This is why I'm a big fan of Garry Wills as he does a good job of providing us a real taxonomy of the political field of action.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/why-im-liberal-democrat-not-bernie.html
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Conservative-Garry-Wills/dp/0385089775/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1441214018&sr=1-1&keywords=confessions+of+a+conservative
What you get from Wills is that there are three spheres of political action:
1. Activists
2. Candidates
3. Politicians actually elected and in office.
In thinking about 1, a classic case is the recent rise of Black Lives Matter. I agree with their basic complaint and agenda. Police brutality and excessive force used against black men as typified by Freddie Gray.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YV0EtkWyno
More generally it seems that those who kill young black men-whether the police or even private citizens like George Zimmerman-seem so often to walk free.
On the other hand, when I look at Sandra Bland's video, it's clear she is no martyr. If you watch her video it's clear that she did everything to provoke that officer. Calling a cop a pussy to his face is not exactly trying to defuse the situation. With all the talk that white people get treated so much better, I doubt a white person who acted like that wouldn't be arrested.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1199642/New-video-Sandra-Blands-arrest-later-died-jail.html
But I do agree with their overall complaint and support their basic policy agenda. However, like is typical of activists I don't always like their tactics.
In general activist groups are single issue or about a small list issues that they think matter more than any other issue. This is the idea of Lawrence Lessig's campaign. He understands that normally the President can't spend all his capital on one issue-in Lessig's case, taking the influence of money out of elections.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/lawrence-lessigs-single-issue-campaign.html
So he proposes that he'll run, win, fix the money problem and then step down. He has-jokingly?-talked of Trump being his running mate.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/twentysixteen/2015/08/18/what-lawrence-lessig-loves-about-donald-trump
Sure, just fix the money problem in politics. That will be done in what-a couple of weeks? This shows the naivety of activists, they think that problems can be fixed overnight.
But as Barney Frank points out, often activists just make lots of demands.
"There is a price to pay for rejecting the partial victories that are typically achieved through political activity. When you do so, you discourage your own foot soldiers, whose continued activity is needed for future victories. You also alienate the legislative partners you need. A very imperfect understanding of game theory is at work here. Advocates often tell me that if they give elected officials credit for incremental successes, they will encounter complacency and lose the ability to push for more. But if you constantly raise your demands without acknowledging that some of them have been satisfied, you will price yourself out of the political marketplace. When members of Congress defy political pressure at home and vote for a part of what you want, they are still taking a risk. Telling them you will accept only 100 percent support is likely to leave you with nothing."
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/president-obama-as-anti-lame-duck.html
Sure, that's how to deal with students if you're a teacher right? Never praise anything they do as that might make them complacent.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/why-im-liberal-democrat-not-bernie.html
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Conservative-Garry-Wills/dp/0385089775/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1441214018&sr=1-1&keywords=confessions+of+a+conservative
What you get from Wills is that there are three spheres of political action:
1. Activists
2. Candidates
3. Politicians actually elected and in office.
In thinking about 1, a classic case is the recent rise of Black Lives Matter. I agree with their basic complaint and agenda. Police brutality and excessive force used against black men as typified by Freddie Gray.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YV0EtkWyno
More generally it seems that those who kill young black men-whether the police or even private citizens like George Zimmerman-seem so often to walk free.
On the other hand, when I look at Sandra Bland's video, it's clear she is no martyr. If you watch her video it's clear that she did everything to provoke that officer. Calling a cop a pussy to his face is not exactly trying to defuse the situation. With all the talk that white people get treated so much better, I doubt a white person who acted like that wouldn't be arrested.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1199642/New-video-Sandra-Blands-arrest-later-died-jail.html
But I do agree with their overall complaint and support their basic policy agenda. However, like is typical of activists I don't always like their tactics.
In general activist groups are single issue or about a small list issues that they think matter more than any other issue. This is the idea of Lawrence Lessig's campaign. He understands that normally the President can't spend all his capital on one issue-in Lessig's case, taking the influence of money out of elections.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/lawrence-lessigs-single-issue-campaign.html
So he proposes that he'll run, win, fix the money problem and then step down. He has-jokingly?-talked of Trump being his running mate.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/twentysixteen/2015/08/18/what-lawrence-lessig-loves-about-donald-trump
Sure, just fix the money problem in politics. That will be done in what-a couple of weeks? This shows the naivety of activists, they think that problems can be fixed overnight.
But as Barney Frank points out, often activists just make lots of demands.
"There is a price to pay for rejecting the partial victories that are typically achieved through political activity. When you do so, you discourage your own foot soldiers, whose continued activity is needed for future victories. You also alienate the legislative partners you need. A very imperfect understanding of game theory is at work here. Advocates often tell me that if they give elected officials credit for incremental successes, they will encounter complacency and lose the ability to push for more. But if you constantly raise your demands without acknowledging that some of them have been satisfied, you will price yourself out of the political marketplace. When members of Congress defy political pressure at home and vote for a part of what you want, they are still taking a risk. Telling them you will accept only 100 percent support is likely to leave you with nothing."
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/president-obama-as-anti-lame-duck.html
Sure, that's how to deal with students if you're a teacher right? Never praise anything they do as that might make them complacent.
Or are politicians different than all other human beings?
So to be an activist just means you make lots of demands. How are your demands to be met? Well that's not your problem. You make demands, the politicians have to figure out how. Once they do something, don't acknowledge it but make more demands.
In the video of Hillary's private talk with BLM I noticed that they found her provocative for asking what they want her to do-what policies would they like to see.
It was an interesting moment. The BLM activists chastised her: We don't tell y'all what to do, you don't' tell us.
I guess 'we' meant blacks and 'you' meant whites. The BLM have totally ignored progress. They make the rather outlandish claim that no 'person of color' has every done well in the United States-this is a country with a President who's 'of color' along with an AG, and a former Secretary of State-Colin Powell, who was followed by Condeeleza Rice.
Of course, the truth is that activists are good at finding problems but not much use at solutions. Part of this is they really don't understand how the world works. They might see something they don't like but they don't know why it's like that. Maybe there's more to it than they realize. But this they don't consider. Their job isn't to think, it's to chastise and make demands.
This brings us to candidates. I think it's less that they break their campaign promises out of deliberate lying as out of ignorance. There is a difference between being the POTUS and running for the job.
You might criticize him for X but there may be a perfectly good reason for it. This may even be part of why incumbents usually win. They are both 2 and 3. They've been the challenger and won and now being men of power they know that a lot of the promises the challenger make is out of ignorance.
Like in 1932 when FDR ran on cutting government spending and a balanced budget my guess is he did it out more of ignorance than lying. He wasn't at all a Keynesian back then and really thought balancing the budget in the middle of our worst depression was a good idea.
On the other hand in 1940 I think it's likely that when he promised to stay out of 'foreign wars' -he knew that America had to join in at some point but that the country wasn't ready to face that yet.
In the video of Hillary's private talk with BLM I noticed that they found her provocative for asking what they want her to do-what policies would they like to see.
It was an interesting moment. The BLM activists chastised her: We don't tell y'all what to do, you don't' tell us.
I guess 'we' meant blacks and 'you' meant whites. The BLM have totally ignored progress. They make the rather outlandish claim that no 'person of color' has every done well in the United States-this is a country with a President who's 'of color' along with an AG, and a former Secretary of State-Colin Powell, who was followed by Condeeleza Rice.
Of course, the truth is that activists are good at finding problems but not much use at solutions. Part of this is they really don't understand how the world works. They might see something they don't like but they don't know why it's like that. Maybe there's more to it than they realize. But this they don't consider. Their job isn't to think, it's to chastise and make demands.
This brings us to candidates. I think it's less that they break their campaign promises out of deliberate lying as out of ignorance. There is a difference between being the POTUS and running for the job.
You might criticize him for X but there may be a perfectly good reason for it. This may even be part of why incumbents usually win. They are both 2 and 3. They've been the challenger and won and now being men of power they know that a lot of the promises the challenger make is out of ignorance.
Like in 1932 when FDR ran on cutting government spending and a balanced budget my guess is he did it out more of ignorance than lying. He wasn't at all a Keynesian back then and really thought balancing the budget in the middle of our worst depression was a good idea.
On the other hand in 1940 I think it's likely that when he promised to stay out of 'foreign wars' -he knew that America had to join in at some point but that the country wasn't ready to face that yet.
Sometimes campaign promises are broken simply because the candidate-this is the case for those not incumbents to be sure-doesn't realize they won't be able to keep the promise.
But sometimes it doesn't matter whether a promise is made out of ignorance or deliberate pandering.
When Scott Walker talks about ripping up the Iran deal 'On day one'-whether he really believes that or is just pandering, in either case, it shows he's not right for the job of Commander in Chief.
Trump by comparison has the right answer. There is a time path dependent nature to such agreements. There is no hope of going back to the previous status quo now.
But sometimes it doesn't matter whether a promise is made out of ignorance or deliberate pandering.
When Scott Walker talks about ripping up the Iran deal 'On day one'-whether he really believes that or is just pandering, in either case, it shows he's not right for the job of Commander in Chief.
Trump by comparison has the right answer. There is a time path dependent nature to such agreements. There is no hope of going back to the previous status quo now.
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