Tag: A. Lawrence Chickering

Transpartisan Note #111

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Mueller hits a single. Next up, Congress. On deck, the people. The Report is out. Talk shows and late night comics buzz nonstop. They work overtime to continue the story through the next election and, if possible, beyond.

“Trump ravages the White House” stories print money for the media. What the president of CBS said during the 2016 election remains true today. Trump may or may not be good for the country but he is great for the media.

“Man,” the CBS boss said, “who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? … The money’s rolling in and this is fun.” There is use for much talk about next steps. Mueller turned a lot of “fake news” into useable fact.

The Special Counsel made three powerful distinctions:

1. The office of Presidency is bigger than the current or any occupant of that office;
2. A powerful cyberattack on the nation is different from the Trump Keystone Kops desire to benefit from that attack;
3. An unbridled desire to obstruct justice falls short of legal liability if it fails to actually obstruct justice.

These distinctions give us all we need to know to draw some simple conclusions:

First, Mueller decided—sensibly, in our view—to pass the question “can a sitting president be indicted” to Congress. An “impeachment” is an indictment by the House of Representatives. It finds enough (substantial) evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors for a Senate trial. The House impeached (indicted) two presidents (Johnson 1868 and Clinton 1998). The Senate convicted none. One (Nixon 1974) resigned when threatened with impeachment.

People disagree about the power of evidence proving Trump’s criminal behavior. Mueller decided that whatever Trump’s intent his ineptitude and staff rebellion meant no need at this point to call on the courts to rein him in. We think Mueller came to the right conclusion. Ultimately the decision to remove a sitting President, absent clear and present extraordinary danger, should be—must be—is—a political decision investigated by the House and, if needed, decided by the Senate.

Transpartisan focuses on the Presidency as well as this particular President. Powerful post WWII forces of individuation—people increasingly expressing their unique “identity”—now shape the nation. For Democrats, Republicans, and the two-thirds plus of the electorate who fail to register as either, experience Presidential resiliency is being threatened by the breakdown of group identity.

Since 1945, the nation has seen one Presidential assassination, one resignation, one impeachment, one unelected President, and two presidents deciding against a second term. Is the Presidency holding? Mueller says yes—for now.

Second, Mueller decided that Trump attempting to benefit from obstructing justice and a cyber-attack did not rise to the level of a “legal” matter for the courts. He left it as a “political” matter for the Congress. With Mueller out of the way, the issue now is for Congress to go or not go for impeachment and removal. [Attorney General Barr is also out of the way. The abundant evidence of Mueller’s Report leaves Barr room to withstand accusations of ‘political’ intervention for protecting the President since he acts, his defense says, to protect the Presidency in general rather than this particular President.]

If you think the evidence is sufficient to believe the President has committed a crime, then the substantive case for impeachment is established; and Congress should impeach Trump on the merits. If you agree with Mueller that the evidence is insufficient to establish a legal case for criminal activity the President might still be impeached (indicted).

The legal test is different than the political test. The political question is—on the merits—does the pattern of attempted obstruction and failure to respond to the cyber-attack endanger the nation so precipitously that Trump should be impeached by the House and then removed by the Senate. Is the matter serious enough to preempt the will of the people at an election a little more than a year and a half away?

The Transpartisan Matrix, free and order, right and left, says the order quadrants (both Republican and Democratic) resist impeachment while the free quadrants are split. The rank and file democrats seek impeachment while the rank and file Republicans still hold out against impeachment. Speaker Pelosi says only bipartisan impeachment will be on the table. Thus, investigation for more facts while the people wait on deck for the November 2020 election.

Third, Mueller found that an unbridled desire to obstruct justice falls short of legal liability if it fails to actually obstruct justice. The debate on the talk shows and late night jokes are now focused on the political issue. Impeaching a President only eighteen months from an election that will empower voters to ‘impeach’ him by voting him out of office would create great uncertainty that no politician wants to embrace. And the election may not be definitive.

Nixon left office 19 months after winning the Presidency by the largest landslide in American History (60.7% of the vote). No politician wants to turn a Presidential election into a coin-flip. This explains why both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shumer, the Democratic Congressional leaders, are thumbs down on impeachment. Trump in office might provide them with their strongest electoral issue in 2020.

In coming days we will see how they do it, if they can. Their dilemma is intensified by the continuing temptation to persist in the drum-beat on the President’s ‘misdeeds’ that Mueller’s Report records in minute detail. The longer the drum-beat persists (which the Democrats, supported by the media, may find irresistible), voters will increasingly start to ask: if he is so bad, why don’t you impeach? The Democrats will say the Republicans won’t let us.

The media, in the entertainment business, will love every minute as they continue achieving record audiences hoping the drama will never end.

Featured image of Robert Mueller from official White House photograph.

Transpartisan Note #110

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

From the beginning Donald Trump marketed himself as The Man Who Knows How to Get Things Done. As the Master Dealmaker he would make everything right when he came in replacing all of the incompetents who preceded him.

Despite the braggadocio, everybody expected Trump’s political inexperience to present serious impediments to his getting things done. The biggest problem might be his ego—his strongest asset and his most glaring weakness. Would it allow him to accept and learn from his limitations? Although he made no effort to conceal the magnitude of his ego—he was smart enough, he said, to lead without help—most people assumed he would learn and ‘get better’ on the job.

Recent events raise serious questions about these assumptions. First came five weeks of governmental shutdown and no Trump border wall. The theater of the Trump governing style rested on making people believe he would never blink. Yet after five weeks Trump blinked. This blinking raises questions. Was the shutdown about border security or ego strength? Nancy Pelosi showed no signs of blinking. It was clear who was the emperor with no clothes. Is Pelosi’s ego bigger than Trump’s?

Is Trump bluffing? If so humiliation will pile upon humiliation. Few think the courts will allow him to circumvent the Congress’s constitutional power over the purse.  When they stop him, it will seem that everywhere he looks, he looks like a loser. He seems to be unwilling or unable to make any real effort to understand how government works. It seems like just another business to him.

He is like the many college star quarterbacks, including Heisman trophy winners, who wash out or flame out at the NFL level. He is playing in the super bowl of egotism—national politics and international diplomacy—where towering egos, honed by years of playing against the superstars of egotism, love the challenge of making Trump blink.

His theatrical adventure with Kim Jong Un underscores the Trump problem—and allowed Trump to show a less obvious side to his character. His confidence that he could get the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons appears to have run aground on the towering ego of his North Korean counterpart. He went into his second summit with Kim without knowing the first thing anyone needs to know in negotiating a deal—the likely outcome. He misjudged Kim, and the meetings abruptly ended.  An interesting side of Trump emerged when he said ‘Sometimes you have to walk away.’ His ego did have a limit. He cut his immediate losses. He blinked again, though more wisely.

We think his initiative with North Korea represented an important potential breakthrough in bringing Kim out of the shadows of isolation and into the light, where real danger could be averted. Yet Trump overplayed his hand and was left with no opportunity to do what he does best: claim victory no matter what happens.

Korea played out as former Trump consigliere Michael Cohen staked out another session of saying no to Trump. Standing up to Trump bluster and bluffing appears to be contagious. Natural political forces tend to move through, around, and over unbending egotism. Even Napoleon learned that lesson.

Trump’s first two years in office were a free ride, with friendly, tame Republicans controlling both houses of Congress. Without his monopoly, Trump might still have time to learn about how the government works. That would require humility. While he shows little inclination to let anything get in the way of his ego, his Korean Kim walkaway suggests some sense of egotistical limits in his personal play book.

For someone willing to learn, we still think the transpartisan card might have significant value. Trump shows little sign of understanding, let alone playing it. Still, a meaningful number of Obama/Trump voters exists on the Transpartisan Matrix. Including them in his calculation might feed the Trump ego and get some useful policy made.

Progressive Presidential possibility Sherrod Brown supports much of the Trump tariff and trade policy. There is much more to contemporary politics than a hard wired left/right spectrum.  Think Transpartisan.

Martin Luther King Day 2019

Transpartisan Note #109

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

We celebrated Martin Luther King Day this year pursuing one of the great opportunities of the internet…surfing.  At “Martin Luther King Day” we found CNN Politics reporting ‘Trump laid a wreath Monday morning’ at the foot of the King DC memorial’ saying ‘”It’s a great day. A beautiful day. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it,” Trump told reporters as he stood before the large statue of King.’

From the MLK DC memorial we jumped to MLK Day coverage by the Southerner an online version of a Georgia high school prize winning journalism program.  ‘Published without interruption since Henry W. Grady High School opened in 1947, The Southerner has always been an essential part of the campus culture,’ says the school web site.  It quoted Georgia high school students saying:

“I think [Martin Luther King Day] is about people coming together from different backgrounds and finding solidarity to end the three things that MLK fought against, which were poverty, racism and militarism,”…

“The civil rights movement was the first surge of the youth getting involved and people really getting out to fight for their rights, and that’s happening again now, and I think it’s my part to come out and do it,” …

“We start off with Martin Luther King and his speech ‘I Have a Dream’ in 1963, …The change that came from that and the main message we got was justice and equality.”

Then we found Dr. Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali and What Their Secret Friendship Teaches Us Today. King and Ali ‘shared a bond in their commitment against war and for social justice. It wasn’t a popular bond and it deserves to be remembered.’

This appeared in The Nation January 18, 2015.  It tells how the Muslim icon and the Christian martyr, with birth anniversaries two days apart, created a private personal bond after years of vitriolic public feuding.

‘The two men also appeared together at a fair-housing rally in Ali’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. There, Ali said, “In your struggle for freedom, justice and equality, I am with you. I came to Louisville because I could not remain silent while my own people, many I grew up with, many I went to school with, many my blood relatives, were being beaten, stomped and kicked in the streets simply because they want freedom, and justice and equality in housing.”…The boxer and the preacher had come together as one.’

Finally we landed on Billy Cristal giving an extraordinary eulogy at Muhammad Ali’s funeral memorial June 6, 2016 one day before the end of the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries.  Crystal, ending his presentation for Ali (the only person to be heavyweight boxing champion three times) says:

That, my friends, is my history with a man and I have labored to come up with a way to describe the legend. He was a tremendous bolt of lightning created by Mother Nature out of thin air, a fantastic combination of power and beauty. We’ve seen still photographs of a lightning bolt, ferocious in its strength, magnificent in its elegance. And at the moment of impact it lights up everything around it so you can see everything clearly. Muhammad Ali struck us in the middle of America’s darkest night, in the heart of its most threatening gathering storm. His power toppled the mighty foes and his intense light shined on America and we were able to see clearly: injustice, inequality, poverty, pride, self-realization, courage, laughter, love, joy and religious freedom for all. Ali forced us to take a look at ourselves, this brash young man who thrilled us, angered us, confused and challenged us, ultimately became a silent messenger of peace, who taught us that life is best when you build bridges between people, not walls.

Crystal presents, to repeat, an extraordinary eulogy of a remarkable man well worth the fourteen minutes it takes to watch here or read here. If you find an additional quarter of an hour it is also worth watching Billy Crystal’s 1979 Muhammad Ali tribute – 15 Rounds (first posted on the internet 35 years after Crystal delivered it) with Ali’s reactions included in a continuous inset.

Our Martin Luther King Day voyage across the web opened us to a new appreciation of the complex interweaving of sensations—from the first Trump report to the last Trump illusion—contained by this remarkable country.  Dare we call them transpartisan?

Transpartisan Note #108

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Poems and Translations

In the 1830s & 40s, Ralph Waldo Emerson gave Americans thoughts to live by.  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., himself a major essayist, called Emersion’s 1837 speech ‘The American Scholar’ America’s ‘intellectual Declaration of Independence.’  This speech followed on Emerson’s powerful essay ‘Nature.’ Here, from Wikipedia, is one accurate summary of the context for both creations:

‘The American Scholar’ was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson on August 31, 1837, to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College at the First Parish in Cambridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He was invited to speak in recognition of his groundbreaking work ‘Nature,’ published a year earlier, in which he established a new way for America’s fledgling society to regard the world.

Sixty years after declaring independence, American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe, and Emerson, for possibly the first time in the country’s history, provided a visionary philosophical framework for escaping ‘from under its iron lids’ and building a new, distinctly American cultural identity.

We add that ‘Self–Reliance,’ Emerson’s most remembered essay, with its arresting line ‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds . . . ‘, provides, to those who read it, sustenance and great guidance for navigating today’s turbulent world.  The study notes for this essay, provided at the Emerson archived site, summarizes it saying in part:  ‘ . . . all truth has to do with the “infinitude of the private man”.’

As we forget the blunders and absurdities, ours and others, of the past year and begin the next year well and serenely, with too high a spirit, we remind all:

Every year is the best year.

(Image: Christmas in the Ralph Waldo Emerson study, Emerson House, Historic Concord, Massachusetts.)

Transpartisan Note #107

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Big stories often get lost in political chaos.  Example:  At 1:10 PM December 21^st, the day the government shut down at midnight, President Trump signed the “First Step (Criminal Justice Reform) Act.” This initiative received bipartisan support passing the Senate 87/12 and the House 358/36 on December 18^th and 20^th respectively.  It has deep transpartisan roots.

The progressive Brennan Center for Justice opposed the bill’s original draft, then (after amendments) supported the final bill. It hailed the signing saying that “in a 2017 survey, 71 percent of Americans, including a majority of Trump voters, agreed about the importance of reducing the country’s prison population” —a key element of the reform bill.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) survey cited by the Brennen Center found that reducing the prison population was supported by 87 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Independents, and 57 percent of Republicans — including 52 percent of Trump voters. This is a transpartisan constituency.  We see such constituencies possible for other issues.

The ACLU survey also found that 91 percent of Americans say that the criminal justice system has problems that need fixing.  It cited:

68% (including 65% percent of Trump voters) more likely to vote for a candidate that supports reducing the prison population and using the savings in drug treatment and mental health programs;

72% more likely to vote for an elected official who supports eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing laws;

84% believing people with mental illness belong in mental health programs not prison;

71% agreeing that incarceration is often counterproductive to public safety;

66% recognizing racial bias in the criminal justice system.

Other signs of criminal justice reform’s transpartisan roots include:

Powerful opposing party Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the two senior members of the Senate Judiciary committee, campaigned for the effort.

The libertarian Cato Institute and the conservative Freedom Partners supported by the Koch brothers backed the Act.

The conservative Heritage Foundation reported “Trump and Congress Earn a Conservative Victory With First Step Act.”

The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), and the National District Attorney’s Association (NDAA) supported the Act.

Progressive Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey said of the Act: “Our country’s criminal justice system is broken – and it has been broken for decades. You cannot deny justice to any American without it affecting all Americans. That’s why the passage of the First Step Act tonight is so meaningful – it begins to right past wrongs that continue to deny justice to millions of Americans.”

Cato called the Law “bipartisan and cross-ideological” or, in our terms, transpartisan.  It wrote “Don’t Let the First Step Act Be the Last Step in Criminal Justice Reform.” Next Step? Cato identified coercive plea bargaining as perverse and pervasive. “It produces an alarming number of false convictions” and has led to “the near-elimination of the criminal jury trial.”

Transpartisan Criminal Justice reform moves forward. Even as daily demands create chaos, contention and misdirection transpartisan forces work on community problems. They work mostly outside the daily news spotlight (good news does not sell papers). The First Step Act’s path to law gives a road map on how transpartisan forces succeed.  Study it.  We are.

(Photo taken during the November 14th announcement of the First Step Act by a White House photographer.)

Transpartisan Note #106

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Throughout the election, both primaries and general — and then into the first months of his presidency — major political figures raged against Trump both for the content of his policies and his tone, which often seemed only motivated to win media attention and dominate the news. Up to this point we have focused our attention on the intellectual and social forces that we think brought him to power (see, e.g., The Transpartisan Effect: Understanding the Political Turmoil from The Transpartisan Review, Vol I, No 2).

Many people cannot get past his tone, which continues to be a mixture of vulgarity and open aggression against ‘victim’ groups.  ‘Hatred’ does not seem too strong a word to describe how many people feel toward him for what seems like a conscious crusade to tear the country apart.

The President’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly seemed like more of the same: a deliberate provocation to push countries, both friend and foe, away from us; a very explicit declaration of independence from the world, isolating the U.S.  It all seemed on behalf of a narcissistic, egocentric vision of our country, which he asserted wanted no part of its past leadership role.

Trump supporters tend to acclaim his policies, but never his street-fighter tone.  Statements supporting him almost always acknowledge the obnoxious price we must pay for his successful policies, especially on the economy.  (We know the economy must be flying when President Obama starts taking credit for it.)

Given Trump’s unpredictability, one can only imagine what he might say or do next. He is only predictable when (as in the U.N. speech) he is making up facts to support assertions about his own greatness.  (How can he be surprised when audiences laugh in response to his spectacularly risible claims?)

Let us muse on some possible, hidden objectives he may have and some possible, future behavior changes that could have really interesting consequences.  (These thoughts reflect, in part, our recollection that he is, first and foremost, an entertainer and that he is observed to employ instruments that are commonly associated with inducing hypnotic trances.)

On Abandoning the World Leadership Role

Let’s consider the U.N. Speech. Every president in recent memory has tried to encourage friendly countries to ‘do more’ (especially military spending) and unfriendly countries to be more friendly. All efforts added up to the same result: absolutely zero — feckless ‘arm-waving’.

What if Trump is testing a new form of global leadership: ‘withdrawing’ from global engagement in order to encourage other countries to abandon their roles as U.S.-dependents and step up as adults in addressing real problems?  This in contrast to largely-theatrical but mostly motivational exercises such as the Paris Accord on Climate Change.  (Think of the emerging form of leadership as ‘quantum’ instead of the old ‘Newtonian’.)

This approach to withdrawal preserves the right to intervene when judged important.

On Savage Criticism of ‘Victim’ Groups

Trump personally likes self-reliant ‘winners’. What if he made a conscious theatrical commitment to embrace successful local, black initiatives in schools, drug rehabilitation programs, and health clinics? Examples from other times would have been the educational reformer Marva Collins in Chicago and Harlem District Four from the end of the 70s for a decade.

What if he wandered the country embracing four-quadrant models in these and other areas?  How would the mainstream political ‘actors’ respond?

On the Trade War

One action that seems well within the realm of possibility and, if it happens will happen soon, might be a Trump announcement that ‘The trade war is over, and WE WON IT!!!’ This would be followed by abrupt rescissions of all tariffs recently instituted. The stock market would boom — with what effect on the mid-term elections?

Trump and the Four-Quadrant Transpartisan Matrix

One way of viewing Trump is as someone who embraces three of the four quadrants of our Transpartisan Matrix — Order Right, Freedom Right, and Freedom Left. He theatrically and aggressively hates the Order Left, and we understand how those who identify with the Order Left hate him for it. Where would they — or our larger political narrative — be if he started celebrating positive initiatives run by ‘victim’ groups, which would effectively integrate all four quadrants?

We know, as far as can be seen, it will not happen. On the other hand, we continue to be cautious about anticipating what Trump will not do next — or what the forces abroad in the land will encourage him to do.

Transpartisan Note #105

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

We are reading the book Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley by Adam Fisher and we are bowled over by the scale of innovation and how it empowers individuals, more and more, in the intimate realms of private life and the visible forms of public life.

The social impacts come alive in real examples. An elderly woman recently recalled how mass production of the radio greatly weakened her family as a community. Before radios, the family would gather every evening in the living room and enjoy their time together.  When everyone had a radio, everyone went to their own room and listened to the radio. The family get-togethers ended.

Impacts like this are also evident in developing countries.  While flying over Cairo’s City of the Dead, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak once pointed at the jungle of television antennas below and said to a friend: ‘There is a symbol of why I cannot begin to control this country as I could before.’

Other major technological innovations have empowered individuals and weakened communities: the telephone, the automobile, the birth control pill, and widespread air travel.  While it was widely assumed that technological innovations would slow down, Silicon Valley continues to boom.

Skyrocketing housing costs go along with explaining the fact that San Francisco now has the highest poverty rate in the U.S. People are now commuting to the Valley from cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma and Sioux City, Iowa, living like kings on weekends and like paupers during the week.

Concern about eroding responsibility accompanying increased individual freedom led conservative William F. Buckley to write his book Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country (1990) proposing a government program of national service.  Although voluntary, this opposed program nevertheless showed how Buckley, strongly influenced by the freedom-right, worried about the decline of order in our increasingly individuated age.

Every innovation enhances individual autonomy and reduces social interactions.  While all such occasions of individual empowerment push people away from tradition, people continue to need associations and relationships as part of living happy lives.

Unfortunately, political institutions that could be decentralized and empower citizens as significant participants, such as schools, are still run like the Medieval Church — highly centralized and dominated by mechanistic, legalistic systems and cultures.  Alternative programs start to appear as these throwback institutions begin cracking under the pressure of individuation.

The question here is: why have political candidates avoided appealing to people trying out these alternative decentralized, empowering programs?  Why, when such institutions would be powerfully responsive to increasingly individuated people, do politicians avoid them?

One answer is obvious to anyone who sees our politics as a theater, where the only roles for actors are limited to government officials.  Spotlighting citizens making democracy work would take the officials away from center stage, where corporate media markets audiences to advertisers who know that conflict “sells”. Empowered citizens promoting change without conflict make poor stories for the evening news.

We believe the transpartisan vision of empowered citizens will start to influence the larger political narratives when political candidates start winning elections by advocating empowerment. That moment might be arriving.  We will devote a separate Note to how candidates could actively campaign for such decentralized institutions, focusing especially on schools.

Twenty-first century politicians have a devil of a time fitting exploding individuation into 18th century forms, embedded into 19^thcentury industrial institutions fueled by 20th century communications systems.  This individuation, supported by increasing individual social powers, disrupts the entire global institutional system.

We think our Transpartisan Matrix, which we write about here, here, and here, added to other common political tools, helps organize and explain the political upheavals brought about by rampant individuation.  Attempts to shoe horn contemporary politics into a left/right spectrum obscure the real nature of current politics.

Today, both the left and right — like the rest of the country and, in our view, the world — work overtime to integrate the two great poetical demands of unfolding human life: freedom and order. The current upheavals create enormous opportunities and offer serious dangers.

We think the transpartisan lens can help reveal the opportunities and avoid the pitfalls.  People working together, as they currently are locally, create conditions for our next steps forward. Transpartisan explains a bit of what is happening and points a way toward new forms.

All across the country, like new blades of grass, transpartisan innovation begins to be seen as the next wave of American development.  The time has come for national political leaders to catch the wave.

Read the first part of this essay:  Challenges of Gaining Transpartisan Traction

Transpartisan Note #104

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Signs of discontent with our polarized politics are everywhere: survey data on voter opinions; the number of citizens registering Independent (43%), more than either Democrat or Republican; even larger numbers of people alienated from the major parties (as many as two-thirds of age-eligible citizens avoiding association with either party, more than the combined numbers of both).

Despite signs of discontent and increasing efforts to promote a collaborative politics — and increasing reports of transpartisan undertakings in local venues such as those reported by James and Deborah Fallows in their book Our Towns — it is hard to see more than fleeting signs of the transpartisan vision taking root in promoting greater collaboration in national politics.

National politicians seem to be playing a game that minimizes or disregards the concerns and interest of their local communities. One place to search for possible explanations for this local national disconnect begins with revisiting the causes and role of conflict.

After World War II, social, cultural and political polarization first appeared during the 1960s over policy failures on race and Vietnam.  Demands for self-expression were changing all social relationships, and tradition was retreating everywhere.

Relationships based on self-expression tend to be torn by conflict especially compared to those influenced by tradition.  During the sixties the mass media became a major influence on public perceptions of political events, and the media’s business model — marketing audiences to advertisers — systematically encouraged them to report on and thus encourage conflict.

The forces promoting self-expression and weakening tradition — fueled by the forty-hour work week, interstate highways, communication technology, the birth control pill, and increasing incomes — drove the final third of the 20^th century.  These same forces have accelerated in the 21^st century.

The greatest changes in the past seventy years involve a weakening of adversity. People’s material lives have continued to improve. Throughout history, until the end of World War II, the threat of war and of economic privation actively promoted strong and active, social cooperation and individual responsibility. As peace predominated American life and material poverty declined individuals felt less pressure to cooperate and more desire to express themselves.

The end of war, as a social norm for the United States, first became symbolically obvious when President Johnson said we could fight the Vietnam War and still have ‘guns and butter’.  During wars before Vietnam, we only had guns; there was no butter. Perhaps the most powerful symbol of the declining role of war in shaping the national identity was the end of the draft in 1973.

While many people remain economically ‘poor’ in the U.S. their poverty is only relative compared to other countries, where people are much poorer. (According to the Census Bureau September 2017 poverty report the official US poverty rate is 12.7 percent, with an estimated 43.1 million Americans living in poverty.)

The US poverty problem is relative rather than absolute. This relative poverty creates a subjective challenge in place of the previous objective challenge. People can stay alive. But they appear to have (and in fact have) fewer economic assets than those they see around them, especially on TV.

Technology has played an obviously huge role. The scale of change is especially obvious from the details of change.  An example is the invention of the transistor, which made it possible to build electronic devices that were originally enormous then became small enough to fit into one’s pocket or purse right next to the birth control pill.

Continued reading:  Challenges of Gaining Transpartisan Traction, Part 2