Tag Archives: Democracy

Vote As If You Are On a Mission from God

Posted on by

Most people thought Hillary Clinton was going to win last year. Most people thought the Orange Menace was unqualified to be President. Since they wanted to hold the next president to a high standard, media people gave inordinate attention to Clinton’s email server management, the Goldman Sachs speeches and the Clinton Foundation. FBI Director James Comey probably assumed Clinton would win so maybe he figured it would be okay to give the Republican a boost. I’m convinced lots of people voted for her main opponent or didn’t vote at all because they were sure he would never be president.

Imagine, however, that everyone registered to vote in the United States received a very special message before the election:

Hello, [your name here], this is the Voice of God. I have decided that your individual vote will determine who will be the next president. Forget the polls. Forget the other voters. Forget whether you live in a swing state. Forget the Electoral College. You and you alone will choose the next president. You are the only person receiving this message. You must think very carefully and then go vote. You must choose one of the candidates and whoever you choose will win the election. I will make it happen. It is a sure thing. Keep in mind that your decision will affect people throughout the world, so choose wisely. I am counting on you, [your name here], to choose the best person for the job. Perhaps I should add that you do not want to disappoint Us. Thank you and have a nice day.

And everyone who got the message believed they heard the Voice of God, thought about their decision (and a few other things) very seriously and then cast their vote.

Who would have won the election? Would Clinton have received the additional 78,000 votes out of the 14 million cast in three states she needed to win the Electoral College?

I believe she would have, although that may be wishful thinking. The point I’m trying to make is that we should all take voting very seriously. It makes a big difference who is elected, especially since the Republican Party has moved further and further to the right.

One problem, of course, is that the Republicans have successfully manipulated our electoral system in ways that stop or discourage people from voting (voter suppression) or dilute the impact of their votes (gerrymandering). But the other big problem is that too many people simply don’t bother to vote. Unfortunately, the mystery isn’t why they don’t bother. The mystery is why anyone does.

That’s because, given the size of our electorate and the arcane rules we follow, nobody should think their individual vote will matter. In anything but the smallest local elections, the chances of one person’s vote making a difference are infinitesimal. Understanding that, most voters see voting as consequence-free. That partly explains why so few of us bother. It also partly explains who won in November. Why not vote for a third-party candidate who has no chance of winning if it won’t make any difference who you vote for?

Philosophers and social scientists call this problem the “paradox of voting” (or the “Downs paradox” in honor of an economist who studied it):

The paradox of voting … is that for a rational, self-interested voter, the costs of voting will normally exceed the expected benefits. Because the chance of exercising the pivotal vote (i.e., in an otherwise tied election) is minuscule, … the expected benefits of voting are less than the costs.

The issue was noted by Nicolas de Condorcet in 1793 when he stated, “In single-stage elections, where there are a great many voters, each voter’s influence is very small. It is therefore possible that the citizens will not be sufficiently interested [to vote]” and “… we know that this interest [which voters have in an election] must decrease with each individual’s [i.e. voter’s] influence on the election and as the number of voters increases.” In 1821, Hegel made a similar observation: “As for popular suffrage, it may be further remarked that especially in large states it leads inevitably to electoral indifference, since the casting of a single vote is of no significance where there is a multitude of electors.”  [Wikipedia]

There are ways to get people to vote even though their individual votes won’t matter. You can make voting mandatory (like in Australia). You can try to make voting fun (how about a free doughnut or one of those “I VOTED” stickers?). Or you could pay people to vote. 

That last option might be considered bribery, but it has been considered as government policy. The city of Los Angeles and the state of Arizona have both looked at turning elections into lotteries. One lucky voter would win a million dollars! I don’t know if anyone has thought about simply giving cash to each voter, but that would work too.

One problem with these approaches, however, is that it would encourage voting by “low information” voters, people who don’t know much about the issues or the candidates. They would only bother to vote because they were afraid of being punished or interested in a possible reward. That could be a problem, but it would be a problem worth having, since getting everyone to vote would have the biggest effect on young people and poor people. Those are the two groups least likely to vote today. Getting more of them to vote would have a big effect and a positive one.

Of course, we could simply appeal to everyone’s sense of civic duty. As citizens of a representative democracy, we are supposed to learn about the candidates and issues and then make a responsible choice. That’s how I think of voting. It’s a ritual I perform because I live in a democracy. In other words, I know my vote won’t have an effect but I do it anyway, because it feels like it’s the right thing to do. It makes me feel good to cast a ballot.

It’s clear that I don’t know how to solve this problem. I don’t know how to make our democracy more representative by getting more people to vote. I suppose it’s (very remotely) possible that God will trick everyone into voting next time by sending each of us a personal message like the one above. What I do know is that our upcoming elections are extremely important, given the lopsided amount of power the Republicans now have. Maybe the best thing to do, therefore, is to encourage everyone you know, especially the sane ones, to register and vote every chance they get. Sure, as individuals, it will be a waste of time. But as a group it will be one of the best things we can do. Let’s all pay attention and vote, and encourage others to do the same, as if we’re all on a mission from God. Need I add that it’s a mission to elect more Democrats?

For further encouragement, here’s yesterday’s column by Colbert King in The Washington Post. His conclusion:

The midterm 2018 elections can be Judgment Day for Trump. And dress rehearsal for 2020. Fume and fuss, talk back to the television, kick the can, call Trump names, vent to your heart’s content. All that changes nothing. Also probably ruins your health. What can make a difference? The ballot. Vote, vote, vote.

A Smart, Informed Journalist Interviews Hillary Clinton

Posted on by

Ezra Klein, the editor-in-chief of Vox, interviewed Hillary Clinton for 51 minutes this week. I thought she avoided answering one question. It was something like, how would you rate American voters in general? Aside from that, I was tremendously impressed. It is a tragedy that she lost.

A few topics discussed:

16:00  How the media handled the presidential campaign

17:45  Healthcare, including the important distinction between universal care, which should be our goal, and single-payer, which is only one way, and probably not the best way, to get universal care

26:30  American politics today

36:00  The 2016 election

42:00  How women voted

44:50   The effect of the Comey letter plus the Electoral College, voter suppression and dangers ahead.

 

If You’re a Russian Twitter Bot, What’s On Your Mind?

Posted on by

In 1972, the German government founded the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), a foundation and think tank in Washington. It was a gift to the American people in recognition of how the Marshall Plan helped rebuild Germany after World War 2.

The GMF has now created Hamilton 68, a site that allows “tracking Russian influence operations on Twitter”. (The name refers to Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers No. 68, in which he discussed foreign meddling in our elections.) If you visit the new Disinformation Dashboard, you can see what stories and topics Russia is pushing today. From today’s “Top Themes”:

The networks we track are engaged in disinformation. They amplify legitimate reporting when the content suits them, and they promote alternative media outlets that seemingly specialize in the production of disinformation, whether or not the outlets are controlled by the Kremlin. These outlets assemble stories from found objects – bits of information that may have some basis in reality. The final product will leap to conclusions the components of the story do not necessarily support, but which promote a distorted view of events to the Kremlin’s benefit. This past week we have seen Kremlin-oriented Twitter promoting content regarding non-lethal U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. Reality: the U.S. Navy is helping construct a naval operations center at Ochakiv. The promoted stories at Stalker Zone and Strategic Culture turn that into: “The Entire Black Sea Coast of Ukraine Will Become a U.S. Military Base” and “U.S. Military to be Permanently Stationed on [Ukraine] Soil” respectively. Such stories are produced continuously. Their effectiveness is based on cumulative impact.

Side note: A coherent response to events on the weekend in Charlottesville has not yet emerged (as of August 16), though we continue to watch for one.

They’re currently monitoring 600 Twitter users, “properly understood as a network of accounts linked to and participating in Russian influence campaigns”, officially or unofficially, knowingly or unknowingly. These include:

  • Accounts likely controlled by Russian government influence operations.
  • Accounts for “patriotic” pro-Russia users that are loosely connected or unconnected to the Russian government, but which amplify themes promoted by Russian government media.
  • Accounts for users who have been influenced by the first two groups and who are extremely active in amplifying Russian media themes. These users may or may not understand themselves to be part of a pro-Russian social network. 

Today’s top Russian tweet, according to the Disinformation Dashboard, happens to be from the government-run RT network (formerly Russia Today):

Twitter user avatar @RT_com
August 20, 5:22 PM
Petition urges Trump to recognize Antifa as terrorists, reaches 55,000 signatures in 2 days https://t.co/toDhxusjll https://t.co/SV3TfIxVUD
Retweeted 566 times

The top Russia hashtags for the past 48 hours have been “antifa” (anti-fascist), “maga” (Make America Great…), “boston”, “syria”, “isis” and “altleft”. 

By the way, according to something called TwitterAudit.com, roughly 40% of DT’s 36 million followers are automated (i.e. fake).

Shining light on Russia’s propaganda efforts is a good thing, but I’d feel better if the president* and his minions were doing something to protect our upcoming elections. They’re not, because Russia is on their side.

Dashboard

Note: Whoever designed this graphic for GMF showing Putin releasing all those Twitter birds might as well have left the birds blue. Russia isn’t a Communist country anymore. It’s a right-wing kleptocracy, which is why the president* and other right-wing fanatics are so pro-Russia now. Putin leads the kind of government they aspire to.

This Chart Shows Who’s Winning at Capitalism

Posted on by

Capitalism involves competition. Competition involves winning. This chart shows who’s winning. Unless we change the rules, it shows who’s already won.

6a00d8341c4eab53ef01bb09b7368b970d-800wi

The gray line represents inflation-adjusted income growth in the U.S. between 1946 and 1980. The gray line is higher on the left side of the chart than on the right, because, in those years, annual income growth for low-income people (the people on the left of the chart) was higher than income growth for high-income people (the ones on the right). That meant people who made less money were gaining (however slowly) on people who made more.

As you can see, the red line goes in the other direction. It shows income growth between 1980 and 2014. The red line is higher, in fact way higher, on the right than on the left because income growth for high-income people (the ones on the right) was much higher than for low-income people (the ones on the left).

In other words, since 1980, people who made more money pulled away from people who made less. The fact that the red line goes straight up at the end shows that the people who made the most money (not just the 1% but the 0.1%, 0.01% and 0.001%) pulled away even faster. Thus, since 1980 (when Ronald Reagan was elected), the better off you were, the better off you’ve done. And the worse off you were, the worse off you’ve done.

The chart is from a column by David Leonhardt of The New York Times. He goes into some of the nuances and suggests ways to fix this growing inequality:

Different policies could produce a different outcome. My list would start with a tax code that does less to favor the affluent, a better-functioning education system, more bargaining power for workers and less tolerance for corporate consolidation.

He also notes that the president* and his Republican co-conspirators are trying to make the situation even worse. They want the opposite of what’s needed: even lower taxes for the rich, less money for public education, weaker unions and less competition for big corporations.

So the chart shows who’s been winning. What it doesn’t show is that the game may already be over. Increased wealth translates into increased political power. But the more power you have, the easier it is to change the rules so that you can accumulate even more wealth (viz. the Citizens United decision). From the point of view of the upper 0.001%, it’s a virtuous circle. For the rest of us, it’s vicious.

Unless we fight back – which means being more politically active, as in voting every chance we get – it will become even vicious-er. 

A National Moratorium to End This Presidency

Posted on by

Will Bunch writes a column for Philly.com, the website for what’s left of Philadelphia’s daily newspapers. This week he called for a Moratorium to End the Trump Presidency:

“Do you remember your first political protest? I remember mine, even if it comes with a big asterisk. It happened on Oct. 15, 1969, and it was called the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. The asterisk is that I really didn’t do much — not even march in the streets or carry a peace flag. All I did, actually, was ride in the backseat of our family’s Ford Country Squire station wagon with our headlights on during broad daylight — a sign that you were against the war. For those who cruised America’s highways that Wednesday, the sight of so many other headlights was a close encounter of the first kind, meaning you were not alone … in wanting the troops to come home from Southeast Asia.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the 1969 moratorium — especially since about noon or so on  Friday, Jan. 20, 2017. Of course, it was just the next day that America saw the Women’s March, a 4-million-participant warning shot across the bow of the Trump presidency, and that has been followed by other protests, including targeted efforts that have played a role in so far blocking any efforts to repeal Obamacare. And yet the broader protest fervor seems to have waned even as the threat that Trump and his team pose to America’s democratic norms has grown in recent weeks. Is there a lesson for today’s Trump Resistance in a wildly successful protest that took place nearly 48 years ago?

I think so. The strategy of the Vietnam moratorium … was brilliant. Some activists thought the next step in antiwar protest should be a general strike, but [others] had a better idea. Plan the kind of inclusive event where every American who opposed the war — not just crazy campus radicals with their Viet Cong flags, but churchgoing suburbanites and baseball moms and your next-door neighbor — could find some way, big or small, to take part.

Hold up a candle at a vigil. Attend a rally or a “teach-in” at your town square or in your church. Call in sick from work or stay out of school to march in a protest. Or, failing that, at least take two seconds to flip on your headlights. Anything that would prove that opposition to the Vietnam War was not only nonviolent, but moral and middle-class. And, most important, mainstream. The first round of coast-to-coast protests that October drummed up support for a mass march on Washington exactly one month later that drew an eye-popping 500,000 people….

It’s easy to dismiss the moratorium because — as history showed us — the Vietnam War didn’t end right away in 1969. The final U.S. combat troops didn’t come home until the winter of early 1973. But in other ways, the protest effort was a stunning success. October 1969 marked the first time the Gallup Poll showed a majority of Americans believed the war was a mistake. President Richard M. Nixon felt that heat inside the White House, where that fall, he addressed the public to insist that a so-called silent majority supported his policies. But Nixon also speeded up the pace of troop withdrawals, and Congress eventually moved to pass the War Powers Act, seeking to restrict presidents’ ability to launch another Vietnam. It didn’t last, but U.S. foreign policy was arguably more restrained and wiser over the next decade or two — all because everyday citizens had taken action.

What happened in 1969 is more proof that citizen action — or inaction — is the tipping point between democracy and authoritarianism. The largest wrench in the would-be despot’s toolbox is apathy — a dazed and confused populace that sits on its hands when a self-proclaimed strongman moves to restrict the freedom of the press or curb the power of the judiciary or independent prosecutors or strip people of voting rights. The flip side is that it’s remarkable what a truly engaged citizenry can accomplish.

In South Korea, during the same weeks that Trump was transitioning into the presidency, as many as 1.7 million people at a time flooded the streets of downtown Seoul to protest corruption by their country’s then-president, Park Geun-hye, in demonstrations the Washington Post described as a “democratic, peaceful and even joyous assembly, demanding the president’s ouster.” And ousted Park was. In Poland, democracy seemed to be hanging by a thread last month as the ruling party sat poised to crush that nation’s independent judiciary — until the masses took to the streets of Warsaw.

The bottom line is that government does respond to the people, but only when the people respond to the government. When Trump fires the FBI director who’s probing his campaign or calls the free press “the enemy of the American people,” right now he doesn’t see 1.7 million people outside his bedroom window. He sees only the prattling heads on Fox & Friends — and so it’s only going to get worse, especially with the new report that special prosecutor Robert Mueller is bringing evidence before a grand jury. Now is the time for America to show its inner Seoul.

A long time ago, I chose a keyboard over marching boots. But today, I’m using my keyboard and my platform as an opinion writer to offer this opinion: What America needs right now is a Moratorium to End the Trump Presidency — a mass event that will show the world a not-so-silent majority of Americans does not support an uncouth and irrational wannabe despot in the Oval Office. It’s great that 61 percent of the public can tell a pollster they disapprove of Trump’s presidency. But now we need 61 percent of Americans to tell that to their neighbors, to their local communities, and to the world, in a public display of disaffection.

When? Why not Oct. 15, 2017, the 48th anniversary of the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, when the weather is good and the kids on campus have settled in for the fall semester? What? Whatever it takes to show people that decent Americans want this nightmare to end…. Why? Because it’s going to take more than 140 characters or your most impassioned Facebook rant to change America for good. Then, a month later — say Nov. 18, 2017, a Saturday — converge 1.7 million, give or take a few, of those people in front of Trump’s White House fence. And watch to see who will be the first Republican congressman from a swing district to endorse impeachment.

You know, moratorium, at first blush, seems like an odd thing to call a protest. But the definition of moratorium is “a temporary prohibition” of a regular activity. For the last 28 weeks, America has endured a president who is, in the words of the Twitter hashtag,  #NotNormal. Maybe mixing up our routines for a couple of days this fall is the best way to get our nation back to, you know … normal.

End quote.