Thanks for posting, Professor. Since you know I greatly appreciate you opinions on this board and in our conversations, I am respectfully sharing my concerns that the Russian story has run its course..........in particular that the $100,000 worth of ads that Russia purchased on Facebook could have changed the course of the election, but that the $100's of millions (maybe billions) of ads that the Clinton campaign purchased weren't enough to win? I view the entire Russia discussion as a 'hey, look over there' instead of at us for rigging and then losing the election. And while that has been a view that has been difficult to defend given the lather-rinse-repeat Russia message in the headlines, I feel that the wind is about to blow very hard in unexpected directions. The fact that Donna Brazil and Elizabeth Warren have publicly stated that they believed the democratic primary was rigged in the last couple days tells me that something is ready to explode just under the surface here. When senior members of any party begin to distance themselves publicly from their most senior leadership by throwing them under the bus -
there are landmines afoot. This is Big.
Analysis | Elizabeth Warren and Donna Brazile both now agree the 2016 Democratic primary was rigged
And the fact that the Washington Post, CNN, and other Hillary-or-bust news sources are running these stories in all seriousness is even more telling that the wind is about to shift. I am not presenting this as an opinion of who is better - Hillary or Trump (you know I preferred neither personally). My point is that there may just be a whole lot of crow on the plates of journalists on both sides real soon, because the fuse is now lit. Will this be a market macro event................my initial thoughts say it probably won't be much of one. But it could very likely be the straw that broke the networks back at a time they were telling us not to believe any other news or social media sources that didn't carry headlines aligned with their messages.
I would be interested in your opinion of what might happen here. And I would thoroughly appreciate any history lessons you could share of similar events in the past.
Thanks
I haven't time for a fuller analysis and must be repeating myself. Hard to tell when one is so vocal—even postal in both senses—at my age.
First, as it happened, the
LA Times reported incidents of suppressing the vote for Bernie during the Democratic primary election. The method was enforced by registrars of voters who either would not supply Democratic ballots to Independent voters in our closed primary, or failed to notify them they were available by law and that such notification was also mandated by law. There may be other incidents and methods. I assumed the worst and think the first takeaway from the election is that both parties, Democratic and Republican, **sugared** up in a major way.
Further, as is well known the voting machines are a major vulnerability, not just from hacking whether domestic or foreign in origin. One tell is the lack of paper ballot evidence so an honest recount can be audited. Voting machines in Wisconsin, for example, were cheaper because they were California rejects because of the lack of a paper audit capability. In Ohio I have read, but cannot verify, the machines had a backup capability which was turned off. If so, why? And in all cases I know of the very same registrars of voters are responsible for the recount or audit leaving the system vulnerable to insider finagling in any case.
Finally, before turning to other concerns. There is a lot of evidence Republicans have for years been trying to suppress the black vote through stringent registration requirements, shortening the time for voting and the period for registration. Also, there have been outright examples of trickery in some states when people are misdirected to polling places, etc. There are a number of cases, some still pending, where parties have been caught red-handed in really outrageous redistricting efforts every ten years. I don't know whether the Dems are guilty of any of the above, except for the primary in California, but on gerrymandering the parties "all look alike to me."
As you may know and many of our foreign friends on this site do, there is a way around the gerrymandering issue: making elections multiple member districts with proportional representation at the state level. That is the technical term for having a party ballot choice on the ballot where you vote for one party list, not individual members from your part of the state. Party conventions determine the list of candidates to be elected. The total number of seats awarded is in proportion to the actual vote with a starting point at the top of the party list. The advantage of this system is smaller parties can get more representation. Libertarians, for example, often get ten percent of the vote in California but never get a chance to have ten percent of the California Assembly and Senate. This system can be much more democratic; in some countries there are so many parties coalitions have to be formed and the results can be catestrophic. In one case, and this will get me into trouble with some readers, Israel's system requires the most extreme right wing religious factions to join with any prime minister for a working system. Thus Netanyahu's hawkishness is even more extreme than it might be in a single-member district system like ours. Also, governments can be unstable for years and issues both cannot be addressed and one after another election fails to solve the problem. Italy after WWII is the best example. The French had a word for it: "immobilisme (sp.?)."
I'm not fully acquainted with this field but the majority of texts in comparative government courses tout the German mix of electoral systems probably the best compromise. Unfortunately, it is complicated and hard to understand. A lot of German voters don't understand, either.
From a historical standpoint we are much like Germany in the twenties and thirties, though the causes of our societal dilemma are different and less extreme. We had a chance to vote for a candidate who had a social and, if I may add a Christian approach to government, with concern for the poor, all of our needs, a respectful approach to the economy and other external concerns, or a candidate who would appeal to the concerns of the disaffected by stoking fear of others. It is no wonder the white supremacists' chants at Charlottesville were "I am not a Jew." We missed that choice due to the Democratic Party machine, such as it is, and Trump knows full well who his real friends are so it continues.
I haven't much more than a foggy, maybe old fogy, idea how cultural change occurs. But thanks to one of my critics here, I do have a word for it, hopium. Sometime take a look at Robert N. Bellah, and others,
Habits of the Heart, Individualism and Commitment in American Life. There is a similar and more readable translation somewhere--perhaps
The Good Society, I don't remember. Bellah is a religious scholar, though he was forced to flee to Canada during the McCarthy era and was persecuted by Harvard. (MIT did the same to my graduate math teacher, Dirk Struik, who eventually won reappointment as did Bellah at Harvard for many years.) My sociology colleagues tell me
Habits really had a massive effect on their discipline, resurrecting concern for ethics in social inquiry. Though not a Marxist, I am fully competent in recognizing the ism. Bellah's approach is not Marxist. It is marred by the style of writing associated with Talcott Parsons. One of my students hated it so much he lodged a disciplinary complaint with a faculty board for using the book, poor fool. I also used a wonderful digest by a Sociology colleague which we quoted in a book I coauthored with another political scientist part of which I can share with you but I've already missed the news and this is too long, soooo unusual for me.
The takeaway: Americans have to wake up. They need to pay attention or someone else will vote and steal the store, the banks, their homes, and tamper with their souls. I take it your beef with the press is they are, as usual, distracted. I differ slightly. Analysis of what Russia and the Republicans are about will awaken a sleeping giant, public opinion. But it might turn very violent indeed, when the oppressed who voted for Trump finally see he is not their savior. The Democrats have a chance for change, but then there's the famous quotation from Will Rogers.
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