See Me Squeegee

“There are two sides to every story,” the saying goes, leading to the conclusion that a wise man considers both sides before making a decision. But when it comes to American politics, the “both sides” ideology is likely the most counterproductive style of rhetoric, and it’s certainly the most effective talking point for one of those two sides. How could “both sides” be the best talking point for only one of two sides? I’ll explain…probably in a few posts.

Let’s start by exploring one of the most problematic aspects of bothsidesism: it’s an easy way for bad actors to drag others down with them into false equivalency. They know that good-natured people 1) want to be and appear objective, and 2) don’t have enough time to investigate nuance. So a single snapshot of “look, they do it too!” is generally enough to convince the impartial masses that both sides are awful — and in doing so to let the worst offenders off the hook.

Keep in mind: “both sides” commentary is always negative. Admit it, you’ve never heard “both sides love America so much!” or “both sides have such great ideas to raise our standard of living!” When you hear the phrase “both sides” it’s always attached to something like:

• “Both sides are terrible; we need new candidates”
• “Yeah that was awful, but both sides do awful things”
• “We have a two-party system and both sides are bad; why even bother?”

To see why this is a built-in advantage for bad actors, let’s step away from politics and into something less controversial and even more universal: childhood squabbles. Whether you’re a current parent seeing this in real time or just a former child who remembers how it went down, answer me this:

Which kid is the one saying “yeah but he did it too?”

It’s always the kid who got caught, and it’s usually the kid who did most or all of the misbehavior.  The kid who punched wants to point at the kid who shoved; the kid who hair-pulled wants to point at the kid who name-called. They know they’re guilty, but they want to 1) distract and 2) spread the punishment.

Of course, adults do the same thing with higher stakes. Suppose you have two mechanics in town, one who knows he routinely fixes things – an charges for – things that don’t need fixing, and another who is totally honest but due to caution occasionally recommends a service that’s useful but not wholly necessary. Which mechanic stands to benefit more if the general consensus around town is “all mechanics are the same…they all overcharge you, but what can you do?”  

Simply put: when it comes to bad behavior, “both sides” is the rallying cry of the notably-worse side.  

This manifests itself all the time in politics, and one of the all-time great examples is transpiring as I type this. Over the past few days since Wednesday’s Trumper invasion of the U.S. Capitol – the insurrection in which five people were killed, and the Capitol was occupied by an overthrowers for the first time since the War of 1812 – the “Both Sides” militia has been hard at work trying to excuse or at least sanitize the attacks by comparing them to liberal protests, namely the Black Lives Matter protests of this past summer.

And, of course, that’s a classic case of “bothsidesism” as a way to drag better actors down to the level of the worst actors, and to distract from the truly awful acts by pushing the focus elsewhere. The “Coup Klux Klan” attacks of Wednesday and the BLM protests of the summer were vastly different and should be seen uniquely for what they are and for what they each mean to American political discourse. Let’s examine those major differences: 

1) Fact vs. Fiction.  

The BLM protests were about *actual* murders that definitely occurred, many on video, and that are universally known as fact. George Floyd was killed on video we all saw. So was Jacob Blake. Brionna Taylor’s killing was an undisputed fact in court cases; the police acknowledge they did it, but just dispute their legal culpability.

“Stop the Steal” has had two months and 60+ legal cases to produce evidence and hasn’t produced any. The votes have been certified by bipartisan committees and canvas boards.  Stop the Steal is a lie. BLM protesters were speaking out against actual lives being lost; Trump seditionists were rioting to overturn an indisputable election result.

2) Proportional Criminality. 

The BLM protests were peaceful, lawful demonstrations amidst which violence and destruction emerged as the edge case; for Wednesday’s insurrection, illegality was the norm. To illustrate, let’s give each event the same proportion of “people who damaged property” and call it 98% no, 2% yes. That would mean that 98% of BLM protesters were completely within their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble and march on public land. Then a handful of outliers wrongfully broke windows, lit fires, etc. but the vast majority acted completely within both the law and the traditions of American activism. 

For Wednesday’s Trump event, every single person who breached the Capitol was unlawfully trespassing on restricted property–and they knew it. It’s 100% clear that if you break open a locked door or push past a line of law enforcement to reach a restricted-access destination, you’ve done something wrong. That’s abundantly obvious – you don’t jump on the field at a minor league baseball game or sneak through a back door at a movie theater, so of course you can’t break a window or bowl over a police officer at the U.S. Capitol.  

So for BLM protests, call it 98% law-abiding, 2% in the wrong.  For Wednesday, using the same proportion, you’re looking at a much higher percentage (30%? 50%? I honestly don’t know how many breached the Capitol vs. waved flags on public property, but it was easily thousands) who are outright criminals.

3) Accountable Leadership.  

Listen, every protest group – and most pro sports championship celebrations, too – has its adrenaline junkies who just want to break stuff. There was damage from BLM protests just like there was from Wednesday’s attack. A massive difference, however, is in how the grownups in the room acted – and that’s a crucial distinction, because no one’s asking anyone to vote for d00bieloverr69 from 4Chan or Reddit, but we are regularly asked to cast votes for each party’s leadership.

More continues to come out about Republican President Donald Trump’s role in organizing, encouraging, and enabling Wednesday’s riot. We know he egged on his followers to fly to DC and be part of the event, noting “it will be wild.” We know he refused to approve the National Guard to keep the peace even as things became a riot. There’s evidence that he fired key Pentagon personnel to ensure that Capitol Police – including the officer murdered by Trump rioters – wouldn’t have riot gear or other protective equipment. And of course he chose the date and time to coincide with election certification, and chose the rhetoric that sent the mob to interrupt it. 

So let’s go apples-to-apples: find me evidence of any living Democratic president – Carter, Clinton, Obama, or Biden – calling for insurrection during the BLM protests. High-ranking, presidential-hopeful GOP senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz egged on the “Stop the Steal” sedition even after the violence had gotten out of control. Find me a parallel Democratic senator and presidential hopeful who did the same during BLM – did Amy Klobuchar do it?  Did Elizabeth Warren? Did any state or national level Democratic Party official communications encourage their constituents to be ready to die for the cause, like this one did?

Then move down to on-the-ground leadership; during BLM there was lots of video of march organizers imploring the bad actors to stay peaceful. Was there anyone of any authority on Wednesday doing the same? There are even verified messages on the right-wing Parler app from prominent “Stop the Steal” attorneys calling for the assassinations of sitting legislators. By all accounts, the violence at BLM protests was caused by small groups of rogue actors, committed against the wishes of the organizers and the vast, vast majority of the crowd; at the Stop the Steal riots, violent intimidation seems to have been an integral part of the plan and a central rallying point among the crowd.

4) Counter-Escalation. 

Despite what Hannity and others desperately want you to believe, the FBI has made it clear that there’s no evidence that “Antifa” or any other left-wing groups infiltrated Wednesday’s attacks to make them more violent. Over the summer, however, several members of right-wing extremist groups (Proud Boys, Boogaloo Boys) were arrested and charged with setting fires and destroying property; at many events, they attended wearing their logos and flying their flags in an outright attempt to fan division and incite conflict. 

What does that mean? A significant portion of the violence and destruction that Bothsidesers want to pin on “but the BLM protests were violent” was committed by right-wing extremists, who expressly committed those acts to provide the impression that liberal demonstrators are violent.  No such acts were necessary for Wednesday’s riots; they were plenty criminal of their own accord.

Conclusion

If you’ve read this far, my main intent is this: it’s a deliberate, recurring tactic of right-wing bad actors to find a snapshot of ‘the other side’ doing something related, and then rely on your busy schedule and desire to remain impartial such that you take those snapshots and think “well but both sides do it.”  But proportionality and severity don’t just matter; they’re critical. I’ve driven in excess of the speed limit and jaywalked between intersections, while Jeffrey Dahmer murdered and ate dozens of people. “Both sides” are technically lawbreakers, but that doesn’t mean (I hope) that he and I are equivalently criminal.  

“Both sides do it” is *exactly* what the worse of the two sides – in any dispute, not just politics – desperately hopes everyone believes. The basketball team that plays dirty doesn’t need to convince you that they’re angels, but if they can get the referees to think “it’s been physical on both sides” then they won’t get called for all the fouls they should. The business that gets you to believe that “all businesses gouge you with unexpected fees” now has a license to gouge you with unexpected fee–you may not like it, but they’ve conditioned you to expect it. 

I’ll dig deeper on other issues with bothsidesism in future posts, but let’s end here with this. “Both sides” isn’t a virtue of impartiality. It’s a tactic used by bad actors to get you to think you’re being noble and impartial while you provide cover for their bad actions. At best, “both sides” prevents would-be-referees from seeing the chasm between frequency and degree of wrongdoing; yes, President Clinton lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky so he lied just like Donald Trump lied about the severity of coronavirus. But Trump’s lies were relentless throughout 2020 and are a predominant factor in the deaths of 400,000 Americans and counting. Frequency and degree matter! 

What’s far more nefarious and troubling is when the bad actors know that their actions will be sanitized through the lens of “both sides.” It’s easy to think of “both sides” as a noble, objective lens through which to view politics, but to a malevolent actor, it’s a great way to escape accountability and scrutiny. 

Some background on me: I’ve been contributing at least 10% of each paycheck to my 401k since I became eligible. I drove my last car for 14 years before trading it in.  I take all our bottles and cans – plus those from my office – to the recycling center to get the deposit back (why throw away free money?), and I’ve been part-time tutoring at least 100 hours a year for the last 15 (why pass up easy money?).  My favorite part of each month is moving money from checking to savings and from savings to investment accounts.  I’m as conservative as they come when it comes to money.

 

I’m also a white homeowner with gray hair, a masters degree, and an investment property.  I must be a Republican, right?

No.

Not even close.

I’m a democrat.  And that’s because I’m conservative.

Here’s why: conservative means living slightly below my means today to maximize my ability to live comfortably in the future.  And democratic policies do exactly that: they invest in conserving the environment, they ensure healthcare, they protect the financial system from boom-and-massive-bust cycles.  Conservative is the opposite of risky: a daredevil might ski jump without a helmet or trapeze without a safety net.  Me? Give me a seat belt, a guard rail, and an FDIC-insured (thank you, FDR!) bank account.  I may not feel as much adrenaline or make quite as much profit, but I know I’ll sleep well at night. And that’s why I vote Democrat, too.

Much of what makes me conservative is concern about the circumstances that could become a catastrophe.  So for example:

Healthcare: When I aged out of my parents’ health insurance, they had a pretty frank talk with me.  No matter what I did – more school, a stable job, something entrepreneurial – I had to have health insurance, because if I didn’t and got sick or hurt, they’d feel obligated to help me and it could wipe them out.  And that stuck with me: no matter how hard you’re working, how much money you’re saving, how valuable you are to a company’s success – one accident, one diagnosis could change all that.  And it’s not just to you – you can use all the hand sanitizer in the world, say no to bungee jumping and downhill skiing, and eat all the kale and none of the meat your heart desires, but if you have a child born with a pediatric health condition, none of that matters.  One bad diagnosis to you or someone you love – particularly if it means that a chief breadwinner can’t work, which could mean that the family’s access to our employer-based health insurance system is gone – could wipe out a lifetime of savings in a few months.

So my conservative nature has me very much in favor of a health insurance system that would protect me, my wife, and (someday) my children from being discriminated against for pre-existing conditions or from losing our access to care if I lose my job.  And the capitalist in me likes the idea of 1) not burdening small businesses with employee healthcare costs and 2) allowing employees the freedom to move between companies or start their own businesses without fear of losing coverage.  Even if it costs a little more in taxes than it currently costs me and my employer to cover me, my conservative nature says let’s find a plan that gives all of us the secure feeling that our families – and as a result our live savings – will be safe.

Banking regulation: I’m a conservative investor. I keep my money in mutual funds and not individual stocks, for example, because I want to make money without taking on undue risk.  For that same reason in the financial system I support regulations on the banking industry.  Whether it’s because of quarterly bonuses or the fact that their banks are too big to fail, I know that financiers want to bet as big as they can…but as we saw in 2008 those bets can lead to catastrophic consequences for the global economy.

So I want smart, effective regulations, particularly since my tax dollars went to the last bailout and would be used for the next one.  I’ll take the slight short-term hit on the performance of the banking stocks that are undoubtedly in my mutual funds – I want to ensure that those banks don’t go Lehman/Merrill…not just for my portfolio’s sake, but for our entire economy’s sake.

The environment:  Shoot, one of the biggest terms related to environmentalism is “conservation.”  And to me being conservative means that if the vast majority of the scientific community tells me to take precaution, I take that precaution, whether it’s wearing sunscreen, not texting while driving, or limiting climate change.  Yes, not taking those precautions against climate change allows coal and oil companies to earn record profits…but it could also mean that several times a year we’re rebuilding entire cities devastated by record hurricanes and wildfires.

Listen, I’m conservative.  Tax me a few extra cents – shoot, a dollar – per gallon of gas to fund alternative energy research and development.  Add some additional cost to new cars (I mean, it’ll be another dozen years before I buy one) because you forced manufacturers to hit ambitious fuel economy standards.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, we risk-averse types like to say.

Gun control. Yeah I know the NRA saying that “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” but here’s my take: I do not want to own or carry a gun. There are all the stories of toddlers killing their parents or each other, and the statistics about how guns are more likely to kill a loved one than an intruder.  I just don’t want that responsibility: if I had a gun, particularly if I had kids, it would be locked up so securely that I’d never get it out in time if I had to, anyway.

Again, it’s risk-aversion: every gun that’s in my house, or my kid’s teacher’s desk, or anywhere like that puts me or someone I care about in a room with a deadly weapon.

And the list goes on: to me it’s conservative to favor early childhood education because I think it’s better to pay for schools now than for the consequences (jails, welfare, crime) later. The same is true for mental health coverage.  I think it’s conservative to invest in our infrastructure – roads, bridges, rails, airports – a little at a time now rather than deal with larger catastrophes later.

Now, of course, you might ask whether this list includes welfare, food stamps, increased minimum wages, and other initiatives that are predominantly for “poor people.”  And the answer is “of course” – listen unless you’re in Mitt Romney’s 1%, you’re probably a hair’s breadth from being in his 47% (the group he famously claimed is addicted to government benefits and pays no taxes into the system).  Whether it’s a health emergency for you or someone in your family, or a 2008-style economic event – a recession that costs you your job and forces you to sell your house at a loss while you’re still paying student loans, perhaps…that’s not that farfetched for many of us – 98-point-something percent of us are way more likely to be thankful-for-democratic-safety-nets poor than benefit-from-GOP-tax-cuts rich.  So I don’t mind paying taxes for social safety net programs – even if, as Fox News loves to remind us, some people have found ways to cheat that system – and honestly it’s not because I’m some bleeding-heart, benevolent liberal.  It’s because I’m conservative, and if there’s even a chance – and unless you’re a multi-millionaire or retired with a comfortable pension, there’s a chance – that I may need programs like those someday, I’m happy to downgrade from Nordstrom to Nordstrom Rack, from flying Economy Plus to straight-up Economy, or from Starbucks to home-brew every now and then to make sure that those programs are there for me.

So if you’re conservative like me – if saving $5 makes you happier than spending $50, if you know exactly which gas stations on your commute are the cheapest and you stop at them any time you’re less than half a tank so there’s no chance you’ll ever have to stop at a more expensive one – I urge you to consider voting for a Democrat this fall.  Let’s conserve the environment, let’s invest in the elimination of bankruptcy-by-healthcare, and let’s prevent another 1929/2008 from happening on our watch.  Let’s vote for democrats, because it’s the conservative thing to do.

I don’t love spending money.  Personal debt scares me – I paid my student loans off early, I overpay on my mortgage each month to knock that down early – and the federal debt scares me, too.  But while the conventional wisdom I learned growing up was “Republicans are fiscally conservative, Democrats are fiscally liberal,” I’ve come to learn that both parties are likely to spend borrowed money.  (Evidence: just within the last year the government – with only GOP votes – passed a tax cut that will increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion over ten years *and* the House – with only GOP votes – just passed another tax cut plan that would add $2 trillion more to that)

So with fiscal conservatism not really an option, the choice for me really comes down to how each party would spend that borrowed money.   And after far too many hours wasted paying close attention to this I’ve concluded that:

Democrats spend money like a caring wife; Republicans spend money like a selfish husband.

Let’s dive in.

Democrats = Caring Wives 

We’ll start with my (wonderful) wife, Lindsey.  She works some overnight and weekend shifts so it’s not uncommon that when I’m calling her from the car to let her know I’m on my way home from work, she’ll say “oh great…I’m just leaving Target / the outlet mall / Costco / Bed Bath & Beyond…”  And of course my fiscally conservative visceral reaction is to inhale deeply and seize up: “nooooo- why did you spend the day spending money?!!!”

But here’s the thing: when my (absurdly caring) wife spends money, it’s rarely specifically for herself and almost always in a way that makes my life or our family’s life better.  It might be:

• a nicer razor for me to shave with, or
• some SPF-containing moisturizer for me to put on every morning, or
• some nicer clothes hangers to better organize my closet and protect the shapes of my sweaters and sport coats, or
• some packing cubes to help me pack efficiently for our honeymoon, or
• some easy-to-microwave breakfast meals to let me eat healthy-but-quickly on work mornings

And whatever she says she bought that day, my fiscally conservative reaction is always “eh, I’d rather we just save the money.”

But here are the other things:

• Her heart is always in the right place; she’s eagerly finding ways to improve my life.
• She has more hits than misses.  Yeah a couple of the anti-snoring aids didn’t work and the travel dob kit hasn’t left the closet, but I don’t know that I want to live without that little iPhone cord holder she stuck to my nightstand and those big fluffy towels get the job *done* (and smell incredible with those dryer sheets she bought).  I didn’t like the expenditures at the time, but the vast majority of what she’s bought has had a positive return-on-investment.

And that’s why I’m a Democrat.  Because Democrats spend money the same way: yeah you might wish they had just saved the damn money, but whether it’s healthcare or education or infrastructure or banking regulation, when Democrats spend money the purpose is almost always to try to improve people’s lives.

And yeah there may be some misses, but like my experience with my wife’s shopping habits I’ll happily put up with those because of 1) the pretty darned good batting average with more hits than misses, and 2) the general intent to make my life better.  Democrats spend money on early childhood education, one of the highest ROI ways that tax dollars can be spent.  They spend on alternative energy research, which can not only decrease utility costs for all of us but also get us out of dangerous conflicts in the Middle East.  They spend on programs that protect consumers from predatory lenders – programs that not only protect the individuals but help us avoid the conditions that created the 2010 financial collapse. They provide social safety nets like Social Security, Medicaid, and Obamacare so that the illnesses, injuries, or misfortunes – or just the natural passage of time – that befall us don’t become death sentences for us or financial catastrophes for our families.

And just like my wife’s expenditures, Democratic investments tend to age well.  Take Obamacare, which despite being unpopular at first and being battered in the media for years – attach “Obama” to “free puppies and ice cream” and a third of the country would hate it because it bears his name – has become more and more popular as time has passed.  And whether you currently benefit from the program or not, we’re all a routine doctor’s trip gone awry away from a pre-existing condition that would make the entire program a godsend…just like I’m a coughing airplane seat mate away from being insanely thankful that Lindsey set up a flu shot appointment for me.

So Democrats spend money like a caring wife.  Would you be better off if she just saved the money in an index fund?  Maybe, but you can’t fault her intentions and in the end you can make a good argument that her ounces (and dollars) of prevention protect your home value and medical bills at a rate far greater than what she spent.

Republicans = Selfish Husbands
So what about Republicans?

Let’s look at their greatest hits since 2000.  While they chided Democrats for wanting to spend on energy research, education, and a social safety net, Republicans borrowed money to roll the ever-expensive dice on:

• Tax cuts weighted in favor of the wealthy, in the first years of both the Bush and Trump presidencies
• Decade-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Expanded immigration enforcement (read: jails for immigrant toddlers), fueled by money borrowed from emergency preparedness and cancer research

If Democrats spend like caring wives, what does that make Republicans?  Selfish husbands.  Consider how a selfish husband doles out his cash.

A selfish husband is concerned about looking tough in front of his friends.  So he might invest in lifting his truck and setting it on jumbo tires, or in a a barbed wire tattoo for his bicep.  No one will call him a wuss, even if takes him years to pay off the credit card interest to avoid that insult!

Similarly, Republicans want to look tough on everything: let’s find an excuse to go to war with Iraq.  Let’s have zero tolerance policies for immigrants and drugs.  Do these policies work?  Not really.  We have nothing (well, except ISIS and a few thousand casualties) to show for the over $2 trillion we spent in Iraq and not a whole lot more to show for a similar amount spent in Afghanistan.  The same can be said for the 40-year, $1 trillion War on Drugs.  (yep that’s a Fox News link…even they concede it while advocating to spend billions to keep fighting it)  No one will call that selfish husband or the United States a “wuss” – credit card debt be damned!

A selfish husband finds ways to justify extravagant purchases and foolhardy decisions as investments. “I need this expensive car so that I can project an image of success, you see, and then eventually that will help me get promoted and the car will pay for itself,” he says, just like the GOP always says “the upper class tax cuts will pay for themselves” (although neither the car nor the tax cuts ever do).

And a selfish husband also has to spend money to back up his big mouth.  He may have bet the boys that he can still dunk a basketball, or gone double-or-nothing on his losing football bet to make up his all his money at once…only to lose again.  Just like the Trump Administration is spending billions to bail out soybean farmers who are losing on the Trump Tariffs…and how the Trump Administration is adamant that Congress provide money for “The Wall” that he kept saying Mexico would pay for, because he can’t admit defeat on his signature campaign chant.

Vote for the Caring Wife

So would I love for the government to save a little money?  Sure.  But they won’t, so I have to pragmatically choose where I want that debt-fueled money to be spent.  With the “caring wife” Democrats, there’s stuff I might not buy for myself, but that should benefit my life: insurance, alternative energy, education subsidies, infrastructure.

On the other hand, the Republican wishlist just doesn’t have anything in it for me.  Sure, W sent me a check for $150 in 2001 (it could have been as high as $300, but alas I was in school for much of 2000) and the Trump tax cuts would have saved me a few dollars had he not also packaged them with “screw the blue states” amendments that offset the cut and most likely hurt my home value.  But those cuts added to the deficit, which Republicans also blew up with their “Tim the Tool Man Taylor” approach (with no Democratic Al Borland to check them) to spending: more power (weapons), more power (militarized police forces and mandatory minimum jail sentences), more power (as long as it’s fossil fuels).

The conventional wisdom is that Democrats spend money and that “women be shopping.”  But Republicans and tough guys spend more money…just on far less useful stuff.  So this November I’ll be voting blue…and not worrying when my wife says she’s on her way to Target.

Suppose you typically get home an hour or so before your spouse or roommate, and in that time you’ve seen at least 30 ants roaming around your kitchen.  That spouse/roommate comes in and you point that out: “hey in the last hour I’ve seen at least 30 ants – we should think about calling an exterminator.”  Which of the following would you say are appropriate responses from your spouse/roommate:

(A) Wow, but exterminators are expensive. Can we try giving the kitchen a thorough clean to get rid of crumbs and food residue, and maybe figure out where they’re coming from and those areas with some bug spray?

(B) You know, we live in a condo with shared walls, so before we do anything with an exterminator let’s talk to the neighbors.  Maybe they’ll share the cost with us, or maybe they’re doing something that’s just shifting the problem to us.

(C) I’m just not sure we can afford an exterminator right now with all the other projects we have going on.  Can we talk about how to best prioritize our budget the next few months?

(D) You didn’t see any ants.  There aren’t any ants.

(E) I forbid you to ever say the word “ant” in this house again.

If you’re a normal, reasonable person, A, B, and C sound fairly valid and D and E sound like grounds for divorce or moving out, right?

Here’s why I’m a Democrat: Democrats’ answers to real-world societal problems are generally in the A/B/C neighborhood, while Republicans frequently and vehemently choose D and E, over and over again.  For example:

• GOP leaders in the federal government and in prominent state governments have banned the use of the terms “global warming” and “climate change.”
• The GOP has famously prohibited the Center for Disease Control from even researching gun violence.
• This past December, when every economic analysis suggested that their tax plan would increase the deficit and not stimulate the economy, Republican legislators pushed it through anyway, many of them even admitting they hadn’t read it.

And when they don’t go the ignore/deny/refuse-to-research route, the Republican response is often akin to:

(F) I’m going to spray the hell out of every surface in out kitchen with maximum-strength bug spray.  Wait, you say, but might there be potentially catastrophic results from coating everything we use to prepare and eat food with a layer of poison?  I don’t have time for your candy-pants worrying – these ants deserve to die and I’m going to take care of it myself.

Sound like hyperbole?  Well how about:

• The Iraq war and the GOP’s move to rename “French Fries” to “Freedom Fries” when France – correctly, as history has shown – chose not to join in.
• Separating asylum-seeking parents from their children (who were then caged), in a deliberately cruel fashion to deter future such asylum-seekers from approaching the border.

The Republican response to problems is, whenever possible, “who do we fight?” or “who do we put in jail?”  Drug addiction is a problem, but thanks to GOP policies we’ve been fighting a highly-militarized “war on drugs” for decades without making a dent in it.  The aforementioned Iraq war, you could argue, was a war in search of a reason (WMDs, the stated purpose, has been disproven over and over again). Same for immigration: yes, there are illegal immigrants and sure, there are gangs (including MS-13) that include illegal immigrants, but ICE raids on law-abiding doctors and parents, among others, are like using a grenade in your kitchen to get rid of a few ants.

The aggressive, militaristic, “zero tolerance” response may be the right one in some cases, but in many it’s overly-expensive, it adds more violence than it prevents, and it overlooks nuanced, innovative approaches that would be much more effective.  For example, forcing welfare recipients to work might seem to avoid a freeloader problem, but it’s also costly for the government and leaves welfare families with extra costs for childcare and transportation.  Militarizing the war on drugs has led to the massive costs of mass incarceration, plus all the negative effects that that mass incarceration has had on children growing up with parents in jail.

So what do I want?  I want grownup solutions to real problems.  “Lock them up” or “build a wall,” as we’ve learned, make for great bumper stickers and chants, but I believe that solving complex problems often involves solutions that are a little too complicated to make for a catchy chant or hashtag.  I want elected officials who embrace expertise, who seek out information on solutions that are working in other countries, who aren’t afraid to try “counterintuitive” policies if they’ve proven to work elsewhere.  For example, solving the opioid crisis might just involve making “supervised injection sites” available, where the addicted can use drugs in a supervised, safe environment that takes away the dangers of overdose and the criminal element of drug use.  Is it a little counterintuitive to say “solve the drug problem by giving people drugs?”  Sure, but if it saves lives, keeps communities safer and cleaner from the unsavory/criminal element of drugs, then why not give it a try?  “Just say no” and “lock them up” isn’t working (unless you own a privatized prison) so why not try unique solutions that have worked in other countries?

I want a government that solicits and trusts the opinions of scientists and other experts, that’s guided by analysis and results and not empty, slogan-friendly principles.  I want a government that looks at issues upon which we’re statistically among the worst in the world – healthcare costs, gun violence, mass incarceration – and looks for solutions as opposed to doubling-down on rhetoric.  And I want to identify actual problems to solve as opposed to creating issues out of nowhere that will somehow poll well with the base: illegal immigration just isn’t a source of rampant crime, but the deportation of longtime residents is something that breaks up families and divides communities.

I’m a Democrat because Democrats identify real problems that face everyday Americans and look for solutions – both those that fit on a bumper sticker and those that require an extensive white paper full of peer-reviewed studies – to address those problems.  And I’m a Democrat because currently they’re the only party that does that.  If there are ants or other pests that have infiltrated my house, there are a variety of solutions I should investigate before I arrive at an effective and cost-effective decision, and none of those solutions involve ignoring the situation while I yell about Hillary Clinton’s emails.

So you consider yourself a political moderate: there are some issues you’re liberal on, and others you’re conservative about.  So, as you might reasonably think is the right way to proceed heading into a congressional election, your plan is to assess the pros and cons of the Republican candidate, compare those with the pros and cons of the Democratic candidate, and choose the candidate you feel represents you and your community best.
Right?

Wrong.  In high school government class you learned the “theory” of how our political system works: each community is represented by one congressman (or woman, but your textbook probably said man), each congressman has one vote, and the majority wins.  But that’s not how it really works, particularly under a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.  Why is that?  Why is your vote for a moderate Republican candidate less likely to represent your interests than your vote for a moderate Democrat?

The Hastert Rule

Named for former Republican Speaker of the House (plus convicted felon and admitted child molester, but that’s not necessarily important right now) Dennis Hastert, the Hastert Rule dictates that a Republican Speaker will only allow the House to vote on bills that have the support of a majority of Republicans congressmen.  So while a majority of congressional representatives overall might support a bill, if less than half of Republican reps support it it won’t even get a vote.

So let’s play this out.  There are 435 congressional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Which means that you could have Republican control with 218 Republicans vs. 217 Democrats.  And let’s say there’s a bill on something that’s universally popular across America – for example, maybe 65% of Americans support something like a tax credit for medical expenses for families with terminally ill children.  A bill like that would probably have the support of all 217 Democrats, but say it only carries 108 Republicans.  That would mean that 325 of the 435 elected representatives in the House want to vote “yes” on that bill – nearly 75% of congress is in favor.  But by the Hastert Rule, a dutiful Republican Speaker would decline to let that bill see a vote, and it would just never happen.

Now while that’s the most extreme possible example in which 25.3% of Congress can control the fate of a bill, note also that the current split of Congress as I write this is 236 to 193 (this fluctuates with representatives leaving office, special elections taking place for their replacements, etc.), meaning that as of today, a Republican group of just 119 representatives, constituting just under 28% of Congress, has the ability to prevent a bill from reaching the floor.

So what does that mean for your vote?

If you vote for a moderate Republican, you’re not really voting for that particular Republican.  You’re voting for the median Republican, who is probably a lot less moderate than the one you’re considering in your moderate district.  Your Republican representative’s moderate viewpoint will only be considered if more than half of all Republicans share that view – otherwise your representative won’t have an opportunity to vote on that issue.

(Political geek alert…feel free to read past this paragraph if you’re not a politics wonk.  What exacerbates this situation all the more is that 2018 is predicted to be a really close congressional election.  Meaning 1) If the GOP holds control of the house it won’t likely have more than 51 or 52% of all congressmen meaning that the Hastert standard of “more than half of Republicans” will represent a very small slice of the overall electorate, and 2) because Republicans (and Democrats, too, on the other side) have so many “safe seats” in homogenous or highly-gerrymandered districts, the median Republican in such a situation is likely to be very far to the right.  Those highly-partisan districts tend to pull candidates to the extremes in contested primary races that lead to safe general elections.  So consequently, if you’re in a moderate, competitive district that elects a moderate Republican in 2018, there’s a very high likelihood that your representative will be one of the 2-3 most moderate Republicans in a caucus whose median vote is further right than normal…and that median vote determines whether your representative even gets to vote for the issues and stances that won your vote.)

Now, you might be asking yourself: but wouldn’t the same thing be true on the other side if I voted for a moderate Democrat and they narrowly won control of the House?

And the answer is: no.  For one, the Democrats do not honor their own version of a Hastert Rule.  The most recent Democratic speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said during her tenure in response to exactly that kind of question “I’m the Speaker of the House…I have to take into consideration something broader than the majority of the majority in the Democratic Caucus.”  And secondly, Republicans control the Senate and the White House, so even if they do control the House their political power is held in check, and in order for Democratic representatives to show any accomplishments to their constituents, they’ll have to support legislation that can carry moderate Republican support in the Senate.

So the sum of all this is: if you have moderate views and are still undecided or leaning slightly to the Republican candidate in your district, please realize that – through the messy machinations of American politics – you sadly do not have the ability to vote for a moderate Republican.  Your vote for a moderate Republican is really a vote for the median Republican, whereas your vote for a moderate Democrat is much more likely to result in a candidate who by and large represents your interests.  The Hastert Rule ensures that this is true: moderate Republicans are only able to vote for bills that their more-conservative colleagues support.  So while, in theory, you might agree with your Republican candidate’s positions a little more than with your Democratic candidate’s, in practicality that Republican may not get many chances at all to further your interests.

So before you choose your candidate this November, consider the Hastert Rule and its implications.  Don’t just look at your Republican candidate, think about the median elected Republican in today’s Congress – probably someone from an hour outside Omaha or Raleigh – and how much that person represents your interests.  If you vote Republican in November, that’s likely who you’re really electing.

Not long ago, an old friend posted a meme on Facebook that essentially said “until Democrats stop driving cars and flying on airplanes, they can’t talk to me me about global warming.”   Which struck me as odd for a few reasons:

1. It just seemed needlessly aggressive (this wasn’t days before an election or anything) and sort of stupidly misplaced (as a Democrat concerned about global warming, my position isn’t “everyone must halt all activities that consume energy,” but rather “the government should both invest in technologies and create policies that encourage cleaner, more-renewable energy”).
2. This came *after* one of 2017’s major hurricanes – events that scientists believe are intensified and made more likely by warmer temperatures – forced him and his family to evacuate their home.  Global warming (if you choose to “believe in it”) had just been a threat to his family, his young children, his home…  Shouldn’t those events have at least (this isn’t a word but I’m going with it) “disemboldened” his anti-environmental advocacy?

Like anyone confronted with an aggressive social media post from the other side I muttered a curse word or two, thought about angrily replying and then remembered that no one ever wins an argument in the Facebook comments, thought for a split second about unfriending or blocking him, and then walked away and let it stay in my head all day.  And upon further reflection, what really stands out is this:

I just don’t understand the position of climate deniers at all.

I really just can’t fathom it – and in particular the passion and zeal with which they pursue it.  I guess I could see just never having learned about it, or having heard that it was a hoax and wanting to learn more about it (this reminds me of the time my adorable young sister held my hand while we were standing looking at the ocean and, knowing that you’re supposed to say deep things at times like that, asked “Brian, do you believe in crocodiles?” – she legitimately wasn’t sure whether they were real or a mystical creature, and having suspicions on either side wanted to know more.  Note – she did not say “until you and your loser teenage friends start wearing body armor next to large southern bodies of water you can shut right the fuck up about crocodiles.”  Alas, this was a few years before Fox News became mainstream…).

But seriously – I just don’t get the zeal behind seeing the majority of the global scientific community agree that “this could be a massive problem that threatens our very way of life,” hearing fellow countrymen and neighbors say “we really ought to do something about this to protect our cities, homes, and childrens’ futures,” and then smugly posting online “it was cold yesterday, losers – wipe off your frozen tears and shut the hell up about global warming.”

And I guess what it comes down to for me is that:

1. I don’t understand the risk/reward on climate denial, and
2. I actually don’t think there’s any risk in believing in climate change.

I’m genuinely curious – there are, of course, political debates that I get angry about, but on this one I really just don’t know.  Here’s what I don’t understand:

The Risk/Reward of Climate Denial

When I was in my 20s, I had a group of friends, a handful of which loved the game “Credit Card Roulette.”  Essentially the game goes this way – when the bill comes for a group dinner, everyone puts in a credit card, someone shuffles them up, and they ask the waitress to blindly pick one card.  That person pays the whole bill.  And I *hated* Credit Card Roulette.  Why?  The reward just didn’t seem to justify the risk – as a 24-year old making maybe $40,000, paying for a sensible $20-25 meal out once or twice a month wasn’t a big deal, but getting stuck with a $300 bill was a big deal – that might mean staying in a few Saturday nights, or saving less money for grad school.  Winning wouldn’t impact me much – I had already mentally committed to paying for dinner and had chosen moderately-priced items anyway – but losing would have a major downside.  Plus, as it always goes, the guys who loved Credit Card Roulette were the ones who would pay the $2 extra to upgrade their sides, would order drinks with premium spirits, etc.

Even if Climate Change were a small probability (science suggests that it’s not), denying climate change seems like a massive game of Credit Card Roulette with imbalanced stakes.  Because suppose climate change is real – if we don’t protect against it, people run the risk of losing their homes, we run the risk of majorly impacting the food supply, we could see major cities and highways completely flooded over by rising sea levels.  It’s like playing Credit Card Roulette with a thousand oil executives who are all drinking vintage bottles of liquor and wine, getting truffles with their surf and turf, ordering off a secret cigar menu…all while you enjoy your soup-and-sandwich combo off the value menu.  You could lose everything, and you have little to gain.

Because that’s the other side of the risk/reward of climate denial.  The risks seem huge – in reality, it’s like you have to put in every credit and debit card you’ve ever owned, and the thousand oil executives get to choose one and have it play against you.  And they tipped the waitress to feel for the heavy Amex Black and pick another one.  If you’re just playing the probabilities, the 95+% of scientists who agree that climate change is real suggest that, yep, you’re probably picking up the tab here.  But even if you want to flip the odds to maybe 10 or 20% like a classic game of Credit Card Roulette at a small table of friends, remember that they’re running up a massive, massive steaks, lobsters, and premium spirits tab, and you only stand to win…

What?

What do you stand to win?

What do you gain if climate change is a hoax?  

Again, I’m genuinely curious.  I guess it’s something – maybe lower gas prices?  Maybe your Exxon/Mobil stock grows a little faster, or better maintains its value?  Maybe you get to tell a picture of Al Gore to go fuck itself?

Now for an oil tycoon the gain is obvious: the more the world uses oil, the richer you get.  But for the average person?  I guess if you’re heavily invested in oil stocks you’d have something to gain (or to “not lose” from a progressive environmental agenda).  But if your investment portfolio is 100% in oil futures, then 1) your financial advisor is an idiot…diversify!, and 2) you have time to change that. (Again, diversify!)  As oil stocks swoon, stock prices should rise not only for alternative energies, but also for companies that use lots of energy as their energy costs also fall.  So I don’t totally buy that one for the average person.

Gas prices?  Yeah I could see a progressive agenda creating disincentives via gas taxes, and using those taxes to pay for solar and wind subsidies.  But 1) gas taxes are generally very unpopular so there’s certainly no guarantee of that.  And 2) policy should give incentives for electrics, hybrids, carpooling, public transportation.  So I doubt there’s a danger of your monthly transportation energy bill doubling or tripling.

And if anything, a plan to combat climate change is one that, in the long run, should lower energy prices.  That plan should subsidize wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric energy, and create targets for utilities to raise the percentages of those renewable sources among their energy supply.  That plan should subsidize the installation of electric vehicle charging stations, and create targets for automakers to increase the average miles-per-gallon and percentage of electric vehicles among their fleets.  In the long run, a wider variety of mostly renewable energy sources, coupled with vehicles and machines that are designed to lose less energy, should lower all of our energy costs.

Or maybe you’re worried about how the government would pay for a progressive environmental agenda in general. As discussed above, maybe there are some gas taxes. And of course there’s cap-and-trade, and some industrial products may rise in price a bit if they’re more expensive to manufacture.  Is it income taxes you’re worried about?  Neither party likes to raise income taxes on the middle class.  Ultimately any environmental plan would probably be paid for by deficit spending – which is not ideal, but as evidenced by the recent deficit-increasing tax break for corporations and pass-throughs, it doesn’t seem like anyone in either party thinks the deficit is really a problem  Your taxes didn’t go up to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it’s unlikely they’d go up here.

So what does the ordinary person really stand to gain from climate denial?  Some short-term savings at the pump?  The time saved from rebalancing your portfolio?  Because remember, you have to balance that gain against the potentially huge losses that would result if climate change were real – losses to your property and government expenses to rebuild from hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and everything else.  And don’t forget the smaller costs of increased insurance premiums, food prices, etc.

So, at least as I see it, the reward for denying climate change doesn’t seem all that great, which also means that the risk of believing in climate change is pretty small.  So let’s look at the flip side:

The rewards of believing in climate change (even if it turns out to be a hoax)

Let’s say that Hannity and Trump are right, and climate change is just a big hoax made up by China to…I guess slow down their current industrial revolution or something.  Whatever…climate change turns out not to be real.  And the U.S. has invested in alternative energies and instituted tough fuel economy standards and regulated industrial waste and all that stuff, like a bunch of suckers.  What do we have to show for ourselves?  Other than, of course:

• Cleaner air and water (less smog, no oil pipelines rupturing into groundwater, etc.)
• Fewer accidents like the Exxon Valdez or BP Gulf Coast spill
• More competition in the energy sector among cleaner, more renewable sources, driving down energy prices
• Less reliance on foreign oil, so less need to intervene in Middle Eastern civil wars and territorial disputes (ok I get why Dick Cheney denies climate change)
• American companies leading the next generation of energy technologies
• Byproducts of better energy storage systems (longer-lasting iPhone batteries, that kind of thing)

And byproducts of scientific research in general.  Think of all the technology you use today: how much of that came from our investment in NASA (satellite communications, GPS), or in military technology (the internet)?  Investment in new technology spurs on the economy and tends to raise our standard of living.  I honestly don’t understand: why wouldn’t you want the government to invest money – and I swear virtually none of it will be yours – in innovation that can reduce your cost of living, enhance your standard of life, create new industries for you or your children to eventually work in?

And let’s talk about terrorism for a second.  When an act of terror affects even a few Americans, we’re willing to spend millions to prevent the next one: we send American troops all over the world, we willingly give up certain civil liberties, we’ll do anything to protect against – fuck it, I’ll say the words that climate deniers so desperately want Democratic candidates to say – radical Islamic terrorism.  But 1) where do you think radical Islamic terrorists get their funding?  It’s largely oil money.  So why wouldn’t our “defend against terrorism at all costs” instincts lead us to invest in new technologies that will undercut oil?  And 2) climate change has the potential to kill or harm hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans at a time through violent storms, massive droughts and food shortages, and other cataclysmic events.  We overreact at any hint of something to fear, whether its SARS or bird flu or gang violence on the south side of Chicago; why doesn’t that kick in here?  How can you take this one threat, backed up by the vast, vast majority of the scientific community, and laugh it off as “screw you libs” or “if there’s global warming why did I have to wear a sweater yesterday?”

And I guess maybe it is a vast conspiracy of climate scientists, all hyping this threat so that they can continue to earn their research grant money to model the climate.  But why isn’t Zika a conspiracy of mosquito scientists?  Why isn’t the next big winter storm just a hoax perpetuated by Big Meteorology to sell ads on Headline News and the Weather Channel?

I just don’t understand climate denial, in particular when it comes so enthusiastically from people with the most to lose from being wrong.  What am I missing?

The era of Confederate statue removal hit a new fever pitch yesterday in Charlottesville, with violent protests leaving one courageous woman and two courageous police officers dead and with a United States president acting anything but courageously in his refusal to condemn white supremacy and Nazism.

Vehement opposition to the removal of Confederate statues and symbols has been an ongoing issue for a while.  And so has a similarly dangerous phenomenon, that of “I’m not racist but I’m annoyed that the government is making these statues an issue” white people.  Listen: no blog post, speech, or conversation will change the minds of those willing to take up arms (and waste away weekends) to defend these monuments.  If you’re in that camp, you’re just an unfortunate storage device for the carbon that will hopefully soon be returned to the soil as a result of your similar opposition to motorcycle helmet laws.  But for those who less-voraciously-but-still -vocally oppose the removal of those statues, I must, with genuine curiosity amidst my anger, ask: why?

Here’s how I see it:

1. Nobody “deserves” a statue.

Rounded to the nearest hundredths, thousandths, or ten-thousandths place, 0% of humans who have ever walked the planet have been immortalized as a legitimate statue (I say “legitimate” to exempt novelty bobbleheads and low-rent wax museums).  When you look at the billions of people who have lived, the number who have been on display as a public statue is statistically insignificant.  Which is to say: if the worst thing that happens to you is that, 150 years after your death, it turns out you don’t have a statue in a public park in the American south, you’ve paid absolutely no price.  Don’t cry for Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis if a city or state government deems them unworthy of a statue; that’s the normal expectation for anyone.

Statues exist to honor incredible contributions to society, to inspire future generations to similar greatness, to serve as a reminder of what we’ve achieved and what we can still achieve.  The bar for being a statue should naturally be extremely high.  And, yes, there has to be a lot of luck involved.  There are thousands of amazing people who probably “deserve” a statue for their achievements and values, but perhaps lived their valiant, honorable lives in obscurity: for every Mother Teresa or Harriet Tubman who entered our consciousness, there were countless others who sacrificed and contributed in similar ways without our knowing.

And, yes, that luck sometimes involves happening to be on the winning team.  Would-be 1986 World Series MVP Bruce Hurst probably has a statue somewhere in Boston if Bill Buckner fields that grounder in Game 6, and Benedict Arnold would be happily Hurst-like forgotten had the heavily-favored British won the Revolutionary War. But they were on losing teams, so fairly or not history remembers them the way history remembers them.

Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and others knew the risk they were taking when they – a la Benedict Arnold – took up arms against the United States.  Win and you’re a hero in your new country, but lose and you’re likely a pariah, a traitor, a criminal.  That’s part of why we so commemorate George Washington, Paul Revere, Patrick Henry – they were willing to take that massive risk for the country they believed in…and they were on the winning team.  Lee? Davis?  They lost.  If “to the victor go the spoils,” then the loser can’t really expect a statue, right?

And spare me the discussion of what a great hero Lee was before the war.  There are, of course, conflicting reports of how admirable a man he was, many of those reports citing the whitewashing of the Confederate cause during Reconstruction (more on that in a second).  The fact remains, no matter how great a person you are, when it comes to how you’re historically remembered there’s a very good chance that history will remember you for your worst decisions or qualities, not just the highlights on your resume.  Hitler doesn’t get a pass because he led an incredible economic transformation in Germany.  OJ Simpson doesn’t get to ask that we only judge him for everything between USC and Naked Gun 2 1/2.  And Joe Paterno shouldn’t have a statue either.  Whether the defining moment of your career is genocide, murder and domestic assault, aiding and abetting pedophilia, or propagating slavery, the world has a right to decide that that moment overshadows the good things you’ve done.  And, ultimately, a world that doesn’t draw that conclusion is a pretty shitty world.  Germany has done a nice job of distancing itself from Hitler; USC is still struggling but moving toward righteousness with OJ; and southern U.S. cities should feel comfortable – now over 150 years later – divorcing from the Confederacy.

2. There are no victims when statues are removed

So Lee, Davis, et al. certainly don’t deserve statues.  Think of it this way: if your local school board were building a new school and asked the community for suggestions for a namesake, you wouldn’t feel sheepish about suggesting Abraham Lincoln, Paul Revere, FDR, or Rosa Parks.  They pass the “still honorable” test; we would build new statues of them today, so of course their statues are still relevant.  But would you really suggest Jefferson Davis?

One could argue that Confederate statues “used to” serve a non-objectionable purpose.  Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in the Confederate cause, meaning that millions of loved ones lost sons, husbands, fathers, brothers.  To immediately say in 1865 “hey that whole Southern independence thing…man were we wrong!” would be a really hard pill for the grieving to swallow, coming to grips with the fact that their loved ones died in vain.  So perhaps it was only natural to try to smooth over “slavery” and reposition the war as being about “state’s rights,” “Northern aggression,” or whatever else they had to do to save face.  And perhaps continuing to lionize the Confederate leaders was an important part of that quest to continue believing that those men died for something at least somewhat noble.

But now?  Over 150 years later?  There are no wives, mothers, sons, or daughters of Confederate soldiers left who need that crutch.  (And some crazy Guinness Book article might claim that there’s one living grandchild left, but if so that soldier did not die by 1865) There’s no one alive today who remembers someone who fought for the Confederate cause, so there’s no need to protect that fragile psyche.  Taking down the statues comes at no real cost to anyone: if, after the intervening 150 years have produced the Roosevelts, Gandhi, MLK, Churchill, Mandela, Eisenhower, Armstrong/Aldrin, Kennedy, and screw it I’ll throw in Reagan for the staunch Republicans, you still look up to Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard, or Nathan Bedford Forrest as your top hero, well then hello, Steve.  But if you’re anyone else, you’re only interested in protecting the statues because 1) “that’s how it’s always been and I like it,”  which is a terrible reason for government policy or 2) you erroneously think that the statues represent “Southern culture,” which is actually 100% antithetical to your love of the south.  (This post is already too long but there are tons of things to love about the south – southern hospitality, great food, great music, all kinds of scenic beauty, passionate college football fans, great small towns with close-knit communities – and none of those things are conflated with slavery.  How about stick to those?)

And a sidenote: just above I gave the “helping the grieving make piece” excuse for why those statues (and street names and school names) may have had merit at one point.  But most of them came well after the Civil War.  The recently-removed Lee statue in New Orleans arrived in 1884; the Charlottesville statue in question only dates back to 1924.  This chart shows a general accounting of when Confederate monuments were installed.  Note the spike around 1910, and consider this: that was 55 years after the war ended.  That would be like Germany building statues to Hitler and the SS between 1995 and 2000!  Some statues may have been there to help the aggrieved; most were absolutely not that.

3. Keeping them up has a real cost.

Imagine being Jewish and walking past Himmler Street on your way to apply for a job at a building with a swastika on it.  When state-sponsored parks, streets, and government buildings openly honor people whose defining cause was that entire groups of people are lesser, are inhuman, that’s a horrible message to send.  And a damaging one: research shows that people perform poorly on tasks when those tasks are immediately preceded by a reminder – even a seemingly docile one – that they have a reason to not do well (e.g., a black female – a member of two groups that tends to have lower-than-average test scores – will perform worse on a test if she is prompted to note her gender/ethnicity before the test; all reputable testing agencies have moved demographic research solicitation to the ends of tests for this very reason).  So while you might think “I always give directions by telling people to turn left at Jefferson Davis Park!  What am I supposed to say if they change the name?!,” remember that your tiny convenience serves as a lifelong hurdle for lots of people who have to pass that park on their way to school or work.  These are not victimless statues!

And a sidenote – the main objection to the removal of these statues is “political correctness run amok.”  I’ll write about this another day, but my general experience has been that my typical knee-jerk reaction to political correctness is “that’s stupid, get over it” until I think about it and realize “hey actually I can see why this would really bother someone.”  Consider, for just a second, the difference between “handicapped person” and “person with disabilities.”  Yeah, yeah you can say “hey that’s just how we do adjectives, putting them before the noun – get over it.”  But when you really focus on the meaning, in the first, traditional one, the person’s humanity is already pre-qualified as “lesser” when you modify it before you even address it.  In the second, they’re given full human/equal status first, and then an additional piece of information is added.  And yeah it’s a few extra syllables for you, but if you really think about it it’s a small price to pay to not totally marginalize someone.  The same is true of these statues.

And think about the other side of that: these high-profile memorial sites could be used to honor and inspire on new dimensions.  There are – rightfully – tons of military-themed memorials around the U.S., but with the skew toward the Revolution and Civil War they honor cavalry and muskets when an increasing role in American defense is played by technology and supply.  Why not honor non-battlefield heroes like Alan Turing and Rosie the Riveter?  Why not inspire the next generation of innovators by honoring Neil Armstrong, Nikola Tesla, and Sally Ride?  Why not include some diversity and/or add some new blood?

Let me put it like this: I have a fiancé who is deathly allergic to soy sauce.  If she even has a bite of something that’s been on a grill that at some other time had teriyaki or soy sauce on it, her throat closes up and she has to freebase Benadryl and/or inject an epi-pen.  Yet I like sushi, Thai, and Chinese food.  White people who “just kind of like the tradition” of the statues are like if I brought home a few sushi rolls and some General Tsao’s, loaded it all up with soy sauce, and ate it in front of her on a plate and with a fork that she’ll inevitably have to use after I lackadaisically wash it and put it back in the cabinet.  My general convenience and light enjoyment – your appreciation of Dixie tradition – has real, meaningful, derogatory implications for someone else.  So I just don’t do that, and neither should you.

It’s a lot like…

Ultimately, the Confederate statues are a lot like this: you had your share of bad relationships in your youth, you’re now settled down and maybe engaged/married with your forever partner…and your Facebook profile picture is still of you with your ex.

The Confederacy is your ex.  We know that you’ll always have those feelings, and on bad days with us you may long for your best days with Dixie, but come on…it’s time to delete the picture and move on with your future.

 

Black lives matter.  Colin Kaepernick.  LGBT rights.  #yesallwomen  All have created controversy and rifts in our nation, and none of them should have ruffled a single feather. Sorry, baseball – the national pastime has become “taking offense,” which is a massive shame because of one simple but always-overlooked fact.

It’s not about you.

We’ve all grown up being told that we should stand up for our opinions and that free speech means that you should always speak out whenever you have one.  But those sentiments are interrupting and fragmenting our shared values and shared humanity.  On 95% of protests, movements, and hashtags you encounter, your reaction shouldn’t be visceral and your opinion shouldn’t be resolute.  Because, again:

It’s not about you.

Like the song goes, I’ll start with the man in the mirror, beginning with a couple stories.  I first came to understand the “it’s not about you” with a hashtag campaign a few years ago called #yesallwomen, in which women around the world reacted to a video of a fellow woman walking around a city receiving an inordinate amount of catcalling, whistling, and predatory/harassing behavior.  For days on social media, women wrote using that hashtag.  And as a ~35-year old white man seeing it through my eyes, I wasn’t having it.

“That’s creative editing,” I thought at first.  Then, “maybe on this particular day, but how many days did they have to shoot to get all that footage.”  Bringing it ever-more personal, I thought about myself.  Did this mean I had to be more reserved in saying something nice after a woman got a haircut or wore a new sweater?  How was I supposed to flirt if now flirting was seen as aggression?  I saw it all through the lens of someone shy and awkward around women, someone who was already skittish about innocently complimenting a female coworker or neighbor for fear of it seeming untoward, someone who for 20 years had been struggling to finally hit “send” on a text or finish dialing that last digit in a phone number when calling a woman for a date.

Ultimately my angst could be summarized in two phrases.  “How am I supposed to approach a woman if approaching a woman is now considered wrong?” and “hey, not all men who approach women are jerks!”  And that was really the issue.  At no point was the hashtag about “all men.”  It was “yes all women.”

It wasn’t about me.

Had #yesallwomen been about “yes all women have flirted from time to time with a guy who then chickened out asking for a real date and instead invited her to hang out with a large group of friends, then like an idiot sat a few seats away from her and only interacted through a kind of weak, awkward hug at the end of the night only to wait a few weeks before summoning the courage to try this ill-fated charade again” then I’d have had every right to take personal offense.  But it was about all women having been the victims of overly-assertive, unwanted advances.  It was about my sister, my friends, my mother back when, my potential daughters in the future.  But instead of empathizing with them, people I cared about who were directly affected, I immediately reacted by trying to make it about me.  And I was wrong.

More recently, and even more embarrassingly, I noticed this again during the Stanford swimmer rape situation as it swept social media. Naturally, and importantly, I didn’t take his side, of course.  But as the anti-Stanford-swimmer, rape-culture sentiment consumed Facebook for a week, I – a white, middle class, male former swimmer and water polo player  who went to a really good college – started to see the situation through the eyes most like mine, making it about me.  And since I could never see myself directly in the situation that he – who was convicted of rape – put himself in, I could only see it through mine (again, the guy too timid to put his hand on the small of a date’s back).  As my mind wandered to what it would be like if I were in a related situation, I had to snap out of it – I’m not a purveyor of rape culture and I would never come close to a situation like that one, so the backlash wasn’t about “men who swim a little bit and went to good schools.”  It was about one particular man who was clearly wrong, and about the millions of women who have to vigilantly watch their drinks lest they be drugged and who are implored to never walk alone lest they be attacked.

Now, let me be clear on that – I never for a second considered defending him personally.  But when the issue – rightfully – led to a groundswell of feminist sentiment, my nature turned toward defensiveness.  My instincts wanted to make it about me, and my conscious mind had to take over to recognize how ridiculous that was.  Again:

It wasn’t about me.

And my point with those stories isn’t to showcase that my first reaction to social causes tends to be kind of selfish and often very terrible.  It’s to highlight the awakening that I’ve had to have a few times and will continue to have to revisit: I know that when I’m faced with protests, outcries, and movements, there’s a large part of my human nature that tends to look for the “side” of the story that is most like me.  And I think we’re all like that.  But in order to be better citizens and better neighbors, we have to remove ourselves from those issues that we’re not directly a part of.  We have to remember:

It’s not about you.

Which brings me to the causes of the day.  Unless you’re: 1) black or 2) a police officer, #blacklivesmatter isn’t directly about you.  Just like I had to recognize that “yes all women” didn’t mean “yes all men,” we all have to recognize that “black lives matter” doesn’t mean that white lives, blue lives, or any other lives don’t matter.  It means exactly what it says – too often in cases like police brutality or voting rights, there can be a clear perception that, to many in positions of power, black lives either don’t matter or don’t matter as much as others.  And that’s it.  It doesn’t mean that “all policemen are racist” or “all white people are racist.”  It doesn’t mean that most are, or that anything more than a small percentage of those groups are.  So we don’t have to react defensively or try to yell louder that *ALL* lives matter.  That’s not at issue.  But what happens is that – like I’ve had to learn about myself – we see a movement and our first inclination is to see it through the eyes closest to ours.  And if we’re white, or friends with a police officer, or maybe even just “not black,” it’s quite possible that our first reaction is to take a position: why do those lives matter more? (remember: no one is saying that…they’re just saying “black lives matter.” If I say “I’m hungry” it doesn’t mean that you’re not…)  But policemen are mostly good! (which, again, isn’t a contradictory statement to “black lives matter.”  To NWA’s “Fuck the Police”?  Sure.  But not to “black lives matter.”)  Why are black lives getting special treatment?  (um…the very fact that people feel they need to highlight this truth-that-should-be-self-evident as a cause means that they’re getting anything but special treatment)

Black Lives Matter isn’t about you.  Its existence doesn’t mean that your life matters any less.  Its existence

The reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem has been similar.  Kaepernick was not protesting the military or the flag itself.  He was drawing attention to the, to put it mildly, rocky relationship between the police and the black community.  And no matter how much you value the cause, you cannot argue that he did an amazing job of highlighting it – sports and news media alike covered the story for months, in the middle of a presidential election and a busy sports calendar.  In the spirit of John Carlos and Tommie Smith – whose anthem-based protest is widely admired now, nearly 50 years later – and of Jimi Hendrix – whose Woodstock version of the national anthem, like Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, was indeed a protest even if we’ve now repurposed it as patriotic – Kaepernick used the most prominent symbols of the U.S.A. as his opportunity to essentially say “this country isn’t living up to its creed.”

Naturally, half of America revolted in horror.  And that’s understandable.  We’ve been taught that we need to have an opinion and that we must voice it, so when an issue hits we naturally find a quick way to see it through our own eyes.  And if you’re like me – in the past 15 years I’ve been pulled over exactly once, exactly six years ago (it was Thanksgiving weekend) and although the cop and I agreed that he had me dead to rights on speeding, he just laughed at my joke (“hey I get competitive”) and not only gave me a warning but also flipped on his lights to help me cross back over the road to merge onto the highway instead of continue on the exit ramp I had pulled over upon) – it’s hard to viscerally find much hatred for the police.  Or to identify with a millionaire quarterback or the black community.  So we all find a lens through which to see the situation.  And maybe we choose pro-police (keep in mind, though…Kaepernick wasn’t anti-police) or pro-military (which…he was nowhere near it) or pro-America (true it was an Olympic year, but he wasn’t anti-America  either) and find a way to attack his actions.  But remember:

It’s not about you.

Perhaps the most important reaction to nearly any trending cause on social media or any to any protest is a deep breath and a moment to recognize:

1. It’s (probably) not about me.
2. There are people – whom this is directly about – who care deeply and feel wronged by this.
3. Before I react by seeing this through my own, probably-tangential worldview, I should pause and listen.

 

From my experience, listening and putting myself in the situation of those protesting/hashtagging tends to at the very least make me realize that my initial reaction was kind of silly, and almost always makes me realize that the proper response involves a good amount of empathy.  When I do react angrily, it’s almost always because I tried to make a situation that wasn’t about me into one that was about me.

Now…some of these protests/movements/hashtags may be, at least somewhat, about you.  I’ve been there.  For example, another common social media buzzword has been “white privilege,” and I cannot deny that I’m white and at least somewhat privileged.  And, in turn, I’m not immune to hearing that term and immediately wanting to defend myself (which…I probably did with that “at least somewhat” caveat just now).  And I think I have a decent case!  But the lesson holds: even if the issue involves me it’s not directly ABOUT me, at least not entirely.  And here’s the (sinister, privileged) catch – it costs me nothing to listen.  There’s a zero-percent change I liquidate my 401k and donate it to the United Negro College Fund.  And no one is asking me to.  I’ll let you in on a privileged, white, male, liberal secret: just listen and say things like “things are crazy,” “how did we ever let it get this way?” and “I hope we’ll see a change in our lifetime but I doubt it,” and maybe quote Bob Dylan, and you’ll have satisfied 99% of your “I’m on your side” / “I’m not a jerk” obligation.  Even if you’re not sure you agree in the slightest!

Which means this: it costs you nothing to listen and to potentially empathize.  Even if that empathy is fake, or just a placeholder for when you take the time to think about it.  But it costs us plenty as a society when we take feminism and pit it against men, or when we take minority rights and turn it into a war on the police, the military, the flag, or Christmas.  Nearly all protests and movements start with one common theme: people who feel that they have been treated unfairly are searching for a voice.  Usually there’s good reason they feel that way.  And even if they drift into hyperbole or create demands that are implausible, the core reasons for their outcry have merit.  Merit that you very likely cannot see, because – again – the issue isn’t about you.

So take the “listen” part to heart.  Because ultimately the overall lesson likely holds: it’s not about you, at least not only about you or directly about you.  The people protesting/hashtagging tend to have a very valid reason for doing so, and it’s much more about them and what they’re lacking than about you and what you’re doing.  The defensiveness you feel is natural, particularly in this world in which we’re encouraged to have an opinion about anything and everything.  Your instincts tell you to take a perspective and that perspective will naturally be a viewpoint that’s directly through your eyes.  But remember:

It’s not about you.

I vividly remember being about 8 and learning about history – from the Crusades through the American Revolution, from the Civil War through two World Wars, and then the American involvement in Korea and Vietnam.  And I remember thinking to myself, almost condescendingly about my ancestors, “wow, the world was crazy back then.”

Fast forward to today, when ISIS troops are descending on Baghdad and unraveling in about  a week what the United States (presumably) fought ten years for.  As this woefully predictable undoing happens faster than Jon Stewart can find a clip of George W Bush in front of a Mission Accomplished banner, I can’t help but think to myself “no, the world wasn’t crazy back then…it’s just crazy.”

Now, for an eight-year old to think that history stopped and the future began on the day his textbook was printed…I’m not proud but I’m not embarrassed.  But for an entire nation to act on the hubris that it can just install democracies whenever it wants?  We should know better. As it’s been said, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and there’s plenty of history that we didn’t bother to consider in this case, namely:

1) The Middle East as we view it is not ripe for democracy

2) Even our own democracy took lots of time (and included some pretty rough treatment of citizens)

3) We’re, um, not very good at this

With these items in mind, the only surprise is that it took this long for civil war and sectarian violence to rage again in Iraq (well, and the surprise that we didn’t expect this in the first place and just stay away).  So let’s dig in:

1) The Middle East is not ripe for democracy

And that’s not a knock on the Middle East.  If we’re talking about Western arrogance, let’s talk about the borders of Iraq, or Syria, or Jordan. Mesopotamia has been under varying control for millenia – it was Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Ottoman.  It’s been tribally segmented and dynastically united several times over.  Iraq is just the latest definition and set of arbitrary lines, and it’s by no means the best. There are Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites all wedged into a set of British-colonial borders without a common identity or reason to want to be unified.  And the magic of the most recent dictator?  Saddam Hussein was Sunni in a Shiite majority, but somehow convinced the population that there were more Sunnis and that his control was justified.  Now?  In a democracy no one wants to be the minority, so who knows? Maliki in charge is Shiite and may have a majority; Sunnis under ISIS feel justified that they deserve control.  Kurds have their claim.  And the real question for Americans is this:

Why did we think this would work?

Our glee at spreading democracy sure made for great sound bytes, but did democracy ever stand a chance in a region so divided?  Middle Eastern culture and politics is extremely centered on religion, and the Sunni/Shiite feud is a central theme in Middle Eastern religion. How was any resolution of majority rule going to satisfy the masses?  In America our Republican/Democrat feud is easily soothed – if you’re a Republican and your guy loses, you turn up Limbaugh or Toby Keith in your pickup and head home to watch Duck Dynasty; if you’re a Democrat and your guy-or-girl loses, you crank up NPR in your Prius and head to yoga class.  Our democracy has evolved over centuries; we can cope.  In Iraq?  These tensions have been going on and becoming more heated for thousands of years.

And the point is really this – we went to Iraq and fought for a Polaroid snapshot of regional borders.  Iraq as it stands probably shouldn’t still exist – when Ottoman control shifted to British control these were the borders, but the British are gone now.  History shows that this region is always in flux; the ISIS-controlled areas near Syria should probably be Sunni; the Fertile Crescent zone between the Tigris and Euphrates maybe should be Shia; and the northern areas maybe ought to be Kurdish.  Or…honestly I don’t know.  But something tells me that lines drawn by a British aristocrat over a century ago might not be the best markers for a fledgling democracy in a land of Sharia law that’s been under totalitarian rule since before Christ.

Especially because…

2) Our own democracy (has) had its problems

If anyone should understand how difficult it is to make democracy work, particularly in a land of ethnic diversity, it’s the United States. Consider our history:

-Our first “constitution,” the Articles of Confederation, was scrapped within ten years after some nasty sectarian violence (ah, Shays’ Rebellion)

-Like it or not, we ethnically cleansed some folks to even get the land “Western” democracy-ready in the first place (although some survivors still own casinos in the desert)

-Our current constitution still includes a line equating people of a certain ethnic group to only count as 3/5 of a “real” person for voting purposes (albeit a portion that has been amended…but still!)

-It took us 75 years and a horrifying Civil War to grant minorities the right to vote*.

-It took over 50 years from that point for us to allow women the right to vote.

-*It took us ANOTHER 50 years after the women thing to remove that asterisk and get rid of Grandfather Clauses and Poll Taxes and finally make voting universal.  And we STILL have problems with voting rights with portions of THAT act having recently been chopped down.

My point? Even when democracy is “of the people, for the people, by the people” and not imposed from afar it’s STILL really, really challenging.  We of all nations should know.  Where do we get the arrogance to think that we have it right and that it’s easy to implement?  Just because you can cover American history in two semesters doesn’t mean that you can implement American democracy in that long.  We’re at almost 240 years and counting and it’s still a work in progress.  Iraq isn’t doing anything we didn’t do – we sectarianly-violenced our way out of both colonial occupation and our own first constitution. We dealt with minority populations in embarrassing way. We have parties that actively try to restrict voter participation in order to maintain a tenuous majority.  And we’ve been doing this forever. How did we think we could snap our fingers and make this work in a land that didn’t ask for it?  Especially when…

3) We’re not good at this.

The American military is a combination between 1980s Mike Tyson and 2000s Mariano Rivera.  When have we been at our best?  We’re phenomenal closers like Rivera – when World War I and World War II were well underway, Britain and France called to the bullpen and we came in and threw heat.  We finished the job, relatively quickly and with a ton of power and innovation.  We’re amazing at that…no one ends an ongoing/stalemated war quite like the US.

And we do it with Tysonian power.  1945, 1991, 2003 – we shocked and awed our rivals like Tyson destroyed Spinks. Whether it’s Enola Gays or Patriot Missiles or drone strikes, we can put together a quick strike combination that shatters hopes, dreams, and teeth.  Like Tyson in his prime, there’s really nothing scarier or more powerful.

But…like Tyson against Buster Douglas, once the round start getting late and it’s clear we’re not going to win by knockout, we’re not at our best. We’re like Great White sharks – you shouldn’t survive the first encounter, but if you do you’re probably safe.

And that’s not a knock on our troops – they do an amazing job carrying out their missions.  That’s just about our core competencies – we spend a ton of money on weapons that, if anything, should be deterrents and not actual-use weapons. Give us ten 1944 Germanies and we’ll go 10-0 with ten KOs. But we’re not great occupiers – we struggled occupying in Vietnam and we’ve struggled occupying in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Our troops aren’t built to be crossing guards and (if you’ve seen the great documentary Restrepo) goat negotiators. We have a militia that would make Hitler and Caesar cry on each other’s shoulders in awe, but based on our postmodern view of history – that it covers everything from the Big Bang to the day we learned it, but that it’s a new era now – we don’t go for the killshot anymore…or maybe it just doesn’t exist. 100 years ago we’d be using Iraqi oil as salad dressing and hair gel we’d have taken so much of it in triumph after a massive victory; today, we don’t conquer and loot, but instead hang around and wait to get blown up  by IEDs while we help blacktop the driveway of a preschool.

And I’m not saying we’re wrong – we’re just not very good at it (and if we’re not, maybe no one is) and need to plan our exit (and entrance) strategies accordingly.  We entered Iraq like it was WWII, dropping bombs over Baghdad like Outkast (for the kids) / Dresden (for the adults). And we were amazing at it; but then came the slog of protecting against guerilla/sectarian violence and trying to build a nation.  And that’s where predator drones and stealth bombers and nuclear submarines just don’t help.

So where does that leave us? I think we need to learn from this – we can’t hold the Middle East to Western norms and borders. We can’t assume democracy is one-size-fits-all / your colonial parents put it together. It still doesn’t entirely fit us even after 200+ years. And we need to know our strengths but also our weaknesses. The world is going to have civil war – just because ours ended 150 years ago doesn’t mean that other countries are on our page. And we’re at our best when we’re all in to win; we’re not when the mission is more passive and less decisive. This week’s events in Iraq are a tale as old as time – there was bound to be a power vacuum and civil war when we left. Next time…let’s think a little before we get there in the first place.