Interesting Things from Around the Internet

This is a fascinating story about a study done on voting patterns in Michigan. Several different groups of voters were treated to different persuasions to vote via mail: nothing at all, appeals to civic duty and finally the threat of public shaming. Guess which one worked the best?

Also on the voting tip, here’s a New York Times editorial discussing the success of early voting in the states that have adopted it. It seems strange to me that we do all these things – voting on Tuesday, making registration difficult – not for any good reason, or because we think voting should be difficult, but because for some reason Americans hate the idea of certain kinds of change – usually change that involves public institutions – or milk jugs, I guess. At what point do we finally sit down and address this absurdity in a serious, progressive way?

The NASA probe to Mercury took a bunch of pictures in a recent flyby, expanding our knowledge of the closest planet to the sun, but still leaving a number of surprising gaps in our knowledge: the western hemisphere of the planet is 30% smoother than the other, it’s covered in an unidentified substance the scientists call “blue material” (oh, you scientists and your clever names!) and it looks like Mercury has shrunk significantly as its interior has cooled. All interesting enough, but it sounds like the real interesting stuff will happen in 2011 when the probe enters stable orbit around Mercury. Another success for the space program, and another blow against manned space exploration (sadly).

And finally, Daniel Larison has a perceptive take on that most frustrating of creatures, the undecided voter. I agree with PW that sitting through that Obama infomercial was pretty painful, but I think Larison was right: this is closer to what the undecideds want. Which is truly kind of frightening. It started me wondering, the problem is clearly not that people don’t understand the candidates positions. Even when they might be a little bit fuzzy or a little bit misleading, it isn’t hard to assess the positions of both candidates and come to a rational decision on them. Despite what they say, undecided voters don’t want to know more about “issues,” because they don’t understand and don’t care about issues. So: what do we do? How does democracy function when a large portion of the electorate (and when we’re talking about undecideds, we’re talking about people with no interest who still vote – to say nothing of those who don’t care and don’t bother) just don’t care about rational decision making? Are their opinions (and votes) worth as much as ideologues? Or more? I don’t have any answers, but it certainly seems to me like an important question.

Obama and the Defensive Crouch

I think Daniel Larison makes some good points in this post about progressives, Obama and the role of a hawkish pose in this election. He has a very on spot summary of the Democratic “defensive pose” that has dominated Democratic and Republican campaigns since Reagan and how Obama breaks the mold a bit.

Obama has essentially been following in this same tradition: opposed to the war in Iraq, but otherwise in favor of a very active role in the world up to and including new military engagements and very keen to declare his support for military action in places other than Iraq by the U.S. and allied militaries. So when progressives listen to Obama’s answers on foreign policy, they tend to cringe because they recognize perfectly well that Obama sounds just like the opposition on most issues related to U.S. policies abroad.

There are two big reasons that Obama was in a unique position to counter McCain this year. The first one being, of course, that he had opposed the war from the beginning – he was against it before it began, unlike all the other serious Democratic candidates for the candidacy. Obama could legitimately point to that stance and say, “I was correct and John McCain was not,” and not get hit for changing their minds when the winds blew foul. The second is that, as Larison points out, Obama has long supported a rather hawkish, liberal interventionist foreign policy vision. Progressives like myself who would like to see a much more restrained use of US military force outside our borders may cringe a bit at that (and extremely limited interventionists like Larison will of course move from cringing to wincing), but the fact is that Obama has a legitimate history of pro-military opinions.

It’s a sorry state of affairs, but the simple fact is that, in general, Americans like wars. We usually win them and they allow people to feel morally superior to other nations. The stab-in-the-back narrative that conservatives have carefully built up around the failure of the Vietnam War and the rosey-hued paeans to World War II and “the greatest generation” have left Americans with an extremely warped sense of what it means to fight a war, let alone the kind of grinding counterinsurgency that the Iraq War has turned into. Americans are used to wars that resemble videogames – quick, on television, and over when the TV goes off. The Iraq war has not done much to inconvenience people yet. We’re still waiting for the bill to come due. Right now, it’s popular to be on the side of war.

There is a popular narrative surrounding Democrats that says they’re weak and aren’t able to carry through wars, unlike the tough, manly Republicans who can get the job done. There’s a lot of blame for this prevailing attitude, not least of which lands squarely on the shoulders of Democrats themselves for constantly running away from this fight. John McCain himself certainly hasn’t done the nation any favors with his constant reiteration of “country first,” as if the Democrats were intending to put someone else (Iran, maybe? Hollywood?) in front of “real” America. I think that John McCain, as a citizen and a human being, should be ashamed of himself, but I won’t loose any sleep waiting for an apology.

The problem comes from the fact that before this mentality can change we have to have a strong Democrat to disprove it. This meme has been an unusually hardy one, and just like the one that insists that Republicans are the party of fiscal sanity, it seems to be a pretty hardy weed. It’s taken a long time for both of these to change. I would love to see a candidate articulate a muscular, responsible and non-dogmatic noninterventionism. When that candidate appears on the scene, I’ll be happy to vote for them. But I don’t think anyone running on such a platform could be elected in this United States. The Republicans, while being manifestly more irresponsible, would have a field day. The media would have none of it in their constant quest for a charismatic strongman. And I don’t think the public would take it seriously.

I think Larison is incorrect, however, when he says that Obama sounds just like the other side. As someone even more committed to noninterventionism than I would call myself, I think he too quickly falls into painting both with the same brush. Obama is far more likely to be considered in his application of force, and far more likely to seek out accord in utilizing it. I don’t think that this will in and of itself lead to a more judicious and just use of force – bad wars can certainly be started this way – but I do think it’s far less likely than what John McCain will offer us.

Perhaps Obama isn’t the candidate I’d want in all respects. Maybe the next guy would be. But Obama can’t be worse than the candidate who promises to double down on all of Bush’s mistakes.

Reign in Hell

Daniel Larison answers a question I asked:

I think they might have avoided mentioning how beautiful Obama finds the Islamic call to prayer, I think they might have eschewed ever referring to his middle name, and I think they could have worked much more strenuously to stress how embarrassingly “pro-Israel” Obama’s positions on Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and the like have been. I take it for granted that his admirers and supporters want him to win, and I assume they are savvy enough to understand that imputing sympathy with Muslims is exactly what Obama’s opponents want people to believe about him, so I have never understood why they have been so keen to talk about those aspects of his life and family history that separate him from most Americans’ experience.

I think this reveals a few things about the two major parties, their approach to campaigning and the American public. Obama’s appeal to the rest of the world and his engagement with the outside world on a level deeper than “USA #1” sloganeering isn’t a bug, it’s a feature for progressives. The idea that the Obama campaign should have actively tried to hide that to appease a group of bigots who are unlikely to vote for him is absurd. As someone who currently lives outside the US, I can say that people here in Eastern Europe are much more excited about Obama than McCain – and with good reason. Obama at least gives the rest of the world the courtesy of pretending that they have cultures worthy of respect. And as a side note, I live close to a mosque, and the call to prayer is beautiful. If Obama loses the election because of people and attitudes like the ones Daniel discusses, it doesn’t have anything to do with Obama and his supporters.

In campaigning, Democratic candidates tend to be more principled than Republicans. (“Republicans,” as opposed to “conservatives”) Look at the campaigns this year. Democrats are always knocked for being weak and on the defensive, because Republicans are more than happy to lie, slander and play political hardball. This is often presented as an admirable trait. When progressives say they like Obama in part because he has an understanding of and even an appreciation for Muslim culture it’s not because we think that it’s going to help Obama get elected. It’s because that’s what we think. The idea of hiding that because it would make Obama more electable is absurd and distasteful to me. Now, could this cause Obama to lose the election? I suppose. I think that would be a real tragedy for the country. But I would much, much prefer that Obama and his supporters run a campaign where they don’t try and pull a white curtain across their candidate’s problematic characteristics.

I don’t think that the Democrats are the holders of all good thoughts, or that the Republicans are simply cynical power addicts (I think they’re much more than just simple cynical power addicts), but clearly they don’t have a problem with naked cynicism when it suits their purposes. Progressives have only recently had much say in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Up until Bush, most progressives were content to say, “I’m taking my ball and going home” when candidates didn’t carry through on promises (see Nader, Ralph). Evangelicals are much more closely tied to their party’s powerbase and are hence much more reluctant to leave the coalition, even though it’s not as if the GOP has ever followed through on all those sweet nothings they whispered into Christians’ ears before taking advantage of them.

What it comes down to is: where progressives see a qualification, others see a liability. What is disgusting about the whole thing – even more than the thought that people would not vote for a candidate who is not Muslim based on how they feel about Islamic culture – is the fact that there are people out there willing to take advantage of those people to gain power. I think we already know that quite a few Republicans are familiar with Milton.

Ch-ch-changes

I thought this was an interesting comment from Daniel Larison:

Another thing to note: 2002 serves as an important date in Palin’s career. This is the year when she ran for lieutenant governor. It is also the year she left her Assemblies of God church in Wasilla for a less controversial non-denominational church and the year her husband dropped his Independence Party registration. Some of the things that are invoked as reasons to hold out hope for the Palins are either already long gone, or they were dropped easily for the sake of making Palin more viable as a statewide candidate. Now that she has reached the national stage, what else will she drop to accommodate herself to the demands of a McCain administration?

I’ve noticed that, too. It seemed like in 2002, Palin and family suddenly got very serious about cutting out some of the odder deadwood in their lives. My question is, why? The Independence Party thing I can understand – when you’re running in Republican elections, I’m sure it helps if the whole family is Republican – but switching churches strikes me as odd. I had previously been unaware that running as an evangelical was a detriment in Republican circles. Perhaps Palin’s former church was too hot for the Alaskan Republican contingent? I’d be very curious to hear what prompted the change, which I haven’t seen so far in any of the coverage – especially considering the roll that her former church apparently played in her election as mayor of Wasillia.

As a side note, watching Larison lose his mind in real time over the whole Palin thing has been very entertaining.