DC Statehood is a Bad Idea

Before we moved to lovely Danville, Kentucky, Mrs. G. and I lived in the District of Columbia.  "Statehood for DC" was a constant political refrain of local politics.

The citizens of the District just voted overwhelmingly (79%) for a plan to separate out a small federal district for the main government offices and monuments, and turn the rest into a new state of New Columbia.

I like the idea of shrinking the District of Columbia down to a federal core - Capitol and Supreme Court, White House, the mall and its adjacent offices and, in my version, across the river to include the Pentagon.

I do not think, though, that the city of Washington surrounding this core is a state.  I do believe that they should have voting representation in the House of Representatives.  But not their own senators.

SO my proposal:  the federal District of Columbia shrink to the smaller diamond I outlined above.  The rest becomes Washington City, Maryland.

Protesting President Trump's Election is Misguided

I don't care for political street theater.  I am glad that in a free country people who like to do that sort of thing can.  But I think it is counterproductive, and usually self-indulgent.

Which is why I think the protests of President Trump's election are a bad idea.  Just as I thought the protests of President Obama's election eight years ago were a bad idea.

I understand that there are many people who are fearful, my own students included.  And some people have already been treated hatefully by Trump supporters, my own students included.  The right response is for the police to prosecute the assailants.

Donald Trump did, indeed, empower the white nationalists.  But protesting his election is to misdirect the anger at should actually be aimed at the actual wicked people on the ground.

Just wait.  There will be plenty of substantive things to protest later.

Voting to Get Our Old Jobs Back Will Not Repeal Global Capitalism

Two decades ago an economist gave a talk at Centre College in which he predicted that, due to automation and increased efficiencies in delivery, we could "optimistically" expect to eliminate 25 million jobs in the United States.

"You mean 'pessimistically,' don't you?" I asked.

No, he was thinking like an employer - or, really, as a shareholder - who was concerned about increasing profits by reducing costs.

I was thinking like a sociologist, looking at the effect on the entire population.

I think the margin in this election were the 25 million people who lost their jobs, or the possibility of those jobs.  Those jobs - low education mass employment - is gone forever, and not just to China.  Most have been eliminated altogether.

The governing class of both parties supports globalization of the economy, including automation.  Voting against "elites" in favor of a strongman who promises to bring back those jobs is a hope against hope.

The Republic Will Survive President Trump

My first presidential election was 1980, when Ronald Reagan unseated Jimmy Carter. Mrs. G. and I were students at a very liberal college, and we and all of our friends were devastated.

The 2000 election was, if anything, worse. President Bush the younger came into office by one vote, and that voter later concluded she had voted wrongly.

On this morning after election day, this one feels like an even harder kick in the gut. The campaign promises made by Donald Trump are far worse than anything his predecessors proposed. On the other hand, the worst are so un-American, un-Constitutional, or even physically impossible, that they will not actually happen. And, as he has made clear many times, he often says things he does not mean and will later deny having said.

Moreover, unlike Ronald Reagan, or George W. Bush, or even the Tea Party, there are no other Trumpian legislators. He will have to rely on regular Republican politicians to govern. This should have a moderating influence, though they will likely enact many things I disagree with.

Still, the Trump campaign has unleashed a white nationalist layer of Americans who normally do not vote or proclaim their positions in public. I do fear that they will feel emboldened to act on their sense of entitlement in dangerous ways.

Happily Voting for Hillary

I have known since election night, 2008, who I would be voting for tomorrow: Hillary Clinton.

I was, and remain, a strong supporter of Barack Obama.  I believe he has been a very good president, and has accomplished a great deal despite colossal obstruction.  I thought Hillary Clinton would make a good president in 2008, but Obama would make a better one.  I have not changed my mind.

Since then she has done all she could to prepare to succeed Obama.  As with the parade of policy wonks who head the lists of Democratic politicians these days, she does her homework.  She is better prepared on foreign policy than Obama was.  She has invaluable experience as a senator.  And she has the unprecedented preparation of having been First Lady.

Like her husband, the first President Clinton, she is a trimmer.  She has cut deals and cut corners.  Nonetheless, on the scale of presidential-level politicians, I would rate her failures about a 2 on a ten-point scale.  Of presidents in the past century, I think only Jimmy Carter and the current incumbent would rate higher on that scale.  That includes some very effective presidents.

And then there is the great historic moment of the first woman president.  Mrs. Gruntled and I will be wearing suffragette colors when we vote, in honor of this new epoch.  And I dearly hope, and expect, that she will win.

How to Change "Locker-room Talk": Harvard Cancels the Men's Soccer Season

The Harvard men's soccer team produced a "scouting report" of the sexual value of each member of the Harvard women's soccer team.  Again.

This time, Harvard responded by cancelling the rest of the men's soccer season (Harvard was leading in the Ivy League).

When Donald Trump was caught bragging about groping women and getting away with it, this was dismissed as "locker room talk."

Many athletes came forward to say that they never talk that way or hear others talk that way, even in the locker room.

But even if you allow that this kind of callous sexual objectification of real women has been common in locker rooms in the past, we can choose to change the norm.

Harvard is leading the way in showing that "locker-room talk" is wrong, has consequences, and is worth changing.

Democrats Can Come Clean About Their Liberal Religious Motivations

My colleague Ben Knoll and I were interviewed by Bill Goodman, of Kentucky Educational Television, for a podcast on religion and politics.

One development in this election that may shape the future of religion and politics: the explicit articulation of liberal Christian positions by the Democratic candidates.  Hillary Clinton has long said that her politics have been shaped by the Methodist Social Creed, which she learned from her youth group leaders as a teenager.  And Tim Kaine has exemplified Catholic Social Teaching, especially as propagated by Jesuits, all his life.  Both have made their faith, and their religious motivations, central to their story in this campaign.

The Christian ethic of "care for the harmed" has long driven liberal political action.  Usually, though, liberals who are religiously motivated don't say so publicly, for fear of "shoving their religion down other people's throats."  Which is, seemingly paradoxically, one of the defining religious beliefs of religious liberals.

I hope after this election that candidates in both parties will feel equally free to talk about their religious motives and religious conclusions in shaping their policies and commitments.

What "Keep [Here] Weird" Movements Are For

Starting something new.  Every Tuesday morning, 7:30 - 8:00, I am on WKYB in Danville talking with Archer.  On Tuesdays I will post here at the Gruntled Center on the same topic.

I visited Austin, Texas, last week, to explore the "Keep Austin Weird" movement.  This movement began as an appreciation to the public radio station for promoting distinctive local culture.  It was taken up by independent businesses. That movement has inspired other "Keep [place] Weird" movements in other cities, including Louisville, fostered by local independent business associations.

The "Keep it Weird" movements honor the deep human need to be attached to a place, not just a generic location in space.

"Keep [here] Weird" movements, and other "buy local" campaigns, are also part of a class struggle.  This is a struggle within the upper half of the economic structure between what I call the knowledge class and the corporate class.

The knowledge class defines itself by its mastery of distinctive cultural knowledge.  They find the McDonaldization of everything to be soul-sapping.  

The corporate class defines itself by control of material things.  They find brand names and chains to be reassuring.

"Keep [This Place] Weird" is an assertion by the knowledge class that our distinctive culture is what makes this place worth loving and meaningful out of all the spaces in the world.

South Korea Shows Women's Rarity Does Not Entail More Respectful Treatment

Some economists think that if women are rare, they will be treated with greater respect.

South Korea tests this hypothesis.  They have an unusual combination of a gross excess of men due to widespread sex-selection abortions twenty and thirty years ago and a very low fertility rate.  This should be the ideal circumstance for men, hoping to marry the rarer women and have children, treating them with greater respect.

Instead, South Korea has among the ugliest gender wars in the world.  The nascent feminist movement has generated an intense and open backlash among men.  This is especially true of unemployed men, as the South Korean economy has been slow to recover at the very time that women are significantly increasing their education and job-seeking.

South Korea - along with similarly situated Japan and Hong Kong - are the rare developed countries in which the female murder rate exceeds the male.  (For comparison, in the U.S. men are murdered more than three times as often as women.) This is because the South Korean domestic violence rate is very high.  Women are safe on the streets from strangers, but at much more risk from boyfriends and (ex-) husbands at home.

Democratic Doctors Deal With People, Republican Doctors Deal With Bodies

An interesting new Yale study measured the partisanship of doctors in different medical specialties.  Many specialities split close to evenly between Democrats and Republicans.  Overall, doctors who have a party are slightly more Democratic than Republican, 54% to 46%.

At the extremes, though, there are significant differences in partisan alignment by medical specialty.

The two most Republican specialties are Surgery, at 67%, and Anesthesiology, at 65%.  The two most Democratic specialties are Infectious Diseases, at 77%, and Psychiatry, at 76%.

The thing that stands out to me is that the doctors who most have to deal with conscious people who talk about lives quite different from the doctor's own are likely to be Democrats.  The doctors who deal with unconscious bodies whose lives they need to know the least about are likely to be Republicans.

Some have speculated that Republicans go into the highest paying specialties for the money.  I think, though, that is is more likely that Democrats are more likely to chose to deal with patients most harmed by the way they live and have been acted on.  Care for the Harmed is a core liberal value.

Can Dictators Be Leaders? Authoritarians Say Yes, Democrats Say No

One battle in the vice-presidential debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence was over Pence's claim that Vladimir Putin was a stronger leader than Barack Obama.

Kaine said a dictator could not be a "leader."  Pence said Putin had a bigger impact on world affairs than Obama, so therefore was the stronger leader.

Authoritarians fear that their world is threatened.  They see the options as black and white, want a muscular response, and reject contrasting information.  Political scientists have noted that, in past generations, the authoritarian fraction of the population was split between the two parties more evenly.  Since the Civil Rights Movement, however, the Republican Party has been courting them. Authoritarians are the core of the Trump base.

To authoritarians, the strong man is what it means to be a "leader."

To a (small d) democrat, by contrast, a leader is someone who can work a compromise among opposing interests to create a functioning consensus.  A good leader is one who can see the way forward that serves the varied groups in society, and who has the skill to work the compromise.

Trump and Pence praise dictators as strong leaders, regardless of which policies they impose.  Clinton and Kaine reject the idea that dictators can be leaders, because imposing policies is oppressive to parts of society, and undemocratic.

The Nobel Prize Shows Mrs. Thatcher's Continuing Gift to American Academia

When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of Great Britain, she drastically cut support for higher education, and reduced the security that academics there had in their jobs.

The result was a mass exodus of academic talent to the United States.

Today the Nobel Prize in Physics was announced.  It went to three British scientists.  And where did they do their prize winning work?  The University of Washington, Princeton University, and Brown University.

Thank you, Mrs. Thatcher.

The Just Grievances of Trump Supporters

The Democratic Party aims to "care for the harmed", especially those harmed by the government itself. Trump appeals to those who believe that they have been harmed by the government because the government helps those who have been harmed by previous government policies. The Trump people - working class white men, in particular - believe they were in line for the American Dream, and that Democratic "care for the harmed" policies amount to letting other people - women, people of color, gays and lesbians, the handicapped, immigrants - jump the line ahead of them for no good reason. The Trump people are right that they are losing a benefit (a privilege) they used to have. But on this point I think the Democratic Party policy is fundamentally right.

The best Democrats can do to address this real grievance is the plan to reduce the cost of college, especially community college, for the ambitious part of the white working class. I would trumpet that policy right at the Trump supporters.

The harder issue to address is about the effects of globalization. The leaders of both parties are internationalists, for good reason. The world is safer with a free-trade regimen, our national economy benefits, all consumers benefit, and many workers benefit. But not all. Here the Trump supporters have a real grievance, which cannot be easily addressed by either party. Low-skilled manufacturing jobs are not going to come back in sufficient number to re-employ them at family-supporting wages. They refuse to take farmworker jobs, which can fill that gap for people willing to do very hard work (as the immigrants show).

Sovereign Immunity Protects the United States the Most

Congress passed a law to allow U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments - specifically, Saudia Arabia, for their possible role in the 9/11 attacks.

President Obama vetoed that bill, on the grounds that the doctrine of "sovereign immunity" - foreign governments are immune from suit in our courts for their government actions - protects us.  If we allow U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments for their acts, that opens the door for foreign citizens to sue the U.S. government.

The United States invades, bombs, and intervenes in more countries than any other - probably more, these days, than all others combined.

Congress overrode President Obama's veto - the first time they have done so.  And immediately the Republican leadership regretted what they had done.

The President is right.  Our self-interest, rightly understood, should lead us to preserve sovereign immunity.

The Irony of Suburban "Covenants, Codes, and Restrictions" Is That Private Government Is More Intrusive Than Real Government

Many suburban subdivisions are minutely regulated by Covenants, Codes, and Restrictions.  These can cover just about anything that is visible from outside your house.  Legally, it is like living in a shopping mall.

Suburban homeowners give up a great deal of their freedom in the interests of keeping up the property values of the whole neighborhood. The task, and bane, of Homeowners Associations is enforcing these rules.

The irony is that these same suburbs are also more likely to be home to the kind of conservatives who resent government regulation of their lives and property.

There is no logical contradiction here - choosing to enter into a private contract to give up your liberty is different from being subject to regulation whether you personally chose it or not.  But in practice the homeowners association restricts many "small government" conservatives much more than the government does.

And the people who live in the super-liberal bohemian neighborhoods in the city have, in practice, much more freedom about what they do with their property.

A Revealing Dialogue About What Trump Supporters Think is Not Great About America

A friend posted a Statista poll on Facebook. The lead finding was in response to this question: "Compared to 50 years ago, life in America today is ...".  Clinton supporters said "better" by a margin of 59 - 19%; Trump supporters said "worse" by a margin of 81 to 11%.

In the comment thread, I asked "What is it that Trump supporters think is worse today?" My friend, humorously, responded "Apparently everything and it is all Obama's fault?" 

The dialogue that interests me today is what happened next.  A guy I don't know, who uses the "Don't Tread on Me" flag as his profile picture, entered the discussion.  I will call him "Tread".  I have edited the discussion that followed for concision, but not changed Tread's responses.

Tread: it actually isn't ALL Obama's fault. He had help. LOTS of help

Me: To do what, exactly?

Tread: nothing good

Me: But, specifically, what is worse now than in the early '60s? By nearly every measure of social development, with a couple of exceptions, things are much better now, especially for black people, women, handicapped people, gay and lesbian people, immigrants, youth, and educated people. The core Trump constituency - less educated white men - seems to think that making America better for all of those people (the majority of Americans) somehow has made America as a whole worse. Is that what you think?

Tread: and you are blue and I am not. there's no use arguing with you or trying to proove ANY point that is contrary to your view. So now, I stop. ... I do not want to go down the rabbit hole "to do what" 

Buck [another friend who uses "Buck the NRA" as a profile picture]:  I will venture a few guesses for you on what Trump supporters believe was better before:
1) Jobs for those who are uneducated paid a living wage ... 2) Women were more likely to stay home with kids ... 3) Being white was not a liability in any sense. ... 4) More children were born within wedlock and more of those who weren't were put up for adoption into heterosexual married homes.

Tread:  "Family Values" was a thing & so was being raised. Respect for others....and things. Traditions. [Note: the ellipses were in the original.]

Buck: I consider "political correctness" respect for others. That was most definitely NOT a thing in the 1950s.  I consider family values, valuing all families of all shapes sizes, religions, and make-ups. Not judging children on the perceived sins of their parents- in fact not judging others sinners at all.

Tread: "political correctness"... in my opinion, the single largest detriment to the continued existance to this country. It allows an encroachment of values which are opposite to the good order and continued existance of this country. That encroachment will not cease until this country mirrors certain other less desirable locales.

Buck: When I hear you complain about "encroachment", I hear equality. You are unhappy with being required to treat people you look down your nose at as if they are worthy of equal respect.

Tread: if "equal respect" means changing the values this country has held since long before you and I were born, then yes. I live in Christian country. We can coexist peacefully together, untill you try to change the values of this country from that of a Christian view to that of a value set that is directly contrary to the Christian founding principles, then yes, absolutely I find fault in it.

America's Mottoes Unite Liberal and Conservative Views of Hierarchy

I previously wrote about the finding that conservatives tend to see difference as hierarchical (better or worse), whereas liberals tend to see difference as equally valuable diversity.

I think the original motto of the United States starts from this more liberal view, then tends toward the  center.  E Pluribus Unum - Out of Many, One - starts from the great positive value of diversity.  It heads toward unity, true.  But it is not a unity of an imagined purity of the nation, but rather the hybrid vigor that comes from joining different, but equally valuable, components.

The new motto of the United States, by contrast, draws from a more hierarchical view.  In God We Trust names the most important thing.  It does not even name the alternatives.  They are not worth exploring.

The actual United States believes both.  At the human level, we are diverse and equally valuable in our origins.  At the transcendent level, we trust the one who really is hierarchically better - and Other - than the rest.

This unity, I believe, is a good centrist point.

Math is Not Racist, But Big Data Cannot Predict Individuals

Under the provocative title "Math is Racist," CNN Money reports on the work of mathematician Cathy O'Neil.  She is distressed with the way mathematical models about groups are then used to hurt individuals.  For example, the fact that the relatives of prisoners are themselves more likely to commit crimes can be used in sentencing a specific relative of a prisoner.

O'Neil is right that this is wrong, and is an injustice spurred by the increasing availability of Big Data.

The problem is one we face in sociology all the time.  I have for years made my students repeat Rule #1 of Sociology (according to me):  We make generalizations about groups, which do not necessarily apply to each individual in the group.  So, for example, it is true that the relatives of prisoners are more likely to commit crimes.  Finding that fact has been a great and important achievement of sociology.  But it would be wrong to conclude that this particular relative of a prisoner is, therefore, more likely to commit crimes.  Sociology cannot provide that fine-grained a solution.

Or, to use the simplified rule that I now teach students, sociologists are the people who understand the difference between most and all.

Is "Alt Right" the Same as "Fascist"?

I am using the term fascist advisedly, not as a general term of political abuse.

Wikipedia says alt right is "associated with white nationalism,^[1][2][7] white supremacism,^[3][8][9] antisemitism,^[1][2][10] right-wing populism,^[7] nativism,^[11] and the neoreactionary movement.^[8][12]"

Is that not the summary of fascism?

I do not think Donald Trump is a fascist, because I do not think he has many specific ideological convictions.  But he certainly has mobilized and encouraged white nationalist nativists in a way they have not had a public voice since the George Wallace campaign.

Republicans See Difference As Hierarchical

Republicans see the world as Hierarchical - that difference entails ranking into better and worse.  Democrats, by contrast, are more likely to see difference as just -- difference.

This is the finding of Jer Clifton, a doctoral student in positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

This is very helpful in addressing a puzzle in my own research on why people choose the neighborhoods that they do.  People who live in the dense, walkable, mixed-use streetcar suburbs close to the city love to talk about why they chose to live there, and are curious about why others choose otherwise.  They value the vibrant diversity of their neighborhoods.

Following Clifton's finding, it is not surprising that such places tend to be strongly Democratic.  But I have found that even the Republicans in the streetcar suburbs like to talk about and think about why they live there. They are usually conservative on one or two issues - pro-life Catholics predominating in the place I study - but otherwise they are like their neighbors in appreciating difference.

Likewise, Democrats in the spread-out, car-based, residential-only, one-class outer suburbs are an easy interview to get and conduct.

The bottleneck has been in getting Republicans in the car suburbs to even agree to an interview.  When they do agree, these interviews tend to be a little more tense than the others.  The clue that Clifton's finding gives is helpful:  suburban Republicans regard the question "why do you choose to Iive where you do, while others choose to live in a different kind of place?" as implicitly a question of whether their place, and their choice, is better or worse than the choices that other people make.