How to Rig an Election

There has been a great deal of talk about rigging elections this year.  The Democratic Party has criticized Republican attempts to institute voter ID laws, Bernie Sanders’s supporters have claimed that the Democratic National Committee tipped the scales in favor of Hilary Clinton during the Democratic primaries, and now Donald Trump is warning us that his election will be stolen by voter fraud.  Among these accusations and others, some have more merit than others, but all of them overlooked the real way in which this election -- and all our elections -- have been rigged.  

A Brief History

The simplest and certainly the most effective way to rig an election is through the private funding of campaigns.  Elections in the U.S. always have been funded primarily privately, mostly by rich people associated with businesses, but the modern period of campaign finance began in the last years of the 19th century with the activities of Mark Hanna, a key campaign adviser to William McKinley.  Hanna was especially skilled at eliciting campaign contributions from bank executives.  He expected them to contribute money in proportion to their bank’s share of the nation’s prosperity.  Hanna is reported to have once said, “There are only two important things in politics.  The first is money, and I can’t remember the second.”  With the election of 1896, the excesses of the “Gilded Age” had come to affect politics as never before.  This produced a reaction that brought about a number of important electoral reforms, including a 1907 law prohibiting corporate contributions to federal political campaigns.  Still, this did not end the influence of big money in politics.  Business owners and other wealthy individuals remained able to make large personal contributions as well as illegal contributions, due the absence of a dedicated regulatory agency.  They did so for several decades, but again, a reaction resulted in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 which capped campaign spending on media buys and required the disclosure of campaign contributions.  The Watergate scandal is often seen as a scandal about a burglary, but at its heart, it was a campaign finance scandal.  Millions of dollars in secret cash were delivered to the Committee to Re-elect the President in suitcases and satchels in order to avoid the disclosure requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act. 

In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed the 1974 amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act.  This placed limits on campaign contributions and spending.  It also established, for the first time, a dedicated regulatory body:  the Federal Election Commission; however, in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court struck down spending limits for both candidate political committees and independent political committees.  This opened the way for individuals to influence elections through contributions to numerous political action committees (PACs), federal, state, and local party committees, and “leadership PACs” established by prominent politicians.  Many of these committees were exempt from disclosing their donors.  Consequently, Buckley v. Valeo undid the most significant elements of campaign finance reform and established the legal precedent that any amount of spending was protected by the 1st Amendment.  This was defended (and criticized) with the slogan “money is speech.”

As before, the excesses of money in politics led to new calls for reform, resulting in the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), sponsored by Senators McCain and Feingold and Congressmen Shays and Meehan.  Importantly, the BCRA (1) made party political committees and independent PACs subject to federal constraints and it (2) prohibited the airing of “issue advocacy ads” within 60 days of an election, if the ad mentioned a candidate by name.  It also (3) prohibited all issue advocacy ads that were paid for by corporations, unions, and non-profit advocacy groups.  It should be no surprise, though, that moneyed interests again were able to skirt the restrictions.  They did so by using political organizations defined under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code.  These “527s” were not covered by the BCRA.  Worse yet, all three important restrictions established by the BCRA soon were struck down by the Supreme Court.  F.E.C v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007) permitted party and independent PACs again to raise and spend money without federal restrictions.  Citizens United v. F.E.C. (2010) permitted non-profit corporations to produce issue advocacy ads mentioning candidate names and air them at any time.  Since then, both rulings have been reaffirmed and broadened by the courts.  Citizens United has been broadened to permit the unlimited funding of PACs by corporations and unions.  Consequently, we now live in the most unregulated, private campaign funding environment since before 1907.

Two Ways to Rig an Election

A private campaign finance system may not be a sure mechanism for directly electing specific individuals, but it certainly loads the dice in favor of certain kinds of candidates.  First and most obviously, campaigns which are well-funded have the ability to conduct larger and better developed political communication campaigns. They can open offices and hire professional staff members who can then – with greater resources – conduct polls and focus groups, analyze the electorate, design effective messages, purchase advertising that will help shape the issues upon which the election will be decided, and mount an effective get-out-the-vote campaign. These advantages mean that a candidate that meets the approval of and therefore receives the financial support of donors will have a greater chance of winning office than candidates who do not receive the largess of donors.  It is important to recognize that this advantage does not depend on bribery or selling one’s legislative power to donors.  The system simply benefits those candidates with whom donors agree.

This leads us to the second way in which our private system of campaign financing rigs (or loads the dice) of our elections.  It is true that a relatively large campaign treasury will not guarantee the election of the candidate, but according to research done by the U.S. Public Research Interest Group examining the 2000 congressional elections, better funded campaigns won general elections 94% of the time and the results for primary elections were similar (90%).  If we understand elections as periodic, society-wide events that install thousands of federal and state officials, the effect of our private campaign finance system becomes clear.  If well-financed candidates have a much better chance of winning an election, officials who get elected will tend to reflect the preferences of campaign financiers; not simply because candidates seek to curry favor among the donor class, but because the campaign financiers will only donate to candidates who are in line with their preferences.  This will lead to legislatures and executive officers that will enact public policies that serve the interests the donor class and not necessarily the entire body politic, since the interests of these two groups are not always aligned.

Let’s look at some of the data about this.  First of all, people making contributions to political campaigns are comparatively well-off.  According research by Douglas Phelps, 90% of donations in the 2002 congressional primaries came in amounts at or above $500 – donations much larger than what the average citizen makes.  These donations were made by just 0.1% of the voting age population.  So very few of us make campaign donations and those of us who do usually make rather large donations.  Phelps goes on to report that a survey conducted just five years earlier revealed that nearly 80% of those who donated $200 or more in the 1996 congressional elections earned more than $100,000 per year.  That is, four out of five campaign financiers were in the top 14% of the country’s income earners and the vast majority of those who gave larger sums and donated to numerous candidates earned more than $250,000 per year.  That is, people who were the most influential donors were in the top 1.5% of earners.  It should come as no surprise that in the decades since these studies were done, F.E.C v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., Citizens United v. F.E.C.,  and other court rulings have only made this problem worse. 

This amounts to rigging not just individual elections, but to loading the dice for all elections in a way that serves the interests of the donor class.  It occurs not because of the conscious actions of a small conspiracy stuffing ballot boxes or suppressing the vote, but as the natural and inconspicuous consequence of the election laws that have been put in place by successful politicians.  The result is that public policies passed into law conform to the preferences of the economic elite and only incidentally reflect the preferences of the general population.  This was demonstrated recently in research done by Martin Gilens, Professor of Politics at Princeton University and Benjamin Page, Professor of Decision Making at Northwestern University in their article “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.”  Gilens and his graduate students examined survey data indicating the preferences of American citizens regarding 1,779 policy issues. They recorded the political preferences of citizens with median incomes (typical incomes) and the preferences of citizens at the 90th percentile of incomes (wealthy incomes).  They then compared these two sets of preferences to actual policy changes that occurred within four years of when the surveys were done.  They discovered that policy changes strongly correlated with the preferences of the wealthy citizens, but correlated with typical citizens’ preferences only when they happened to be the same as the preferences of the wealthy.  Giles and Page wrote, “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”  Let that sink in.  "Mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence" over public policy.

The influence of wealth in our political system is greatest at the highest levels of government, but it exists at the state and local level as well.  Normally, if  candidate at lower levels of government conforms to the interests of the wealthy, they become potential candidates for office at higher levels.  Their track record at lower levels is what makes them able to attract large donations early in higher level campaigns, thereby driving out less well-funded competitors and then raising yet more money later on.  This early pursuit of campaign donations was put in the spotlight by the PAC, EMILY’s List, which is an acronym for “early money is like yeast.”  This is why the first phase of federal and state-wide campaigns involves prospective candidates making the rounds of known big donors to try to excite interest.  Failing to get support from big money donors early on means the candidate’s chances for election will be slight and he or she will not be taken seriously by the media.  The effort to procure this early money has been dubbed “the wealth primary.”  Very few candidates ultimately succeed who do poorly in the wealth primary. 

What we must keep in mind here is that the private campaign finance system allows people who can afford to make large contributions much greater political influence, not just over what our officials do, but over who our officials are.  A single donor who can give $100,000 dollars in an election cycle has the same influence in the wealth primary as one thousand donors who can give only $100 dollars, and of course there are billionaires and multimillionaires who donate much more  than  $100,000 dollars in an election cycle.  The political influence of Tom Steyer and his wife Kathyrn Taylor would be equal to the influence of a city of 672,862 people or roughly Detroit, Michigan, and the influence of Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam would be equal to the influence of a city of 473,572 people or roughly Kansas City, Missouri, if each of their residents including infants and children contributed $100 dollars. Thus, we are left with a system that does not ensure effective, equal political participation on the basis of one person, one vote.  Instead, we have a system that affords political influence based on how rich a person is.  This is the very definition of plutocracy.

In summary, it seems clear that the wealthy are able to effect public policy to their liking, while the rest of the population is excluded from the decision making process.  This is the natural consequence of an electoral system which produces officials that were made viable for office by the wealthy donor class.  While high school civics teachers, media commentators, and elected officials are largely united in saying that we live in a democracy, on closer examination we see that it is a plutocracy – a government that is not of, by, and for the people, but of, by, and for the wealthiest people.  Elections – the ostensible hallmark of democracy – are, in the U.S., a public ritual in which we legitimate the officials that have been chosen for us by the wealthy.  At best, we are given the role of arbitrating political disagreements between competing sectors of wealthy people.

Rigging Re-election

Once in office, officials have numerous ways of rigging their own re-elections.  They, of course, have a much greater ability to load the dice by making contacts with like-minded wealthy donors and their prominent position gives them a powerful pulpit for campaigning year-round among those donors.  They generally do not have to worry about establishing “name recognition.”  In a 2012 study, Stockemer and Praino report that between 1952 and 2008, incumbents running for a seat in the U.S. House won reelection at rates between 89% and 99%, demonstrating just how strong the incumbent advantage is.  More specifically, Abramowitz, Alexander, and Gunning (2006) found that “the reelection rate of House incumbents has increased from 87% between 1946 and 1950 to 94% between 1952 and 1980, 97% between 1982 and 2000, and 99% in the 2002–2004 elections.” 

The greatest advantage of incumbency, however, is the opportunity to participate in drawing district lines after the decadal U.S. census.  By carefully gerrymandering districts, elected officials choose their voters instead of allowing voters to choose their elected officials.  The two clearest techniques for doing this is (1) to concentrate a large number of voters of the opposition party into a single district, thereby giving those voters only one representative when their numbers would deserve more and (2) to dilute voters of the opposition party across several districts so that they again are underrepresented.  In these cases, the elections are rigged state-wide by the party that controls the redistricting process.  This is done by both the Republican and Democratic Parties.  For example, in 2014 in Democratic Maryland, Republican candidates for the House of Representatives received 42% of votes for major party candidates.  That should yield at least three Republican representatives out of eight for the state, but due to the district lines, Maryland Republicans have only one representative.  In Republican Georgia, Democratic candidates for the House received 41.5% of votes for major party candidates.  That should yield roughly six Democratic representatives out of 14 for the state, but again due to the district lines, Georgia Democrats have only four representatives.  This undemocratic representation of voters could be more or less rectified by appointing non-partisan redistricting commissions with binding authority, but the majority parties in most states prefer to rig their elections to ensure disproportionate representation.  So not only are voters relegated to legitimating candidates presented to them by the donor class, many of voters are deprived of any effective role because of gerrymandering. 

Other Rigging Techniques

Of course when we think of rigging elections, we tend to think of fraudulent voting, stuffing ballot boxes, tampering with computer code, misreporting results, and numerous techniques to suppress the vote.  It is possible that many of these activities do take place from time to time and one should not minimize their harms.  Voter ID laws and the disenfranchisement of ex-felons stands out here, but they other techniques are probably relatively rare and unlikely to tip any but the closest elections.  None of them constitute a critical threat to democratic rule on a society-wide basis.  Focusing on election rigging of this sort distracts our attention from the systemic rigging that generally goes on unnoticed and does have a society-wide effect.

One voter suppression technique that is seldom mentioned is restricting ballot access.  Unlike many of the techniques just mentioned, this is a wholesale suppression of the vote which tends to restrict the topics that can enter the public debate.  Voters who seek to cast their ballots for candidates in parties other than the Republican and Democratic Parties are often precluded from doing so by onerous restrictions that prevent their candidates from even appearing on the ballot.  The Democratic Party is particularly aggressive about blocking ballot access.  Party lawyers frequently challenge petition signatures and file court cases to block their political opponents from even being a choice for the voters. 

Beyond these methods, the Democratic and Republican Parties both have rigged the presidential elections (and similarly state elections) in their favor by forming the Commission on Presidential Debates and writing rules that effectively preclude other candidates from participating in the debates and thus gaining a forum.  Finally, the marginalization of alternative political views is reinforced by a corporate media which provides the donor-approved candidates with billions of dollars of free media; meanwhile, they almost invariably ignore, dismiss, and sometimes ridicule any competing candidates.

Conclusion

What is the most significant conclusion we can draw from the foregoing?  Elections in the United States are the property of a rich donor class which uses them to legitimate public officials who then can be expected to act in the interest of the donor class.  Simply put, we do not live in a democracy.  We live in a plutocracy as sure as any exists.  It is up to us to decide what we do under these circumstances, but if we truly are committed to democracy, we must ask ourselves, how are we to behave as citizens of a plutocracy?

Sources consulted for this essay include:

·       Abramowitz, Alan I., Brad Alexander, and Matthew Gunning, “Incumbency, Redistricting, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections,” Journal of Politics, 68(1), February 2006.

·       “Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act,” Federal Register, 68(2), January 3, 2003.

·       Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976).

·       Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010).

·       Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007).

·       Gilens, Martin and Benjamin I. Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” Perspectives on Politics, 12(3), Sept. 2014.

·       Guide to U.S. Elections, Deborah Kalb, ed., Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 2005.

·       Lioz, Adam and Gary Kalman, The Wealth Primary: The Role of Big Money in the 2006 Congressional Primaries, Washington, D.C.: U.S. PIRG Education Fund, 2006.

·       Makinson, Larry, Speaking Freely: Washington Insiders Talk About Money in Politics, 2nd edition, Washington D.C.: Center for Responsive Politics, 2003.

·       OpenSecrets.org, accessed November 2, 2016.

·       Phelps, Douglas H., “Leveling the Playing Field,” National Civic Review, 93(2), Summer 2004.

·       Raskin, Jamin and John Bonifaz, “Equal Protection and the Wealth Primary,” Yale Law & Policy Review, 11(273), 1993.

·       Stockemer, Daniel and Rodrigo Praino, "The Incumbency Advantage in the US Congress: A Roller-Coaster Relationship," Politics, 32(3), October 2012.

Buddhist Symbolism in Tibetan Thangkas: The Story of Siddhartha and Other Buddhas Interpreted in Modern Nepalese Painting / Ben Meulenbeld -- Havelte/Holland: Binkey Kok Publications, 2004

Beyond its most basic tenets, Buddhism is not simple.  It contains complicated psychological and metaphysical theories that are difficult to understand, except after long study.  This posed a problem for monks bringing the religion to communities that had no previous experience with Buddhism's Indic background.  In Tibet, propagation of the religion relied, therefore, on stories of the Buddha and his past lives, a form of literature called the jataka.  Another method of propagating Buddhism was through art.  In the 10th century, when Buddhism was experiencing a renaissance in Tibet, the Indian tradition paintings, called thangkas, representing buddhas and bodhisattvas were used as a teaching aids to convey complicated ideas and to serve as objects upon which one could focus one's mind in meditation.  They were easily transported and could serve to set up a portable alter.

Ben Meulenbeld's Buddhist Symbolism in Tibetan Thangkas provides a fine introduction to the thangka and its common subjects.  Moreover, it is a beautiful book with 37 colorful plates reproducing thangkas of a large private collection of modern works painted in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal.  The first chapter provides an introduction to the purpose and creation of thangkas, from their design through their painting and ultimately to their framing.  The second chapter provides a brief description of the religious background of thangkas, particularly a recounting of the life of Siddhartha Buddha.  It is illustrated with four thangkas.  The third chapter is an extremely brief account of Theravada Buddhism.  This is a Buddhist tradition that survives in Sri Lanka and in parts of Southeast Asia.  As Tibet is not heir to this tradition, the chapter is brief  and illustrated with only one thangka of the historical Buddha.  Instead, Buddhism was brought to Tibet by Mahayana Buddhists.  So the fourth chapter, on the Mahayana tradition is much longer and illustrated wigh 13 plates.  This tradition laid great emphasis on the bodhisattva, an enlightened figure who forswears liberation in nirvana to help all other sentient beings attain enlightenment.  Many of the thangkas in this chapter depict legendary buddhas and important bodhisattvas that make up a kind of pantheon of Buddhist personalities.  The fifth and longest chapter deals with the Vajrayana tradition.  It is illustrated with 18 thangkas. The Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism is now the dominant tradition in Tibet.  The thangkas here depicted actual figures in the history of Tibetan Buddhism along with several other miscellaneous subjects including, the Wheel of Life, a Yogini, a Gathering of Saints, Kalachakras, Herukas, the Mandala of Yama, and two Kalachakra mandalas.  The final chapter deals with paubas. These are like thangkas, but include with Hindu themes.  It is short and is illustrated with only one pauba.

Most all of the thangkas follow a very standard rather symmetric design with figures seemingly placed on a two dimensional surface, usually in a cross-legged position facing forward.  They hold or are accompanied by items that indicate their identity.  In the case of the historical figures in the fifth chapter, the image is much more naturalistic.  The figures do not face directly forward, but sit facing obliquely amid a naturalistic background.

The two greatest strengths of Meulenbeld's work are first, the explanations of the various legendary buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other beings in the Buddhist "pantheon."  One is given a good understanding of their primary features and the symbolic objects and hand gestures that are characteristic of the being.  Second, are the illustrations themselves.  They are simply exquisite.  Unfortunately, despite the folio format of the book, seeing the details of the illustrations requires strong lighting and a magnifying glass, and the reproductions are not as sharps as one would like.  However, rectifying this shortcoming would involve printing the work in an over sized format using much more expensive reproduction technology.  Consequently, having the work in a more manageable format is a compensating virtue.

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right / Arlie Russell Hochschild -- London: The New Press, 2016

It is common for political commentators to lament the political divide that has become a chasm in our country.  In 2004, the divide was the subject of Barak Obama's breakthrough speech at the Democratic National Nominating Convention, but since then the divide has only become worse.  Among liberals, the main question the divide poses is, "why are so many people in the working class voting against their economic interests?"  This question was made popular by Thomas Frank's 2004 book, What's the Matter with Kansas?  Frank's explanation was that clever deception by establishment Republicans -- supported by right wing media -- has duped many working class people into betraying their economic interests, and all they get in exchange are empty promises to enact a socially conservative agenda.  Other authors have picked up on this theme.  Upon closer examination, though, this explanation appears too shallow and demeaning to account for the long-standing allegiance to the Republican Party among many working class voters.  Indeed, the explanation seemed too facile to UC-Berkeley sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, especially as she spent five years in southwest Louisiana getting to know citizens on the other side of the divide.  Her book Strangers in Their Own Land is Hochschild's report on her "journey to the heart of our political divide."  It is an admirable contribution to the attempt to communicate across that divide.

Hochschild's contact with conservatives in and around the town of Lake Charles, Louisiana was facilitated by the liberal mother-in-law of one of her former graduate students.  Hochschild's Louisiana contact was able to introduce her to what was to Hochschild a warm and welcoming community of conservatives with whom she became friendly in the course of numerous formal and informal interviews.  These interviews were conducted over the course of five years.  Hochschild's project might be considered a classic anthropological study in which the anthropologist embeds herself in an alien community in an attempt to understand that community from the inside -- that is, from the perspective of the community members.  This requires a concerted effort to discard as much as possible the previous, external perspective and social assumptions the anthropologist brings to the study.  Hochschild describes this as overcoming "the empathy wall."  In doing so, Hochschild claims to have understood the "deep story" of conservatives living in and around Lake Charles.

By "deep story," she means a perspective that is not necessarily based on simple facts of the world, but on the what seems true emotionally.  Some deep story or another, in this sense, predicates everyone's sense of and explanation of the world.  One's deep story will predispose one to either be credulous or skeptical of the many dubious claims we routinely encounter.  The deep story is critical in constructing our system of beliefs.  By discovering the deep story of the conservatives in Lake Charles, Hochschild believes she is better able to understand the motives the people on the other side of the political divide.  By doing so, she was able to open up avenues of communication heretofore closed to her.  It is clear that her work encourages us not only to appreciate her own effort, but to follow in her footsteps -- to seek a more charitable understanding of those with whom we disagree.  We'll look at the deep story that lies behind the conservative worldview a little later.

To begin to understand the perspective of conservatives, Hochschild investigates what she calls a "keyhole issue:" environmental destruction.  Hochschild seeks to understand why people who have been severely harmed by pollution from Louisiana's the petrochemical industry would be so hostile to government regulation.  She calls this "the great paradox."  Curiously, the solution to the great paradox is one that environmentalists understand all too well.  Hochschilds interviewees recognize the damage done to their communities by industry.  The first portion of her book recounts the horrific effects she heard described.  In one instance, the 700 acres of Bayou d'Inde became so saturated with contaminants from illegal dumping by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company that the property value of the residents crashed and their livelihood from fishing was destroyed.  In another, a subterranean salt dome was punctured by the drill from a mining company, Texas Brine, causing a 37 acre sink hole to form which devoured the entirety of Bayou Corne, home to 350 residents.

While this is not part of the region of Louisiana known as "cancer alley," Hochschild heard story after story of cancer deaths.  Everyone in the area knew or was related to someone who had developed cancer.  In one instance a man recounts eleven people in his family and close neighbors (including himself and his wife) who died from or were fighting cancer.  Hochschild recounts so many tribulations faced by the residents of Lake Charles and its environs that it is bewildering to read of the general hostility to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality; but their hostility is not without some foundation.  These residents see government regulatory bodies failing to protect their land and health.

Indeed, the primary role of these regulatory bodies has been to permit the destruction of people's lives and communities in the interest of the petrochemical industry.  Among environmentalists this is said to be a consequence of "regulatory capture" by industry.  Due to the revolving door between industry and agency executives, regulations designed to protect people and the environment are merely one consideration balanced against business and economic interests.  The role of the regulator is to determine the extent to which exemptions can be made to "balance" these interests.  The agencies are reduced to exemption-granting bureaucracies.  Hochschild reports that "according to [Louisiana's] own website, 89,787 permits to deposit waste or do anything that affected the environment were submitted between 1967 and July 2015.  Of these, only sixty -- or .07 percent -- were denied."  In light of this, it is understandable that the residents would see the regulatory agencies as aiding and abetting their suffering.  (For an excellent examination of how regulatory agencies function and their failure to protect the environment, see Nature's Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age by Mary Christina Wood -- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.)

This plays directly into the hostility to taxes that is prominent among working class conservatives.  Far from providing value for the cost, government merely appropriates the workers' limited income for useless bureaucracies or for welfare programs that they believe go mostly to people other than themselves, including unproductive government bureaucrats.  Many of Hochschild's interviewees acknowledge that they or their family and neighbors take advantage of some of these programs, but they do so with some embarrassment and with the attitude that as long as its available and necessary, they might as well take advantage of it.  In many cases, they claimed to be willing to forego the assistance, if the entire program were abolished and attendant tax burden were removed.

The deep story behind these and other attitudes that Hochschild believes she has discovered was confirmed by her interviewees.  They imagine themselves in a long line in a open field.  The line is moving slowly toward a distant hill.  Over the hill is the American Dream.  They are patiently waiting their turn, when after a while, people who had been behind them, begin cutting in line in front of them.  They are expected to allow this because of the disadvantages these line-cutters (or their ancestors) experienced.  Of course, they see themselves as responsible and hard working, and that the line-cutters are getting something for nothing.  In this analogy, they are white and Christian, while the line cutters are members of minority groups: black, Latino, immigrants, Muslims, women, and government bureaucrats, often no more disadvantaged than they are.  To add insult to injustice, many in the line in front of them turn around to hurl unkind epithets at them: racist, homophobic, ignorant, cracker, redneck, hick, white trash, etc. and criticize them for a lack of empathy.  Recently, the President of the United States is actively facilitating the line cutting.  He himself is a line cutter.

Given this deep story and the tribulations faced by a clearly marginalized population, it is easy to understand why working class conservatives feel "anger and mourning" over their fallen status and why they might choose different means to rectify their loss than the means chosen by historically marginalized groups.  It is also understandable why they might resent a media that ridicules them, a liberal elite that ignores them in preference to people they see as their competition, and even a Republican establishment that works in tandem with the corporations in a system of crony capitalism.  Their condition, while possibly slightly better than minorities and recent immigrants, is not markedly different when compared to the owners and managers of our society who are clearly beyond their reach.  Consequently, their dignity requires an even playing field, not vis-a-vis the corporate and government elite, but vis-a-vis their ordinary fellow citizens.

While Hochschild does not mention meritocracy, her observations support the idea that working class conservatives ardently support the values implicit in a meritocracy.  They do not want what they have not earned and they find it morally objectionable that anyone would be required to sacrifice (in taxes) their hard earned money for the benefit of others.  Charity must be voluntary or it is little better than theft.  This also provides the basis for excusing the excesses of the most well-off and defending them against high tax rates.  For the conservative working class, work and business is the essence of social life, and those who have become successful deserve admiration and respect, not envy and disdain.  Government intrusion in the market merely interferes with the working of a meritocracy.   It is just another obstacle in their path to someday joining the wealthy class.  One need not have a highly developed defense of laissez faire capitalism to recognize the relative value of hard work and frugality in markets dominated by small business and service sector employment.  In much of the country, particularly in rural areas, this is business environment.  Large corporations, even with their downsides, can be believed to be beneficial engines in an otherwise stagnant economy.  In the words of one of Hochschild's interviewees, "pollution is the price we pay for capitalism."

Perhaps the most admirable features of Strangers in Their Own Land are the effort to overcome the "empathy wall" and the goal of seeing those on the other side not as simple cardboard cut outs described in political polemics, but as real people living difficult lives with a genuine sense of dignity and morality.  In many ways, this morality is different from people on the other side of the wall, but in other ways it is similar.  Indeed, this was the message that Barak Obama attempted to communicate in his 2004 speech before the Democratic National Nominating Convention.

Furthermore, Hochschild is able to distinguish species of thought within the people she interviewed.  In Part 3, Hochschild describes "the team player," "the worshiper," and "the cowboy."  One can see these personalities in wider political discourse.  The team player is a loyal member of the Republican establishment, well-acquainted with the ideology of conservative politics, particularly deregulation and reduced taxation.  The team player places trust in the party and its allied institutions in its contest against the Democrats and their allied institutions.  The worshiper places his or her faith in God and the Church above any other social or political institution and is in common cause with the conservative (read Republican) movement insofar as he or she believes God, the Church, and Christian morality is under attack from a secular (read Democratic) society which has largely dominated government and our main cultural institutions.  Finally, the cowboy is the classic rugged individual, willing to resist social forces larger than himself or herself in defense of his or her dignity.  Team players might be just as familiar to many as Democratic Party team players, differing only in that they are motivated by a different ideology, while worshipers and cowboys cut an honorable figure, if one accepts the values that they accept.  But clearly, liberals must scale the empathy wall before allowing themselves to adopt this point of view.  Hochschild's work should help liberals understand that conservatives must not be treated as a monolith, but that they are as various as any political grouping and as people, they have legitimate interests and are deserving of basic respect.

This, however, introduces one of two criticisms that I have of the work.  Hochschild consciously sought to study "the geographic heart of the right."  For her, this turned out to be Louisiana which cast only 14% of its votes for Obama in 2012, has 50% of its residents supporting the Tea Party, and is second only to South Carolina in Tea Party state and federal legislators.  Furthermore, she studied only people in a particularly, environmentally hard hit parish, Calcasieu Parish.  While this admittedly would provide her a clear picture of people on the other side of the political divide, it is also a rather rare -- perhaps unique -- corner of the other side.  Hochschild wondered if her subjects were "odd-balls," not representative of conservatives in other locales, but she was reassured to find that the same relationship between environmental damage and politic ideology held across the country.  In an appendix she writes, "The Louisiana story is an extreme example of the politics-and-environment paradox seen across the nation."  But this is precisely what should concern her.  An extreme example is by definition an odd-ball.  Working class conservatives, Tea Party supporters, and Trump supporters live in communities all across the country, each with their own local history:  Peoria, Illinois; Manchester, New Hampshire; Grand Junction, Colorado; even Seattle, Washington and New York City.  So her exploration of "the heart of the right" may not tell us as much about the right as she suggests.

My second criticism of her work is its relative neglect of the elephant in the room: race relations.  The deep story that was being told to her studiously avoided discussions of race.  When it did arise, her interviewees reported not being racist.  After all, they rejected David Duke, did not use "the N-word," and did not hate black people; however, the deep story of a lot of other southerners would include a long history of slavery at the hands of white people, followed by apartheid, Jim Crow, and now the incarceration state.   Granted, Hochschild was acting in the fine tradition of anthropology in attempting to understand her subjects from their own perspective, but the family legacies of racism, particularly in the South, and the barely disguised (and sometimes undisguised) racial animosity among Tea Party members, the Alt-right, and Donald Trump's campaign seems to demand that the question of race be seriously dissected.  Hochschild's subjects may not consider themselves racist and they may not be racist on their own understanding of the concept, but they also might be simply disingenuous or in denial about their own subconscious motivations.  It seems that Hochschild was simply too polite to really explore this hot topic, possibly because she might lose access to her subjects.

Nonetheless, Strangers in Their Own Land is a remarkably valuable look into a world that academic authors seldom approach dispassionately, much less with sympathy.  A dispassionate approach is necessary to understand and address the political divide that has paralyzed nearly every attempt to address important social, political, and economic problems.  Additionally, a sympathetic approach is necessary in order to demonstrate respect for a population that objectively speaking has suffered grievous harm from our social, political, and economic order.  Hopefully, Hochschild's work will initiate a new phase of social and political analysis that will bridge the chasm that separates us and bring us greater understanding, peace, harmony, and justice.

The Words of My Perfect Teacher / Patrul Rinpoche -- Padmakara Translation Group, trans. -- New Dehli: Harper Collins, 1994

In the 8th century, Buddhism came to Tibet.  Among the first and most important Indian emissaries was Padmasambhava, who is venerated by all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, but particularly by the Nyingma tradition.  Anticipating the persecution of Buddhism, Padmasambhava is believed to have hidden Buddhist texts to be discovered by future generations.  Many of these "treasures" are claimed to have been found. Some are physical texts.  Others are "mind treasures," recovered in the course of meditation.  Among the most significant treasure hunters was the 18th century monk Jigme Lingpa.  In the course of a long period of meditation, Lingpa is believe to have received a teaching from Longchen Rabjam, a 14 century master and scholar of the the Nyingma tradition.  The teaching is understood, however, to have originated with Padmasambhava.  Lingpa set it to writing as The Heart Essence of the Great Expanse, a cycle of teaching that become central to the Nyingma tradition and was passed down from teacher to student for centuries.  In the 19th century, Patrul Rinpoche put into writing a portion -- the preliminary practices -- of this teaching as he learned it from his guru, Jigme Gyalwai Nyugu.  It is titled Kunzang Lama'i Shelung, or The Words of My Perfect Teacher.

The Words of My Perfect Teacher is an extremely popular exposition of important ideas of the Tibetan tradition.  Its popularity stems in part from it clear, direct prose.  Divided into three parts, The Words provides an account of "The External Preliminaries," "The Internal Preliminaries," and "The Swift Path of Transference."  "The External Preliminaries" explain how ordinary human life is uniquely situated to bring about liberation in that beings in lower realms (animals, pretas, and hell-beings) experience too much suffering and delusion to achieve enlightenment, while beings in higher realms (asuras and devas) experience too little suffering (and delusion) to seek enlightenment.  Second, "The External Preliminaries" point out the impermanence of all things, particularly human life, underscoring the importance of seeking enlightenment as one has a rare chance in this human life.  It goes on to point out the ubiquity of suffering, how karma applies to our actions, the benefits of liberation, and the methods for following a spiritual teacher.  These preliminaries are "external" in that they largely describe the context in which one finds oneself in pursuit of liberation and overt techniques to do so.

"The Internal Preliminaries" addresses techniques for controlling and developing one's mind to further one's progress to enlightenment.  This begins with "taking refuge" in the Buddha, the Dharma (the teaching), and the Sangha (the community of Buddhists).  "Taking refuge" might be understood as placing one's faith in these three "jewels."  Just as a traveler might place his or her faith in a map maker, in the map, and in his or her fellow travelers to reach the destination, the Buddhist places his or her faith in the three jewels.  Furthermore, The Internal Preliminaries discusses what is perhaps the most critical aspect of mental development: the development of bodhicitta (the enlightened mind).  This is an attitude of unconditional love and compassion for all sentient beings.  Developing bodhicitta will purify one's past negative actions and generate the strength to pursue the path to liberation.  The techniques involved in developing bodhicitta involve in part concentration and meditation on mandalas and mantras.

The practices involved in The Internal Preliminaries require a spiritual guide, i.e., a qualified teacher.  In the Tibetan tradition, these teachers directly descend from the Buddha through Padmasambhava, known as the Second Buddha.  Some are believed to be reincarnations of important bodhisattvas.  The Dalai Lamas, for example, are thought to be reincarnations of Avalokitesvara.  Reliance on a spiritual guide is a salient feature of Tibetan Buddhism, sometimes called "Lamaism," though some authors reject this as an overestimate of the importance of the veneration of the spiritual guide.  In any case, The Words of My Perfect Teacher (in its title alone) does emphasize veneration of the spiritual guide and presents the guide as critical to one's progress toward enlightenment, though when one does not have access to a genuine lama, a simple monk or even lay Buddhist can serve as at least a beneficial substitute.

The third part of The Words describes the transference of consciousness at the time of death.  Five sorts of transference are possible: transference to the dharmakaya, the sambhogakaya, and the nirmanakay, as well as "ordinary transference" and transference performed for the dead by a spiritual guide.  Transference to the dharmakaya is the supreme transference, where the person's consciousness becomes one with the true and auspicious qualities of the Buddha.  The dharmakaya is the abstract, cosmic Buddha-nature.  Transference to the sambhogakaya occurs when one's consciousness becomes one with the Buddha-nature that is instructive to all bodhisattvas, and transference to the nirmanakaya occurs when one's consciousness is capable of becoming reborn as a buddha in a worldly realm.  Ordinary transference involves rebirth into "a pure land of great bliss" and transference performed by a spiritual guide at the time of death will prevent rebirth in a lower realm.  The rituals involved in this last transference are described in the Bardo Thodol or The Tibetan Book of the Dead. 

The content of The Words of My Perfect Teacher are limited to the expounding the preliminary practices in the larger work The Heart Essence of the Great Expanse, which continues by describing the rest of the path to liberation.  The continuation involves three phases: the generation phase, in which one visualizes oneself as a buddha and employs mantras and mandalas in meditation to make spiritual progress; the perfection phase, in which the meditative practices become a living experience; and the Great Perfection, in which one comes to understand the ultimate nature of the mind and immediately experience Buddha-nature itself.

The Words of My Perfect Teacher certainly lives up to its reputation.  I have read few expositions of the central ideas of Buddhism that are clearer or more simply expressed.  I would recommend to readers who don't necessarily have a deep background in Buddhism, though it is a classic which anyone interested in Buddhism would benefit from reading.  Of particular interest are the chapters on impermanence, training the mind through meditation on impartiality, love, compassion, and sympathetic joy, arousing and developing bodhicitta, practicing the Six Perfections of generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom.  These ideas, however, are presented along with chapters dealing with culturally specific religious ideas which will strike a Western reader as superstitious or at least mythic.  Nonetheless, taken as an anthropological text, even these make for fascinating reading.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead / W.Y. Evans-Wentz, ed. -- Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, trans. -- N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1960

The Evans-Wentz edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead or Bardo Thodol -- as it is more properly titled -- was first published in 1927, but it gained enormous attention in the 1960s and 1970s when interest in Eastern philosophy was rising in the West.  Traditionally, the text is believed to have been composed by Padmasambhava, an 8th century Indian Buddhist scholar who was among the first Buddhists (if not the first) to bring Buddhism to Tibet.  Anticipating the persecution of Buddhism in the 9th century, Padmasambhava is believed to have hidden numerous texts to be uncovered by future generations.  In the 14th century, Karma Lingpa is said to have discovered one of these texts, titled Peaceful and Wrathful Deities, the Natural Liberation of Intention, part of which is the Bardo Thodol or Great Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State.  This English translation of the title is apt, as the text describes the experiences of a recently deceased person as he or she passes from one life to the next.  Furthermore, the text is read ritually in the presence of the deceased in order to focus his or her disembodied consciousness on liberation with the hope of achieving a more fortunate rebirth or escaping the cycle of rebirth entirely.

The intermediate period (bardo) between lives is said to last 49 days.  This period is divided into three stages:  the Chikhai Bardo, the Chonyid Bardo, and the Sidpa Bardo.  During the Chikhai Bardo, the consciousness of the deceased is confused.  Consequently, the reading of the Bardo Thodol in the presence of the deceased's body is intended to focus his or her attention on the Dharma, allowing the deceased to achieve immediate enlightenment.  Immediate (or sudden) enlightenment is thought to be possible by Tibetan Buddhists and it is particularly possible during the bardo between death and rebirth.  The Chikhai Bardo is known as the Bardo of the Moment of Death.  Enlightenment and liberation come to the deceased if he or she is able to recognize the clear light of reality that appears during this stage.  If, however, the deceased becomes frightened of the clear light, he or she will go on to experience the Chonyid Bardo, known as the Bardo of Reality.

During the Chonyid Bardo, the deceased is visited by peaceful and wrathful deities.  In the first five days the deceased is visited by peaceful deities, namely, the five dhyani buddhas: Vairochana, Vajrasattva, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi on successive days and each accompanied by their consorts and retinue.  With the appearance of each dhyani buddha, the deceased has the opportunity to recognize reality and attain enlightenment.  If, however, he or she fails to do this, then all of the deities, their consorts, and retinues appear on the sixth day, presenting another opportunity for enlightenment.  Failing this, the deceased is presented on the seventh day with a final chance for enlightenment by peaceful deities: the "Knowledge-Holding Deities" from the "holy paradise realms."

The deceased then experiences seven days of wrathful deities (or hekula).  The first five of these deities are in fact the same peaceful deities that appeared earlier, but now appearing in their wrathful forms.  On the 13th day, eight other wrathful deities appear to the deceased and on the 14th day, four female "door keepers" appear along with numerous additional wrathful deities.  In the Tibetan tradition, hekula are guardians, representing a person's determination to defeat the obstacles to enlightenment.  So while they appear fearsome, they offer the deceased additional chances for sudden enlightenment.

Failing (or fearing) to recognize reality when presented with it face-to-face during the 14 days of the Chonyid Bardo, the deceased enters the Sidpa Bardo, known as the Bardo of Seeking Rebirth.  Here, the deceased flees from the terrors of the previous bardo and seeks escape from the terrible face of reality that appears to the person encumbered with bad karma.  The deceased is attracted to wombs out of which he or she might be reborn into the realm of samsara.  The text explains how the deceased should go about closing wombs to avoid rebirth in particular bad circumstances and how to choose a womb out of which to be reborn.  One's karma, however, will tend to determine where one is reborn.  One might be reborn in any of the six realms as a denizen of hell, a hungry ghost (preta), an animal, a human, a demi-god (asura), or a god (deva) depending upon one's karma.

The Bardo Thodol is considered among a genre of literature known as a tantra.  These works are central to the form of Buddhism common to Tibet known as the Vajrayana.  Tibetan Buddhism is often considered a form of Mahayana Buddhism, but the veneration of the tantras justifiably separates Tibetan Buddhism from Mahayana Buddhism.  The Vajrayana emphasizes a number of ideas that make this clear.  First, the possibility of sudden enlightenment distinguishes Vajrayana from the Mahayana tradition which emphasizes the need for numerous reincarnations to build up the necessary merit to achieve enlightenment.  Second is the veneration of the lama or teacher.  All forms of Buddhism recognize the importance of respect for the Buddha and other spiritual guides, but the Vajrayana takes this veneration much more seriously.  The trisarana, or "three refuges" which Buddhists embrace, are composed of the Buddha, the dharma (the teaching), and the samgha (the community of Buddhists).  Taking refuge in these three "jewels" is something like offering a basic profession of the Buddhist faith -- that is, committing the Buddhist to an intent to gain enlightenment.  In the Vajrayana, a fourth jewel is sometimes recognized, i.e., the specific teacher who initiates the follower to the path.  Third, the Vajrayana is characterized by an elaborate set of symbols that is used to educate and focus the attention of the Buddhist on the path to enlightenment.  This has generated a rich body of art used in its rituals.  Fourth, throughout India and the cultures it has influenced, there is a belief in the magical, superpowers of enlightened beings called siddha.  Such beings play a prominent role in the Vajrayana.  Much of these aspects of Tibetan Buddhism are consonant with the shamanistic beliefs of the Bon religion that had been practice in Tibet prior to the coming of Buddhism.

The Bardo Thodol exemplifies the importance of many of the above distinguishing features of Vajrayana Buddhism.  Upon death, sudden enlightenment is the goal of the elaborate rituals conducted by the "spiritual friend" (or lama) who reads the text in the presence of the deceased's body with the expectation that the disembodied consciousness of the deceased is capable of hearing the guidance the lama is offering.  These practices seem like so much superstition to a materialist way of thinking; however, adept practitioners of the Vajrayana emphasize the symbolic nature of the seemingly magical elements of their tradition.  The symbolism in the Vajrayana is, of course, lost on many lay practitioners.  Consequently, the tradition is characterized by both common teachings and esoteric teachings.  The former is meant for the layperson while the latter is meant for the adept.  In light of this, one can see the importance of the rituals and descriptions in the Bardo Thodol in two ways.  First, one can understand them literally as efforts to assist the deceased in achieving liberation or a preferable rebirth.  Second, one can understand them as disguised (symbolic) efforts to manage the grief of survivors and remind them of some of the basic tenets of Buddhism: life is temporary, attachment to it produces suffering, and the acquisition of merit and an clear understanding of reality will bring about a better future circumstance or even final liberation.

The Bardo Thodol is a fascinating window into a much misunderstood tradition of Buddhism.  Much of the text is gripping and colorful.  Unfortunately, it will be rather puzzling to anyone without a fairly good background in Buddhism and particularly Vajrayana Buddhism.   

Buddhism for Beginners / Thubten Chodron -- Boston: Snow Lion, 2001

When I picked up Buddhism for Beginners, I had very high hopes.  Having recently read Buddhism: One Tradition, Many Teachers which Chodron co-wrote with the Dalai Lama, I was expecting a clear and concise treatment of the most important elements of Buddhism, written for the novice.  That is, I was expecting a shorter and more popular version of One Tradition, Many Teachers.  To a certain extent, that's what it is, but unfortunately, it also contains a great deal of material on the more religious, non-falsifiable elements of Buddhism.  Others may, of course, welcome this, but my own interests lay in the moral, psychological, and philosophical elements.  Chodron's One Tradition, Many Teachers is among the best expositions of these elements that I have read and having a more readable version that could be recommended to "beginners" would be a real asset.  Unfortunately, Chodron deals with these elements only in the first third (50 pages) of the book.  Still, these pages are well worth recommending.  Most of the remainder will likely strike a critical Western reader as, at best, a anthropological or sociological gloss on the quaint beliefs of a pre-scientific culture.  This is not to say that the remainder does not contain any interesting material.  Indeed, their is a fair share of Buddhist ethics and psychology in the later pages, but it is scatter among discussions of such things as past lives, karma, ritual, and sundry friendly advice on being a Buddhist in a non-Buddhist society.

The scatter-shot character of the work is likely a product of its format.  One hundred and forty-nine pages of text are divided into 21 chapters, and each chapter is composed of answers to questions posed to Chodron by both Westerners and Asian.  A question is first posed as a section heading in bold, followed by usually a three paragraph answer.  In many instances, this provides us with a clear and concise answer to the question.  In other instances, it begs elaboration.  In general, it causes the work to lack a larger, well-developed treatment of Buddhism.

In the end, I would recommend the first 50 pages to beginners, but direct them to her masterful work Buddhism: One Tradition, Many Teachers.  There, here literary style is more demanding, but it is likely accessible to most readers and it certainly pays enormous dividends. 

The Republican Convention (2016)

The Republican Party convention is over and I’m sure you have read, heard, and/or watched plenty of commentary on it.  What I have read has been entirely negative, even from conservative sources.  I suppose this only confirms the law of karma.  Anger and hostility will naturally produce ill feelings in those who witness it, but it was a bit chilling to see how the law of karma did not seem to apply to the delegates at the convention.  They clearly relished the animosity pouring from the podium.  The important question to be answered in November is how representative of the American electorate are the Republican delegates?  My expectation is:  not so much, and that Donald Trump’s acceptance speech has only made his election less likely.  Two surprising remarks and the overall theme of his speech stood out that bring me to this conclusion.

The first surprising remark was Trump’s reference to “LGBTQ” people.  (That he included queers goes beyond even what the mainstream LGBT press tends to countenance.)  Describing the victims of the recent mass murder in an Orlando gay night club as “wonderful Americans,” Trump promised to protect them from the “violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.”  Additionally, he scheduled Paul Thiel, the openly gay founder of Pay Pal to speak earlier that night, but Trump’s remarks show him walking a fine line between a genuine endorsement of the civil rights of LGBTQ people and a tepid gesture toward inviting them into his coalition.  One should note that later in the speech he promised to appoint Supreme Court justices in the image of Antonin Scalia, who can hardly be called an ally of LGBTQ rights.  Furthermore, Trump was careful to fold his remark about LGBTQ people into his promise to protect all Americans form foreign terrorists, but describing that threat as a “hateful foreign ideology” surely must have rankled American homophobes.  It would be hard to know if Trump distinguished American homophobes from foreign homophobes.  Add to this the absence of any mention of restrictions on abortion, and social conservatives must be wondering about his commitment to their causes.

Trump did promise to overturn the restriction on tax exempt organizations (particularly religious organizations) which prohibits them from directly advocating political candidates.  The rationale for the restriction was that tax subsidies should not be available to fund partisan politics.  Overturning this restriction would certainly be welcomed by many politicians as it would open up a vast new source of campaign funding.  It would also we welcomed by church leaders who seek greater political influence, but I doubt that this is an important issue to grassroots social conservatives.  

Social conservatives have long been skeptical of Trump.  So Ted Cruz’s prominent refusal to endorse him, Trump’s failure to call for abortion restrictions, and his seemingly tolerant attitude toward LGBTQ people might well have widened a fissure in the Republican Party.  This year, gay rights may have become a potent wedge issue for use by the Democratic Party and that wedge soon might be driven deep enough to cause havoc in the Republican Party for years to come.

The second surprising remark has not been noted in any commentary I have read, but I believe it too will have a lasting impact on the Republican Party.  In a long and sometimes rambling speech, short on specifics, Trump spent a great deal of time condemning multilateral trade agreements in favor of bilateral agreements that he promised will benefit American workers.  So this second surprising “remark” was actually a surprising paragraph or two in the course of his speech and Trump provided unusual detail to support his position.  He specifically named NAFTA and the TPP as bad agreements.  Both have come under fire from labor Democrats and populist Republicans, but they are favored by the neoliberal, free traders in both parties, including Barak Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Tim Kaine, and until recently, by Hillary Clinton.   The popular sentiment against the TPP has led many politicians to withdraw or moderate their support for the TPP, but it is hard to imagine that their hearts are really against it after so many years of extolling these agreements and “free trade” generally.  

Certainly Trump’s long denunciation of NAFTA and the TPP might have been intended to appeal to working class voters, particularly Sanders’s supporters, and I suspect he would welcome the chance to be the primary negotiator of a host of new bilateral “deals,” but it isn’t clear to me that he genuinely opposes the substance of these agreements.  His critique of NAFTA and the TPP must have struck neoliberals in the Republican Party like Thor’s hammer.  Rejecting these agreements makes possible precisely those protectionist policies and trade wars that free traders fear most.  If Mike Pence was meant to assuage the doubts of establishment Republicans, Trump’s speech surely must have resurrected and enhanced those doubts; and if his supporters come to see rejecting mulitlateral trade agreements and adopting protectionist trade policies as important planks in their political agenda, the division over trade in the Republican Party could easily become the cause for the irreversible separation of populist Republicans and its neoliberal establishment.  We then have three feuding factions in the Republican Party:  social conservatives, populists, and neoliberals.  How they come together in the coming months and years isn’t clear at all.

However, the overall theme of Trumps speech – “law and order” – is politically and culturally the most important aspect, not just of his speech, but of the entire convention.  I think Trump now understands that this, more than anything, has brought supporters to his campaign.  His appeal for law and order began early in his campaign with a call to build a border wall and deport “illegals.”  It was followed by a call to establish domestic order by prohibiting the admission of Muslims to the country.  It has recently incorporated outspoken support for our police in the face of widespread accusations of violations by police of the human and civil rights of Americans and of the excessive use of force by police.  Howevver in his speech, Trump refined his pitch for law and order in what appears to be an attempt to make his positions less controversial.  Regarding his wall, Trump insisted that it would be merely one element in a larger immigration policy – one which would permit, even welcome, immigration through legal means.  Regarding his ban on Muslim immigration and refugee resettlement, Trump reduced the scope of the ban to only those countries that are experiencing political turmoil.  Both policies – even unqualified – have achieved significant support among many people.  Trump and his convention presented them as methods by which America could be made safe again.

Trump’s support for our police is likely to become a mainstay of his future campaign.  Perhaps more than anything, police shootings of citizens and citizen shootings of police in a context of racial division and escalating protests will promote within voters the sense of insecurity that the Trump campaign has been attempting to foster.  Providing unconditional support for our police is likely to seem to a lot of voters the necessary response to an unravelling social order.  Most of all, it plays into the public image that Trump has been cultivating – that he is a strong leader.  He seeks to reinforce this image at nearly every chance he gets.  This came out in full force during his speech.

Building his wall, destroying ISIS, and bringing law and order to America’s streets are all to be accomplished “fast,” “quickly,” and even “immediately” through tough and, if necessary, violent measures.  Against ISIS, there appeared to be no measure that would be too violent.  The degree of violence would surely amount to a massive commitment of resources tantamount to a full scale war.  With regard to his immigration policy, Trump promised that his measures would take effect immediately upon his inauguration and become effective quickly.  This suggests that he would issue an executive order to increase significantly the deportation of “illegals.”  As there is an estimated 10.9 million undocumented people in the U.S., the deportation force and its legal apparatus would need to be enormous.  Finally, with regard to bringing law and order to our cities, Trump again promised immediate action that quickly would make them safe.  Given Trump’s description of the state of our crime in our cities, this would require an unprecedented enhancement of police operations and resources.  Indeed, even hoping to accomplish this from the Oval Office could only mean mobilizing the National Guard.  If we take each proposal in Trump’s speech seriously, we should expect a new, potentially endless war in the Middle East with profound global repercussions and martial law at home.  The most important question now is how many Americans would welcome this?

Trump’s call for this kind of action might be nothing more than posturing to rally his base.  In office he might be different, but the anger and hostility that animated the Republican convention and the machismo on display by Trump himself is a reflection of currents in our society that pose a grave threat to peace, freedom, and even prosperity.   Perhaps nothing better illustrated Trump’s macho arrogance as when he periodical interrupted his speech to present his profile to the television camera, with a scowl and jutting chin.  It seemed to be a calculated imitation of Benito Mussolini.

The Republican National Convention (Day One)

The Republican Convention was both an embarrassment and a bit frightening.  Donald Trump told us that he would be putting on a more “entertaining” convention than past conventions.  I can’t say that was true for me.  At the same time, it wasn't any less entertaining than conventions of the past that I have seen.  It was embarrassing, however, to see that one of our two major political parties can’t offer us an evening in which the issues of domestic safety and national security can be discussed in an intelligent way.  The speeches offered little more than a partisan focus on a unique event (the mayhem in Benghazi) and indignant calls for retribution against inflated enemies, foreign and domestic.  It was frightening to hear rhetoric in speech after speech that seemed at very least jingoistic and sometimes fascistic – and I don’t use that term lightly.  One of the more chilling moments was when a speaker called upon a new generation of patriots to recognize that the arena of war was here in America.  It was not clear whether his perceived enemy was foreign fighters infiltrating America or American citizens not conforming to his ideology. 

The theme of the evening was “Make America Safe Again.”  So one should not be surprised that speech after speech stressed that America is unsafe, despite the decline in the crime rate and the paucity of terrorist attacks in comparison to other countries.   Terror attacks were a persistent theme in the speeches, along with insecure borders.  Of course objectively speaking, if they were serious about making America safe again, they would be talking about auto safety and public health, but politics is about who controls sovereign power.  So terrorism -- which is mainly a political threat to those in power -- is more important to the politically powerful than are the real dangers to Americans.  Those who hold power will always decry terrorism first and foremost and inflate its significance as a danger to citizens. 

Speech after speech was written to promote fear and to uncritically extol the valor of the police and the armed forces.  I do not doubt and I deeply respect the individual valor and self-sacrifice of law-abiding police officers and conscientious members of the armed forces.  So it saddens me to see their dedication to ideals greater than themselves used all too often to prop up injustice.   Even more worrying is that the convention's speeches frequently identified a wide spectrum of people as enemies.  They usually were not named explicitly, but by implication they included “illegal aliens,” Black Lives Matter activists, and of course, Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton.  Explicitly naming “our enemies” as “radical Muslim terrorists” also was a persistent theme, and while Rudy Giuliani was at pains to distinguish this group from all Muslims, Trump’s previous statements give one little confidence that his supporters agree with Giuliani in practice.  The main prescription for “making America safe again” was “strength” as opposed to the "weakness" that was said to be the hallmark of the Obama administration and which could be expected of a Clinton administration.

The idea that the Obama administration and a prospective Clinton administration would be weak or too reticent to employ violence against enemies should be astonishing to anyone but proponents of the most violent response to social and political conflict.  To name only the most prominent uses of force by the Obama administration:  the administration was painfully slow to de-escalate the war in Iraq and periodically re-escalated that war.  It conducted an air war against Muammar Gaddafi's forces in Libya.  It is participating in the war in Syria, both directly and through proxies.  It expanded the war in Afghanistan and it has escalated drone strikes around the world.  Hillary Clinton has strongly supported all of these efforts and shows a strong willingness, even a commitment, to engage in additional war and violence.  But the "weakness" of Obama and Clinton was a major theme tonight.  It is clear that the convention speakers selected by Trump were pleased that he would be yet more belligerent than Obama and Clinton.  The obvious conclusion is that in this election cycle, the Republican Party has been taken over by a more extreme group of jingoists and militarists than have been seen on the political stage since at least the 1960s.

There were occasional references to Jesus, Christianity, and “our Judeo-Christian tradition.”  I am not a Christian as most people would understand that description, but I was pained for the Christians I know and respect that their religion would be appropriated by people who seem so opposed to the beautiful ideals and teaching of Christ.  How vengeance and violence could be associated with a religion whose most edifying tenets are love, peace, and non-violence has always baffled me.  Has Christianity in America really become merely a tribal affiliation of American chauvinists with no relation to the universal love espoused by Christ?  If the Republican Party convention is our authority, then the answer is yes, most definitely.  The phrases “America first,” “American exceptionalism,” and “the greatest country God ever created” (as if God might have bungled the creation of other countries), was heard in the convention speeches.  There seemed no question in the minds of the speakers that this ancient religion that proclaims a message of universal, impartial love and respect held a special place for America and that it justified brutal assaults on its enemies.  For many Republican Convention speakers, God was clearly on the side of the American Christian soldier marching to war, a song which I don’t think Jesus of Nazareth ever would have sung. 

I am still convinced that Donald Trump will not be elected president, but one should not be complacent about our long-term political future when, in the most powerful country in the world, a faction so belligerent and convinced of its divine righteousness takes control of one of the country's two political parties.  I expect women, with the help of Latinos in Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada and blacks in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, will sweep Hillary Clinton into the White House, but that won’t make the angry, hostile members of this subculture change the way they think.  We must find ways to bring people toward the conviction that national and international disagreements must be resolved peacefully though political agreements or everyone will suffer.

The 2016 Democratic Primary and Presidential Election

I recently read several speeches given in the decades leading up to the American Civil War.  They expressed many shades of opinion, from abolitionism to the defenses of slavery.  They addressed both the substance of slavery and the politics related to its suppression, existence, and extension.  As I read, what stood out for me was a subset of those speeches that reflected the debate between abolitionists and anti-slavery politicians who nonetheless sought accommodation with the slave holders.  The accommodationists largely sought political stability, but I'm sure some believed that compromise was a tactic necessity for reaching larger goals.  This made me think of the current debate that is taking place within the Democratic Party over how, in the words of Bernie Sanders, “to transform America.” 

Many writers have observed that the debate between Sanders’s supporters and Clinton’s supporters is a reoccurring debate between “purists” and “pragmatists.”  I don’t think this distinction is apt, but the arguments based on this distinction arise often.  They surfaced dramatically in the 2000 presidential campaign when Green Party activists ran Ralph Nader for president.  Despite the Green Party holding many views on critical public policy issues that were diametrically opposed to Al Gore and the Democratic Party, many Democrats believed that Ralph Nader’s supporters were “self-indulgent purists,” who out of their purity were sacrificing political progress or at very least opening the door to political regress.  The same criticism is now being leveled against Sanders’s supporters in an attempt to persuade them to stop expressing their views and instead support Hillary Clinton.  Too often these arguments (and the arguments used to rebut them) reflect the one dimensional (left-right) simplicity of the popular understanding of the political landscape.  A more accurate understanding of the political space would reveal numerous issues, each with multiple dimensions.  Arraying people along a single political spectrum and then dividing them into only two categories (purists and pragmatists) obscures the complexity of politics.  Real political actors stand on principle on some issues and are willing to compromise on others.  Take for example, Sanders’s principled position on the death penalty and his willingness to compromise on gun regulation or Clinton’s principled position on gun regulation and her willingness to compromise on a $15 dollar and hour minimum wage.  We all have different and complex opinions about a variety of issues and we all make different judgments about long and short term benefits of particular public policies and political actions.  Who is or is not pure or pragmatic are questions that are too crude to describe our politics.

Let me illustrate the artificiality of the purist-pragmatist distinction.  In 2001, I was engaged in a debate within the Maryland Green Party over a party guideline which called upon Green Party candidates to limit the size of any single contributor's contribution  to $100 and donations by the candidates themselves to $400.  This was seen by some in the Party as imposing a needless handicap on our candidates in pursuit of “purity.”  In contrast, I and others believed that it was the only strategy available that could successfully challenge the domination of money in politics.  In our view, we were pragmatists. 

The root of the disagreement within the Party was in large part related to the goals we had in mind and how to achieve them.  The proponents of higher limits sought a better chance to get candidates elected in the current election cycle.  They argued that the more money the candidate had, the stronger the campaign would be, and by electing such candidates, a law requiring public financing for political campaigns would be made more likely.  Furthermore, in their view, higher or no limits on campaign donations would net more money for the campaign.  However, in our view, there was little to no chance that our candidates would be elected.  (Normally, third party candidates get no more than 2 or 3% of the vote in state-wide elections, even when running without contribution limits.)  Even if a candidate was (or a few candidates were) elected from the Green Party, our political influence in the Assembly would not be sufficient pass public financing for political campaigns.  Consequently, we believed the strategy outlined by the proponents of higher limits was doomed to failure.

As a positive alternative, we argued that the strength of a Green Party candidate would come from highlighting how big money corrupts our political system and undermines the political influence of the vast majority of citizens.  Establishing low limits on our candidates’ donations would bring the issue to the public.  My analysis of several Maryland Green Party campaigns showed that whether a Green Party candidate established a $100 dollar limit or a $1,000 dollar limit had no significant effect on the total amount the campaign acquired.  The loss of donations above $100 dollars due to the self-imposed limit was made up for by the number of people willing to make a contribution to a campaign adopting a $100 dollar limit, particularly when the candidate emphasized the donation limit to potential donors.   By running a $100 dollar campaign, we were creating an opportunity for proponents of public financed campaigns prominently to enter the political space on their own terms.  This would be both an equally effective short term strategy of funding Green Party candidates and a more effective long term strategy of bringing about campaign finance reform.  It would also significantly differentiate our candidates from the Republican and Democratic Party candidates, form a coordinated body of voters willing to work to transform our campaign finance system through electoral campaigns, and build the Green Party for future campaigns.  It remains, of course, debatable whose strategy would be more successful, but that there can be such a debate demonstrates the meaninglessness of the “purity vs. pragmatism” debate.

Contrary to much received opinion, one can as easily argue that Sanders is the pragmatist in the current campaign, if the goal truly is to transform America.  During much of her campaign, Clinton insisted that she was a “pragmatic progressive” who got things done and that political compromise was necessary for governing.  Setting aside the difficulty in understanding the meaning of “pragmatic” and “progressive,” Clinton’s recognition of the necessity of compromise “to get things done” inside government is clear and usually correct, but compromise is fraught with drawbacks.  Proponents of compromise often sound like Henry Clay who fashioned the Compromise of 1850.  Clay defended his bill on the Senate floor by observing that the country was divided between forces for and against slavery and that for the contest between these forces to be resolved, each side would need to give something to get something.  It was a classic defense of compromise.  The compromise gave California admission to the country as a free state, but it strengthened the notorious Fugitive Slave Act.  It abolished the slave trade in D.C., but confirmed the right to own slaves in D.C.  In the present political context, the country is said to be divided into “red states” and “blue states.”  Today proponents of compromise are in the same position as Clay.  For a president from the Democratic Party to “get things done” requires fashioning legislation that is to some extent acceptable to the Republican Party.  Proponents of compromise will declare incremental victory, but there are proponents of compromise on both sides of the aisle.  Consequently, incremental victory is also incremental defeat.  One gives a little to get a little.  It isn’t clear if progressive forces on balance make any headway and even less clear that they are transforming America.

During the debates over slavery, abolitionists made up a small minority in Congress and in the country.   Yet their principled stand against slavery divided both the Democratic Party and the Whig Party.  They brought the issue of slavery starkly before the public with powerful moral and practical arguments.  One cannot be certain what might have happened if the abolitionists had silenced themselves in favor of the more conservative Free Soil and Republican platforms of the 1850s, but Wendell Phillips pointed out that all of the arguments made by the anti-slavery forces originated in the earlier arguments of the abolitionists.  A similar dynamic has been unfolding for a couple decades now.

In 2000, the Green Party’s platform advanced most of what Bernie Sanders has been advocating in his campaign (along with additional public policies that reflect social democratic sensibilities).  The Green Party continued its advocacy of these positions in 2004, 2008 and 2012.  As in the 1850s, one cannot be certain what might have happened without the Green Party’s campaigns, but in 2011 the Occupy Wall Street movement was launched.  Though famously without a defined platform, many of the actors in the movement called for prescriptions that appeared in the Green Party’s platforms, and these prescriptions are now openly discussed by the corporate media due to the Sanders campaign.  I don’t mean to overstate the role of the Green Party in bringing about the changes in public discourse.  I only mean to emphasize that sustained, uncompromising arguments in favor of particular public policies can have a role in changing public discourse.

The role of movements like the Green Party, Occupy Wall Street, and the Sanders campaign is historically common and politically effective.  There is a common belief that political movements must take a backseat to electoral politics during elections.  The thought is, “you can’t be transformative if you aren’t elected.”  What this fails to recognize is that political movements are the motivating cause of political change and electoral victories are merely the proximate cause.  Indeed, electoral victories aren’t always necessary for the success of a political movement.  Take for example the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  This legislation contained goals set by the civil rights movement at least as early as the 1950s.  The act was passed by a Congress that was essentially the same as in previous years.  In the 1964 congressional elections, only 7 new Senators were elected and 97 new representatives.  Assuming all of these new members replaced opponents of the Voting Rights Act, their votes were nonetheless not necessary to reach a majority in favor of the Act.  What actually brought about this legislative success was not victories at the ballot box.  Instead, the civil rights movement stirred the conscience of sitting members of Congress and persuaded them to change their votes or perhaps members of Congress simply saw that the civil rights movement was becoming so strong that their political future required that they accede to popular demand. 

Of course in other instances, changes to office holders are important for the passage of legislation, but significant changes to who holds office come about because of pressure from political movements.  After the defeat of Michael Dukakis in 1988, members of the Democratic Party (the Democratic Leadership Council or DLC) determined that the conservative movement which had its origins in Barry Goldwaters’s 1964 presidential campaign and later dubbed “the Reagan Revolution” had become so well entrenched that the Democratic Party’s future depended upon adopting a more conservative platform and by appealing to business and corporate donors.  Running Bill Clinton against more traditional labor Democrats, the DLC won Clinton’s victory in a three-way presidential contest.  Within a year of holding office, Clinton used his political capital to pass NAFTA in 1993, a crime bill in 1994, and welfare reform in 1996.  Each of these measures was originally championed by Republicans and other conservatives in Congress.  One might be tempted to attribute the passage of these bills to Clinton, and no doubt he played a role, but he was mostly the instrument of a conservative shift in the electorate.  The conservative movement was able to effect a change in the Democratic Party.

These two examples – the Voting Rights Act and the laws passed during the Clinton administration – demonstrate the power of political movements to effect change.  Electoral victories and defeats are merely epiphenomena in relation to the movements that bring them about.  This brings us to the “political revolution” that Bernie Sanders has been promoting.

Just yesterday, Bernie Sanders was reported as saying, “the goal isn’t to win elections, the goal is to transform America.”  This stunned those who believe that electoral success is necessary to bring about change, particularly House members who seem to be constantly thinking first and foremost about elections; but as history shows, the motivating cause of change, particularly transformative change, is the formation of a powerful political movement.  If one’s goal is transformational change, pragmatism usually requires that one concentrate on building a movement and not just winning elections and passing compromised legislation.  This was the shocking message that Sanders was bringing to House Democrats.  It would be counter-productive were Sanders to veer from the task of transforming America by silencing the movement's message in support of a single candidate who appears not to be dedicated fully to transformational change.  Happily, the movement for a political revolution appears to be holding together, despite failing to nominate Bernie Sanders; meanwhile, movements that that support factions in the Republican Party and the ideology of neoliberalism in both parties appear to be weakening.

Four important political movements have found an intersection in the Sanders campaign:  the labor movement, the movement to address student debt, the movement for universal health insurance, and the environmental movement.  Three efforts are significant to the labor movement: defeating and repealing neoliberal international trade treaties, increasing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation, and addressing the country’s profound disparity of wealth.  Sanders made these issues central to his campaign and generated great enthusiasm for them in the Democratic electorate.  So much so, that Clinton has changed her views (or at least her rhetoric) in a number of ways to roughly align herself with most of these positions.  This was not entirely due to Sanders’s campaign as her embrace of some of these policies predated the Sanders campaign, but nearly everyone agrees that Sanders has "forced Clinton to the left."  The same can be said of Sanders’s and Clinton’s positions on student debt.  Sanders has been expressing the full aspirations of students with his call for “free college education,” while Clinton is advocating “affordable college education.”   With regard to health care, Sanders again articulates the full aspirations of the movement, while Clinton advocates expanding the Affordable Care Act.  Sanders also made environmental issues central to his campaign, coming out against fracking, the Keystone XL pipeline, and in support of a carbon fee and dividend plan.  Clinton insists that she is on board with the environmental movement, but her record here is quite mixed.  On the positive side, she has promised support for an infrastructure that will provide renewable energy to 100% of America’s residences, but she supports fracking and remained neutral at best during the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline.   Most recently, her appointees to the Democratic Party platform committee voted down a call for a carbon fee and dividend plan.  All this shows how the most significant motivating movements inside the Democratic Party have raised up a political candidate and are pressuring the establishment wing of the party.  These movements are calling for transformational change and are coalescing in opposition to the neoliberal and corporate control of our society, including the Democratic Party.

One important movement popular among progressives is the Black Lives Matters movement.  It has forced its way into both the Sanders and Clinton campaign.  Both candidates point to previous sympathy for criminal justice reform, but it is clear that both have raised it to a critical priority due to the movement’s effectiveness.  The Black Lives Matters movement shows how a docile political establishment can be pressed into action by concerted grassroots action. 

The movements that animate the Republican Party are different, of course, and they are by and large waning.  They have maintained a successful coalition for several decades and have been able to elect a huge number of officials at all levels of government.  The coalition appears, however, to be coming apart.  It has been composed of social conservatives, libertarians, militarists, white supremists, nativists, and neoliberals (who reside in significant numbers in both parties).   Following the election of Barak Obama, the more radical elements of these movements coalesced into “the Tea Party,” bankrolled by the libertarian Koch brothers.  This movement has had its predictable effect on Republican office holders.  In fear of a primary challenge, many have adopted quite radical "Tea Party" positions.  Again, this is an instance when a movement has been able to achieve success without always winning office; however, over time, the extreme views of the Tea Party have created fissures in the coalition.  The Tea Party movement is showing signs of reaching its peak influence.  Furthermore, the relative popularity of Donald Trump within the Republican Party has alienated many of the coalition’s most powerful elements, deepening the divide between the factions.  It is not clear whether the Republican Party coalition can be held together following the likely defeat of Donald Trump or even if it continues to exist today.

Under the circumstances of a rising social democratic movement and the decline of the movements in the Republican Party, it makes good sense for Bernie Sanders to concentrate on building the social democratic movement and not focus only on elections.  This is particularly true as the administration of the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee is likely to take much more cautious steps toward transforming American politics than the rising movements would like.  In all likelihood, Clinton will be elected president.  Respected poll analyst Nat Silver gives her an 80% chance, and it is hard to imagine that Donald Trump’s astonishingly high unfavorable ratings (60%) can be turned around.  Furthermore, the electoral map strongly favors any Democratic Party presidential candidate.  In the last quarter century, democrats have won five of six presidential elections (counting the 2000 election as a “victory” for Al Gore based on the national popular vote and what the outcome would have been had all of the votes been counted in Florida).  Furthermore, if Clinton wins all of the states that Democratic presidential candidates have won in each election since 1992, she only needs Florida to win the Electoral College votes.  If she loses Florida, there are a host of other states that combined will put her over the top.  Consequently, there is no good reason for the proponents of transformational change to silence themselves in hopes of greater electoral success on the part of a candidate with a clear neoliberal record.

Finally, I should say something about the two-party system.  Much of the pressure to accept compromise and “pragamatism” relies on the argument that a worse candidate might be elected.  Setting aside that this is currently quite unlikely, one should recognize that voting not only adds a tally to a candidate’s total, it serves to give them the illusion that their policies are favored by the voter.  It provides them with a degree of political legitimation when the voter in fact might not favor their policies nor feel they have a legitimate claim to authority.  Given the power of money to determine who can appear on our ballots in November, the winner of an election can hardly claim democratic legitimacy.  Not voting for one of the two establishment-sponsored (plutocratic) candidates is a way of refusing to accord them the basis for claiming a higher degree of legitimate authority.  Additionally, the two-party system will not be dismantled by members of those parties any more than the private funding of campaigns will be ended by candidates who are successful at raising private funds.  By voting for third party candidates, one escapes the trap of legitimating officeholders that one finds illegitimate and one builds an electoral organization that can demand the transformation of our politics to a multi-party democracy. 

Regardless of these considerations, one might still be convinced that voting for “the lesser of two evils” is rational.  I believe this is true at times; however, it is never true for the vast majority of voters during presidential elections.  Given that our electoral process involves state-by-state elections of delegates to the Electoral College, one’s vote for the president counts only in a few swing states.  In nearly all states, one is free to vote one’s conscience without fear that “the greater of two evils” will be elected.  If voting one’s conscience becomes common enough for this to happen, then the movement for a multi-party democracy will have been (or will be on the verge of being) successful. 

Much to the surprise of many of my fellow Green Party members who have heard me make the case for voting for Green Party presidential candidates even in swing states, this election has me concluding that there is a strong argument for swing state voters to cast their vote for Hillary Clinton. I don’t expect this election to be close, even in traditional swing states; but one issue stands out for me that makes me dread the election of Donald Trump:  the unfolding sixth great extinction of species on the planet.

It is not controversial that our population and global industrial society have initiated a precipitous decline in the number of species the planet harbors and that if this decline to continues, we will witness one of the six great extinctions of life on the planet that natural history has recorded.  During the last great extinction, 66 million years ago, 75% of all species were wiped out.  At the end of the Permian period, roughly 250 million years ago, 90% or more of all species were wiped out.  That is, life was nearly extinguished from the planet.  We are currently risking an event of such magnitude by our continuing disregard for critical ecological systems, particularly the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans.  Donald Trump appears to be poised to put in place officials who do not recognize the gravity of this situation.  Hillary Clinton, while also not recognizing its gravity, will likely appoint officials who will take it somewhat more seriously.  This might create openings for activists to make progress toward mitigating the effects of our ecological folly.  At this point, the urgency of the problem is so extreme that increasing the possibility for mitigating action, even in the slightest, overwhelms any other consideration.  In relative terms, no issue comes close to averting or at least mitigating a sixth extinction.  Consequently, I believe the political progress that might be made by voting for a multi-party democracy must take a back seat in swing states this election cycle.  If I voted in a swing state and if the contest for Electoral College delegates was close, I would vote for Clinton.