand against any measure of justice or democracy. Perhaps we can address this one before it resurfaces at the George Floyd level. Beyond the need to take action for those whom we have wronged, it behooves us to do it for ourselves and a slightly cleaner conscience. Besides, compared to changing cultural attitudes around race or unraveling poverty, making this kind of change is not so difficult.

By imperialism, I mean the extension of power by one group of people over another. This can be formal (the British in India in the 17C-20C) or informal (Russia in Central Europe after WWII, the US in Central America for much of the 19-20C). Most formal imperialism ended in the last century, but not all. Yes, the British still hold a bunch of scattered islands (~250,000 people), but the French took all their overseas territories and let them vote in French national elections, so they’re out of the (formal) empire business. Even the Spanish are down to a seven-square mile chunk of Morocco; just as Morocco asserts control over the Western Sahara. The UN used to run an entire division devoted to “trusteeship” of colonies, but they closed that down in 1994.

Over three million people, mostly on islands, are still under American control (“acquired” principally in connection with the Spanish-American War) in the Caribbean and the Central Pacific. These include: the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Marianas (you can find the details here). Their formal relationship with the US varies, most are US citizens, but some are not; but no resident has the right to vote for President or a voting member of Congress.

Of course, the most notable American “colony” is the District of Columbia, whose citizens can vote for President and for a non-voting member of the House. The movement for DC statehood has been active for 65 years and finally received approval of the US House this past summer. Final approval depends on the election this November.

That would be a big step. But full citizenship for the 700,000+ subjects of DC would solve less than 20% of the problem. Puerto Rico is more than 4 times larger and the other territories don’t seem to fit anywhere, either logically or politically. Statehood for Puerto Rico has its own complex history, but imagine if Congress were to say: “We’re done with this empire business; you’re either in or out. Make a decision on statehood vs. independence and get back to us.” While many assume that Puerto Rico would be a Democratic stronghold, there is some argument that the GOP (or what’s left of it) would be competitive there.

Treating the three others (Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands) is less clear-cut. The mental hurdle to overcome is that we are the United “States”: a federation (at least nominally) of independent political entities (13 former colonies and all that). We don’t have any way for someone to be fully a part of the United States other than statehood. All of the land and people we added along the way (i.e., imperialism in action) was organized as territories, intending to become states in due course of development and increasing population. Is it any wonder that this traditional model—which worked well enough for Ohio, Nevada, and Alaska—was not extended to territories occupied by Hispanic and Pacific Islanders?

The main problem with statehood for these small groups (50,000-170,000 people) is that giving them each two senators would exacerbate the already highly skewed and anti-democratic composition of the Senate (about which I will write separately).

So, let’s get Hawaii to incorporate Guam and Samoa, and Puerto Rico to incorporate the Virgin Islands. All the state representation and devolution of local authority issues can be adapted from existing laws and arrangements, the changes need not be dramatic. The gains are a set of new full American citizens and the elimination of a legal structure that embeds a quasi-/second-class status which should be abhorrent to a modern democracy.

This would clean up one legacy of the past; but our history is still our history. The issues around descendants of slaves and other Blacks are complex and confusing. The treatment of Native American groups has been as ugly, if different. Neither is susceptible of a straightforward solution.

But at least with regard to the remnants of the US’s formal empire, doing justice unto others is not only for the nominal beneficiaries. Relinquishing an abusive power is its own reward.

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Anomalies and Exceptionalism

9/26/2020

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In 1941, Henry Luce urged the US to break out of its isolationism and create the “American Century.” In some ways, the flag had already been picked up from the British, whose “century” ran from Waterloo to the Somme. But whatever the precise starting points, the global leadership/hegemony of the “English-speaking peoples” has spanned most of the last quarter millennium and has encompassed multiple components of the “industrial revolution,” modern imperialism, globalization, and other aspects of modernity.

Luce mined a rich vein of rhetoric from John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill” imagery (1630) to John O’Sullivan’s “manifest destiny” (1845), but in the aftermath of WWII, it wasn’t a hard sell. In contrast to virtually all other modern wars, WWII had a plausible claim to a clear-cut moral dimension. The “good guys” won. And, after all, who doesn’t like to feel that their success is well-deserved (or even ordained). In truth, the destruction of European power in the first half of the 20C (two wars and a depression), left the field pretty clear. Even the Cold War competition with the Russians didn’t really require that we break into much of a sweat.

Boy, those were the days! New cars, suburban houses, plenty of food, appliances, travel, space flight, pax Americana; how grand it was. For those of us born in the last 80 years, it’s seemed normal. It’s become baked in as the way things “should” be.

But its not. In fact, with a little, this aspect of modernity—the economic, military, and political global domination by the West— was anomalous.

For several reasons, modern industrialization began in Britain in the late 18C, closely followed by northwestern Europe and British progeny around the world, especially the US. The immense power—deployed economically, culturally, and militarily—was deceptive. Many attempts have been made to rationalize this global power shift and anchor it in some mode of moral superiority. But even if the root of that power was cultural rather than environmental or contingent, it is hard to translate into a justification for entitlement to that power, rather than a premise for humility and responsibility. Parts of 19C “liberalism” tried to move towards the latter, but got overwhelmed.

Through the end of the 18C, China was the most powerful civilization in the world, followed by India. European-led industrialization and imperialism eclipsed them in the 19C, only to be overtaken by the US in the first half of the 20C as European civilization imploded (twice), clearing the decks for an era of American dominance (itself distracted only by Russia punching above its weight for fifty years until it collapsed). China’s rise (return!) to global leadership has been treated with the arrogance of an incumbent monopolist. China has its own behaviors to answer for, but before we start lecturing, we should recall secret federal forces in Portland last month, George Floyd three months ago, or ICE child-separation policies in the last three years (just to take recent examples).

The late 20C wave of globalization which has spurred dramatic economic benefits in China and other parts of the Global South has, even more fundamentally than its material aspects, brought a change to the mentalités of the ancient capitals of Anglo domination. This has not been easy to swallow for those who have known nothing else. The backlash has shown up in Trumpery and Brexit.

Indeed, it is beginning to dawn on folks that American power is not God-given, that American economic pre-eminence is not an entitlement, and that we might have to (in the words of that old John Houseman commercial) “make money [& power] the old-fashioned way,” we may have “to earn it.”

(Whether this would be a good thing is a debate into which I do not enter today.)

Regardless of whether and how the US seeks to regain its global leadership position, in the meantime, we need to face facts. We will have to live/work in a world which is tired of generating surpluses for a small group of local elites and a small group of global elite countries; especially while most of them have to live in “third-world” conditions. Nor do they have to. Indeed, the biggest impediments to further global realignments are local and elsewhere: nationalism/autarky and corruption. I’m not suggesting such developments will be rapid, and they are hardly inevitable. Still, we “at the top” must contemplate them.

A central driver of the end of European empires in the mid-20C was the recognition, little-recognized, of the hollowness of “Western civilization’s” claims to moral superiority as a basis of colonial rule; undermined by the savagery of trench warfare and the Holocaust. Momentum/inertia carried them only so far. In our own version, significant components of American withdrawal from the world have been self-generated and reactive; but the results move in the same direction.

Beyond the economics and the atmospherics are the demographics. Much “attitude-adjustment” is needed here. Claims—implicit or explicit—of white superiority (often tied to claims of moral superiority) have to run head-long into the facts. Most folks aren’t white. Most folks aren’t male. In fact, “white” males (however defined) comprise less than 10% of the global population. So, when we see much debate about “minority” rights, it’s time to remember that we are watching through Alice’s peculiarly American looking glass.

Subconsciously, perhaps, the Trumpians and others of that ilk are aware of this. After all, my favorite Fox News show is titled: “Outnumbered: Overtime.” This would explain their virulent construction of a world where American history is immaculate, the “American Century” is perpetual and uncluttered by all those others. Indeed, in this worldview, their approach not only makes a great deal of sense, it’s absolutely necessary. Those who cannot tolerate the “real” world are facing an existential crisis. If you look down the road with Mitch McConnell or Steven Miller and see immigration and BLM and ‘Me too’ with disorienting terror, you might throw out your adherence to democratic norms and jam through every law and judge you could to keep the dike plugged for as long as possible. “Apres-moi, le deluge.”

However, for the rest of us, if you are not so wrapped up in an identity of superiority (insecurity), you might be okay with justice and tolerance of difference. If you’re not wed to a world-view defined by the anomaly of US power over the past 75 years (or “Western” power over the past 250 years), you might just want to get on with your life and help others to do the same.

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Global Pandemic.1

9/20/2020

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This spring, the Economist joined numerous other pundits in proclaiming the coronavirus pandemic as the end of globalization. In our breathless media age, rushing to find the first and the last, the dramatic and the provocative is all too ordinary. However, when considering globalization, the pandemic “is not even [to adapt Churchill] “the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Of course, “globalization” is a bit of mushy phrase. Over the past thirty years, it has been used to connote a neoliberal triumph of corporate-driven capitalism; “exporting” jobs from reasonably well-off countries to emerging economics, particularly in Latin America and south and east Asia. Integrated supply chains deliver fashionista designs from Europe or U.S.-invented technology to manufacturing operations in Bangladesh, Vietnam, or Honduras for delivery to stores across the globe. Populists are concerned partially by the loss of jobs and partially by the loss of control by their governments. The consumer beneficiaries of this labor market competition are rarely heard.

From a broader and more considered perspective, however, globalization can be characterized as the process of connection and communication gradually expanding from hubs of human settlement and activity, including migration, trade, information and technology transfer, and even travel. Globalization has been going on in this way for millennia, as scholars have described, in the gradual establishment and thickening of trade routes and the interconnection of regional economies and cultures. It certainly hasn’t been a smooth curve, punctuated by natural and climactic developments, wars, famines, and other human activities; a list in which the disruptions of the past few months only loom so large because of their currency.

Globalization describes both the measurable flows and connections: number of containers shipped or intercontinental Zoom calls. But, even more than the material and financial measurements, globalization is best characterized by a mentalité: an awareness of the scope of the world and the connection that each individual has, through jobs, migrations, sympathies, or ‘stuff,’ with others on the planet.

Globalization is both a process and a state. We have been in the process of globalizing and now we live in a globalized world. One might say, from this perspective, we are just about to reach the end of the process of globalizing. Of course there’s more to come; but in terms of connectivity, goods, migration, and information, as a global population of ~8B, we are past the 80%-20% mark.

Most people are conscious of the scope of the world. By this I don’t just mean cosmopolitan elites eating fusion food. In rich societies, ordinary folks are part of the “jet-set” (that old term for the “rich-and-famous”). Global smartphone penetration is now about 50%. Social media and markets connect individuals and companies as consumers. Billions of workers (farmers, miners, and factory-workers) know they are paid through global commerce. Indeed, it is the very awareness of the impact of all this that has spurred the reaction.

This would be pretty hard to unravel; even if we have a Covid hiccup in travel for a couple of years, even if the Trumpish trade wars fester for a while. To be sure, there is nothing inevitable about further integration—more travel and migration, more trade, more exchange of ideas—or even maintaining the current levels. There are those who imagine a return to an idyllic (simplistic) world: autarkic, controllable, comprehensible. “America First”-ers and Brexiteers have their counterparts everywhere. Reconstructing global manufacturing, services, and agriculture would surely bring an increase in local jobs, but at the cost of jaw-dropping increases in consumer prices. This virus, or the next, or some other cataclysm may pause or reverse the course. The pause in the 20th century lasted for sixty years. But then….

More fundamentally, in terms of mentalité, its hard to imagine the psychological disconnect required for “the end of globalization.” Cultural ties are resilient. Migration plus telecommunications means that cultures are cross-embedded and will stay that way.

The shape of 21st century globalization will surely change from what we have seen for the past forty years. China (and perhaps even India) will likely resume leadership of global economies. Subsaharan Africa has yet to be heard from. Technologies continue to restructure the meaning of geographical location. The underlying economics will press forward. Reallocation of global wealth distribution will lead to new travel and migration patterns. Even the rich West, embedded in some degree of self-centeredness, will likely see itself as part (not the dominator) of the world. Globalization ain’t over yet…not by a long shot.

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