This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell
Posted in: US Politics
Recent Republican actions have made it clear that too many in that party are unwilling to accept defeat and plan for the next fight. The Republican Party is like that annoying kid many of us knew growing up who would threaten to take his ball and bat home if he does not get to pitch and bat cleanup. For Republicans this is now a guiding principle of policy making not just the petulant and destructive behavior of a spoiled child.
Lhota's argument that New York does not need a Stalinist mayor is probably true, but not exactly pertinent, and amounts to little more than name calling. However, if one is going to play the guilt by association game, it is considerably more relevant to raise the question of whether New Yorkers who came to this city from other parts of the US or the world to escape religious persecution, homophobia, racism or fanaticism needs a mayor who represents a party which continues to reflect those values-not 25 years ago, but today. It is hard to miss the irony that Lhota's campaign is shaping up to be framed on the one hand by an attempt to tar de Blasio for positions he took, which were good and defendable ones, a quarter century ago, and on the other hand by running from the extremist reputation of his own party.
It is the nature of progressive change that it often seems natural and inevitable in retrospect. This sometimes makes it easy to forget how much hard work it took and how much uncertainty there was in the middle of the struggle. This week provided evidence of how far we are from progressive change in other areas. The horrible shootings in both Washington DC and Chicago are a reminder, although it is not clear why anybody would need one, that gun violence remains a serious problem in the US. Both of these shooting took a terrible human tool killing a total of 13 and wounding at least that many.
These tragedies have led, not to any discussion of gun regulations, as few in Washington think there can be any progress at this time in that area. Rather, they have led to a strange kind of meta-narrative in which the theme seems to be that nobody is talking about gun regulations after these shootings. This is, of course, a way of talking about gun regulations, albeit one that is not very confrontational, nor very hopeful.
In October of 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg successfully persuaded the City Council to change the law governing term limits so that he could run for a third term in 2009. The speaker of the City Council at that time, without whose support the change would not have been possible, was Christine Quinn. This law did not make national news and barely resonated beyond the political elite in New York as most New Yorkers who were thinking about politics in late October of 2008 were paying more attention to the prospect of the presidency of George W. Bush coming to an end, and the likelihood that an exciting Democratic Senator for Illinois would get elected president in early November.
If an app existed that could maximize the number and breadth of strong arguments against a policy decision as well as the potential damage that policy could cause while minimizing the possibility that the policy in question could accomplish anything, it would produce the administration's proposed strike against Syria.
Hillary Clinton has not yet announced whether or not she will be a candidate for president in 2016, and already there is a PAC aimed at thwarting her candidacy. The creatively named Stop Hillary PAC is committed to trying to destroy Clinton's aspirations by running negative ads and otherwise seeking to portray her in the worst possible light. Clinton remains the front-runner for her party's nomination, should she run, but it is possible that the right is making a mistake by attacking Clinton.
Even if Weiner and Abedin had no connection to Clinton, it would be hard to watch Abedin's support for her husband and not think of Hillary Clinton's support for President Bill Clinton during the various sex related scandals during and before the Clinton presidency. Hillary Clinton has a long record of accomplishment since she and her husband left the White House. Should she run for president, that is the record she will want to highlight. Anything that brings attention away from that record and back to the worst periods of the Clinton presidency is bad for Hillary Clinton. That is precisely what this scandal is doing now.
Weiner entered this race knowing there would be more revelations about his online conduct while simultaneously arguing that since he has reconciled with is wife, we the voters should forgive him too. The initial coverage of Weiner reflected this angle which, along with his name recognition, contributed to his impressive poll numbers. This was a mischaracterization of why Weiner's conduct is so troubling. This scandal was never primarily concerning Weiner's personal life and relationship with his wife. The real issues in the scandal are Weiner's serial dishonesty, unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions and extraordinary self-absorption. Again these are characteristics that are not exactly in short supply among politicians, but more extreme in the case of Weiner.
One of the most painful aspects of the George Zimmerman verdict is not that he was found not guilty, but that the verdict was so unsurprising. The message this verdict sent, that killing an unarmed African-American man for no particular or rational reason, is not a crime, is not new. On the contrary, it is a message that the criminal justice system has sent over and over again through the years, and only occasionally in the context of high-profile trials like that of George Zimmerman. Zimmerman's acquittal is a reminder that regardless of what our constitution or laws say, or of the ethnic background of the occupant of the White House, our criminal justice still does not treat all people as equal.
The plight of the Republican Party during the years Obama has been in office has been damaged because every time they begin to make some traction against the President, some nut metaphorically runs into the center of the political dialog yells "We hate women!" several times and runs out again, changing the subject and the political dynamic. This time the nut was Rick Perry, but it has been Todd Akin, Rush Limbaugh and others in recent years. Sweeping anti-abortion legislation, of the sort proposed by Perry, may help with the Republican base and in solid red states and districts, but it damages the Republican Party nationally and with swing voters.
This entire episode has been bad for the U.S. for several reasons, but one that has been largely overlooked it the extent to which it makes the U.S. look weak. Spying on citizens, tracking their phone calls and other communications is what one expects from vulnerable authoritarian regimes, not from governments claiming to be the leaders of the free world. Strong countries have a functioning modern state that can assure secrecy and do not seek to cut fiscal corners by contracting out key functions to private companies who often enjoy useful ties to current and former government officials. Again, this kind of incompetence and weak state is not what the most powerful country in the world should be projecting.
Interestingly, the public opinion data suggests that the NSA surveillance program is supported by a majority of the American people, although one that falls significantly short of a consensus. It is likely that one of the reasons for this is that opinion leaders have begun to close ranks in support of this program. The speed with which the foreign policy establishment, ranging from former vice-president Dick Cheney to noted New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman, have evinced support for the program and criticism, in some cases spilling over to an amateurish contempt, for Edward Snowden, the man who made this information public, is one of the most interesting sub-plots to emerge from the news about NSA surveillance.
President Obama has disappointed some progressives on issues including health care, banking and finance, and foreign policy. In these areas, however, there is room for debate, with some progressives believing Obama has abandoned his progressive principles too quickly, while others have argued that the president has had to act pragmatically; and that delivering something is better than producing nothing. Civil liberties, on the other hand, is one area where Obama has unambiguously failed his progressive supporters, and his country more generally.
Before Weiner won his seat in Congress he was also in the City Council, but during his time in that legislature he was more known for his ambition than for a progressive record or any real accomplishments. His time in Congress was defined more by his outspoken progressive views than for any particular legislative accomplishments. This, on its own, is not unusual. Many elected officials are ambitious, and there is a need for people who are strongly partisan in congress. However, they also do little to make Weiner the kind of person who is likely to be a good mayor. Since leaving the City Council, Weiner has not been involved in many local issues, other than taking the standard progressive positions. The one New York issue for which he is best known is his strong views against bike lanes. Cyclists are a contentious issue in New York, but Weiner's comment to the mayor, who for all his ample faults is a supporter of cyclists, that he wants to "tear out your f*cking bike lanes," does not seem to reflect a progressive approach to environmentalism or urbanism.
The IRS scandal that is still dogging the Obama administration may or may not do lasting damage to the president, however the impact of these events and decisions by part of the IRS will go beyond the political fortunes of a popular and surprisingly Teflon-seeming president. The IRS has never been the most beloved of government organizations. For most Americans, all they want from the IRS is to be left alone. Paying income tax is not great fun even for those who understand that a modern state needs to generate revenue from somewhere. Being investigated or audited by the IRS is, in the best case scenario, a minor inconvenience, but frequently can cost a great deal of money and time. In many cases, of course, the person being investigated has either made serious mistakes in their taxes or even violated the tax code, but the IRS also makes mistakes and creates real problems for people who have not done anything wrong.
The news this week about the Department of Justice looking at the phone logs of journalists covering the White House, and of the IRS scrutinizing the tax returns of various right-wing groups, is bad for the Obama administration. They are also much more likely to stick than the Benghazi story. The Justice Department and IRS stories make the administration look almost like a branch of the Obama campaign, putting their ample resources behind efforts to harass, or at least gather information, about the Obama administration. In a comparative sense, these are not as serious as Watergate, domestic surveillance during the Nixon administration, or Iran-Contra, but they have the potential to be solid b-level scandals, too small to bring down a president, but big enough to accelerate that second term president's lame duck status.
The language of tyranny, freedom, oppression and the like which one hears so much on the far right today demonstrates this. Participants in this open carry march are being prodded into action by calls to fight against creeping, or perhaps more immediate, threats of tyranny in the U.S. Fighting against tyranny in the U.S. is a good and noble cause, but significantly less so when, like today, there is no actual threat of tyranny coming to the U.S. By building disagreements over policy into a story of freedom versus tyranny, manipulators like Kokesh make their supporters feel more important, as if they are motivated by a noble cause not just political and economic frustration.
In the 1990s, Western supported and funded democracy assistance programs, including support for civil society and rule of law, technical assistance to political parties and legislatures, and election monitoring to ensure free, fair and democratic elections, played an important role in the expansion of democracy throughout much the former Communist block, Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Over recent decades these tools have been integrated into the foreign policy apparatus of the West, but a funny thing happened on the way to the agora: The environment changed and the programs did not. - See more at: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1421#sthash.3dkmdOrk.dpuf
Thus, one of the central challenges in fighting terrorism is vigilantly maintaining our open societies, public events and civic life in spite of real threats. Ironically, we will become more vulnerable if this vigilance were to weaken. The strength of the social fabric in Boston was demonstrated in the hours, days and minutes following the attack. That social fabric can only exist in a place where there is trust and a sense of citizenship. One of the most striking, if underreported, aspects of the response of ordinary Bostonians is that it occurred in a time where political polarization is as high as it has ever been. The response of the people of Boston, compared to the political grandstanding on all kinds of issues in the months preceding the attack, is further evidence that the people of the U.S. are, for the most part, ahead of their elected officials.
President Obama's time in the White House is now more than half over. Presidential aspirants from both major parties are beginning to think more seriously about the 2016 campaign. Soon speculation about what Obama will do after leaving the White House will commence. Given his temperament, intellect and background, academia might be a good fit for Obama when he is no longer president. It is not hard to imagine Obama holding a position, and occasionally teaching at a prominent law school. For young law students, taking a course from Obama would be an extraordinary opportunity. However, if he offers a course on negotiating, students might be wiser to take that particular course from another instructor.