Monthly Archives: June 2018

Democrats have a good chance of controlling at least one House of Congress in 2019

Political prognostication is a fool’s game and arguably a distraction from the important work of citizens, which is to influence–not to forecast–the future.

But I can’t resist.

Recent projections give the Democrats anywhere from a 39% to a 58% (or even 63%) chance of winning the House. One reputable model gives the Democrats a 30% chance of winning the Senate. Those two results are not truly independent, since both will be affected by the national situation in November. But they are substantially independent, as illustrated by the claim that an 8 percentage-point swing toward the Democrats would give them 44 more House seats and four fewer Senate seats. If we assume that the two elections are independent events, then Democrats have between a 43% and 70% chance of capturing at least one house of Congress.

The wildcard is how the national situation will change between now and late October. If there’s a terrorist attack on the US, it will probably help the president’s party. The nomination battle could boost Republicans by giving religious conservatives a reason to turn out and by putting red-state Democratic Senators in a tough spot. Another four months of economic growth might help the GOP a bit, as would a report from the Special Counsel that comes nowhere close to associating Trump with crimes.

But I think upcoming news is more likely to assist the Democrats. Trump and his party have already captured whatever political benefit they’re going to gain from the economy, and there’s a significant potential for economic turbulence ahead. The Mueller investigation has lost public support without yielding a damaging public report, but his report is coming. Since 67% of Americans want to preserve Roe v Wade, a nomination that places that decision in jeopardy could mobilize more people against Trump than for him. The North Korea summit was a political success for the president: he hyped a genuine crisis to the maximum and then declared it resolved, which convinced a bunch of Americans. But that domestic political gain is fragile, since the threat was not actually resolved. We can also expect massive Obamacare premium increases, ugly battles in Congress, plenty of awkward votes for Republican incumbents, a possibly damaging Special Counsel report, lawsuits and depositions against the president, and unpredictable controversies revolving around him.

Overall, I’d put the chances that the Democrats control at least one house of Congress above 70%. That estimate is compatible with any actual result in November, so there’s no way I can be proven wrong. Meanwhile, stop reading forecasts and get back to work!

coming soon: Democracy’s Discontent and Civic Learning

Now available for pre-ordering is Charles S. White (ed.), Democracy’s Discontent and Civic Learning: Multiple Perspectives. Chapters include:

  • “The Populist Moment,” by William A. Galston.
  • “Populism, Democracy, and the Education of Citizens,” by Thomas S. Vontz and J. Spencer Clark, (with Stephen L. Schechter).
  • “Are Europe’s Democracies in Danger? A View of the Populist Challenge,” by Karlheinz Duerr.
  • “Confronting a Global Democracy Recession: The Role of United States International Democracy Support Programs,” by Liza Prendergast
  • “Democracy’s Pharmakon: Technology as Remedy and Poison,” by Charles S. White.
  • “Judicial Legitimacy in the Age of Populism,” by Alison Staudinger.
  • “Fulfilling the Promise of Democracy: How Black Lives Matter Can Foster Empowered Civic Engagement,” by Amy J. Samuels and Gregory L. Samuels.
  • “Does P–12 Educational Research Ameliorate or Perpetuate Inequity?” by Jacob S. Bennett.
  • “Democracy’s Discontent and Teacher Education: Countering Populism and Cultivating Democracy,” by Stephanie Schroeder.
  • “A Primer on Trump Economics: Populist or Something Else?” by James E. Davis.
  • “Going for Depth in Civic Education: A Design Experiment,” by Walter C. Parker. With responses:
    • “What Public Philosophy Should We Teach? A Reply to Parker,” by Peter Levine
    • “Fidelity of Implementation: A Reply to Parker,” by James E. Davis
    • “Contrasting Landscapes: A Reply to Parker,” by Karlheinz Duerr

new survey on Americans’ views of democracy

(Salt Lake City, Utah) Freedom House, the George W. Bush Institute, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement have released a new national survey on Americans’ attitudes toward democracy.

The headline finding is that Americans value democratic norms–regardless of party–and they worry that those norms are weakening. Almost exactly the same proportion of Democrats and Republicans (63% and 65%) say that it is “absolutely important” to live in a democracy.

But only one in three young adults think it’s “very important” to live in a democracy. The perceived importance of living in a democracy rises steadily and steeply by age. This trend could be generational, in which case democracy is in trouble as we face a century dominated by people who aren’t committed to democracy. Or it could be a life-cycle effect: perhaps people gradually develop more commitment as they grow older.

This graph is an argument for better civics. Almost 90 percent of poll respondents want to “ensure that schools make civic education a bigger part of the curriculum.”

Respondents were asked what is wrong with our democracy today. Youth are much more likely that other groups to point to racism and discrimination. They are somewhat less likely to condemn unreliable media and partisan news. Hardly any youth are concerned about a “breakdown in traditional American values.” But partisan news and a breakdown of traditional values are the two most serious problems according to Republicans.

convicted by their conscience: the rule of law, judgment, and writing in The New Testament

John 8:3-11:

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,

The “scribes and Pharisees” arrive as an undifferentiated group. They act in concert. No names or adjectives distinguish them, but they share a social role as experts on the law and as men of writing.

The one person who stands out is the woman. She comes passively (presumably compelled). She is the sole female character and the only one who is never described in this passage as either reading or writing.

They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

The Gospels are written in the past tense, but here the Greek (like the English) is suddenly in the present: “they say.” I think the speakers are living completely in the present moment–so forcefully that it flows into the narration as an example of “implied indirect discourse.” The scribes’ and Pharisees’ mode is to ask what the abstract categories of the written law mean for what is to be done now. They don’t reflect on their pasts, nor on the woman’s future, for she has none in the minds.

Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

Here they invoke the written law, the commandment that comes to us from an author (notably, Moses rather than God) through his writing. The text is meant to determine our judgment, speech, and decision.

This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

The Woman Taken in Adultery, Church of the Angel Raphael, Venice, 1677

They have set a trap for Jesus. He must either blatantly violate the rule of law or else abandon his message of love. If he does the former, they “might have to accuse him.” In their minds, this would not be a choice. It would be determined by the application of the law, which (again) is an artifact of writing.

So Jesus also writes. Since he stoops down, we cannot see the text that flows. Indeed, it might not be text: the Greek verb katagraphein is unusual (appearing just here in the whole New Testament). It can mean “to scratch,” so Jesus might be making a wordless shape in the dust. Euclid uses katagraphein 40 times in his Elements, as a verb for drawing shapes. It can also mean to “write against,” as in framing an indictment.

Jesus’ act is mysterious. He is literally in touch with the earth. His act is public in the sense that he performs katagraphein as his response to the scribes and Pharisees. It’s private in the sense that we cannot know what he writes; and probably they cannot either, since he “stoops down.”

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

They keep asking him, he keeps writing, and then he stands to address them face-to-face (leaving his writing behind) and gives his famous verbal response: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

He then goes back down to the earth, to his private stance, and writes. This time the verb is graphein, the ordinary word for writing.

In these verses, the woman is invisible to us. She neither speaks nor writes nor acts.

And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

The scribes and Pharisees are no longer an undifferentiated group, acting in concert and in unison. Each has turned his own mind toward his own past. They exit one by one, making individual choices to break with the group. The one with the longest record of conscience, the eldest, is the first to break.

Jacopo Tintoretto - Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery - WGA22436

Jacopo Tintoretto – Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery

Now Jesus is alone, and the woman is “in the midst” (more literally, “being in the middle,” or “being in the center”). It’s just the two of them, quiet. Jesus is still stooped down and does not look at her.

10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

Now he makes eye-contact, as he did earlier with the scribes and the Pharisees, and he asks her what happened, although he must know it already. “Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?”

11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

At last she speaks, addressing Jesus as her lord. He speaks in the first person, placing himself in the same position as the Scribes and Pharisees who have chosen individually not to accuse her. And he sends her away from the center, on her own.

Questions

What did Jesus write? There is obviously no way to know, but here are some possibilities: 1) He listed the sins of each of the scribes and Pharisees. 2) He noted his own judgment of the Woman, privately. 3) He described the specific situation concretely–in contrast to the abstractions of the categorical law. 4) He drew an abstract image.

Why can’t we know what he wrote?

Why did his act change the situation?

When does private–or public–writing liberate? What about the text of the Gospel of John?

See also: Sessions and the fate of Herodthe Gospels on two hot-button issues; and the prospects for an evangelical turn against Trump.

why autocrats are winning (right now) #DemFront #DemFront18

During the opening session of Frontiers of Democracy last night, Hardy Merriman from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict showed this graph from Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan. It shows that nonviolent social movements were strikingly successful at achieving their own stated objectives during the 1990s, but their success rate has fallen sharply since.

A full explanation would have to consider many variables–geopolitics, technology, changes in ideologies and issues. I suspect (as Chenoweth and Stephan do) that one factor is the skill and sophistication of both democrats and autocrats. For a sustained argument about the importance of skill in social movements, see Marshall Ganz, Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement

To explain the graph above, we could first argue that nonviolent movements and bottom-up pro-democracy movements developed an impressive repertoire of strategies, thanks to the experience of anti-colonial struggles in the Global South, social movements in the West, dissident movements in the Soviet Bloc, and hacker cultures online. At the same time, the traditional toolkit of the autocrat–centrally managed economies, mass incarceration and terror, secret police bureaucracies, etc.–was failing.

On both sides, actors always learn from their peers. Solidarity invited Bayard Rustin to Poland to teach nonviolent strategies–and that’s just one of countless examples on the nonviolent side. On the other side, Saddam imitated Stalin. But Rustin and Solidarity had the newer and and more successful ideas; Saddam and his ilk were losing.

Then the surviving older autocrats, and the new generation of authoritarians, began to innovate. Chenoweth & Stephan write:

State opponents may be learning and adapting to challenges from below. Although several decades ago, they may have underestimated the potential of people power to pose significant threats to their rule, they may now see mass nonviolent campaigns as truly threatening, devoting more resources to preventing them — perhaps following the implications of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith’s “Dictator’s Handbook” — or deploying “smart repression” to subvert them when they arise. This phenomenon of learned adaptation, or what Steven Heydemann, the Ketcham Chair in Middle East Studies at Smith College, calls “authoritarianism 2.0,” is a central focus of the “Future of Authoritarianism” project at the Atlantic Council.

In a recent Bloomberg column, Tyler Cowan argues that “the governance technologies and strategies of authoritarian regimes have become much more efficient.” One-party states and oligarchs are better at managing economies and thereby delivering economic growth.

They have also developed more sophisticated ways of dealing with criticism:

Authoritarian leaders realized that absolute prohibitions on free speech were counterproductive, and they learned how to manage an intermediate solution.  Allowing partial speech rights is useful as a safety valve, it allows major dissidents to be identified and monitored, and absolute speech prohibitions tended to wreck the economy and discourage foreign investment, leading to unpopularity of the government. At the same time, an autocratic government could come down hard on the truly threatening ideas when needed.

Authoritarian states have begun collecting valid data about what the people want through reliable opinion polling. As Cowan notes, Mao got only indications of popular support from his terrified underlings, but today’s Communist Party really knows what the Chinese people think and can respond strategically.

Also in the modern autocrat’s toolkit are increasingly sophisticated surveillance strategies, state control of media that is actually popular (rather than drab and overtly propagandistic), and the use of digital technologies to corrupt the public sphere.

The graph is alarming, but the game isn’t over yet. Autocrats and democrats play an endless cat-and-mouse game. There was nothing inevitable about the triumph of nonviolent social resistance, but neither is it doomed today. Strategies that worked in 1995 are not likely to work in 2020, and we should always expect effective counter-strategies to develop. As Merriman said last night, this pattern underlines the importance of innovation, analysis, training, and networking.

See also Why Civil Resistance Workspeople trust authoritarian governments mostwhy the global turn to authoritarian ethnonationalism?what does it mean to say democracy is in retreat?watching democratic cultures decline; and was the Civil Rights Movement successful because of the Cold War?