The costs of waffling

A look at how some campuses are preparing for another round of Gaza War demonstrations

Source: Wisconsin Right Now

For most college students, the fall semester is still a few weeks away, but some antisemites eager for another year of tumult are already making their plans. So, too, are some schools that are keen to avoid a repeat of the anti-Israel encampments that plagued so many campuses in the spring.

Five schools may be representative of what is on tap — or what isn’t. Their action or, in some cases, their inaction may shape what students and faculty will face.

First, there’s my graduate alma mater, Columbia University. Protestors there set the tone for the rest of the country last spring with encampments and then the occupation of a building, a move that was smashed by police. Threats of expulsion and worse abounded.

So where is the university now in its planning? Many of us recently got a note from the university “in the spirit of keeping alumni informed” that has a fair number of words – some with several syllables. But, remarkably, the statement says nothing.

Columbia protest encampment, source NY Daily News, April 24

The university senate is “reviewing the rules” that govern conduct in protests, we were told. President Minouche Shafik, we read, wants everyone on campus to understand the unspecified expectations and consequences if rules are broken (though none were detailed).

Boldly dithering, the school is also “facilitating a process with affected students to hear their views and work toward mediated outcomes,” the note says. And there will be unspecified “new components” in student orientation programs.

Vague? For clarification, check out the president’s July 24 “Update for Our Community.” There, Shafik says the university has “been working hard to put in place more mechanisms for community consultation, more clarity about our rules going forward, more training on discrimination issues for everyone (staff, faculty, and students), better capacity to handle incidents and complaints, and stronger internal engagement and communications.”

Regarding issues raised by the student protests, she says, two faculty members from the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program at the School of Professional Studies were asked to facilitate a process with affected students to hear their views and work toward mediated outcomes. The two have met with a lot of people so far, she adds.

“We use the word ‘mediation’ rather than ‘negotiation’ because we believe it more accurately reflects our goals: to engage in a facilitated process of productive dialogue with students to identify paths forward that can support our community’s shared educational mission,” she thunders.

Much more is under way, Shafik assures us all.

Columbia, source: Business Insider

As for those expulsions and disciplinary actions? We haven’t heard much beyond a report that some students who occupied Hamilton Hall are having their cases moved from one oversight body, the rehabilitation-oriented Center for Student Success and Intervention, to another, the more legalistic University Judicial Board in the university.

But Columbia did drop trespassing charges against its campers, who had been swept out in a police action on April 18 when more than 100 people were arrested. Recall that protestors then moved their tents to a different lawn on campus, where some remained until April 30. Then, after protestors occupied Hamilton Hall, police moved in and arrested 109 more people.

In a recent deal with the Manhattan District Attorney, criminal charges brought against 13 of the occupiers, including some Columbia alumni and outsiders, will be dismissed after a six-month probationary period and completion of an in-person class on what constitutes “peaceful and legal protesting,” as the Columbia Spectator reported. The class will also cover how such protests affect both the campus and Morningside Heights community.

Now, contrast that with the University of South Florida. After it was unsettled by demonstrations, USF expelled the leader of the local chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (remember those folks?) and recently upheld that move. The student, a sociology and women’s studies major, was a senior, so her degree is in limbo. It also suspended another student, a junior, for a year.

And consider the recent move at Indiana University. As reported by Inside Higher Ed, the IU trustees on July 29 adopted a policy with real teeth. It bans camping that’s not part of a university event; prohibits “expressive activity” outside of 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.; limits water-soluble chalk to sidewalks; forbids affixing “signs and symbols” to the ground, university buildings, flagpoles and other structures; bans “light projections” without university approval; and forbids temporary “structures and/or mass physical objects” without university approval, which must be requested at least 10 days in advance.

As the news outlet reported, students who violate the rules could face punishments up to expulsion. Employees could face ramifications up to firing, depending on the seriousness of the violation.

Not a lot of dithering or vagueness in those spots.

University of Pennsylvania; source: AP, via NY Post

And take a look at the University of Pennsylvania, where a couple top administrators lost their jobs in a dustup about antisemitism on campus last December. After anti-Israel protests in the spring, the school in early June put in place temporary rules – which likely will endure – banning encampments.

“To ensure the safety of the Penn community and to protect the health and property of individuals, encampments and overnight demonstrations are not permitted in any University location, regardless of space (indoor or outdoor),” the new guidelines state. “Unauthorized overnight activities will be considered trespassing and addressed.”

As IHE reported, the rules also prohibit light projections on building without permission. Some protestors were fond of lighting up spaces with slogans on building walls.

Break the rules, the Penn folks added, and disciplinary action will follow. Students and faculty alike face actions up to suspensions.

The get-tough campuses mark a bright, bold contrast with those that have taken a softer touch.

Perhaps the best example of coddling — and its costs — is the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. In May, Chancellor Mark A. Mone and several top administrators met for three days with camping protestors from the “UWM Popular University for Palestine Coalition.” The administrators then put out a statement giving the students much of what they wanted, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and citing the International Criminal Court’s term of “plausible genocide.”

In a feeble attempt at evenhandedness, Mone et al. added: “We also condemn the attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, resulting in the killing of 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians, military personnel and police.”

“Innocent civilians, especially children, must not be the targets of war,” they diplomatically said. “This is why we also call for the release of the remaining Israeli and international hostages held by Hamas and the release of Palestinian men, women and children held as hostages in military detention in Israel. We condemn all violence and call for it to end.”

But Mone and his colleagues went further. They condemned the destruction of universities in Gaza, calling it “scholasticide,” and said they would review their study-abroad programs.

Hillel at Milwaukee

They noted that Hillel sponsors visits to Israel but, drawing a line, contended that the Jewish campus organization is separate from the university and helpfully noted that the trips are not advertised on UWM.edu. And they added that a Milwaukee-based global water nonprofit, The Water Council, at Mone’s urging, severed ties with a pair of Israeli water companies accused of denying water to Gazans.

So, what did the Milwaukee diplomats get for all their concessions? Well, the encampment came down in the spring.

But now, a new year looms. So now the pro-Palestinian coalition, in a post on Instagram, took aim at “Hillel, the Jewish Federation, etc.,” calling them “local extremist groups” and saying “ANY organization or entity that supports Israel is not welcome at UWM.”

To underscore that, the coalition added: “Any organization that has not separated themselves from Israel will be treated accordingly as extremist criminals. Stay tuned.”

Vague as that threat was, it was clear enough to spur someone at the campus to show a bit more spine. In an unsigned release under the “Office of the Chancellor” logo, the school blasted the “intimidating language aimed at Jewish community members and organizations on campus that support Israel.”

“UWM strongly denounces these statements and denounces any form of antisemitism, and we will be actively monitoring campus as a result,” the statement said. “Every student, employee and community member must be safe on our campus.”

“UWM takes this post seriously and recognizes that the language in it, if acted upon, would undermine the safety of the UWM community, especially Jewish individuals and organizations,” it said. “Where speech is not protected by the First Amendment, UWM will address it through appropriate processes, which could include student and student organization disciplinary processes. While hateful or intimidating speech is often legally protected, it conflicts with the respect and conduct we ask of each member of our community.”

So, did Mone et al. get a respectful response? The initial post has disappeared from the Instagram site, but in answer, the pro-Palestinian group doubled down on its threats. It accused the administration of “extreme bias,” while insisting its threats were not against Jews or Judaism, but rather against supporters of Zionism and Israel. Some might think that’s a distinction without a difference, but not the coalition folks.

“Groups that fail to distance themselves from this rogue regime will not be normalized or welcomed on our campus,” the coalition said. Further, it said “any support of Israel is considered an extremist position, only held by extremists, and we refuse to normalize extremism on our campus.”

Source: Fight Back! News

While they were at it, the group whined that Palestinian students “are forced” every day to walk past the Golda Meir Library, calling the late Israel prime minister “a terrorist.” Meir, whose family fled Russian pogroms to settle in Milwaukee, in 1917 attended a teacher-training school that was a predecessor of UWM. The university named its library for her in 1979, less than a year after her death.

Since at least last December, Palestinian supporters have demanded the library’s name be changed. The campus chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society demanded a new name to “honor the martyrs of Palestine.” In March, someone broke a window in the library and spray-painted “Free Palestine” on the building.

The university’s ringing response: a statement saying “Neither antisemitism or Islamophobia has any place on our campus or in our community.”

Perhaps it’s time for the folks at UWM and Columbia to demand a bit more of themselves and of the students they teach. They could take a page from IU, Penn and USF.

Is ignorance driving the right?

No, it’s all too well-informed

Source: USA Today, 2016

It was all too easy – and electorally fatal – for Hillary Clinton in 2016 to bemoan the “basket of deplorables” that she said accounted for half of Donald J. Trump’s supporters. She branded them “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.”

The reaction she got was predictable. Trumpers began wearing T-shirts proudly sporting the “deplorables” moniker. And Trump went on to beat Hillary in the Electoral College vote, albeit falling behind her in the popular vote.

Certainly, that bit of middle finger-giving – that dose of philistine class resentment of Hillary – wasn’t the only thing that did her in. But it didn’t help.

As we think about who supports Trump now, eight years and one chaotic Trump presidency later, it’s all too easy to denigrate his supporters as sharing all those “ists” and “ics.” And, indeed, it’s likely many do.

It’s all too easy to cast them as underschooled and ignorant. We know that in 2016 white voters who had not completed college (44% of all voters) cast their votes for Trump by more than two-to-one (64% to 28%), according to the Pew Research Center.

But what then are we to make of those among well-schooled folks that Trump seems to appeal to? What are we to make of the 36% of college-educated voters who voted red back in 2020? Of 60% of Republican voters with a college degree, per a pollster cited by The New York Times, who still back Trump? In fact, the former president’s support among white, college-educated Republicans doubled to 60% over the course of last year, according to Fox News polling.

What are we to make of Kevin D. Roberts, who has bachelor’s, masters and doctoral degrees in history, and heads The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that would help staff a Trump Administration and set its policies? What of the many Harvard grads, such as Steve Bannon, Wilbur L. Ross Jr. and Michael Pompeo, who served in or otherwise advised the previous Trump Administration?

JD Vance, 2017; source: Middle Tennessee State University

Indeed, what are we to make of JD Vance, educated at Ohio State and Yale Law and now Trump’s vice presidential choice? Or of the likes of Elon Musk and the many venture capitalists, such as Stanford lawyer Peter Thiel, who back the pair?

While many of the folks who back Trump are ill-schooled, it’s clear that such folks — and many others — are not among them. They know exactly what they would get in a second Trump Administration and, presumably, they know it would serve their interests with tax breaks, anti-immigrant and isolationist policies, right-wing judicial appointments and the broad array of conservative aims that make up documents such as Project 2025.

It’s all too easy to contend that ignorance and poor education predominate among Trump supporters. With such a view, liberals and middle-of-the-roaders can feel superior, can look down their noses at the “deplorables.” They can pat themselves on the back for supporting Kamala Harris, a well-schooled Black-Indian woman (Howard University and University of California, Berkeley) who makes most of the right wingers literally pale in comparison.

But it’s wrong and dangerous to do so. Such a view underestimates the real threat that the Trumpers pose.

Reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, the rights to a fair shake for Blacks and other minorities, the U.S. position in NATO and the world, enlightened educational systems, the ability to read books that discomfit us, the separation of theology from governance – all such things are at stake. Trump supporters would erode them all. And that’s not out of ignorance, but out of intentional, thought-out views (even if they repulse many of us).

Heather Cox Richardson; source: Boston Globe/Getty Images, via The Guardian

Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson suggests that the coming election will be as consequential as choices Americans made in the late 1700s, the Civil War era and the New Deal period. These were times when Americans resisted impulses toward dictatorship and disrespect for the principles of equality.

“It is up to us to decide whether we want a country based on fear or on facts, on reaction or on reality, on hatred or on hope,” Richard contends. “It is up to us whether it will be fascism or democracy that, in the end, moves swiftly, and up to us whether we will choose to follow in the footsteps of those Americans who came before us in our noblest moments, and launch a brand new era in American history.”

Indeed, there have been many ignoble moments in our history, times when the right came close to defeating the principles of democracy and equality. Many Tories opposed the American Revolution, preferring the rule of a monarch to an elected legislature. Enslavers and Klansmen long fought for dominance in the country. More recently, in the 1920s, antisemitic and theocratic figures such as Father Charles Coughlin, powered by radio, amassed followings. In 1939, American Nazis rallied in Madison Square Garden.

The lure of the strongman, of religious nationalism and of isolationism, has been potent in the United States for as long as we’ve been a country. And rarely have leaders acted like George Washington and Joe Biden in relinquishing power voluntarily.

Source: Medium

Certainly, some of the folks behind Trump want to give into that lure again. They would launch us further down the path toward a narrow and intolerant Christian nationalism. Some would so out of class resentments and ignorance, but many — especially since we have ample experience with Trump — would do so knowingly, with clear intent and deliberation.

Trump’s flaws are legion and well-known, from his lack of morality and narcissism to his very real ignorance. But to the better-schooled among his supporters, he is a useful idiot. He is the one who will deliver for the self-interests of billionaires such as Thiel, for opportunistic hypocritical politicians such as Vance, Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, etc., for policymakers such as those at The Heritage Foundation. To the evangelicals, he remains a sinner whom they see, nonetheless, as G-d’s weapon against sin.

After four shambolic and norm-shattering years of Trump, most Americans turned away from him in 2020. Will they do so again? There is a real risk that the anything-but-ignorant folks who see him as their water carrier will prevail a second time.

Most Americans turned away from racism and the other ugly isms to elect Barack Obama in 2008 and in 2012. They believed in democracy, the rule of law and the importance of American governmental institutions. This election will be another test of just what values they hold dearest. For them, too, it will be anything but a matter of ignorance.

Will free(r) trade survive?

This presidential election is putting globalization into the crosshairs again.

Thomas Sowell, source: National Review

Stanford University economist Thomas Sowell offered a profound thought: “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

As we ponder the appeal of Donald J. Trump, this insight is worth considering. While he stitches together various discontented groups in his bid to retake the White House, the former president seeks to turn the clock back even further on globalization, among other things. By imposing stiff new tariffs on imports, he maintains that this would restore jobs in hard-pressed Middle American communities.

But would it? Would restricting imports boost the numbers of factory jobs, especially in the states Trump hopes to win? And have similar efforts by President Biden – no friend of globalization himself — paid off for most Americans?

The Tax Foundation, a business-friendly but nonpartisan group in Washington, contends that such tariffs under both Trump and Biden have had a contrary effect – at least for Americans overall. Indeed, it’s not clear that they even helped voters in hollowed out manufacturing communities.

The foundation estimates that if imposed, Trump’s proposed tariff increases would hike taxes by $524 billion annually and shrink GDP by at least 0.8 percent. The group finds that the levies would slash employment by 684,000 full-time equivalent jobs. And that’s all before counting the effects of retaliation in this potential escalation of an ongoing trade war.

As president, Trump imposed nearly $80 billion worth of new taxes on Americans by levying tariffs on thousands of products valued at approximately $380 billion in 2018 and 2019, the group calculated. This amounted to one of the largest tax increases in decades.

And things actually worsened under Biden. That’s because the Biden administration kept most of the Trump administration tariffs in place, and in May 2024, announced tariff hikes on an additional $18 billion of Chinese goods. The cost amounted to an additional tax increase of $3.6 billion.

“We estimate the Trump-Biden tariffs will reduce long-run GDP by 0.2 percent, the capital stock by 0.1 percent, and employment by 142,000 full-time equivalent jobs,” the foundation says.

But have the levies benefitted folks in protected industries? Have they kept open factories in the industrial Midwest that otherwise would shut down? Is the tradeoff worthwhile?

Warner Wolf, source: Newsday

As WABC-TV broadcaster Warner Wolf used to say, let’s go to the videotape, (well to the stats, anyway):

The number of manufacturing jobs climbed during Trump’s tenure, rising from 12.383 million in January 2016 to a high of 12.828 million in January 2019, before slipping a bit (perhaps seasonally). This suggests that his policies (perhaps) helped add a relatively small 445,000 such jobs. Thanks largely to Covid, the tally dropped to 12.188 million by January 2021, the beginning of Biden’s term, but then climbed to a high of 12.966 million by this past January before slipping back to a preliminary estimate of 12.950 million by June.

The figures suggest that Biden’s policies (perhaps) helped restore more manufacturing jobs – as few as 122,000, if one counts from the Trump-term height, or as many as 760,000, if one counts from the Covid-dampened figure in 2021.

But do tariffs deserve the credit for gains in either administration? Not according to economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research. As The New York Times reported, a  nonpartisan working paper by four such researchers examined monthly data on U.S. employment by industry. Their finding: tariffs that Trump placed on foreign metalswashing machines and an array of goods from China starting in 2018 neither raised nor lowered the overall number of jobs in the affected industries.

Source: Investopedia

Worse, those additional costs did hit many Americans, who paid higher prices for such goods, fueling inflation. Moreover, they incited other countries to impose their own retaliatory tariffs on American products, making them more expensive to sell overseas, and the levies had a negative effect on American jobs, the paper finds. As the Times reported, that was particularly true in agriculture: Farmers who exported soybeans, cotton and sorghum to China were hit by Beijing’s decision to raise tariffs on those products to as much as 25 percent.

Trade wars of the sort that Trump launched, that Biden exacerbated, and that Trump promises to accelerate don’t appear to help even the people they are designed to help. And, overall, consumers and workers pay the freight for this, bearing the burden of higher prices for both imports and domestically produced competing products, the academic work suggests.

Historical evidence and recent studies show that tariffs are taxes that raise prices and reduce available quantities of goods and services for U.S. businesses and consumers, which results in lower income, reduced employment, and lower economic output. For example, the effects of higher steel prices, largely a result of the 2002 Bush steel tariffs, led to a loss of nearly 200,000 jobs in the steel-consuming sector, a loss larger than the total employment in the steel-producing sector at the time,” the Tax Foundation contends.

So, what accounts for the recent rise in jobs in manufacturing? Well, part of that may be normal economic growth. The number of manufacturing jobs had been rising since at least 2014, predating both Trump and Biden. And, under Biden, assorted industrial policies may have helped boost the tallies, irrespective of tariffs.

Researchers at the Center for American Progress point to investment programs that Biden championed. Singling out three, the group, which styles itself as “progressive” but independent, lists the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The measures were aimed at undoing decades of disinvestment in American communities, the group says.

The efforts were designed to rebuild the nation’s physical, digital, and utility infrastructure; retake the global lead in advanced semiconductor manufacturing; speed the nation’s transition to electric vehicles (EVs) and green energy; and create high-quality jobs, the center notes. These three policies combined direct public spending with grants, loans, tax incentives, and other financial assistance for private companies to promote key sectors, especially manufacturing, using public investment as a way to “crowd in” private investment.

Source: English Plus

To be sure, there can be little doubt that globalization in recent decades cost some people dearly, even as it benefitted most Americans. While low-cost imported goods helped most consumers, and access to the U.S. market lifted the economies of many other countries, this didn’t help some people – particularly those in industrial states that turned to Trump for relief.

Listen to the liberal Economic Policy Institute: “Globalization of our economy, driven by unfair trade, failed trade and investment deals, and, most importantly, currency manipulation and systematic overvaluation of the U.S. dollar over the past two decades has resulted in growing trade deficits—the U.S. importing more than we export—that have eliminated more than five million U.S. manufacturing jobs and nearly 70,000 factories.”

And consider the disproportionate effect this has had on working-class white voters in the most hard-pressed states – the sort of voters one sees packing into Trump rallies. As The New York Times reported, economic mobility for many of them declined in recent years, even as it improved for many Black Americans.

“Over the past few decades, globalization and changes in technology have caused many jobs to go from the United States to China, India and elsewhere,” the newspaper reported, drawing on a new Harvard study.  “These shifts appear to have pushed white people out of the work force, while Black people found other jobs.”

The Times suggests several explanations for the racial disparity.

“White workers might have had more wealth or savings to weather unemployment than their Black counterparts did, but at a cost to their upward mobility,” the newspaper suggests. “They might also have been less willing to find another job. A steel mill that shut down could have employed not just one worker but his father and grandfather, making it a family occupation. People in that situation might feel that they lost something more than a job — and might not settle for any other work.”

Source: MarketWatch

Moreover, the Harvard study found that the places where Black workers live were generally less affected by job flight than the places where white workers live. And it noted that, compared with earlier generations, Black workers today are less likely to face racial prejudice in the labor force, making it easier for them to find work. Certainly, this could only fuel the racist demagoguery so rampant nowadays.

As for globalization, even as it has brought big advantages to most Americans — and to many folks overseas — more open trade has been under assault worldwide for years. It was a tough slog for free-trade warrior Clayton Yeutter and President Ronald Reagan to open the way to freer trade back in the 1980s, and many have sought to retrench since. Indeed, the Republican party under the economic nationalist Trump has rejected the concept almost altogether, while Democrats have been only slightly less disapproving.

It’s not clear what a President Kamala Harris would do in this regard. The Tax Foundation, of course, has an idea for what she should do: “In the context of the ongoing trade war, the rise of digital services taxes, and the global minimum tax, U.S. policymakers should seek to build consensus through multilateral negotiations and the rules-based trade system rather than pursue harmful, tit-for-tat retaliation that threatens to compound the harms to U.S. businesses and consumers.”

For his part, Trump has been clear on his route, and it’s not what the foundation would prefer: As the foundation notes, he has proposed a new 10 percent universal tariff on all imports and a 60 percent tariff on all imports from China, as well as potentially higher tariffs on EVs from China or across the board.

As they battle for votes, particularly in key industrial states, Harris and Trump could easily race to the bottom in attacking world trade. The vote in states that they both need — Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, for instance — may turn on the issue. Unlike Trump, however, Harris has some training in economics — it was one of her majors at Howard University as an undergraduate — and her father is an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University. She should know better.

Will either candidate “disregard the first lesson of economics” and indulge in pandering on the point? Will Harris’s greater degree of economic sophistication keep that impulse in check? Their stances will bear watching.

The gloves are off

If Trump’s edge has been plain speaking, he’s about to meet his match

Source: AP, via VOA News

Some of my relatives in New Jersey have liked one thing above all about Donald J. Trump. As one put it, “he talks like us.” The meaning: unlike politicians whose insults are measured and almost diplomatic, whose criticisms on sensitive topics are muted, the blunt New Yorker “tells it like it is.”

Unburdened even by basic manners, the former president is given to fixing labels on opponents such as “lightweight,” “dumb” or “dummy,” “a dope” or “dopey,” “weak,” “a loser,” “boring” and so on. Like a grade school bully, he bandies about terms such as “Crooked Hillary,” “Crooked Joe,” “Pencil Neck,” “Birdbrain” and “Little Marco.”

Well, Trump may meet his match in Kamala Harris. Addressing her campaign staff, the vice president said that, as a longtime prosecutor, she dealt with perpetrators of all sorts: “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she said. “So, hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”

Diplomatic? Hardly. Blunt to a fault or coarse? Well, no. Harris is too smart and too — well, adult — for that. On point, though? Unquestionably.

To be sure, Harris’s prosecutor-versus-predator theme isn’t exactly new. She indirectly called Trump a “predator” in the 2020 campaign in her comments in the virtual Democratic National Convention. But, with his 34 felony convictions since then, along with a fraud judgment of $454 million against him and the $88.3 million in a pair of judgments against him for his sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll, her barbs underscoring Trump’s venality hit home much harder now.

Harris won’t have to sink to Trump’s schoolyard level. Don’t look for her to call him “Dumb as a Rock,” as he, flailing for a label, said of her. Of course, she could do so, with ample evidence: a former prof of Trump’s at Wharton reportedly said of him: “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had!” and his former White House colleagues have called him an “idiot,” “dope” and “moron.”

Andy Beshear, JD Vance; source: CNN

But she won’t hold back, either. It’s clear that the gloves are off in this race and Harris and her compadres won’t be anywhere near as politic as former President Biden has been in dealing with Trump and his vice presidential hopeful, JD Vance. Already, potential Democratic vice presidential nominee Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has called Vance “a phony.”

And just how this all plays out will be fascinating to watch. Despite the relative genteelness of most recent presidential races, strong language has a long history in American political campaigns. A promoter of Thomas Jefferson, for instance, in 1800 referred to the nation’s second president, John Adams, as a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” And in 1828, supporters of Andrew Jackson called John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, “a pimp,” accusing him of providing women to the Russian czar while serving as the U.S. minister to Russia. For their part, Adams’s supporters caricatured Jackson’s mother as a prostitute.

Nikki Haley, source; Getty Images via CNN

In today’s take-no-prisoners contest, the more Harris and her colleagues provoke Trump, the more he may be tempted to respond like the thin-skinned brute he is. As The New York Times has suggested, the attacks could provoke him to drop even lower, particularly because women, Blacks and other minorities seem to especially infuriate him. Recall that “Birdbrain” was his term for Nikki Haley, “Pocahontas” was his moniker for Elizabeth Warren, and “Crazy Nancy” was Nancy Pelosi. Trump used the less elegant “that bitch” for former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Certainly, obvious racism and sexism — if Trump and his backers descend into them — will play well with some of the former president’s supporters, perhaps even with many. Indeed, we already are hearing strains of both in comments such as that of Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, who called Harris a “DEI vice president” and “a DEI hire,” invoking the common right-wing attack on diversity, equity and inclusion programs at universities. Another Republican, Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, said the Democratic Party backed Harris only “because of her ethnic background,” while one right-wing commentator claimed she is not a natural-born citizen because her parents were immigrants (she was born in Oakland, Calif.).

The theme of such critics will be that Harris got where she is as a kind of affirmative action baby. Never mind that Harris is the gifted daughter of an economics professor and a cancer researcher, and that she earned a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. They will ignore the fact that she served as a deputy district attorney in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office from 1990 to 1998, that she was elected in 2004 as district attorney of San Francisco, that in 2010 she was elected as California’s attorney general and then, in 2016, was elected as a U.S. Senator from California. They will play down her work on the Senate’s judiciary and intelligence committees, on which she sat until Biden tapped her to join him in the 2020 race.

Even as he seems increasingly addled by age, Trump may be too clever – or too well-advised – to be flagrantly racist and sexist in his dealings with Harris. While others may be more cloddish, Trump knows just how to stop short of being fully outrageous, how to avoid being too explicit.

Charlottesville, 2017; source: AP, via NPR

Recall that Trump saw “some very fine people on both sides,” among the white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville in 2017. Remember that in 2020 he told a far-right extremist group to “stand back and stand by.” Recall that he urged on insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021, telling them to “show strength” in the march on the Capitol, after telling them to “be there, will be wild!” And remember that Trump pressed Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes” to try to overturn his loss in the state in 2020.

But, if Harris gets under his skin, Trump could well go too far. How will mainstream voters – particularly women – respond then? How will they react to dog whistles about race and gender? How will they react to more explicit assaults on those grounds by Trump devotees?

Harris is brilliantly positioned to take advantage of such attacks. And she is well-seated to launch far more precise – and well-founded – volleys at Trump. His flaws are legion and we can expect that she will expose, dissect and pound away at all of them.

Indeed, as my relatives may find, Harris will “talk like us” as she shines a bright, bold light on Trump’s foulness. But she may do so far more sharply — and effectively — than Trump ever could.

Now we may get a real fight

Kamala Harris helped take down Trump once. Will she again?

Source: New York Times

Three and a half years ago, Americans decided that a mixed-race Black and Indian woman was capable of serving as president of the United States. They chose Kamala Harris to serve the proverbial heartbeat away from The Resolute Desk, as Joe Biden’s partner. This was one chaotic presidential term after they had picked a Black man, Barack Obama, to serve two terms in the White House.

But how will they choose now? If the Democratic Party taps President Biden’s vice president as its nominee – the logical choice – will America rise to the occasion? After ousting him from office in 2020, will they turn aside Republican Donald J. Trump a second time? Have Americans matured enough racially and in gender terms to look beyond identity politics to Harris’s qualifications, especially since they overlooked the ample skills and experience of a white woman, Hillary Clinton, in 2016, in favor of a white man with no political background and a checkered, bankruptcy-marred business history? (The Clintons are backing Harris.)

The polls are notoriously unreliable. But, at the moment, as Newsweek reported, the most recent analysis by election website FiveThirtyEight, released on July 17, showed Harris had a net approval rating of -11.8, with just 38.6 percent of those surveyed approving of her performance and 50.4 percent disapproving.

Dismal as such numbers are, the latest polling about Trump puts him behind Harris. A July 21 FiveThirtyEight polling analysis gave Trump a net approval rating of -12, making him slightly more unpopular than Harris, with 41.7 percent viewing him favorably and 53.7 percent unfavorably.

Source: NBC News

The margins surely would be uncomfortably close, as they were in the last few presidential elections. In 2020, Biden-Harris turned Trump into a one-term president with just 51.3% of the popular vote and 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. Trump garnered 46.9% of the popular vote, a figure that held up despite a national barrage of unsuccessful ballot challenges the former president launched.

Trump won office in 2016 with a similar share of the popular vote, just 46.1%, falling below Hillary Clinton’s 48.2%. Despite her success with voters overall, he bested her in the Electoral College, 304 to 227, by carrying the South and much of the Midwest and Northwest.

So, will Harris be the party’s choice, given her narrow lead on Trump at the moment? Can she boost her approval ratings enough to stay ahead of Trump’s beleaguered numbers? The Dems convene in Chicago on Aug. 19 and, in coming weeks there will be debate over whether she can win by carrying the party’s banner.

Despite Biden’s endorsement of Harris, there already has been talk of the party “leapfrogging” over her to tap a seemingly safer white male candidate. Names of governors such as Gavin Newsome of California, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and J.B. Pritzer of Illinois have been vaunted. So, too, has that of a white woman, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

And already, some observers argue that passing over her would cost the party big with Blacks, especially women – a constituency with which Biden was lagging. By this reasoning, she could bring out enough currently dissatisfied Black voters to carry the ticket over the top, even as she boasts of her mixed-race ancestry. She might bolster her chances with whites by tapping any of those governors as a running mate.

Gretchen Whitmer, Source: Politico

Whitmer, of course, could help deliver the key swing state of Michigan. Imagine, though, how a ticket with two women might send far-right voters around the bend. Consider what a stark difference that would represent from the elderly white male heading the GOP and his middle-aged white veep choice.

Of course, identity politics of this sort still matter — indeed they may be everything in this race.

But, looking just at her credentials, Harris couldn’t be better poised for it. Serving at Biden’s side since 2021, she has had an inside seat at the table in important policymaking choices, such as the infrastructure bill that is now pouring billions of dollars into the nation’s bridges and roads, the support of Ukraine, the strengthening of NATO, the difficult rebuilding of America’s stature around the world after Trump’s isolationist term. As Lesley Odom Jr. and Lin-Manuel Miranda might say, Harris has been in “The Room Where It Happens.”

Few vice presidents have been able to grab the limelight from their bosses, and it may be that Harris’s lackluster ratings simply reflect the public’s lack of knowledge of her. Only 15 vice presidents have gone on to serve as president and eight of them got the jobs because of their predecessor’s death. She will now have to show how she’s up to the post, first with the party and then the public — and all in a very short time.

Certainly, Harris brought an impressive resume to the White House. She earned her undergraduate degree in economics and politics at Howard University and her law degree from the University California, Berkeley, as the Arizona Republic reported in detailing her background. She served as a deputy district attorney in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office from 1990 to 1998 in her birthplace of Oakland, California. She specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases. In 2004, she was elected district attorney of San Francisco and served through 2010. She was an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, officiating the first same-sex wedding after California’s Proposition 8 was overturned, the paper reported. 

Harris served as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017 after winning her first race in November 2010 by a slim margin over Republican Steve Cooley by 0.5% of a percentage point. On the consumer front, she won a $20 billion settlement for Californians whose homes had been foreclosed on and a $1.1 billion settlement for students and veterans who were taken advantage of by a for-profit education company, according to her White House biography.

Her law-enforcement background makes for a bright, bold comparison to the man who aspires to be the nation’s first felon-in-chief. Trump’s disrespect for the law is legend and his 34 felony convictions don’t sit well with many independent voters.

After her work in law, Harris was elected in 2016 to serve in the U.S. Senate. She served on the Senate’s judiciary and intelligence committees, until Biden tapped her to join him in the 2020 race.

Shyamala Gopalan and Harris, Source: People

Harris also brings an interesting family story. She is the daughter of immigrants, with her father, Donald J. Harris, an economics professor at Stanford who hails from Jamaica, and her mother, the late Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher from India. The couple met at the University of California, Berkeley. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, is a former entertainment lawyer now serving as as distinguished visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center. A Jew and the nation’s first “second gentleman,” he grew up in Matawan and Old Bridge, N.J.

At  59, Harris is two decades younger than the GOP’s geriatric former president, Trump, now 78. Much as Biden’s age-related deterioration has been evident, so has Trump’s, as seen by his numerous gaffes – confusing Biden and Obama, calling Argentina a person and accusing Biden of conspiring to overthrow the United States (all those from just one weekend in March). His litany of falsehoods in his GOP nomination acceptance speech made for great grist for fact-checkers.

If Harris is tapped by the party, would Trump be willing to debate her? One suspects she would demolish him, performing far better than Biden did in his troubling time on stage. Would he shrink from such a head-on fight? Without evidence, Trump argues she would be easier for him to defeat – but that is a claim that, first, Democratic Party members must now assess.

How will they choose? How will America?

Flooding the zone

Maybe some presidential election rhetoric should not be turned down

Source: Reuters via PBS

A longstanding maxim in the news business says “information abhors a void.” When we don’t know things, or know things only partly, we rush to fill in the gaps. Often, we are wrong and, sadly, misinformation may carry enormous weight.

The latest example is the reaction to the shooting of Donald Trump. We still don’t know why a disturbed young man took up arms against the former president. But that hasn’t stopped people from blaming the fiery rhetoric of one side or the other – pleas for putting oil on the waters, notwithstanding. Indeed, the absence of information has driven those who see opportunity here into overdrive (and it’s been rich grist for the inevitable conspiracists).

Before the shooting, would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks googled the phrase “major depressive disorder” and searched for information about Trump, Joe Biden, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, as we heard from The Washington Post and The New York Times. We also saw in The Times that he looked up events where Trump and Biden were speaking.

Does that mean he would have attacked whichever man was nearby? That it was just convenient that Trump was appearing not far from his home? That his motivation was less political (or partisan) and more psychological, i.e., a lost post-adolescent looking for a grandiose way to commit what is often called “suicide by police?”

We’ve seen several reports that Crooks had shown little interest in politics, though he was a registered Republican with one parent a Democrat and one a Libertarian. Those reports, and the absence of political matters on his phone or other communications, suggest that his motivation was something other than wanting to do away with a candidate who may or may not have infuriated him.

Still, the black hole that Crooks has created is being filled by Republicans, such as J.D. Vance, who eagerly blame Democrats and the media for demonizing Trump – an odd flip, since Democrats and the media are routinely demonized by such Republicans. It’s also being filled, to a degree, by Democrats, such as President Biden, who blame the hot rhetoric of the campaign for a toxic atmosphere, implying that such language drove Crooks to his mad actions.

Source: Gerald Posner

One of the more seemingly sophisticated commentaries was offered by author Gerald Posner, who rushed into print in The Wall Street Journal just two days after the July 13 shooting to blame “incendiary political language.” From whom? Well, liberals and the media, of course. “The assassination attempt against Mr. Trump follows years of relentless attacks from left-wing media and many in the Democratic Party, who likened the former president to Hitler and claimed his re-election would end democracy,” Posner argued.

Posner, a lawyer and an investigative journalist who wrote well-regarded books about the assassinations of JFK and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., compares the “volatile atmosphere” in Dallas in 1963 and in Memphis in 1968 with today’s environment, warning that “reckless speech” can inspire an assassin. He makes the link, even as he undercuts his argument by acknowledging that we may never know the motivations of Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray, as we may never know what drove Crooks.

This is a classic case of correlation versus causation: I got up and the sun came up this morning, so therefore I must have caused the sun to rise. Similarly, people said nasty things about Kennedy and King, therefore those comments must have caused their killings. Today, people are saying nasty things about Trump, so it follows that someone would try to kill him. A lawyer such as Posner, frankly, should know better.

The questions his reasoning begs are legion. Here are a few: did critical things that people said about Trump drive Crooks? Or might it have been Trump’s own many vile comments, some of which incited the riot in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021? Or might both those things have been irrelevant to a troubled loner who perhaps was looking for a way to write himself into history and do away with himself at the same time? Might it have been that Trump was just the famous politician on hand?

We may learn more as the FBI continues its investigation into Crooks. Perhaps his parents, acquaintances and workmates will shed more light as time goes on.

But we also may never know, as Posner sensibly admits. And, given that void, should the opportunists rule the day? Should Democrats and Republicans stop criticizing one another?

Certainly, Republicans are not holding back. “America cannot afford four more years of a Weekend at Bernie’s presidency,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said, referring to the ‘80s comedy in which two salesmen accidentally kill their boss and then pretend he is still alive. “Let’s be honest here. Biden is just a figurehead.”

And some argue that Democrats should not fall into a trap by backing off on warning Americans about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.

Eric Levitz, source: New York

“Donald Trump really does present a threat to the norms of liberal democracy and the welfare of millions of US residents,” Vox commentator Eric Levitz writes. “Joe Biden truly supports the legality of medical procedures that some Christian conservatives believe to be murder. Rhetoric that describes in good faith our polity’s disputes will imply that our elections have life-or-death stakes — because they do.

“That Trump poses a threat to democracy should go without saying,” Levitz adds. “As president, he attempted to block the peaceful transfer of power by manipulating vote counts and instigating a riot on Capitol Hill. He has also outlined plans for undermining the independence of federal law enforcement while vowing to enact ‘retribution’ on his movement’s enemies.”

Those unaware of the profound effect a Trump presidency could have can turn to plenty of places for info. As The New York Times reported, and I’ve previously recounted, he would step up the trade war that already is riling global relations, imposing stiff tariffs that will drive up prices on broad ranges of goods for Americans. He would set up WWII-style detention camps to hold rounded-up migrants for mass deportations, try to end birthright citizenship, use the Justice Department to persecute his enemies, strip employment protections from tens of thousands of civil servants, purge intelligence agencies and other bodies of people whose work he dislikes, and he would cut taxes for wealthy friends, driving up the national debt anew.

Source: The Heritage Foundation

Even more discomfiting things might come if Trump associates at The Heritage Foundation have their way. Their Project 2025 would reduce the size of federal agencies, ban abortion drugs, and overhaul popular programs like the Affordable Care Act, as a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writer reported. He argued that it could cause immense harm to “women of childbearing age, undocumented immigrants, public education, diversity, equity and inclusion programs, unions, and the LGBTQ community.” Critics say Trump would enjoy “unprecedented and potentially dangerous powers unlike any occupant of the White House in American history.”

Certainly, there’s no dearth of information about what a Trump presidency would bring. The problem is that his supporters either back his agenda or don’t bother to inform themselves about it, as they remain under his demagogic sway.

Sadly, no amount of information may swing enough devotees away from Trump’s magnetic lure. And it remains to be seen whether Biden could be persuaded to yield the ground to a younger Democrat who could better go toe-to-toe with the former president.

Still, filling voids with misinformation seems to help only Trump. And, in this regard, jailed former Trump adviser Steve Bannon once offered some perverse wisdom: “The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon told writer Michael Lewis in 2018. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

The GOP and folks such as Posner are doing that to a fare-thee-well.

Who’s to Blame?

That depends on who is pointing the finger about the attempted assassination of Trump

Source: Reuters

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has proved to be something of a Rorschach test. The way some people view it — and how they affix the blame for it — seems to turn on how they view our problematic November election.

Oddly, none of the quick analyses seem to be looking at the obvious question — and, perhaps, plain meaning — here: just what was going on in the unhinged mind of a 20-year-old who found it far too easy to get an AR-15-style weapon and the ammo for it? Indeed, we don’t know what motivated the late Thomas Matthew Crooks, a registered Republican, and we may never know what drove him. Unlike others who have taken up guns in such efforts, he left no manifesto and few signs.

But that hasn’t stopped some folks, particularly opportunistic Republicans, from weighing in.

Potential vice president J.D. Vance, for instance, quickly said the shooting is the fault of Democrats. “Today is not just some isolated incident,” Vance posted on X about two hours after the shooting. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

As reported by Slate, Donald Trump Jr. quickly echoed the theme, tweeting, “Don’t tell me they didn’t know exactly what they were doing with this crap. Calling my dad a ‘dictator’ and a ‘threat to Democracy’ wasn’t some one off comment. It has been the *MAIN MESSAGE* of the Biden-Kamala campaign and Democrats across the country!!!”

The two were among many Republicans in what seems to be a GOP echo chamber making that sort of argument. Others included Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called Dems “flat out evil” and accused the Democratic Party of trying “to murder President Trump.”

For their part, many Democrats, by contrast, tried to take a higher road, avoiding blaming the usually overheated Trumpian rhetoric common since 2016. Instead, they just condemned the assault and bemoaned our tainted political environment that, perhaps, gave rise to it.

Source: Associated Press

“Look, there’s no place for this kind of violence in America. It’s sick. It’s sick. It’s one of the reasons we have to unite this country,” President Joe Biden said Saturday, as The  Washington Post reported. “We cannot be like this.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi waxed personal in her condemnation, touching on the 2022 assault on her husband – a hammer attack that Trump mocked. “As one whose family has been the victim of political violence, I know firsthand that political violence of any kind has no place in our society,” the former House speaker said. “I thank God that former President Trump is safe.”

It was only by implication that Biden criticized Trump’s hot rhetoric – language such as Trump’s oft-repeated lies about the 2020 election being fraudulent or his inflammatory words egging on rioters in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. Without criticizing Trump for fostering the current environment, Biden said Americans now need to “lower the temperature,” adding that “it’s time to cool it down.” Of course, one need not wonder who has turned up the heat for years.

And is lowering the temperature possible? Even as Trump reportedly planned to hit a unity theme in his address to the GOP Convention, can this zebra change his stripes? Given his tirades about the poor shape America allegedly is in, and his plans for overhauling much of Washington, is a cooler atmosphere possible?

That hardly seems likely when Trump, with blood staining his face moments after being grazed by the bullet, pumped his fist at the crowd and shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” That bit of spontaneous stagecraft fit in with the former president’s long history of using hot words and making threats against his enemies and critics. Plainly, anger is a big part of who Trump is and why his supporters back him.

Source: Facebook

Then there’s the odd reaction of the religious right and Trump himself. In the accounting of some megachurch pastors, Trump’s slight turn away from likely death was evidence of Divine Providence, of G-d’s protecting his chosen one. Trump, for his part, echoed this, writing in a Truth Social post: “It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. “We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness.”

In all this, though, some of the richest post-shooting commentary has been castigation of that ever-handy villain, the media.

“Let’s be clear: This was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse,”  South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, another Trump ally, wrote on social media, as reported by The Washington Post.

Commentator Erick Erickson criticized MSNBC for characterizing Trump as a “would-be dictator,” asking, “What did they think would happen?”, as CJR reported. And Texas Rep. Chip Roy tweeted a “New Republic” cover depicting Trump as Hitler, adding, “You bastards.” Moreover, in a series of tweets, Georgia Rep. Greene called the media “corrupt,” accused them of inciting violence, and said it was time to clean them up. 

Lauren Boebert and friends, source: Colorado Times Recorder

Perhaps even more rich than all that was the reaction by Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert, an incendiary figure who once called a Muslim fellow member of Congress, Somali refugee Ilhan Omar, a member of the “Jihad Squad.” As reported by Business Insider, Boebert used to own a gun-themed restaurant called “Shooters Grill” in Rifle, Colorado. There, waitresses carried guns as part of their uniform, and customers could order dishes like the “M16 burrito” and a “bump stock corned beef hash.”

But Boebert, like other Republicans, was vexed by a cliche Biden reportedly used in a call with donors. Waxing metaphorical, he said: “we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”

As recounted by Colorado Public Radio, the often gun-toting Boebert lambasted the president for the phrase. “This should not be rhetoric a president should be using,” she said on 9News. “And here we are. Now president Trump was literally put in a bullseye, after the president of the United States, the sitting president of the United States, called for him to be put in a bullseye. I believe that the rhetoric needs to end. I hope and pray that it ends.”

Don’t we all?

Source: Wikimedia

And, while we’re at it, perhaps we can put in a contrary word about how maybe, just maybe, overly easy access to guns by disturbed post-adolescents could be really a key issue here. Yes, the political atmosphere is foul — and, yes, an honest look at the record shows that Trump is a major reason for that — but perhaps there are simpler explanations. The opportunists don’t want to wait, but we’ll have to see what the FBI turns up on the point.