Bullets, not ballots preferred by growing ranks of unhappy partisans

Gordon L. Weil

Ballots, not bullets. A government of laws, not men.

When politicians talk about the nation’s shared values, that’s part of what they mean – a non-violent, lawful, democratic system of government.

What we really get is something much different. Four presidents assassinated plus 15 threatened. Historic assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Threats against a Supreme Court justice and his family. And on down to Maine’s former Governor Paul LePage recently threatening to “deck” a Democrat.

A Maine newspaper editorializes: “Threats of violence are unacceptable. We can’t believe we have to keep saying this.”

You do have to keep saying this, because America has a culture of violence, especially political, and it is getting worse.

It began with the American frontier. In the 1800s, the country had more territory than it could govern, leaving justice to individuals on their own, often using guns for self-defense. Violence or its threat could substitute for government.

In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was the target of an historic political assassination. Under his leadership, the Union had won the Civil War and slavery was soon to be completely outlawed. John Wilkes Booth, an actor, shot Lincoln to dramatically punish him for crushing the Confederacy.

By the end of the Nineteenth Century, the frontier had ended and government, police and courts functioned throughout the country. But violence continued and the pace of attempts on presidents picked up.

Violence or threats have followed the Lincoln pattern of punishing people for their previous actions. It cannot stop them, but it feels good to retaliate and it may intimidate others from taking similar actions.

Recently, cases seem to be piling up.

Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger voted to impeach President Trump and serve as the only Republicans on the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. For their independence from blind party loyalty, they became targets for threats.

Cheney spent some of her re-election campaign funds for security. Both receive extra Capitol police protection. She lost her primary. Kinzinger knew he would lose and chose not to run. Violence was both unjustified and unnecessary.

Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the FBI warrant to search Trump’s Florida home for government documents taken from the White House. Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio falsely inferred that Reinhart was a partisan Democrat. The judge and his family were threatened. His synagogue had to cancel its services because of anti-Semitic threats.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top federal epidemiologist, corrected Trump’s faulty Covid-19 cure claims, and he and his family became targets of a death threat. This month, his would-be killer got a three-year prison sentence.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh voted to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion decision. He and his family were threatened. Because of the killing of the son of a federal judge and the Kavanaugh threats, Congress quickly approved added protection for Supreme Court justices and their families.

Most threats and half-baked attacks appear to come from Trump supporters, people who believe in him and the myth that his re-election was stolen. But, as in the Kavanaugh case, menace could come from the other side as well.

While there is probably no single or simple explanation for the increase in serious threats, they seem to reflect the divisive and unsettled state of the country. Since the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, many people have come to feel that government does not act for them. They are increasingly frustrated and want change.

The elections of both Obama and Trump revealed strong sentiment in favor of change, almost simply for its own sake. When those elections disappointed such hopes, some became more disaffected. The right wing has grown and increasingly favors a more authoritarian approach that rejects compromise.

Trump and LePage tapped into that sentiment to promote their own political ambitions. The result was to legitimize the breaking of traditional constraints, sneeringly labeled as political correctness. Trump’s followers have felt fewer limits on taking matters into their own hands.

If the country had seemed to be moving away from racism, anti-Semitism, violence and other extreme actions, that stopped with Trump. His sense of unlimited power was transmitted to his followers. A few thousand insurrectionists took over the Capitol, claiming they represented the American people as they threatened to hang the Vice President.

Though perhaps questionable, some polls show that a portion of the population believes political violence is acceptable. Not long ago, even conducting such a poll would have been unimaginable.

The political debate cannot get much lower than a resort to violence. The frontier, long gone, cannot be allowed to linger on. The lawless legacy of the once-ungoverned American West gets in the way of the real choice.

How do the people want the country to be governed?

Why did Trust keep official documents?

Gordon L. Weil

I am biased.  You are biased.

“Everyone is a little bit biased,” says an article published by the American Bar Association.  “A little bit” may understate matters. A recent incident shows how deeply bias can run.

A Little League pitcher’s fastball beaned a batter, who fell to the ground.  For a few minutes, the situation looked serious. But the batter had worn a helmet, so he recovered and took first base. 

The pitcher stood almost motionless with his head down, obviously regretting the errant pitch. Seeing the pitcher’s distress, the batter walked over and gave him a hug and some words of reassurance.  ESPN broadcast this action and drew many strong reactions.

Now for the bias.  Some observers applauded the hitter’s being a good sport and showing his compassion for another kid’s distress.  Others expressed extreme disdain for the batter not having charged the mound to sock the pitcher.  At least he should have done nothing, leaving the rattled pitcher to blow the game.

Some were biased in favor of a player looking out for the welfare of another player.  Others were biased in favor of winning at any cost, which left no room for compassion even in a kid’s ball game.  The fervor revealed something about what divides the country.

Move from that scene to the FBI seizure of government documents in the possession of former President Donald Trump.  

By law, official papers in Trump’s possession should have been in the National Archives but were still held by an ex-president who is now an ordinary citizen. Trump could have thought that his false claim of having won the 2020 election was aided by his holding onto documents only a president should have. 

Some Trump supporters believe that the FBI action was part of an organized plot to harass Trump as he moved toward announcing a 2024 run for the presidency.  They see him charged with technical legal violations by people who disagree with his bold political moves.  That leads them to be biased in his favor.

Others believe that Trump is an arrogant person who saw the presidency as his personal property, giving him the right to do whatever he wanted.  He never had unchecked powers and, as a private citizen, had lost whatever powers he once had.  His opponents are ready to cry, “Lock him up,” showing their bias against him.

This clash of biases is fueled by much of the media that is in business to make money.  Each bias has its own media allies who keep throwing more fuel on the fire as a way of attracting more viewers or readers.

The free expression of these biases is made possible by a virtually unique American law – the First Amendment to the Constitution.  It rules that the government cannot stop a person from saying or writing almost anything.  It’s part of a political system unlike almost any other in the world. 

How can a country function if it is so deeply divided on matters ranging from the powers of the ex-president to kids’ behavior in a baseball playoff game?

The answer is “checks and balances.”  We have been taught that decisions made by the federal government are subject to a complicated system of checks and balances designed to prevent any part of the government from having absolute control.  That’s how democracy works.  It is slow and inefficient, but can keep us safe from rule by a single person.

Checks and balances are really how almost everything works.  While one side wants the Trump investigation halted because it is a “witch hunt,” the other side has already decided the former president has no excuse for breaking the letter of the law.  No checks need be applied.

Here’s what we know free from bias.  Presidents are supposed to turn their government documents over to the National Archives. When Trump left office, some presidential documents went to his Florida home.  He later returned some, but not all, of them even after receiving a subpoena.  The FBI then took more government papers from his home. 

Trump says there was no wrongdoing.  Decisions to be made by the Justice Department, a grand jury, a trial jury, and many appeals judges may be needed to decide if laws were broken and punishment is merited. This time-consuming process is how we protect both individuals charged and the national interest.

Stopping the process anywhere along the way because it is not producing the outcome one wants would reflect bias.  The system is designed to wash out bias as much as humanly possible.

Either the American system will work in its intentionally inefficient way to yield a decision or the built-in bias of one side or the other will ultimately weaken a system on which our country depends. 

'What's the matter with Kansas?' Women's political power grows

 

Gordon L. Weil

“What’s the matter with Kansas?”

After that state’s vote to retain the state constitution’s protection of abortion, many might answer that “nothing’s the matter with Kansas.”

Unless that vote was a fluke, what happened in Kansas has sent a signal about the future of American politics.

The Kansas question was first asked by William Allen White in a classic 1896 editorial.  He criticized the state’s populism and jabbed at men who talked about big public spending, while leaving their wives struggling to find enough money for household expenses.

In 2004, Thomas Frank, a native Kansan, authored a book with the question as its title. He argued that the Republicans who controlled the state had adopted policies harming the average people who loyally elected them.  White’s conservatism had won the day.

Kansas is often considered a “solid red” state, thoroughly conservative and Republican.  Seen that way, the abortion vote was a historic break from what had become the deeply ingrained character of the state.

But that view of Kansas is at least partially wrong and is becoming even more discredited as time passes.  Two things are changing in Kansas that are likely to be occurring all across the country. 

Kansas is becoming more urban, according to the U.S. Census.  We may think of its fields of grain, but services based in cities are gaining. The Democrats are beginning to win in growing Kansas cities and their suburbs, while the Republicans lead in the shrinking rural towns. 

But the pro-choice vote in both the small towns and cities topped the Biden 2020 votes. That may have been caused by the growing power of women in politics. “Solid red” Kansas has a woman serving as governor and in one of its four U.S. House seats.  Both are Democrats. 

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voter registration shot up in Kansas, where a state referendum meant to undermine the abortion right was scheduled.  The Republican legislature calculated that a low turnout, mostly for GOP primaries, would ensure its passage. 

But turnout was high, reflecting a surge in new registrants.  About 70 percent of the newly enrolled voters were women.  While there’s no way of knowing how they voted, it’s likely they were motivated to register and vote by the need to protect abortion after the Roe reversal.

Nationally, the population mix of the electorate is changing. A lot of attention is focused on Latinos and African Americans. Are Latino voters innately conservative and likely to desert the Democrats?  Faced with voter suppression, will African Americans be discouraged from voting?

One day, a majority of the American electorate will be composed of minorities.  But this preview misses the most obvious group, one that is not a minority – women. Their more active political involvement could have far greater impact than the growth in minority power.

More involvement by women is highly likely to benefit the Democrats.  In 2022, almost a third of state legislators are women and two-thirds of them are Democrats. 

Maine may be a prime example of women in politics. It ranks seventh in percentage of women legislators.  It has a history of women participating and three of its U.S. senators have been women – all Republicans. As urbanization grows in southern Maine, the state seems to lean more to the Democrats.

Some pundits seem blind to the change that is happening.  They criticize the Democrats for abandoning unionized, industrial workers in favor of better educated suburban women. They suggest that the GOP is gaining ground when it picks up blue collar Democrats.

That’s their theory and it is somewhat supported by traditionally Democratic states like Pennsylvania and Michigan having become battlegrounds. And then, along comes Kansas.

It would be easy to write off the vote there as being all about abortion. In fact, the Kansas reaction to the Roe reversal may have revealed what Democratic strategists knew.  The country is changing and they are going where the votes are.

The number of college-educated people has been rising sharply and now represents 41 percent of the population.  Women outnumber men among college graduates and their share of the total keeps increasing. 

Among people 25 and older, there are more women who have finished college than men who have finished high school. And there are fewer union members than college educated women.  

In short, the conventional wisdom about Democratic prospects may be unwise and too conventional.  It explains why the GOP clings to power in the Senate, the last place where rural states can block the federal government.  But the Republicans need to watch out for Kansas.

The vote there suggests that something more than the abortion issue was at play.  A combination of more, better educated women and urban growth are the biggest engines of political change.

Maine’s rare election could have national impact

Gordon L. Weil

Maine will hold one of the most unusual elections ever. A sitting governor will face the governor who she succeeded. It’s even more unusual because the incumbent is a woman.

That is a rare event across the country and in U.S. history, though it has happened previously in Maine. But, beyond its rarity, it potentially has national significance.

The country is deeply divided between the conservative Republican Party reshaped by former president Trump and the Democratic Party with its big tent covering partisans from left to right. This split produces stalemate.

While much attention is focused on congressional elections, where the outcome may be a verdict on the Biden presidency, a better reading of the national political balance may be in races for governor, including Maine’s.

The election of a governor allows voters to choose who leads a government that has a direct effect on them. That differs from a federal election in which the winner will at best be a part of the Washington system that struggles to create policy. And, unlike votes for federal offices, each voter has exactly the same influence in the governor’s election.

Maine Governor Janet Mills, a moderate-right Democrat, faces former governor Paul LePage who has styled himself as a Trump Republican. Although they have never before faced one another in an election, they battled when Mills served as Attorney-General during LePage’s time in office.

Mills has the advantage in being the incumbent in a state where voters often give governors a second term. But as presidential elections have shown, the state is closely divided along partisan lines. LePage's ties to Trump would make an upset win by him into national news. If the state swings, much may be read into the result as a sign of Trump’s continuing influence.

Several other states, though none with a two-governor race, may also send a signal on the direction the country is headed. If they should all move in the same direction, it would be a powerful signal.

The political signs are that Georgia is becoming a swing state. Amazingly for the Deep South, it now has two Democratic U.S. senators. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is a Trump Republican hated by Trump, because he did not throw the 2020 presidential election to him. Georgia voters seem ready to move beyond Trump, but not necessarily beyond conservatism.

Kemp will face Democrat Stacey Abrams, whom he narrowly defeated four years ago. She was a key architect of the 2020 Democratic wins in Georgia and is a national level political figure. She offers a clear choice on issues, but perhaps more importantly, she is among the most skillful politicians in her party and can get out her vote.

Abrams may benefit from a political shift that could send a broader message. There has been an influx of people from outside the South into the Atlanta area. Just as Maine could become more Democratic thanks to new arrivals, the Atlanta region is becoming more Democratic. Georgia’s results could reveal the coming crumbling of the Solid South.

Texas and Wisconsin could provide readings about the national split, and the effect of Republican efforts to make voting more difficult for traditional Democratic voters may be a major factor. If the GOP is successful, it could reveal they can hold onto control in many states even when in the minority, though it is not an issue in Maine.

In Texas, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott is an absolute Trump loyalist and an active promoter of voter suppression. He faces Beto O’Rourke, a former member of Congress who ran well against Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. O’Rourke may have a tough time winning, but even a close finish could put Texas into the toss-up category for the 2024 presidential election.

Wisconsin may be the state making the greatest efforts to keep people from voting, and there are even questions about its vote counting. The Democratic governor will face a Trump Republican. As much as the partisan test, the election will show if voter suppression has taken hold, which could affect the 2024 presidential race in a key state.

The Nevada race shapes up as a test for the Trump forces. His candidate faces a moderate Democratic incumbent. If Trump Republicans want to show they are gaining, this is perhaps their best chance. A Democratic reversal here would send the similar message to a Mills’ loss in Maine.

Elections for the U.S. House and Senate could determine if Biden will be able to accomplish much in the next two years. This is likely critical for the Democratic platform, because the 2024 elections could be for an open seat for president.

But on the broader question of the national political balance and how it will tilt in the future, it’s the governors’ races that may provide the answer.