Existential threats!

As a civilization, perhaps even a species, we currently face certain existential threats. The first is a return of an old curse … climate change. This is a challenge the earth (and its inhabitants) has experienced before. Still, not since the last ice age finally ended some 11,000 or so years ago has the species been so challenged by dramatic environmental change which, for the first time, is largely driven by human folly.

A second threat is associated with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Technological change is always disruptive but this transition likely is on a wholly different scale. A dozen years ago, in my final official talk at the University, I warned the audience about the coming dislocation from a digitized, robotocized world on economic well-being and future opportunities. The ultimate impacts are yet incalculable but likely will reorder civilization in transformative ways. The very meaning of ‘work’ will be upended along with the core usefulness of human contributions to society. As a species, we risk becoming obsolete.

The third existential threat is one we might be inclined to overlook. Yet, it remains as potentially insidious as the other two. I am talking about the corrosive  reality of a hyper-inequality based oligarchy on our civic and political culture. In short the egregious accumulation of wealth and power into the hands of a few risks the final extinction of the fledgling experiments in democracy, including our efforts to facilitate broad political inclusion. A mature democracy is something that we have gradually introduced and mostly cherished over the past two centuries or so. But it is not guaranteed to future generations. In short, money and power may well replace law and principles as the foundation of our public life.

A backward glance!

What is deceiving about this last threat is its seeming familiarity. Through most of history, elites have ruled over society, from Maharajahs in India, to the Samurai in Japan, to the Czars and Monarchs in Europe, to the Caliphates in Islamic nations and the religious potentates in meso-America. We easily think of the Pharoahs erecting huge pyramids in their memories as thousands of workers hauled tons of stone over the desert. Mansa Musa I, head of the Mali empire in the 14th century, oft has been considered the richest person in history … worth hundreds of billions when most lived in abject poverty.  Wealth and power inequalities seemed the natural order of things.

But, toward the end of the 18th century, new thoughts challenged the encrusted assumptions of intrinsic social hierarchy and inequality. In the American colonies, and then in France, the first blushes of social and political equality took root. This revolution, fragile and incomplete at first, expanded in fits and starts. At its core, all white men (and later women and minority males) were equal before God and, more importantly, before the State. All (white males) would have an equal opportunity to succeed, at least in theory. Yet, finally having found fertile land in which to take root, could such ideas endure when entitled elites fought to regain hegemony?

The American experiment in self government was incomplete from the start. Women, indigenous peoples, slaves, and even most property-less males were excluded from political participation. Our southern states, in particular, pursued a neo- feudal model of society based on a plantation economy and rule by a small, entitled elite of wealthy patricians who controlled both land and enslaved humans. That model was smashed in the nation’s horrific civil conflict in the mid-19th century (though it would be largely reestablished by the 1890s through Jim Crow laws).

Entrenched notions of racial hierarchy were not the only threat to an inclusive society. The post-civil war era of industrial expansion reordered America’s economy in ways that aggregated the ever increasing national wealth from capital into the hands of a select few industrial and finance titans.  President Grover Cleveland put it this way:

“As we view the achievements if aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath iron-heel  corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”

The Gilded Age marked by unfettered capitalism saw the accumulation of great wealth by the few such as Rockefeller (oil), Carnegie (steel), Morgan (finance), Ford (autos), and Hill (railroads). When capital and labor fought for power, the state typically sided with those that had the most resources. As the old saying goes, he who possesses the gold, rules! President Teddy Roosevelt called these economic titans the “invisible government ” His 5th cousin and future President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt called them ‘economic royalists.’

Fast forward to the post World War II period in America when government regulation was high, when the rich finally paid their fair share for the public good, when poverty was declining rapidly, and when the vaunted American middle class was expanding rapidy. It was the brief period in time when a family could thrive on one paycheck and a working class kid like myself could easily obtain a first-class education (with only nominal debt).

Still, a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower realized that public policy and economic well-being were intimately connected. Even in these halcyon days when each income quintile prospered as the nation’s productivity and wealth grew, Ike realized that future progress depended on which policy directions the country pursued.  In 1953, he offered the following warning: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” These were strong sentiments coming from a man who spent most of his life in the military.

While a Republican President endorsed liberal ideas growing out of the depression’s New Deal agenda, a small group of conservative intellectuals began to strike back at their loss of political hegemony they saw coming out of the Great Depression. Richard Weaver, in a 1948 book entitled “Ideas Have Consequences,” helped generate an intellectual backlash to the postwar Keynsian, collective security consensus that prevailed at the time.

Weaver argued that long-standing truths would be ignored at our peril. He suggested that underlying any civic society stood natural laws that must be preserved … personal liberty and free markets being foremost among them. Slowly, other intellectuals joined the a growing chorus of dissent including William Buckley (the New Republic, 1955), Milton Friedman, Friedrick von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, the Chicago School, and many more. They created pockets of doubt that the political consensus of the New Deal was sacrosanct. When President Richard Nixon declared that we are all Keynsians now, little did he realize he was playing taps over a movement that soon would be subject to a well coordinated and well funded conservative attack.

As many have noted, that attack was officially launched by future Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell. In 1971, he wrote a memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce titled “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System.” On one level, it was an anti- Communist screed that painted the New Deal legacy as little more than a quasi-Bolshevik plot. More importantly, it laid out a strategy by which the economic elite could once again wrest control of events in the political arena. The elite, or the next generation at least, that believed FDR had been a traitor to his class would seek their revenge.

To start, Powell called for major businesses to invest 10 percent of their advertising budgets in a propoganda campaign that would promote the ideals of free markets, lower taxes, and limited government. In addition, he laid out a framework for reassuming control over civic society’s essential institutions such as the media, the courts, the bureacracy, the educational system, the justice system, and so forth. In a few years, a variety of new Think Tanks were developed (Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, the Business Roundtable, the Manhattan Institute, etc) which directly challenged the prevailing political and economic consensus. Within a decade, Goldwater’s dramatic Presidential defeat in 1964 had been turned into a resounding 1980 victory for Ronald Reagan, supply-side economics, and a new conservative movement.

By 1994, Newt Gingrich used his position as Speaker of the House to tear down the remaining glue that held America’s Constitution together … the unstated norms of mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance. These were consensus norms that ensured civility in the political arena and a reluctance to employ arbitrary power against one’s political opponents. Those norms which, except for the run-up to our Civil War, had generally prevailed were cast aside by the new Republican revolutionaries. As Gingrich told his fellow Republicans during his rise to power, “You’re fighting a war. It is a war for power.” The other side was the enemy. There would be no compromise considered, no quarter given.

The Gingrich revolution led to the era of hyper-polarization and political dysfunction we’ve seen for some three decades now. But, when you cast political conflict in terms of all out war, and then demonize the other side as hideous enemies in the process, you put yourself in a corner. Defeat can no longer be tolerated, your base will not accept such. Power, once secured, must be retained by any means imaginable. A final assault on what remained of our democratic protocols was necessary. U.S. politics had become an battle to the death.

That apocalyptic position come from Russell Vought and his colleagues at the Heritage Foundation. It was articulated in a document known as the 2025 Agenda which attempts the final assault on our democratic institutions first articulated in Powell’s 1971 memo. It is designed to perpetuate indefinitely one-party rule in America. When you erase traditional norms (mutual tolerance, institutional forbearance) you cannot permit the other side to regain power. The economic elite, those who thirst for power at least, must retain control no matter the consequences.

Concerns about the ‘new’ econic royalty.

Is hyper-inequality necessarily a bad thing? Or is it merely a reflection of natural outcomes in the marketplace, the legitimate outcome of talent and hard work? Does it necessarily lead to the pursuit of a kind of permanent usurpation of power we have seen during the Trump era? In part, yes. On the one hand, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates (as with many others) built their own fortunes and retained admirable personal values. They seem to be decent human beings, nor have they lost their  better human sentiments.

For others, the issue is less clear.  Mary Trump described Fred Trump Sr. (Donald’s father and the man who staked his heir to a $400 plus million start in life) as a “high functioning socio-path.” During his own era, he taught his son and protégé that there can be only one winner and everyone else is a loser. He taught that favored son, Donald, that kindness is a form of weakness. Mary’s assessment of her uncle, our President, is that Donald is an ‘insatiable black hole of need created by extreme childhood emotional deprivation.’ Since, professionally, she is a clinical psychologist, her assessment carries some weight.

The same might be said of Elon Musk. In those moments when he has reflected on his youth, he bitterly describes a tyrannical father who alternated between neglect and abuse, leaving his offspring with a great monetary treasure but a bankrupt psyche. Psychologists observe the frequency of this pattern and have created a label for it … the dark triad. Many hyper- successful parents bequeeth to their heirs three counter- productive traits:  narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

The sons (and perhaps daughters) seek parental approval by replicating, if not surpassing, the glaring sins and deficiencies of their dominant parent. Ponder the following: what might happen if even a few of the economic elite start out as psychologically crippled while possessing unimaginable fortunes.

The negative possibilities are frightening.

A note on global inequality!

One thing we know for sure is that income and wealth are highly unequal in their distribution. Moreover, hyper-inequality is not just an American phenomenon. We see it worldwide 🌐. Globally, the richest 0.001% now own three times more wealth than the poorest half of humanity. That is, some 60,000 billionaires (or nearly so) possess a highly disproportionate share of the estimated $471 trillion in global wealth. The richest 10% around the globe own 75% of all this treasure.

Here is another way of looking at our unequal distribution of the economic pie. Globally, there are 2,900 true billionaires with total worth of $15.8 trillion. On the other hand, 3.7 billion (45%) live on less than $8.30 per day. Using Harvard’s John Rawl’s conceptual exercise, would you choose a world with such an unequal set of outcome probabilities if you didn’t know into which family you would be born? That is, would you prefer a more equitable world if you didn’t know whether you would be one of the few winners or, much more likely, one of the many losers.

Rare is the country where the bottom half command more than 5 percent of the total economic pie. Since the 1990s, billionaires and multi-millionaires have enjoyed 8% annual real gains. Recently, 1.6 percent of the total adilt population (3.8 billion) control almost half of the world’s treasure, about $230 trillion. On the other hand, 41% (1.6 billion) struggle to get by with net worths of less than $10,000, many of them laboring in negative figures.

American inequality … an  example of perverse policies!

Inequality is not a happenstance outcome. While talent and effort can matter, so do the economic rules of society set by politicians. One of the key researchers studying inequality, Jayati Gosh, put it this way: “These patterns are not the accidents of markets. They reflect the legacy of history and the functioning of institutions, regulations, and policies… all of which are related to unequal power relations that have yet to be rebalanced.”

Let us take a crude look at U.S. tax policies over time. In 1918, to pay for WWI, the top marginal income tax rate on this relatively recent method (at that time) for paying our public expenses reached a high of 77%. Then came the ‘normalcy’ of the Republican- dominated roaring 1920s where top public officials asserted that the ‘business of America is business.’ Andrew Mellon, the wealthy Secretary of the Treasury during this decade, believed that government’s prime responsibility was to support the holders of capital while dismissing the concerns of labor.

The top tax rate fell to 24%, business and banking went unregulated. Equity markets were left to their own devices (and sins like buying stocks on margin). While some expressed concerns about equity prices that seemed divorced from underlying value, it was assumed that market forces always resulted in efficient prices. One savvy investor, Joseph Kennedy (father of President Kennedy) bailed out of the market just before the collapse. His epiphany that speculation had reached the tipping point came when the shoeshine boy working on his footwear started talking about his own investments. The experts claiming markets would continue to rise were wrong, tragically so. Eventually, greed and speculation met their expected end and it all crashed in October of 1929.

With an infusion of Keynsian evonomic concepts and a world war to equip and publicly finance, America climbed out if its economic abyss with a new perspective about the role of government in the affairs of the common man (and woman). The top tax rate was back up to 94% by the end of WWII. Banking would now be regulated with government taking a more active role in the general economy. Labor, for a change, was protected by law. For the next three decades, economic want diminished dramatically, the middle class grew, and inequality fell. For example, between 1947 and 1979 the real income of the bottom 5th (quintile) rose by 122%. This period later was labeled by economists as ‘the great compression,’ a period where inequality fell dramatically, where every quintile in the income distribution prospered.

In 1980, Reagonomics burst on the scene. The top marginal tax rate would be slashed from 70% to 38% in a mere seven years. The rules of the game were changed to favor those at the top of the pyramid. From 1980 to 2009, the income of top 1% rose by 270% while remaining relatively stagnant for most American workers. As productivity gains were reallocated from labor to capital, the historic link between working smarter (or harder) and worker pay was severed.

Top tax rates, of course, tell only part of the story. The tax system is rigged in so many other ways. For ecample, Tesla earned $10.8 billion recently and paid $48 million in U S. Federal taxes. That’s an 0.4% rate. The bottom half of all Americans, on the other hand, pay 3.8%. You might say that’s not much but they don’t have that much to begin with. Still, that is proportionally 10 times as much as some of our most profitable firms. Members of the economic royalty like Musk, Zuckerberg, and other titans often take $1 dollar in salary from the firms they control yet their net worth increases by billions annually due to improvements in their equity positions.

They don’t take salaries simply to avoid the taxes that their workers must pay. Rather, they borrow to meet living expenses, a resource that also is not taxed, using yheir equity positions as collateral. In effect, most high earners get paid in ways that are taxed at lower rates, like deferred interest payments and stock options, that are taxed at half the rate you and I would nominally pay, if that much. When conservatives argue that the top 1% pays 40% of all income taxes, they typically exclude the economic royalty who often can avoid taxable sources of income. On paper, those titans have low nominal salaries.

Between 1979 and 2020, real income gains of top 1% grew by 326% while the middle class saw their fortunes stagnate. The top 1% holds 31% of the wealth pie ($52 trillion) which recently increased by $4 trillion in 1 year. Meanwhile, the bottom half of all Americans enjoy a mere 2.5% of the wealth pie. The share of income going to the top one-percent was 24% in 1929, less than 10% in 1979, and back to about 25 % in 2019. America is back to that level of hyper- inequality that preceded the greatest economic crash in history.

In America, what might be considered our new economic royalty saw their wealth increase by 18% in just one year to $6.9 Trillion. Meanwhile, the median net worth of American families is stagnant at about $124,000. Is the growth of such unequal outcomes sustainable?

Why all this matters.

Musk ($480b); Ellison ($383b); Zuckerberg ($264b); and Bezos ($252 b) control wealth worth $1.38 trillion. The GDP of Spain is only $1.41 trillion. The bottom half of all Americans possess $85.4 billion. Again, he who has the gold rules. The question is, when power shifts to an incredibly wealthy oligarchy, how might they rule?

In general, power seeks to sustain their privileges. Why would it not when that is how one might control the rules of the economic game. Not surprisingly, political contributions from top 100 families have jumped some 140 times since the year 2000, with 1 in every 23 dollars coming from this billionaire class. They now own most of the media outlets and thus exercise an outsized role in framing the political narrative. The Citizens United Supreme Court ruling permits unlimited resources into our elections. And who controls most of the money, not you or me?

It is not merely the fact that inequality in America is back at levels not seen since the great crash of 1929. The greater fear is that these distortions in economic outcomes might be permanent. In the 1990s, Republicans pushed hard to overturn our inheritance tax laws, permitting the wealthy to pass on a disproportionate share of what they had accumulated. I recall a prominent D.C. based Republican telling me that GOP Congressional representatives were fined by their party if they did not refer to the hated inheritance tax as the ‘death tax.’ Greed and semantics were everything, not logic nor good public policy.

Not surprisingly, we now have what is called the great wealth transfer. In the U.S., some $2.8 trillion will be passed on to the next generation in the coming years. This has all the marks of creating a more or less permanent aristocracy. Think about who sat in the most favored seats at Trump’s 2025 inaugural … the economic titans in control of the wealth-generating technology sector.

We had such moments in our past. At the dawn of the 20th century, so-called robber barrons had amassed great personal wealth. There was no income tax nor any substantive inheritance taxes to inhibit or slow the future accumulation of treasure. But we then entered a period of reform … anti-trust legislation, early labor protections, a constitutional amendment to introduce an income tax. In Wisconsin, the state and the university collaborated on a number of reforms benefitting the common people … a notion that became known as ‘the Wisconsin idea.’

A generation later, the great depression facilitated another set of reforms that further redefined the relationship between the federal government and the people. It was known as ‘the New Deal.’ Fast forward another generation or so. We then had yet another flurry of progressive legislation. It was known as the ‘Great Society’ and aimed to eliminate poverty and open up opportunity to all Americans.

That proved to be the last substantive reform impulse. The Reagan  revolution has persisted for two full generations now. It is possible, just possible, that those controlling the bulk of our economic treasure can both retain and, in fact, expand the reach of their oligarchic rule. What countervaling forces are strong enough to diminish their advantages.

Consider the following. The holders of capital have always needed labor. They could not generate profits without the efforts of workers. We are now on the cusp of that age where human labor is redundant, if not totally replaceable, as the AI revolution matures. When workers no longer bring any significant utility to the workplace, what might be their fate? Aristocracies have not been kind to those they have ruled in the past. Read about the ‘clearings’ in 19th century Scotland where tens of thousands of tenant farmers were forced off their holdings when landowners discovered that raising sheep was more profitable. Or consider the fate of the millions of Irish that emigrated or perished during the potato famine. There were plenty of other crops being raised on the Emerald Isle. But the English landlords put them on ships for export to maximize profits as Irish peasants collapsed and died on country lanes. Why would today’s elite act differently now?

Just something to consider.

                                           

    

I once concerned myself with the issue of poverty. You might even say it was a personal obsession. After all, I was affiliated with the nationally renowned Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) located at the University of Wisconsin. In fact, I served as the Institute’s Acting and Associate Director for about a decade before starting to gradually retire from my professional career in 2002.

I also taught social policy courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels while consulting with many states and localities across the U.S. and Canada. Much of this consulting work focused on the design and efficacy of their human services systems. I spent so much time in Washington that some federal officials joked that I really worked in our nation’s capital, and not at the UW in Madison. While my professional interests always remained eclectic, and my intellectual portfolio was very broad for a nominal academic, the issue of poverty was never far from my core interest.

Poverty … the lost issue.

I haven’t given the issue much thought, nor any attention, for some time now. Perhaps that is due to the realization that, in the U.S., poverty has virtually ceased to be a major public issue. The late UW economist Bob Lampman (whom I greatly admired), a scholar credited with writing the chapter in an economic report to then President Kennedy that inspired the subsequent national War on Poverty, once noted the following: ‘In the 1960s, public policies were subject to the following litmus test … what does it do for the poor?’ Such a perspective seems quaint, like lost ancient history, in today’s political world.

Our concern for the vulnerable and disadvantaged, a front- burner topic in the 1960s, faded with time. By the 1980s and 90s, President Johnson’s declared war on poverty (1965) had devolved into what many saw as a war on the poor. A so-called public ‘war’ yet raged but mostly around what to do with those dependent on public benefits. Conservatives had seized the policy narrative on this issue.

The welfare ‘reform’ battles during those decades were waged with unremitting ferocity. It became one of the primary fronts in the emerging and vitriolic  political contest between the left and the right. This would be a contest where the sides would pull further and further apart with an ever widening ideological chasm separating the two camps and their competing perspectives. Poverty and welfare became part and parcel of the ferocious culture wars.

Today, I am taken with just how central the poverty and welfare debates were back when I was fully involved in state and national policy debates. Seldom did a week go by when I was not contacted by the national and local press to comment on the latest policy kerfuffle about the welfare crisis. The number of public engagements I received to talk about these issues seemed unending, the opportunities to consult with policy types unceasing, and the number of trips to DC never diminished (including one full year working on President Clinton’s reform efforts).

The intensity of the feelings on the part of policy combatants became increasingly entrenched and virulent. In short, the poverty and welfare questions were not for the weak of heart nor those seeking popularity. I once joked to the man in charge of Wisconsin’s welfare programs that I only sensed I was approaching the truth within this policy cauldron when no one else agreed with me. Still, for better or worse I found myself at the very center of it all.

And suddenly, it surely seemed sudden to me at least, the poverty-welfare question dropped from public view. After the entitlement to cash assistance for poor families largely ended when the 1996 federal reform law was signed into law (an Act where TANF or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program replaced the old AFDC system), observable interest in the poor gradually ebbed. The worst projections of what might happen to those families losing their entitlement to cash assistance never materialized. Within a decade, most no longer cared.

As we moved into the 21st century, less and less attention was paid to those at the bottom of society. Partially filling our attention gap were growing concerns about income and wealth inequality and the hollowing out of the middle class. These issues never quite enraged the public, nor politicians, as either the welfare question had in my day nor the poverty question during the 1960s. Still, the time when hyper-inequality becomes THE issue might be near. More on this later.

A startling new poverty line?

So, it was with interest that I read about the reaction to a piece published by investor Michael Green. The headline read that a family of four would need an income of $136,500 per year to escape want. This figure struck many as shocking. After all, the official poverty level for a family of four is pegged at $32,150 per-annum while the medium family income figure in the U.S. is $83,730. To make comparisons more appropriate, I should mention that the median income level for families with at least two kids recently has been estimated at $109,300. Green’s so-called poverty line is above all of these figures.

On first glance, it would appear that well more than half of all families with kids are ‘poor.’ But this clearly doesn’t pass the proverbial smell test. To make Green’s headline-grabbing figures work, certain assumptions are essential. For example, the family would need full-time, paid child care. According to his considered  calculations, his hypothetical family of four would spend some $32,700 per year on childcare alone. On its own, this expenditure is slightly more than the official poverty line. Moreover, this child care outlay makes assumptions about the ages of children and whether alternatives to full time child care are available. Then again, one can quibble about the efficacy of any measure.

Overall, I would assess Green’s exercise as defining a ‘comfort’ level, more like a ‘living wage’ figure, than a poverty line. Nevertheless, it might well explain why families with solid, middle-class incomes feel anxious and insecure. And it might help us understand why so many feel that the economy is troubled despite low unemployment and near record equity prices.

In fact, other estimates of a hypothetical living wage come up with similar figures. An MIT estimate for a similar ‘living wage’ in a typical state (Maryland) is $129,600 while the Economic Policy Institute pegs the figure in the D.C. area at $139,500. In that sense, Green’s offering is not out of line, and far from outlandish.

But here is the rub, or one of them at least. Our metrics for assessing well-being have always been controversial. For instance, we really don’t have a consensus on what poverty is, nor how to measure it.

One of the many windmills toward which I tilted my reformist lance during my foolish youth was the officially designated poverty line, the income point that our federal government claimed separated the poor from the non-poor. It was formulated in the early 1960s by a middle level bureaucrat (Mollie Orshansky) who labored in the Social Security Administration at the beginning of the War on Poverty. This public war on want needed a measure and she was assigned the task. After all, you cannot wage a war on somethimg that has not been satisfactorily defined.

What did Mollie do? She took a Department of Agriculture study that monetized the cheapest food basket for a typical low-income family configuration. Then, she found another dated study which suggested that a lower-income American families spent one-third of their budget on food. So, Mollie multiplied the cost of her cheap basket of food goods by a factor of three. Next, an equivalency scale was developed (to account for different family sizes) and those figures were adjusted over time for inflation.

Viola! We had a national poverty measure, one on which many ancillary decisions were based, including how to distribute scarce federal dollars across states and localities. This measure was little more than a back of the envelope exercise. At the same time, it was far more than an intellectual, or casual, calculation. It had real policy consequences.

Even though she was long retired, Mollie attended some meetings in the 1990s at which I was present. She made it abundantly clear that she assumed what she had done would be a short-term expedient. Surely, a more sensitive and accurate measure would soon be developed. But, other than small, technical tinkering, none was. She remained shocked and saddened by that fact.

Certainly by the 1990s, no one defended the official measure any longer. The flaws in the measure were obvious and endless. By then, the cost of an essential basket of food stuffs would be multiplied by 6 or 7 times, not the factor of 3 that Mollie employed. With resources from the Casey and Mott Foundations, I and several of my colleagues at the Institute and in D.C. set about to improve the official poverty  metric. It was a long, complicated process that, in the end, had mixed results.

The political head winds that prevailed by the time of the Gingrich Congressional revolution (1994) made any rational discussion of even the most technical issues quite infeasible. Despite our efforts, replacing the official poverty measure with something sensible proved impossible. That experience proved a prescient harbinger for where our once rational policy world was headed.

However, all was not in vain. The work we and others did resulted in the creation of a few supplemental measures that made several improvements. Among other things, they more accurately assessed the costs of living in poverty and in calculating the resources available to the poor, especially non-cash or cash-equivalent benefits. These supplemental measures never replaced the official standard but now are routinely employed by the press, academics, and others. Recently, the poverty level for a standard family is pegged at about $39,000 according to a widely used supplemental measure, some $7,000 above the official rate.

Still, it must be acknowledged that assessing poverty, and what it really means, will remain a subjective and contentious issue. In earlier meme (above), we see that most Americans are pessimistic about our economy even as equity markets approach historic highs and employment levels remain robust (for the moment). Basically, perception is everything.

An illusive metric.

Not surprisingly, how one thinks about poverty varies dramatically. If you look beyond the U.S., you can find several alternative approaches, some not even based on cash resources. Remaining with income- based measures for the moment, we might consider the following:

1. Relative measures of poverty … many countries employ what are termed relative approaches. They set their poverty lines at either 50 or 44 percent of the jurisdictions median income figure. Such measures are more sensitive to the distribution of resources and how far one is from the typical or modal family.
2. Subjective measures … a few European countries explored poverty lines based on a consensus about the minimal income level a family like theirs would need to just get by. This survey-based  approach assumes that respondents (real people) are the best arbiters of what poverty means.
3. Poverty gap measures … Rather than setting a line that separates the poor from the non poor, a gap approach calculates the distance each family is above or below said line. This makes it easier to measure extreme levels of poverty and family units who fall into the near poor category. Proponents argue that having income one dollar over or under an artificial line does an inadequate job of differentiating the poor from the non-poor.
4. Some argue that poverty is best measured by expenditures, not income. A family may not have observable sources of income yet have access to resources. Their capacity to purchase goods and services is what ultimately matters. Perhaps that should be our focus.
5. Asolute measures. This is the standard approach. You somehow calculate an amount a family needs to survive, as Ms. Orshansky did in the 1960s.

We also have non-income measures:

  1. Social exclusion measures …      Europeans, in particular, often discuss poverty in terms of social exclusion. Such measures tap an individual’s or a family’s isolation … a lack of access to the social capital required to fully participate in society. You are impoverished if you are not minimally integrated within society’s essential networks.

  2. Human capital deficits … this concept focuses on measuring the hard and soft skills necessary to being an independent, productive worker and a contributing member of society. Hard skills are vocational in character. Soft skills focus of acceptable behaviors and interpersonal skills. If you haven’t got the skills, life will be challenging.

  3. Specific resource deficits … here we focus on shortcomings in specific areas of life. For example, some measures focus on food insecurity or various metrics tapping the individual’s ability (or inability) to secure adequate nutrition and nourishment. Shelter insecurity focuses on homelessness or inadequate housing (overcrowding or unsafe abodes). Others are possible.

  4. Social mobility measures deserve more attention than they typically receive. A hallmark of the American dream is that anyone can make it if they try. Yet, as inequality here has increased exponentially and the costs of education and other traditional tactics for success have become less accessible to many, social mobility in the U.S. has congealed. Recent research has indicated that inter-quintile movement (a measure of social mobility premised on the ease of moving up or down the income scale) is higher in many European nations than in the U.S. Want the traditional American dream today? Go to one of those socialist Scandinavian countries.

These various conceptual approaches capture our confusion about what it means to be poor. In any case, income measures remain the most popular despite their limitations and flaws. In the end, monetary measures simply are easier to calculate.

A matter of choice.

Poverty policy really is a matter of public will. In short, destitution is not inevitable, despite the biblical assertion that the poor we shall always have with us. Public budgets have long been seen as morality documents. How much we tax the winners in society and how much we spend on others are moral decisions. From the meme above, we can see that our willingness to pay for public purposes generally has diminished over time. Does this reflect a national moral failure? Is it not odd that policy debates oft focus on reducing public expenditures rather than demanding that the wealthy pay that share they once contributed to the public good as a matter of course? That question must be saved for another time.

Let’s start this section with the assertion that any single poverty number you might see in the press is what I term a ‘so what’ figure. For example, the most recent U.S. poverty rate is 11.1 percent, or 38.6 million citizens. But is that good or bad? As with most social indicators, we need comparative numbers to assign any real meaning. Three example comparisons that might be made are: 1) against a specified target; 2) progress over time; or 3) our position relative to selected peer nations.

1. Target-based assessments: One might establish a target or goal within some national or public effort. I don’t recall Lyndon Johnson stating that his war on destitution would eradicate poverty entirely, but he might have implied as much. At the time, however, one Nobel- winning economist (Robert Solow as I recall) did predict that U.S. poverty would be eliminated by our Bicentennial year, 1976. More recently, British PM Tony Blair set a national goal for eliminating child poverty in the U.K. within a generation. Against such an ambitious goal, a poverty rate of 11 percent, or any figure above zero, would be judged a policy failure. Then again, Tony knew he would no longer be PM in a generation’s time.

2. Temporal assessments: One might examine rates over time. Are we doing better or worse while using past performance as a baseline? After early progress against poverty in the 1950s and 60s, progress against poverty stalled in the U.S. When measured by the official rate, between 11 and 15 percent of the population have been designated as living below our poverty line over several decades, the rate for children consistently being higher. (Note: U.S. poverty did fall dramatically during the recent Covid pandemic when significant stimulus checks and other benefits were distributed to resuscitate the economy).

Similarly, the numbers of official poor has fluctuated between 35 and 50 million citizens without any singular trend in a given direction. In fact, today’s rate of 11.1 percent is the same as the rate measured in 1974. Viewed temporally, progress against poverty in the U.S. is difficult to find after our early successes.

3. Comparisons with peer nations: If we compare our performance against those of nations we consider our peers, the American performance decidedly suffers. Over the past several decades, the scorecard comparing the U.S. performance against virtually all advanced democracies positions us poorly among international scorecards. Scandinavian countries, in particular, do a much better job. During years when child poverty in the U.S. approached 20 percent, the child poverty rates in countries like Sweden and Denmark were well below 5 percent. The U.S. consistently places at or toward the bottom in such quasi-global rankings.

Another interesting story comes out of China. The World Bank estimates that 88 percent of all Chinese were considered destitute in 1978, just before their decision to deregulated much of their economy and invest in national growth. Today, that figure has fallen to less than 1 percent. The lesson … political will matters. Economic want can be lessened if the public demands such or government decides it is worth the effort. Progress becomes less likely when policy is viewed within a zero-sum framework. Then, the affluent see efforts to help the poor as inevitably resulting in losses to them.

Some big questions!

The poverty conundrum raises several big questions, for me at least:

A. Will redistribution issues replace absolute monetary deficits as the new basis for addressing poverty. I don’t see non-monetary metrics for assessing poverty (e.g.,  social exclusion or human capital deficits) replacing our customary measures. But I can see more attention being paid to distributional notions of well-being or how resources and opportunity are allocated across the society. Already, more attention is being paid to inequality (as opposed to conventional poverty) these days. Perhaps the gini-coefficient (a measure of income or wealth inequality) will become the new standard. It is hard to ignore reports of $50 plus trillion dollars bring redistributed from the bottom 90 percent to the top of the income pyramid in the U.S. Hyper- inequality also suggests a choking off of upward social mobility. Nothing will rile people up more than the loss of hope.

B. What happens when technology makes labor irrelevant? Will the less skilled (or even the more highly skilled) become little more than a burden in the future. Even now, we anticipate AI replacing untold millions of jobs over the next generation. I spoke about this issue in 2013 when I gave the plenary talk at an IRP conference to academics who teach university-based poverty courses around the country. I stressed that new digital and robotic technologies will utterly restructure our future labor markets, thus impacting our wellbeing in ways we could hardly imagine. That day is now upon us. As with earlier technological revolutions, perhaps new opportunities will emerge. But that is not certain. I fear what will happen to the displaced when they are no longer necessary. We don’t treat the poor well now even though we still need most of them. What will we do when we don’t?

3. What has been the legacy of our long ago War on Poverty? Most pundits, if they remember it at all, have doubts about its success. That sense of failure tends to discourage similar efforts or even any positive rhetoric. After all, poverty in the U.S. has seemed stagnate for the almost three generations since President Johnson declared our national war in 1965. This sense of failure persists despite the expenditures of considerable resources and energy.

Yet, there is another way to think about this last conundrum. Despite America’s fractured and under-resourced social safety net, perhaps our ‘war’ against poverty has been more successful than we imagined. Consider all the headwinds we have faced in recent decades. There have been changes in demographics (more single-adult families), in immigration (increases in lower-skilled workers), in technologies (worker displacement), and in global competition (more outsourcing of higher paying jobs to other nations), to name just a few exogenous trends. Absent our attempts to help the poor, as weak as they may have been, our situation may have been much worse. Perhaps we have not failed as much as some argue. It is something to consider.

Once again, I’ve probably gone on too long. I should end here. But I’m sure to return to this topic in the future. I bet you can’t wait 😏 !

Today, I want to ‘briefly’ (which I mean this time) expand on my thinking about the deeper sources of those normative dimensions that divide both Americans into opposing cultural camps as well as the citizens of numerous other societies. Cultural conflicts are not unique to either our nation nor our times. Ideological chasms have always existed, waxing and waning with changing external exigencies. They do, however, seem sharper and more visceral in our troubled era, a condition perhaps abetted by our fractured social networking platforms and/or an accelerating pace of social change.

In my last blog, I laid out the foundations of a two-dimensional conceptual framework. On the vertical axis, we had the We v. Me continuum. Those on the ‘We’ end of the spectrum possess a broader sense of tribal affiliation. They see themselves as belonging (or at least appreciating) more comprehensive affinity groups with whom they can identify, or at least associate. At the other end of the spectrum lies the ‘Me’ crowd. They embrace a narrower set of tribal affinity groups, especially when sensing threat. One’s position on this spectrum may in part be hard-wired (distinct brain structures) and partly the result of differential exposure and selective nurturing.

On the horizontal axis, we have a continuum that runs from the zero-sum folk at the top to what I call the elastic types at the bottom. The ‘zero-sum’ types see the world through a filter of finite resources where another’s gain on one of many potential metrics must result in their loss on that metric (e.g., fame, position,  resources etc.). Think of this as a social form of the physics law of ‘conservation of energy.’ The aggregate amount of goodies in society never changes, they merely get redistributed in favor of one group (or individual) at the detriment to another.

The ‘elastic’ types tend toward interpretations of the world where collaboration often is viewed as better than competition … where individual success is not at the expense of the other. Resources can be elastic in the sense that they can expand when cooperative interactions prevail, at least theoretically. It is critical to remember that these ‘laws’ don’t have to be valid. They simply need to be believed as such. Individuals gravitate toward either an I win- you lose perspective or the one in which we can all do better by cooperatively expanding the pool of available goods.

While individuals can lie at any position alobg each continuum, I suspect we are being driven to the extremes, which I discuss in the time dimension below. As you may recall, this simple template gives us four quadrants  Let me take a shot at labeling and describing each:

A. Upper Left … Competitive globalists or those who can identify with external groups (tribes) yet still see life as an ongoing struggle for scarce resources. Their default position can be broad respecting affinity groups on some socio-economic questions but only in limited circumstances.

B. Upper Right … Darwinian tribalists or those who likely reflect contemporary MAGA types. Under stress, they radically constrain their tribal affininities, largely to people like themselves while seeing the world in rather violent ‘survival of the fittest’ terms. They see threat everywhere. They seek solace within increasingly limited others with whom they closely identify. The other is the enemy.

C. Lower Right … Collaborative tribalists or those who have limited capacities for embracing those beyond their own world yet are capable of empathic behaviors and responses, at keast to some extent. While their inherent bigotry (e.g., restrictions in affinity groups) might be muted by unavoidable contact with other groups, their suspicions of the ‘other’ are never fully allayed. They tend toward independent political positions (like quadrant A).

D. Lower Left … Empathic globalists or those who instinctively seek to identify with broader concepts of humanity while simultaneously embracing empathic responses to human needs and social exigencies. While we all have those moments of selfish tribalism, their default position is to think in broad, compassionate terms. In other words, they are woke.

           The Quadrants

                A.           B.

                D.           C.

A third dimension.

As suggested above, I’ve been thinking that we need to extend the framework with a time dimension. It is human nature to seek support or reinforcement for one’s position in this emotional palette. Thus, we seek reference groups, news outlets, support groups, and other reinforcements for our priors. Self-selecting or curated information sources leads to excessive confirmation-bias. We continually seek (or are exposed to via pre-set algorithms or constrained choices) inputs that affirm our initial positions on our ’emotional palettes.’ This results in additional feel-good dopamine hits that give us a kind of internal reward.

Over time, there is a tendency to seek greater reinforcements for our world view because of these positive hits. For example, we see people addicted to Fox News or those cultists who seek out Trump rallies. Those locked into a rigid world view constantly need new dopamine hits. (Note: a similar phenomenon exists for those in other quadrants, but I feel it is particularly strong in quadrant B.) The end results is a widening gap between those in one quadrant with those in the diagonally opposite quadrant, primarily B with D.

Through self reinforcing mechanisms, we continually seek people, input, and experiences that confirm our emotional priors. Confirmation bias not only serves the purpose of affirming core beliefs but provides us with ever increasing dopamine hits or feelings of satisfaction if not a new high. This is the very mechanism exploited by digital media algorithms to keep customers engaged on their sites. Anything that supercharges one emotionally will do the trick. Rage, for example, is a powerful narcotic.

Such insidious tactics lead believers deeper into the true believer’s self-destructive rabbit hole. All right- wing, authoritarian movements know they must keep their followers enraged and engaged. Thus, the push by any oligarchy is to take control of major news outlets and social media platforms, which is precisely what has happened in the U.S. You must simultaneously affirm the cultists belief set while upping the dopamine hits over time. Just consider how Trump and his minions keep the MAGA followers angry and distracted.

A note on terminology.

The concepts I’m struggling with here are not well defined. We are dealing with nuanced, intuitive response patterns to external stimuli. That is, we are talking about response probabilities, not cause and effect in any deterministic manner. Not surprisingly, such deeper and intuitive patterns are difficult to label.

I like the term emotional palette for the conceptual framework I’ve struggled to introduce in my last two blogs. The ‘W v. M’ framework is intended to capture visceral responses to the world, fast-thinking in Kanneman’s language and not his slow-thinking or cognitive (analytical) thought. We are talking about our emotional underbelly and not the cognitive abstractions emanating from our frontal lobes.

Given this, the word ‘palette’ works for me. Nominally, a palette describes a board on which an artists colors can be arranged and mixed. But it also can be used to describe hypothetical places where auditory tones or other dimensions of reality are stored, refined, and organized. So, why cannot this notion work as a label  for our primal set of emotional responses.

And thus we have the arrived at the primordial struggle for our species. Homo sapiens can, on occasion, apply advanced cognitive abilities toward understanding the world about them. At the same time, we  respond to life in equally primitive, irrational ways. We are capable of the most abstract, advanced thought along with equally primitive, emotive alternatives. We are caught halfway between being animals and angels.

The term palette describes for me those deeper, instinctive emotive patterns that have remained part of our makeup since the days we survived in primitive tribes while confronting existential threats on a daily basis. Our palette is composed of the scripted ways we filter and organize the world about us largely on a preconscious basis. It is our default strategy through which we managed to survive in the face of contemporary existential threats like accelerating social change or a perceived loss of  societal hegemony. And being embedded deep within our makeup, our emotional palette often lies beyond easy understanding or control, or even our conscious awareness.

Are these constructs applicable!

This blog started with a meme featuring the late Charlie Kirk. In it, he attacks the the very concept of empathy. Moreover, he is Christian nationalist, someone whose reference group is narrow and whose litmus test for what counts is what does it do for me and mine. He was, in other words, a classic MAGA type belonging in quadrant B.

I must add he is not the first to do so, not by a long shot. In the 1990s, when welfare reform was a hot topic, denizens of the ‘right’ attacked the notion of charity as a concept. Giving to the poor made their situation worse was an oft repeated line. It was their form of the old argument that compassion sucks.

Those who worshipped Charlie, or his personal hero Trump, kept coming back to hear a message that oddly was quite orthogonal to what they said they believed. Most right-wing cultists (quadrant B types) posture a belief in Christ’s teachings. Yet, their core belief set is totally detached (largely opposed) to what Christ taught or, more accurately, what was ascribed to him by adherents later on. This is a remarkable case of cognitive dissonance which is less strange when you realize that their beliefs are largely defined by their emotional palette, not their analytically oriented frontal cortex.

When MAGA believers are confronted with contrary input, e.g., Trump is a depraved pedophile and rapist for example, they simply refuse to accept nor acknowledge any such input that contradicts their priors. They will bend the world about them rather than rearrange their essential ’emotional palette.’ Some of them do have high IQs which means they can rationalize emotionally driven positions more cleverly (see my post-decisionism discussion in my last blog).

Think about our national context. Members of quadrant B have enjoyed quite a run. Our revered system of laws has been dismantled to aggressively identify and remove ‘undesirables’ from our midsts. Our national identity is being redefined to accentuate a single tribal affinity group. Just how central has this been in our history? Very central. We have seen blacks, indigenous peoples, Chinese, the Irish and Catholics (my ancestors), slavs and southern Europeans, Latinos, the Japanese, and now immigrants in general serving as convenient scapegoats … the source of all our troubles. Clearly, the idealized American promise has been tarnished time and again by shifts toward the ‘Me’ end of the horizontal axis.

And we have our vertical access. How often is the question of national debt and the public good discussed in the context of we cannot afford to do more. This is a classic ‘zero-sum’ perspective. Seldom are our public policy questions discussed within the context of taxing the uber-wealthy more. Seldom is the fact that Elon Musk alone has more wealth than the bottom half of all Americans been portrayed as a national embarrassment. Actually, he enjoys 5 times what our bottom half has … $480 billion to $85.5 billion (more on this in my next blog). Yet our entitled oligarchs  (most, not all) fiercely fight to further rig the economic game as if life were truly a zero-sum contest in which they cannot ever risk losing, not even marginally. That is a default, emotional response based on their twisted ’emotional palette.’

This is a work in progress. So, feel free to comment on concepts, structure, terminology or whatever. I like playing with ideas but realize there is nothing sacrosanct about my feeble efforts. And yes, I do need to get a life.

In my previous submission to Toms-Musings, I suggested (once again) that a deep divide exists in America, though one arguably evidenced from the very start of our Republic. At our beginning, this nation was patched together from a (slightly) more urban and industrial North which was fairly responsive to democratic impulses with a semi-feudal, more hierarchical, plantation-focused South increasingly dependent on enslaved labor. That cultural and political chasm festered for decades until exploding into the most horrific conflict witnessed on American soil. Though that basic divide has morphed along different, less precise, geographic lines, a similar cultural separation continues across today’s red and blue jurisdictions. The passions across those on each side of the divide oft appear as vitriolic and as entrenched as ever.

In my last piece, I labeled the essential character of the divide as US v. ME … where some focused on larger affinity groupings while others did so on smaller, more homogeneous, units (explained more fully later). On reflection, I have refined my thinking, now prefering a WE v. ME designation while adding a totally new 2nd conceptual attribute (stay tuned)!

Why WE-ME? It is catchier, with a simple inversion of the 1st letter, W to M. Yet, it still encompasses an extraordinary array of differences in world views that separate red from blue areas, conservative from progressive doctrines, and Republican from Democratic partisans in today’s fractured American social fabric. We have two nations, utterly separated by norms and aspirations yet occupying a single land. As Lincoln once observed, a house divided cannot stand. Our differences are, sadly, overly consequential in many basic ways. The chasm is so wide, in fact, that I despair of our national experiment surviving.

Moving on from my starting point.

A nominal reading of that prior blog defines the essential character of that chasm as one between the haves and the have nots. Surely, hyper-inequality remains a significant contributor to our existing political tensions. For the most part, the haves today command so many resources that they see themselves as fundamentally different, likely superior, to the remainder of society.

The top of the economic pyramid (the proverbial 1%) are the very definition of an affinity group, one that enjoys an incestuous and exclusive set of self-contained and mutually supportive socio-economic interactions. Nevertheless, it likely does not fully explain our national normative tensions with convincing clarity.

For one thing, too many of the ‘haves,’ though not a plurality, evidence empathic tendencies and liberal beliefs. True, Republican President Herbert Hoover, never confused with a leftist, was known to have said, “You know, the only problem with capitalism is the capitalists. They’re too damn greedy.” Nevertheless, while excessive wealth may corrupt or distort values, I don’t sense that it dictates them in any causal nor deterministic manner. Too many, after winning the acquisition game, then redistribute much of their treasure for the common good.

No, I feel the root causes of our existential divide go deeper. By deeper, I mean looking at those innate dispositions that precede, though often shape, life’s outcomes, especially in terms of one’s essential moral center.

It strikes me, for example, that whether one is a member of the economic elite surely can be independent of skill or effort. You can win the birth lottery (fortunate to have rich or connected family members) or the marital lottery (wed a rich spouse), or perhaps win the powerball lottery. In such cases, one’s personal agency respecting their position in the economic hierarchy can be unclear. Some rich are merely lucky. Others make it based upon exploitive, even sadistic, behaviors best left unexamined.

To be clear, cultural polarization within nations is not unique to the U.S. It is a somewhat universal phenomenon. Poland is split sharply between a liberal western side and a hidebound eastern half. Likewise, Italy can be divided between a progressive north and a more backward south. Many nations evidence a similar cultural split, often between urban and rural areas. The very universality of such political and social divides beg further exploration.

In addition, it has worried many that authoritarianism has made a comeback in past decade or so. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union around 1990, many assumed that liberal democracy was on the ascendancy at last. The most powerful authoritarian alternative had collapsed from its own internal tensions. Not so, apparently. In recent years, we have witnessed the rise of authoritarian regimes in several countries: Turkey (2013); India (2014); Poland (2015); and Brazil (2019), just to name a few. And, of course, who could ignore the United States in 2016 and again in 2024.

What explains all this?

I’ve begun seeking explanations for all this dramatic polarization in the primordial, or instinctive, premises and patterns we bring to the world. Preferably, we would like to ascribe our American political divide to some simple cause. If only Fox News or conservative talk radio had not emerged in the late 20th century, all would be okay. Or if we could reverse Citizen’s United and thus divorce big money from politics, then we would magically return to an imagined Camelot where we all would get along.

No, that’s too simple. It all goes deeper than that. I sense that our cultural differences are located in those intuitive responses that individuals employ to make sense of the vast array of inputs each of us faces on a daily basis … a condition worsened by an accelerating pace of technological and social change. The real explanation likely lies in deeply embedded emotional default responses that lie beyond the reach of conscious calculation. If true, just how do we make sense of our world?

A good question, indeed!

Some epistemological approaches to what we know (or believe we know) presume that humans start life with a blank slate, a tabula rasa, a philosophical perspective linked back to Aristotle, Ibn Siba, and more recently John Locke. What we become is totally dependent on our post-natal experiences and education.

Others, like Immanual Kant, believe we are born with predetermined innate patterns for organizing the chaotic world about us. I personally ascribe to the notion that some attributes we possess, and which contribute to the extremes across our cultural divide, are partially hard wired. We are born with them.

For example, some research has detected differences in the structures of brains among hard conservatives that render them more sensitive to seeing threat in the world. Difference, for them, is instinctively equated emotionally with danger. This response was prudent in our deep past when basic survival depended on fight or flight on a daily basis. Best not to relax around an irritated Mastodon if you wished to live another day. Today, cooperation and collaboration are keys to further evolution as a species. Yet, older response patterns remain dominant in some.

While some individual outcomes might be determined at birth, some combination of nature and nurture play a role for most. If our world views were totally determined at birth, we might see a more evenly distributed spatial arrangement of liberals and conservatives. But no, they cluster together. Proximity and socially shared values cannot be dismissed nor discounted.

Still, I cannot ignore a recent discussion with my childhood friend Ronnie, and his wife Mary. They cannot quite understand how one of their offspring turned out to be a Trump supporter. This happened despite growing up in progressive Massachusetts with liberal parents and attending Clark University (my Alma Mater), ranked as one of the more leftist colleges in New England. This one son seemed destined to be different from birth. (By the way, their predicament leads me thank my stars I was wise enough to forego having children. I could NEVER forgive myself for foisting a Trump supporter on society. )

At the core of the divide!

Let’s start with a definition. Jonathan Haidt defines our core moral systems as “… interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate self-interest and make cooperative societies possible.” Fair enough, but how do they emerge?

One way to think about the question is to remind ourself of two insights into how we poor humans function in a bewildering world. Daniel Kanneman introduced us to the importance of fast versus slow thinking. So-called fast thinking is more automatic, immediate, and intuitive. On the other hand, slow thinking is highly cognitive, analytical, and thoughtful. We like to think we have evolved beyond the former toward the latter but have we? Frankly, I see scant evidence of that.

A second insight comes from how some observers view the making of legal decisions. On paper, these are the products of classic  slow-thinking processes. It often takes months of analysis and deliberation before higher courts (appellate and supreme court levels) make decisions and then publicly render their legal conclusions.

Insiders, on the other hand, often describe what more accurately is described as a post-decisionism approach. Jurists decide matters quickly and intuitively with the remainder of the deliberative process merely masking the effort to window- dress an instinctive, largely emotive or normatively based choice in fancy legalese. What has the appearance of objectivity enjoys little of that precious quality.

If judicial decisions were, in fact, one of evidence-based analytical thinking and applied stare decisis (legal precedent), one would not see $100 million being spent to sway the outcome of a single state Supreme Court race, as occurred not that long ago in Wisconsin.

My late wife was the Deputy Director for the Wisconsin court system during her career. I recall her once relating to me stories from a training exercise for the State’s judges she helped administer. The judicial attendees were given hypothetical legal and court situations and individually asked to decide how they would decide the issue from the bench or in their official capacity. She was amazed at how divided the responses were, many split evenly, and how heated the subsequent discussions could be.

Legal decision-making proved substantially distant from our prior in which judicial scholars applied some objective or widely shared set of norms and standards to complex situations. What is right can emerge from entrenched truths located in intrinsically held belief systems. Apparently, the embedded emotions and values one brings to the bench outway logic and the objectivity of the law more often than we would care to admit.

And here we have the crux of the situation. Each of us brings an individual palette of instinctual norms, emotions, and responsive default positions into daily life. These default positions constitute, or at least shape, our instinctive reactions to the outside world. They are the way we intuitively organize the inchoate external messages we continually confront on a daily basis. These instinctive reactions represent our visceral (primordial?) responses to select stimuli, especially those which evoke uncertainty, negativity, or outright fear.

Going back to Jonothan Haidt, he takes a shot at identifying the core organizing principles (palettes if you will) presumably found in conservative as opposed to liberal-oriented individuals. According to him, those on the right value such attributes as loyalty, authority, and sanctity. They seek stability, something bordering on rigidity, in society and in their personal lives.

Liberals, or progressives if you wish, gravitate toward such core attributes as caring, fairness, and personal liberty. They generally seem more empathic toward others, more sensitive to larger tribal affinity groups. They are more accepting of differences and, despite being labeled as snowflakes, are better able to deal with both the unexpected and the challenging.

Yet, it still strikes me that we have not gone deep enough into the fundamental distinctions that separate those that identify with the right and those desperately hanging on to what remains of American democracy and the rule of law. I’ve given the matter thought and, as is my wont, have come up with a half-baked insight of my own. Well, I presume it is mine but who knows. And, if history is any guide, it likely will last at least a week before I discard it as silly and sophmoric.

The core difference!

To separate the Trumpers from the people I respect, I’m envisioning a two-dimensional template. On the horizontal coordinate, we have a continuum that goes from our now familiar notation of WE on the left to ME on the right. Bisecting that flat line is a vertical continuum that is labeled the zero-sum perspective on the top end to an elastic perspective at the bottom.

The WE-ME horizontal continuum is nominally straightforward, one that we have touched on earlier. Those on the ‘WE’ end of the continuum tend to embrace larger affinity groups or a larger sense of referent tribes. They are capable of empathic relations and responses to larger populations that extend beyond their immediate world.

Those on the ‘ME’ end of the continuum instinctively favor smaller tribes as their go-to reference groups. At the extreme, their tribal identity seldom extends beyond those most like them (e.g., white Christians in their suburban neighborhood) and sometimes even just their own families. This may explain why rural folk tend to focus on rather limited affinity-group (tribal) world for social comfort and ideological confirmation. They might have self-selected to stay on the farm (as that population has shrunk) and simply have not had sufficient broadening experiences with the wider world.

Think about the following for a well-known, if extreme, example. Donald Trump would be located on the far right end of the ‘WE-ME’ continuum. In almost every situation, he thinks about how things impact HIM, and no one else. Basically, he has a referent (affinity) group of one. Everything is transactional where his needs are paramount and the wants-needs of all others totally irrelevant.

In fact, his sense of entitlement is so severe that it represents an affliction we would label as pathological narcissism. Though he lived in New York growing up, he might well have been raised in white, rural Nebraska. He evolved in a privileged bubble, seldom interacting with those beyond a small, entitled tribe with whom he shared rather provincial and distorted values.

I sense that I’m located on on the other side of the ‘WE-ME’ continuum. How so? Well, This is not to say that I sometimes associate, or respond to, a few definable and very conventional affinity groups. For example, I am emotionally tied to my Celtic ethnic tribe. I get weepy on my visits to Ireland. But I put such things aside when considering important matters. Then, I instinctively see things from a more global perspective. The very premis of the MAGA crowd, the so-called America-first perspective (really the affluent white Christian Americans first), strikes me as a dated, provincial, and primitive go-to position.

The vertical continuum strikes me as a critical addition to this conceptual frame. How so, you ask? Well, at the top we have those who seek the world in zero-sum terms. Basically, anything of value that goes to someone else is subtracted from my utility (economic-speak for well-being). Put conversely, my winning must be the other’s loss and vice-versa. At the bottom of the continuum we have those who seek the world in more elastic terms. By that, I mean the following. Resources are not always seen as finite. Anything of value going to one individual is not necessarily subtracted from another. In fact, collaboration can enhance the overall well-being of all. Again, these are not absolute calculations but emotional or primordial responses to the world about us. They represent how we instinctively act and react to situations and people.

Think of these two core attributes in terms of a two-dimensional conceptual framework where the horizontal WE-ME continuum is bi-sected in the middle by the zero-sum point down to an elastic point along the vertical continuum. If you can envision this, you readily see that we have four quadrants. It follows (or should at least) that the cult followers associated with the MAGA world generally would congregate in the upper-right quadrant since they score high on the ME and zero-sum continuums. That is, their primordial or instinctive sentiments jointly lie high on the ME and zero-sum ends of the respective continuums.

Progressive-liberals (the dreaded WOKE types) would, on the other hand, congregate in the bottom- left quadrant. They tend toward the WE and ELASTIC ends of both continua. Thus, they tend to instinctively drift toward broader affinity or reference groups while simultaneously sensing that collaborative efforts can enhance overall utility … that is, benefit the so-called common good.

As I have suggested throughout, these are primordial, mostly preconscious response patterns. Exceptions abound and no one is formulaicly predictable in all situations. Yet, this way of looking at things makes sense, if only from a personal point of view. As I’ve noted elsewhere, I embraced a global perspective as a very young man … wanting to join an organization that preached world unity years before I even hit puberty. As far back as I recall, I rejected the manner in which we divided up the world in terms of tribes and nations. When looking out at the vast cosmos, the narrow  perspective of nation- states and ethnic identities intuitively struck me as highly primitive and utterly provincial.

As usual, this blog has gone on too long. I will try to fill in the loose ends in the future. Or, more likely, I will conclude that all this is total BS. At the moment, though, I find it useful. It helps explain why people can seemingly look at what appears to be similar events and yet arrive at wildly different conclusions.

In the end, we have different underlying emotional and conceptual palettes through which we filter and organize reality. One person might see another who speaks or believes differently as a ‘threat’ while another person responds to the same situation as an ‘opportunity’ to experience something new and positive. These are not formal, conscious choices. They are not easily understood through cognition and analysis. They likely lie deep within us as embedded, instinctual sentiments. That makes them difficult to remedy. Yet, understanding is the first step toward positive change, or so I’m told.

More next time or whenever. In the meantime, stay well. And congrats if you made it all the way to the end. You must really enjoy pain 😢.

Has the American experiment in pursuing a ‘mature‘ democracy finally come to an end? I say pursuing (not attained) because this nation never quite achieved anything close to full legal suffrage, at least not until the 1960s. Only slowly, and grudgingly, was sufferage expanded over time … to non-propertied white males, to northern black males, to women, to indigenous residents, and eventually to minorities living in apartheid-riven (southern) states.

Then, on the precipice of universal suffrage, neo- conservative forces soon began to systemically attack the voting rights of newly enfranchised minorities in particular and disfavored groups more generally. Where ‘rights’ could not be legally rescinded, access would be restricted with protocols being introduced to make the act of exercising one’s access to full citizenship difficult at best, impossible in the ideal.

At first, the tactics were indirect. The Nixon administration, for example, passed drug laws biased against minorities followed by the uneven administration of such laws to guarantee arbitrary and selective enforcement. Both the design and management of such narcotic rules were distorted in ways that penalized minority communities. Quickly, disproportionate numbers of black and latino youth had become ensnared in the legal system. In some communities, a fourth to a third of young black males had run afoul of the law before reaching adulthood. Felons, you might recall, generally were not permitted to vote. This systemically weakened civic participation by segments of the population typically shunned by conservatives.

In effect, the collapse of legal apartheid in the 1960s led to an insidious backdoor strategy for keeping undesirables from exercising their rights as citizens. Voter suppression has grown in ferocity and effectiveness in recent years as conservatives began losing the popular vote in national elections. Republicans have purged voting rolls, closed polling places in poor districts, enacted new access impediments at the polls, and imposed absurd gerrymandering practices. It was as if they were trying to recreate an earlier, more primitive version of democracy where only propertied white males would be granted suffrage.

Continued efforts to eviscerate full suffrage and participation in our political life should not come as a surprise. Preserving access to power for and by the elite has a long history in America. Perhaps that is why the Trump crowd wants to whitewash the historical record and prohibit our youth from understanding completely our unvarnished past.

Even at our beginning, despite the high-sounding rhetoric littered throughout our Constitution and related founding documents, the nation was founded by and for the select economic winners. For the most part, suffrage was confined to an acceptable elite … propertied white males. While three-fifths of each black resident would be counted in each state’s population rolls (important to determine each jurisdictions political clout), they could not vote. Also disenfranchised were women, Native Americans, and most males without fortune or property. Only the established white male elite were considered proper custodians of the nation’s future. After all, the rabble presumably did not possess the cognitive wherewithal nor the high moral values essential to the exercise of self-rule. Worse, they might choose to vote in there own self-interest, a frightening prospect given their numerical superiority.

At the end of 1787 Constitutional convention, Ben Franklin asserted that: “I agree to the Constitution with all its faults, if they are such, because I think the general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well- administered, and I believe further that this is likely to be well- administered for a course of years … (but)… can only end in Despotism, as others have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government …”

Ben’s cautionary words reflected deep seated uncertainty regarding the future of this nascent Republic. Deep tensions had run through the consideration of a new Constitution in 1787. All knew that the loose alliance of the semi-independent colonies existing after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783 had been a disaster. Yet, fundamental tensions clouded the way forward to a more coherent nationhood.

A number of questions bedeviled those attending the 1787 constitutional convention. What to do about slavery which seemed inconsistent with nobler sentiments such as all men are created equal? How to balance power between larger and smaller states? Whether any extension of rights too broadly might invite a disastrous rule by the uneducated ‘mob.’ Could some necessary authority be centralized for the sake of stability without sinking eventually into tyranny? And finally, how could opportunity for individual advancement be fostered while preserving the presumed entitlements of the propertied classes? It should be noted that the famous phrase of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ was almost written as ‘life, liberty, and the preservation of property.’

This last issue emerged over and over in early constitutional discussions. Delegates debating the Pennsylvania state Constitution put it this way “… and enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive to the Common Happiness of Mankind, every free State hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property.” Perhaps that early sentiment explains why Pennsylvania is known as a Commonwealth, not a State.

In short, what would become known as the American dream, a place where riches might be freely accrued, could go too far in the minds of some founders. They argued that hyper-inequality was a danger to the common good. At the same time, the opportunity to seek personal success and fortune separated the new America from a rigidly stratified old world. This indeed would prove a tough Gordon knot to unravel.

Fast forward to contemporary times, and not much has been resolved. We have witnessed endless cycles of growing inequality and the concentration of power among the economic elite followed by spurts of intense progressivism …  the reforms of the early 20th century in response to the excesses of the gilded age; the New Deal of FDR in light of the great global depression of the early 1930s; the spurt of idealism in the 1960s (especially during the 87th Congress) after the complacency of the post World War II period.

Since 1980, with the initiation of the Reagan revolution and the full implementation of the strategy outlined by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell (1971), the economic divide between the haves and have nots has widened without interruption. (Note: Powell’s memo laid out a long range plan for the political right to seize control of major institutions and thereby assume more or less permanent control of power).

Over the last four-plus decades, inequality of both opportunity and results has continued unabated. A vast array of data supports the decline of America as this presumed land of opportunity where hard work would be rewarded with personal achievement. Rather, the nation has evolved toward an oligarchy, a place increasingly ruled by an entrenched economic elite.

For example, 10 billionaires recently saw an $800 billion dollar increase in their wealth portfolios over the course of a single year. The top 0.1 percent of the population now commands fully one-quarter of the stock market which continues to rise as the economy wobbles for most Americans. The bottom half of the population command about 1 percent of wealth in the form of equities. Tesla shareholders recently voted to possibly make Elon Musk the first global trillionaire. If this wealth milestone is achieved, and it were considered as GDP (Gross Domestic Product), that sum would place him higher in total resources than all but 21 countries across the globe. That is obscene by any measure.

The concentration of wealth in the hands of the few cannot be divorced from the concentration of political power by the same. When untold billions (perhaps trillions?) are at stake, then why wouldn’t the elite buy politicians or subvert the political process to do their bidding. With unlimited resources at their disposal, combined with the clever use of wedge emotional issues (abortion, immigration, racial animus, loss of tribal identity) employed as classic misdirection ploys to confuse and then secure the support of working-class types, then those in power fully expect to enjoy disproportionate hegemony well above their proportionate numbers. They intend to create a permanent ruling class. If they don’t manipulate the system, the weight of countervailing democratic sentiments would certainly prevail over time. No wonder Elon Musk thought nothing of throwing some $20 plus million dollars into a single state Supreme Court race.

The steady drift to the hard right in recent decades alarmed older Republican stalwarts like John McCain, the last principled Republican to seek our highest office. While running for President in 2012, he experienced a seminal moment during a Minnesota town hall session. A woman in the audience attacked Barack Obama as an Arab and a Muslim. McCain gently took her microphone and said the following in an avuncular manner “… no ma’am. He’s a decent family man (and) a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues…”

Many in the Republican audience booed his conciliatory words. They would have preferred the hate and divisiveness that would soon be fully revealed in Donald Trump’s coming campaign four years later. At least since Newt Gingrich’s 1994 political coup in Congress, hyper-polarization had reached levels where civil communication across tribal political camps had largely ceased and collaborative action seemed virtually impossible.

John would be the final voice of reason in the once proud party of Lincoln. Toward the end of his life he expressed the following: “… they (his Senate colleagues) often had very serious disagreements about how best to serve the national interest. But they knew that however sharp and heartfelt their disputes, however keen their ambitions, they had an obligation to work collaboratively to ensure that the Senate discharged its constitutional responsibilities effectively.” In that vein, he voted to save Obamacare as he was dying of cancer. With immense sadness, he went on to note that … “Deliberations today … are more partisan, more tribal, more of the time than any other time that I remember.” (Note: McCain worked across the aisle, for example once collaborating with Dem. Senator Russ Feingold to limit money in politics.)

It was as if some political Rubicon had been crossed, thereby signaling that an older world where rules and civility prevailed no longer existed. Perhaps the pre-civil war era bore witness to such passions and irreconcilable differences. If so, it took a horrific civil conflict with some 700,000 deaths to restore order and a minimally functioning society.

John Adams once said the following: “A government without power is, at best, but a useless piece of machinery. Power without any restraint is Tyranny.” Trying to walk a tightrope between competing visions of what was right, the founders created a system based on compromise. It was creaky and inefficient, full of checks and balances. Yet, despite its imperfections, it lurched along without succumbing to the tyranny feared by those who launched this experiment with high hopes and many fears.

Now, we are witnessing the most existential and complete threat to this experiment in self rule that many of us can recall. All other issues pale by comparison, from the Epstein files to the state of the economy. Nothing is more important than the question of whether democracy can survive. 

Time and again, Trump has promised an entrenched and permanent Republican rule. He promised it to his Evangelical supporters during his 2024 campaign. Vote for me and you won’t have to vote ever again. It was laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Plan, the outline by which Trump would rule during his 2nd term. And he recently promised his Republican legislators in the Senate as much if they would employ the nuclear option by ending the traditional Senate filibuster. Then, Trump insinuated, he could reopen the federal government on his terms. (Note: In this instance, they did not acquiesce to his demand.)

Ending the filibuster additionally would serve another purpose. He could rule as a quasi-dictator thoughout the period leading up to the 2026 Congressional elections. Let us never forget that German President Hindenberg appointed Hitler as Chancellor on the assumption that  more moderate politicians would keep this loose cannon under control… a form of checks and balances presumed to exist under the Weimar Republic. It took Hitler about 100 days to foment a fake emergency and assume near dictatorial powers from a compliant Reischtag. In the end, tens of millions would perish from the nihilistic, destructive path the Fuhrer subsequently embarked upon. Hitler, too, garnered the support of the industrialists and the money classes, men eager to use his initial popularity to pursue their short term goals. It would prove a Faustian bargain.

The recent elections swept by the Democats have given hope to the center-left. At the same time, ending the government shutdown was accomplished at a significant cost to working class Americans and (once again) to the benefit of the economic elite. The new oligarchs, including the tech brothers, have accumulated egregious wealth through their complicity with our aspiring dictator. They see a path to permanent hegemony, something to which previous elites might aspire but could not quite achieve. This time, they just might grab the brass ring.

There are many theories for why the vast numbers of ordinary Americans might willingly sacrifice self-rule in favor of some dictatorial and tyrannical alternative. On the surface, male working-class support for Trump doesn’t make a great deal of sense. It strikes us as counter-intuitive that any collective would vote for candidates that have never demonstrated any concern whatsoever for their economic or social well-being? This has been the question of the hour.

I do have some thoughts on this conundrum. The direction of my thinking on this question cuts through a complex set of explanations while moving beyond the simple divide between the economic privileged versus we real folk. Rather, it looks to a central aspect of human values … the simple US versus ME dichotomy that may lie at the core of our present political predicament.

This blog, however, is long enough already.. I will jump into my thinking on such esoteric matters in the next edition. So, stay tuned!

Coming soon!

A few blogs ago, I wrote on the topic of my evolution in personal values and perspective during during the period of my misspent youth. If you want the full story of those fascinating post-WWII years, try tracking down the following page-turner (it did get a reader rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars).

In a subsequent blog, I focused on my views as I transitioned into early adulthood. In this treatise, I am moving on to full adulthood. I look at various moments in my professional career that were selected primarily because circumstances surrounding the issue challenged my comfort zone. These were situations where professional necessity and normative values potentially clashed … at least to some extent. After all, one’s world views, or at least one’s behaviors, are elastic phenomena that can change over time in light of unavoidable exigencies.

Let’s begin. I started working as early as I could … delivering newspapers (among other odd jobs), then working in the public library as a page. In college, I labored as an orderly (on the night shift) in a large urban hospital and as a semi-social worker trying to help vulnerable kids from a poor neighborhood that was remarkably close (as it turned out) to where I myself was raised. There were other such efforts … once I started working I never stopped.

These early jobs were, in fact, largely consistent with my values at the time, which determined my selection of them in the first instance. Of note, I occasionally lost money on my paper route. Turns out that I was very passive about collecting what was owed by my poorer customers. That was clue number one that I was not disposed to any future entrepreneurial career path.

I also might add one ethical lapse from my early, non-professional work. For a while, I labored as a ticket taker at an artsy theater in north Milwaukee (while pursuing a Master degree). It was a position that paid little though it enhanced my popularity since I could let my acquaintances in for free on the one night I was fully in charge. If you can’t attract real friends, then bribe them to like you or at least tolerate you.

Alas, I would palm tickets that the gal in the ticket booth would then resell. She and I would share the profits at the end of the evening. It was a matter of survival in those days but I still feel guilty about it almost six decades later. Ah, the scourge of Catholic guilt. That oppressive feeling never diminishes.

My first real professional job was as a research analyst with the State of Wisconsin … a position I pretty much stumbled into. Given my unavoidable attention-deficit disorder, I quickly got involved in many initiatives beyond what I was originally hired to do … which involved administering the so-called welfare Quality Control program. This initiative reviewed random samples of welfare cases to determine eligibility and payment errors. Based on the evaluation results, we were to generate initiatives to systemically root out errors and fraud.

Normatively, I struggled a bit here. My instinctive moral sense pushed me to help the vulnerable  and disadvantaged, or try to at least. While I never discounted that individual choices played some role in determining life’s outcomes, I fully embraced the notion that people did not face similar or equitable opportunity sets, while many in fact faced variable, often unfair, challenges to success in life. Structural or societal factors contributing to their life situation could not be discarded.

Yet, here I was running a system where some poor families might be punished, or perhaps further disadvantaged, for errors that might not be of their making. That caused me pause. Yet, this accountability system had the potential for easing public concerns about an unpopular public program … a potential silver lining. Perhaps this suggests that anything can be rationalized.

Another initiative from my pre-university days involved starting the movement of welfare  management from a paper-based system into the digital wonders of the computer age. (As I said, I was easily bored and always looking for new challenges.) This was groundbreaking stuff at the time and, on the surface, seemed normatively neutral. But was it?

Creating an automated approach to welfare management was a herculean task that went well beyond introducing emerging,  sophisticated management technologies. To make automation feasible, we had to make wholesale changes to program rules. All discretion had to be eliminated as we turned every decision point into an either-or dichotomy. No room for individual caring or empathy here.

However, there were many positives. Applicants would be assessed for all applicable programs in a single, integrated eligibility process. In addition, front line workers were less likely to abuse their discretion to punish clients they disliked. These, among several others, were positive outcomes.

As suggested above, the process of automating welfare decision -making required that we a simplify program rules and  change every decision into a binary form. Everything would be either-or with no personal touches permitted. Individual circumstances were ignored as we moved toward a broader sense of equity (all treated alike) and efficiency (ruthlessly eliminating complexity). While abuse might be rooted out, so was individual treatment based upon special circumstances. These concerns raised complex questions about the meaning of equity and the value of efficiency.

Herein lies the thing about doing public policy … you inevitably confronted tradeoffs between equally desirable ends … equity versus efficiency being one example. It is difficult to treat cases on an individual basis while keeping administrative costs low or absorbing ever-increasing caseloads. How to choose?

Policy wonks always confront what I called the burdens of objectivity and efficiency. You are making rules for society, not the individual. Thus, you can’t approach your work as an  advocate nor a politician where (for the most part) you can argue for ideal (usually unobtainable) outcomes. These are easier to pursue in individual cases. No, you inevitably are constrained by fiscal realities, by inevitable tradeoffs, and by a plethora of unintended (yet very real) consequences. Doing policy is a harsh teacher about the limitations and complexities in life.

I could write a book on these issues, how complex and sobering doing policy can be to an idealist. In fact, I did. If you want the full story, check out the following:

Here, I will touch briefly on a few of the policy issues I confronted after transioning to being a full-time policy wonk while operating out of the University of Wisconsin. As an academic entrepreneur, I could flit from issue to issue with little to no supervision (as long as I could raise money to support my dalliances into those various policy delicacies that caught my attention). It was all so much fun that I metaphorically referred to my career as browsing through a candy store.

Just the other evening, oddly enough, I discussed some issues with a retired attorney who handled child support cases during his years of practice. Way back in the 1980s, I had been involved in a State-University collaborative project reworking the child support system. As part of that initiative, we introduced highly simplified rules for establishing support obligations and more efficient mechanisms for collecting such. My debate partner the other evening focused on specific cases where our new rules seemed unfair in individual situations. On the other hand, I easily recalled our motivations as policy wonks. We were driven to maximize uniformity and efficiency. Another harsh truth of doing policy is that you cannot please everyone.

Virtually all the major issues that crossed my path raised complicated normative questions for me. They could be described as wicked policy problens, loaded with hard choices but also the most fun to confront. I can only touch on a very few, and only briefly (don’t forget the book).

As the 1980s progressed, welfare reform evolved into a front burner issue both in Wisconsin and nationally. In fact, the Badger state took the lead under the aggressive leadership of Governor Tommy Thompson. I would soon get caught up in the workfare,  so-called learnfare debates, one-stop welfare offices, and other related initiatives.

Simplifying these complex reform topics, the new thrust was to introduce a new social contract into the design and management of welfare programs. Liberals (progressives) went ballistic over most of these changes which threatened welfare as a more or less pure income-support entitlement. I had to assess each reform proposal in light of my experiences and growing reputation. My position as a player meant my opinions now counted. This upped the stakes as someone who considered himself as a defender of the downtrodden. It was not easy.

Being a knee-jerk liberal no longer seemed possible. I was no longer merely an observer on the sidelines. I was a player whose opinions now carried weight. At times, I recoiled in disbelief that people, sometimes important people, listened to what I had to say. In fact I would be called upon by the local and national press all the time. I tried not to register who was calling, since I wanted my observations and comments to be objective, if that were possible. I would provide both sides on the issue du jour, if I could. I still recall one reporter who became silent during our telephone conversation. When prompted, she explained that I was her first interview where the interviewee did not go ballistic over the policy question at hand.

When I found I could not escape the spotlight, I occasionally found myself caught up in some very difficult dilemmas. I appeared before a Congressional Committee in DC examining Wisconsin’s learnfare reform, an initiative that penalized welfare families whose children failed to meet educational expectations (another component of the new social contract). I was pressured relentlessly by both sides to say things favoring their position. The governor’s people wanted me to support the program while advocates pushed me to attack it as an evil scheme spawned by the devil himself. I genuinely feared that if the Governor’s representatives at the hearing did not like my remarks, we (my University research institute) would face the termination of state research grants which at a minimum would result in many students losing their support. In my remarks to the Committee, I wove a middle ground where I supported the underlying intent but questioned its execution. I wondered after if I had sold out my values.

During the 90s, I was caught up in all the issues of the day at the apex of the welfare reform frenzy … Clinton’s welfare proposal (on which I worked while spending a year in D.C.); Wisconsin’s welfare replacement initiative known as W-2; efforts to update the national poverty measure; the so-called Super-Waiver to grant states greater discretion over some programs; initiatives to explore new methods for evaluating complex reform initiatives (including serving on a National Academy of Sciences expert panel); and a significant push to move from siloed service programs to more comprehensive and collaborative models.

When addressing any issue in the welfare or human services morass, political sensitivity inevitably became an issue. Welfare, among all public policy questions, tapped such emotional dimensions as sex, personal responsibility, individual character, and public guilt. Conflict and contention inevitably arose. I can’t even begin to account for all the delicate moments I faced.

When I spent time in Washington on leave from the University, I often was sent out to give talks on where the administration was heading. My university colleagues who had worked in D.C. in the past were stunned that I never had to have my remarks politically vetted in advance. In some of these public events, I was shadowed by a well-known Washington advocate for the poor whom I respected greatly. He often suggested that, while he respected me personally, he feared that I had been seduced to the dark side. Had I? I can’t answer that but felt bad that this admired advocate would suggest such.

Even trying to update an official poverty measure that had fallen way out of date proved to be a normative minefield. One might think this would be a more or less technical exercise. But no! Any and every recommended change was viewed through the political prism of who would win and who would lose. Both sides on the normative spectrum saw nefarious motivations behind every scheme. The highly polarized political scene we see today was well on its way to reality.

I can still recall the time I was on a panel at an event being run by the National Governor’s Association. The issue of the day was whether the federal government should give states more flexibility in designing their safety nets. I had been working closely with a number of states at the time and been impressed by the energy and intelligence they brought to policy matters. Still, the liberal establishment was appalled at the prospect. A statement was circulated where virtually every center-left  organization in the nation signed on to their opposition to the so-called super– waiver concept. Had I fallen this far from my roots?

No matter, I could always be comforted by the fact that Governor Thompson (who would become Secretary of HHS under George W. Bush) remained convinced that I was a left wing terrorist. At an event at the Joyce Foundation in Chicago (which supported much of my work), the then Governor publicly attacked me for opposing his reforms. I found that amusing since he did not realize that I had been instrumental in shaping a number of the ideas he touted as his own. 

For politicians, you were either for or against them. There was no middle ground. I functioned in that gray area where compromise and accommodation were essential. When I gave reporters the pros and cons respecting a reform initiative, they often cherry picked my cons. That was the print media’s game. What the Governor saw in the press had him conclude that I was his enemy. Unfortunately, he had a thin skin.

I yet recall getting a call from the Secretary of Wisconsin’s human services agency praising me for saying positive things about the latest state initiative … something called Bridefare which was designed to encourage marriage. I chuckled at the Secretary’s praise, telling him that I called them as I saw them. Then I went on to add that “I only realized I was approaching the truth in welfare policy matters when no one agreed with me.” Yes, I had long recognized an uncomfortable truth. Staying true to your moral center oft meant you were all alone amidst a sea of conflicting norms and emotions. That can be a lonely place to be.

I taught several policy courses at the University of Wisconsin. One of my favorites involved working with 2nd year Social Work Master’s students interested in doing internships to prepare for careers in the policy field. I would meet prospective applicants for this field experience course at the beginning of the year. Part of my spiel would involve sobering them up to any illusions they might possess about doing policy work.

Often, I would start with the ‘river metaphor‘ where you see individuals in danger of death by drowning. Which is better, to attempt to rescue each threatened person or to go upstream to keep them from danger in the first instance. Choosing the policy approach over an individual habilitation route is an individual choice depending upon your orientation and disposition. Both are rewarding. The policy strategy promises broader impacts for sure. 

Then, I would segue into a cautionary tale. Doing policy is hard, I would tell them. You are always making decisions with imperfect, if not contradictory, information. This is especially true of ‘wicked’ problems where uncertainty abounds with respect to ends, theoretical foundations, divided public support, and evidence. Moreover, you can never fully account for externalities and various unintended consequences. Often, you will face excruciating choices where there are winners and losers in the available possibilities. For young people wanting to do good for society, this can be an unsettling professional path. Don’t take it if you cannot accept inescapable limitations and the glacial pace of change.

Yet, almost all accepted the challenge. Surprisingly, no one came back years later to sue me for ruining their lives. Apparently, many of us love pain.

Recently, I was reminded of my long-ago days as a shaper of young minds. I had returned to the School of Social Work at UW as a new member of the school’s Board of Visitors. One other member, the head of Wisconsin’s Planned Parenthood program, joined us via Zoom. She revealed that she had had a mentor during her days in the master’s program, someone named Tom Corbett. She confessed to her confusion back then about whether to pursue a clinical or a policy focus in the future (a micro or macro orientation). Apparently, I convinced her to choose a policy oriented future. She smiled as she confessed she wasn’t sure she should thank me or curse me now 🙂.

Looking at today’s fractured political landscape, I wonder what I would say to today’s youth. I doubt I would encourage many to seek a policy career. How sad is that 🫩?

Perhaps it is time to complete my sojourn to the northeast.

In my last piece, I covered part of my recent road trip … my visit to Worcester Mass or the tragic/humorous site of my early years. That was a sentimental journey for the most part. These trips back home, and back in time, always remind me of certain fundamental truths. We all, most of us at least, endure similar personal challenges. We all face embedded scripts born both of nurture and our surrounding culture. Much of our early lives are enmeshed within struggles to accommodate such scripts, to break free from them, or both. Seeing the scenes of of my youth inevitably reminds me of those enduring struggles.

The remainder of my road trip, however, took me in a different direction. It also had a nostalgic component … recalling favored sites and feelings from my youth. This next portion of the journey took me to places I recall fondly from past vacations and excursions during what now seems like a different life, as if whispered from tarnished black and white photos in a memory book. Faint images of a restless ocean, of sand-drenched beaches, or of bucolic scenes from the rural New England landscape quickly flit through my consciousness.

This portion of the journey also contains a previously unexplored component, one where I (we) would venture into Quebec Province. I cannot quite believe I had never been there before, a somewhat unique place where one can experience a decidedly foreign culture right here in our own North America.

From Worcester, one can take I-495 north to a string of beaches along the shore in northern Mass., New Hampshire, and South Eastern Maine. There are numerous places I recall from long ago like Salisbury, Hampton, and Rye beaches. While some are oriented to the working class and have a gritty feel, others like Agonquit and Kennebunkport seem to cater to a wealthier crowd. They are likely to offer more stately manors redolent of privilege and entitlement. Yet, the beauty of the landscape is a gift to all, even if the ocean waters are on the chilly side.

Meandering along the shore was never our destination, no matter how enticing might be the rocky shores of Maine. We were headed toward Lewiston Maine where Bates College is located. That is where Amelia, the grand-daughter of my traveling partner has recently matriculated. Amelia grew up in England, raised by her American mother and British dad. Given her excellent academic preparation, she had many options from wish to choose. But she wanted to come to America for college. Why anyone with choices would come to our sinking Republic at this moment in time seems a bit odd, but there you have it.

Amelia and her grandmother!

She has the benefits, and challenges, of embracing two cultures … British and American. Each year, she would spend several weeks in Wisconsin, becoming a fan of the Packers, of cheese, and of brats (not sure about the brats). Like her American mother, who rowed for the University of Wisconsin as a collegiate athlete, Amelia immersed herself in competitive sports as a swimmer (which would not be supported at a British university).

Her choice of schools was partly determined by the fact that Bates offered her the opportunity to compete at the collegiate level on their swim team. It was also important that Bates is an excellent liberal arts college that admits a small minority of applicants (i.e., they never would have accepted me for example). It is the kind of educational institution where inquisitive younger minds can be intellectually challenged, where life’s directions might be shaped, if not directed.

I don’t know Amelia well. However, while reserved, she strikes me as intelligent and thoughtful. Like her mother, she has a deep interest in art and in psychology. She also has the advantage of possessing just enough of a British accent to give her a singular advantage. I recall that my Boston accent helped me stand out after I left New England, at least until I lost it. If I am any judge, she will do well no matter where life takes her.

It is hard for me not to reflect on Amelia’s opportunities. Her parents have sufficient resources to support her dreams. That is a blessing. Still, I wonder if things can come too easily for someone like her.

I had to make my way through college without parental support, though admittedly during a period when such a feat was far more feasible. Still, working some nights 11 to 7 before heading off to classes in the AM did present a few challenges, not that I ever studied very diligently in any case. Nonetheless, I started working as a freshman in high school and never really stopped.

Was I strengthened by such demands, or held back in some way? Who knows? I somehow managed to land in a totally satisfying career as an academic and policy wonk, so-called work I might well have done for no pay (were I not to starve to death as a result).

What I do know is that I felt enormously blessed to have the opportunity that the university experience provided. I never could quite comprehend, nor empathize, with those who cast aside similar opportunities by concluding that college is too difficult or boring. But that’s me. After all, I managed to avoid the real world for virtually my entire life.

The world of ideas inevitably attracted me more than available alternatives like, you know, real work. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, one of my favorite mantras to share with my college students was ‘to avoid reality for as long as possible since adulthood is wildly over rated.’

But my preferences are immaterial at this point. What matters is how this promising young woman fares. The world I faced back in my day seemed less frightening than what she faces today. Yet, I have confidence that she will, indeed, do very well despite the challenges she and her peers face.

The Bates campus, as with many such New England campuses, is an oasis of serenity and beauty. The wider town of Lewiston, on the other hand, reminds me of the many industrial towns that once flourished in past eras … Lowell, Lawrence, Haverill, Ware, and I suspect my hometown of Worcester. They all possess that patina of a reddish brick hue which reminds us of a time when America actually made consumer goods. Now, they are dotted with old and abandoned mills and factories seeking new identities and purposes.

Today, such towns are remaking themselves, or trying to, by transforming into places where those plying post-industrial vocations might thrive. Worcester seems to be making it. Lewiston strikes me as trying hard. Indeed, there are positive signs that they are transitioning into the future with some success.

Our stay there was short. After our visit, we would take a quick side trip to Arcadia National Park (Bar Harbor). As many know, the Maine coast line is special … marked by hills topped with rugged forests and serene inlets that touch the sea in places, where coastal villages retain a rustic charm and where rock-defined barriers separate land from the vast and oft turbulent ocean waters.

The beauty is undeniable. So much so, that the numbers of tourists deny one a full opportunity to enjoy local offerings as much as one might want. Alas, the human crush was daunting at times. Still, I miss the fact that there was not enough time to revisit Port Clyde. I recall this dot on the Maine map as a picturesque, if not iconic, fishing village from a visit decades ago. Then again, better to keep that image than shatter it with some new, and less appealing, slap of reality.

We soon were heading north, through the vast inland forests of Northwestern Maine. To anyone who lives in a city, or who grew up in an eastern metropolis, these vast wilderness areas appear magical, if somewhat unreal. The multi-hued forests (at this time of year) seem endless. Blue lakes and rivers break up the canvass of greens and yellows and oranges that cover the earth. God did some of his finest work here. Who needs art amidst such masterpieces of nature.

Then you reach Quebec Province. Suddenly, you are in Canada. No, that’s not correct. You are in France. Except, in most of Europe, you can always get by with English. Not so much here.

When I had trouble at a gas station in a rural part of the Province, the proprietor launched into an explanation regarding what was wrong. He did so, however, in rapid French. I responded with my 65 year old high school version of the language … Je parle Anglais seulement. He looked pained as he struggled to explain to me that his pumps were broken, but a repair person was on the way.

Quebec City is well worth a visit. I cannot fathom why I had never made it here before. It was developed in the early 18th century by the French at a strategic spot on the St. Lawrence River. They chose a location where the waters narrow and a prominent hill gives anyone who possesses the high ground a distinct military advantage. Control the river and you control the territory. Even I could figure that out.

On this high ground, the early inhabitants built a traditional walled city and military defensive positionI. Over time, it evolved into a gem that recreates a part of old Europe on North American soil. It certainly looks and feels like the old country. In the pic below, you can see the iconic Fontenblac Hotel and the walkway overlooking the St. Lawrence and surrounding countrside.

The early French traders gave France a claim to what would have become Canada. But the growing English colonies to the south made conflict inevitable, leading to the French and Indian Wars (otherwise known as the 7 Years War) between these two superpowers beginning in the mid-1750s.

The key battle between French and Indian forces under General Montcalm and English forces under General Wolfe took place in September of 1759 after months of seiges and skirmishes. The English commander finally got the upper hand by scaling the vertical cliffs adjacent to the fortress secretly at night. The British forces surprised the enemy by suddenly appearing at dawn outside the French fortification at a site known as the Plains of Abraham.

Montcalm decided to confront his mortal enemy once and for all in a pitched battle. It did not go well for him. The British forces, being better organized and disciplined routed Montcalm’s mix of French regulars and their indigenous allies. The French general was killed, as was the British commander, Wolfe. The last words that General Wolfe heard was that ‘victory was his.‘ Allegedly, he happily accepted death having heard such news.

Though fighting continued for some time, the issue was pretty much decided that day. The English would control Canada. I’m still confused, though, how the British could win the war so decisively but Quebec remain so French. Go figure!

Nevertheless, this conflict (part of a larger conflict between English and French ambitions during this era) had far reaching consequences. Britain began taxing the American colonies at the end of the 7 Years War to defray the conflict’s costs. Parliament had this naive belief that the colonists should help pay for the troops that kept their enemies at bay. That innocent assumption more or less led to our Revolutionary War a dozen years later. You know, taxation without representation or, more likely, the American tendency to want something for nothing.

France‘s military and monetary support for the colonial revolution in turn helped bankrupt the treasury of King Louis. That eventally resulted in such financial straits that the King was forced to convene the Estates Generale. Bad move! The French Revolution would soon start. So, a lot of history can be found outside the walls of historic Quebec, or at least the starting point for a series of subsequent events that essentially changed our world.

The British would fortify their hard won citadel above the river as protection against a new enemy … those American upstarts to the south. Their fears were not unfounded. American forces invaded several times during the  Revolutionary conflict and the War of 1812. Such incursions were easily repulsed. Currently, of course, our toddler President is making renewed threats to absorb our once friendly neighbor to the north into our flailing Republic. They must think us utterly insane.

It was now time to head home. But we would do so slowly, first wandering through Vermont.

The picture above is Lake Champlain with the Adirondack mountains of New York on the other side. It is a view from Burlington, the state’s largest city … which, in fact, is not very large. But it is quaint with the state’s flagship University situated at the top of a hill overlooking the lake.

Years ago, I did some work in Vermont, much as I did in many other states. I found the state workers there exceptional and progressive. I was fortunate to work with many smart and visionary public servants during my career. In fact, the head of their human services department tried to convince me to relocate to the University of Vermont so that I could could more directly with them.

I would get such feelers from time to time. Some, like this one, had merit or some modest attraction at least. The beauty of the area is undeniable. But Madison is Madison and the Institute for Research on Poverty was, after all, such a special place.

And so we would say good by to God’s country and make our way home. It was, I believe, Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who claimed there was ‘no place like home.’ She might have been on to something there.

Not that anyone noticed, but I haven’t written anything in a while. To ease your concerns, which I’m certain none of you have, I am neither ill nor deceased though people oft look at me and assume such. No, I’ve just been on a road trip East and consumed with other distractions. Bottom line … I remain alive and well, or at least as well as a fossil of my advanced years can expect to be.

Part of the aforementioned road trip involved visiting sites associated with my misspent youth and to enjoy, for one more time at least, the vibrant colors of a New England Fall. It was also an opportunity to visit a friend’s granddaughter who is starting at Bates College this year after growing up in England. Then there was the side trip to Quebec City, a lovely destination that somehow had escaped my attention all these years. But this message will focus on my return to Worcester … the place of my youth.

By the way, this also was an experiment to determine if I was yet up to long road trips. I generally enjoyed them in earlier times. Let’s face it, though. I’m no longer a spring chicken. Hell, as an octogenerian, I am looking at the summer of life in the rear view mirror. Still, I found the 3,500 mile trip quite delightful, recalling the joys of hitting the open road. Perhaps I have a few more left in me.

For one thing, the yellows, oranges, and reds laced through the green canvases of eastern forests in New York, the Berkshires, rural Maine, Quebec Province, and the Green Mountains of Vermont were magnificent. They brought back so many memories that reminded me why this time of year is so special. There really is nothing like a New England Fall. For another, visiting my ancestral home of Worcester resurfaced old memories and cemented the veracity of that old quip about not being able to go home again.

My home town is no longer a grimy and forgettable factory town, having transitioned into the modern world in important ways. Perhaps not being able to go home again is a good thing. Finally, I realized that sheparding my vehicle across the country was not as difficult as, say, bounding up a flight of stairs, an effort that likely would result in an immediate cardiac arrest these days. I haven’t lost all of life’s opportunities.

Anyway, in this blog, let me note a few observations about my sentimental journey back in time. First, a caveat. I covered some of what is below in my prior blogs titled The Education of Mr. Tom. No matter, at my age I’m permitted some repetition. At least I have some visuals to share this time around.

The first two pics (below) capture my early years. That’s me in front of my childhood home. We occupied the bottom flat in this 3-decker as they were called. My grandmother (my dad’s old Irish mother) lived in the top flat. I spent a lot of time with her. She seemed to like me while I was never sure of my parent’s feelings, at least during the early years. It always struck me that I was more of an inconvenience to them, interfering with their social lifestyle.

I cannot explain why they haven’t erected some kind of memorial to recognize their most famous past resident … me, of course. But there you have it. Where the white car is parked, there was a  bushy barrier and a large tree that annually spawned a hard nut we kids employed as weapons against one another. The red car occupies what had been a grassy area leading to a quite large back yard where our imagination created western landscapes full of cowboys or battlefields where we defeated the Nazis one more time.  Our games were not for sissies. How we survived remains a mystery.

The 2nd pic is a shot of Ames Street, my world as a child. It is so much smaller than I recall. There was a vast park at the far end of the street. Still, in those early years, the large number of kids who populated these streets seldom ventured that far. We would amuse ourselves for hours playing (as suggested above) war, cowboys and Indians, or simple athletic contests which only needed a tennis ball or football. You know, run to the Ford and I’ll throw you a pass. Inevitably, either the ball, or the intended recipient, would crash into the car. I wonder now how many dents we put in the parked cars back in our day. Now, traffic is one way, then it was two-ways. Ah yes, the street was our world, even if presented us with a cramped venue.

Ames street seemed so much larger in my memory. Even when we went to the official playground, we often amused ourselves with simple, competitive games such as stickball. This was played on the tennis court since no one in this working class area actually played tennis. Stickball was a primitive game that could be played with (no surprise) a tennis ball and a sawed-off broom handle. This was affordable equipment easily available to us.

The next several pics capture my educational preparation for my life as a policy wonk and fake academic. The first pic is of my old grammar school, then called Upsala St. Elementary school, an institution erected in the late 1800s. My older cousin was forced to accompany me to school when I was in kindergarten to ensure I didn’t get lost along the three block journey (I wasn’t the brightest bulb after all). She insists we got a sound education there despite it being situated in a rather downtrodden working class neighborhood.

I can’t dispute her assessment of the school’s quality though their judgment might be suspect. I recall being a thoroughly average student (at best). And yet, they selected me for an advanced class at Providence Street Junior High (next pic). I can still recall the principal (a Miss Carmody, I believe) calling me into her office to tell me of this ‘honor.’ She seemed as surprised at the decision as I was. Then, again, I was totally shocked. What the hell were they thinking? I had no idea what was going on.

Neither institution now serves its original purpose. The Upsala school was converted to elderly apartments long ago while what we called ‘Prov’ Junior High is still used for an educational purpose of some sort, though I’m not quite sure what. What I recall from my experience at Prov was being in this ‘advanced’ class composed of 4 other boys and some 20 or more girls. Apparently, we were the only boys from all the feeder elementary schools not to run afoul of the law. I don’t remember any of the girls (by name or appearance) though I believe they generally outperformed us boys academically as a group. Undoubtedly, they actually studied. We, not so much!

Among the few males (we brave 5), I once again proved to be an undistinguished scholar. I put myself in either 3rd or (more likely) 4th place. Ken (with a long Russian name) was clearly 1st; Andy (with a long Lithuanian name) was 2nd; Eddie (with a French name) was likely 3rd. I slightly trailed Eddie with a boy named John bringing up the rear. In a prior blog I talked about worrying that no one would hire me when I was an adult. Such fears seemed eminently justified during this period where I struggled in the classroom, and in life.

Then it was on to Saint Johns Prep (as it was known in those days). It was my only tenure in a Catholic run educational institution. The Xaverian Brothers ran the place. It was a competitive school where admission was based on how well one did on an entry examination. I shocked myself by not only passing (thus securing admission) but earning a spot in the top Freshman class.

They just began to move the school from the central city to the suburbs during this period. I only attended the fancy suburban school shown in the pic for my senior year (1961-62) … a small part of the fancy new campus can be seen above. It now rivals any bucolic University campus and costs over $20,000 per year to attend. For the majority of my school days, however, we attended classes in decrepit buildings (the oldest dating from the 1800s) located in the worst part of town. I drove by the site during this trip. Nothing remains of the old school, just a parking lot with lots of homeless squatters. Depressing indeed.

It shows that a good education does not require a fancy edifice or modern amenities. The Xaverian Brothers were dedicated and no nonsense educators. You stepped out of line and risked a whack upside the head. You never shared this with your parents since they likely would whack on the other side of your skull. But at least the cranial damage would be symmetrical.

Nor were we coddled. We ate our lunch outside, buying it from ‘Mike’s lunch wagon.’ He would arrive each noon to sell us sandwiches and such. We did this even in winter, when temps were well below freezing. Okay, during blizzards they let us consume our sandwiches in the gym. I can yet envision our headmaster, walking amongst us sans jacket as snowflakes coated our lunches. He was always smiling and telling us what a fine day it was as as our fannies shivered in the cold.

Once again, I did not excel in the classroom. I cannot precisely estimate my rank but it was not in the top-quarter of my class. My self image of a well-meaning but hapless scholar was now firmly entrenched. It would be a script deeply embedded in my psyche, one that would not be erased (even partially) for many decades.

After an ill considered detour into a Catholic Seminary of one-plus years, I stumbled into Clark University. There, as I cover in previous blogs, I blossomed intellectually and broke free from the cultural confines in which I had been imprisoned. My natural inquisitiveness was released. It was as if my mind suddenly exploded with questions and a need to explore the world about me. I owe so much to this institution as I mentioned in earlier blogs. It is where I became me.

As an educational institution, Clark was created in 1887 as the second graduate school in the country, after Johns Hopkins. It had some high points in its history along with some difficulties. Below, my friend Mary stands along side a sculpture of Sigmund Freud, who gave his only American lectures at Clark. The American Psychological Association was also launched at Clark. As one survey of higher education put it, Clark is one of 40 educational institutions that takes somewhat average students and prepares them for careers in top universities. That describes my experience perfectly.

The picture of the golf course below is not a mistake. On this site, the exploration of space had its beginnings. Clark Physics professor Robert Goddard developed and launched the first successful liquid fuel rocket, thereby initiating our exploration of space. He is yet regarded as the godfather or our space program.

It is also the site where I firmly established the fact that I would remain one of the more pathetic practitioners of this noble game. As a kid, I would walk some two (closer to three) miles with my clubs (the last mile uphill) to play golf all day (for $1 buck). Then trudge home with inescapable evidence that I sucked at this game. Seems impossible now since the walk to the bathroom seems equivalent to the Bataan death march.

The trip back to Worcester had a few personal touches. In the Pic below, I am having dinner with Ron and his lovely wife Mary. Ron was a childhood friend who shared his own terrible golf game with me. In other sports, like basketball, he was a star in high school.

Mary still likes to share with me the story about the time I suggested she forego marrying this lug and experience the world before settling down. As I’ve mentioned, I thought marriage was death. She had, fortunately, the good sense to ignore me. Most women do, thank god. They have been together over 55 years and gave 4 kids and many grandkids.

Below is Sharon, and her husband Tom. She is the child of my (late) favorite cousin, the one forced to take me to Upsala St. School. We had a lovely lunch at one of those quaint restaurants in the New England countryside before a ride to Concord where the American revolution started. As you know, I never have had regrets about my decision to forego having children. However, if I had had one, I’d want it to be like her. So sweet. With my luck, though, a kid of mine would grow up to be a Republican. Perish that thought!!!

I am a sentimentalist, one who loves reminiscing about earlier days. I guess that yearning takes on a certain urgency in one’s advanced years. Thus, you must endure my flights into the past. Warning … I may continue other parts of this trip in future blogs.  Fortunately, your delete button is at hand.

Anyway, I hope I have not become too much of a irritant in your lives. I will try to bother you less with my hobby of sharing the various nonsense that wander though my fecund brain.

I recently noticed a Republican spokeperson blaming Charlie Kirk’s assassination totally on the ‘ruthlessness’ of left-wing values and on vitriolic Democratic rhetoric, while holding her own party utterly blameless. Such myopia always surprises me, though these sentiments really should not shock me in the least. Scapegoating, blaming others, is a hallmark of the rigid or ultra-right mindset. On the other hand, exploring reactions to the sad events associated with the Utah shooting may reveal insights into the MAGA mindset. So, let’s go!

One can go right to the wanna-be strongman himself to find the classic authoritarian response to any public tragedy  … blame your enemies. Jeff Timmers of Lincoln Square put Trump’s immediate response to the Kirk tragedy this way. “His oval office response to the assassination was pure authoritarian theater. With not a shred of evidence, Trump blamed his political opposition. He did not pause for facts, for law enforcement, for mourning. He reached for the strongman’s first tool: scapegoating. By blaming his enemies, he seeks to mobilize his followers, discredit his critics, and justify repression. This is not a new tactic. It is a well-worn script of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, Pinochet … and now, unmistakably, Trump.”

Considering the meme above, can anyone really believe that the stock MAGA response has been little more than the time worn cynical  gamemanship long mastered by those of an authoritarian bent. Could our MAGA friends actually believe what they are saying or is it just more psychological projection? Perhaps they suffer from some sort of cognitive shortfall or have fallen prey to a kind of delusional thinking. The easiest answer to these queries lies with being afflicted with a mental pathology that makes being disingenuous far easier than for those burdened with an actual conscience.

Still, such conundrums got me thinking about the deeper sources of our current threat to national democracy. Why do our national leaders take glee in seeing the comity that once existed in our political fabric totally unravel? Why has American politics become a blood sport?

There is little doubt that civility and reason have been the first  victims of the recent push toward authoritarian rule. George W. Bush, while not a man of deep thought, occasionally hits a high note. On the 20th anniversary of 9-11, he said the following, “… a maligned force seems at work in our common life that turns disagreement into argument, and every argument into a clash of cultures. So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment.” He went on to add the following. “There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists at home and abroad. But in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our duty to confront them.”

No one epitomizes this foul spirit noted by Bush (the son) more aptly than Stephen Miller, Trump’s Chief of Staff and inspiration behind the administration’s mass deportation thrust, otherwise known as ethnic cleansing. In response to the Charlie Kirk assassination by a young, white man from a MAGA supporting family, Miller lashed out at his (and Trump’s) enemies with rather extreme language even by the low to non-existant standards of the MAGA crowd: “There is an ideology that has been steadily growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and which celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved. It is an ideology at war with family and nature. It is envious, malicious, and soulless. It is an ideology that looks upon the perfect family with bitter rage while embracing the serial killer with tender warmth. Its adherents organize constantly to tear down and destroy every mark of grace and beauty while lifting up everything monstrous and foul. Its an ideology that leads, always, inevitably and willfully, to violence … violence against those (who) uphold order, who uphold family, who uphold all that is noble and virtuous in the world. It is an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”

Wow, who are these demons? Should I go out and finally buy a gun? Is Stephen talking about Fascists, Marxists, Islamic Jihadists? No, he is referring to people like me, like you, and like all my retired professional friends who yet believe in democracy, compassion, and civility. The ideology he rails against are those labeled as woke in MAGA circles … merely those gentle souls who seek a fairer and more equitable society where everyone has a chance to succeed. He is talking about those who actually appreciated Christ’s message as a moral teacher.

His rant, reflective of the instinctive, knee-jerk MAGA response to the Kirk assassination, contradicts the findings of a DOJ report issued just last year. That document stated clearly that, since 1990, far-right extremists were responsible for far more ideological-motivated homicides than the far-left or even Islamic extremists. It might be noted that the report was deleted from the DOJ website shortly after the Kirk incident. It failed to support the administration’s propoganda push.

Miller, of course, is the architect behind recasting ICE as a contemporary version of Hitler’s Gestapo. In Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, the U.S. Supreme Court in effect blessed the Los Angeles immigration raids that swept up people who looked Latino, spoke Spanish, and worked those low wage jobs typically avoided by native white Americans. Speaking for the minority of justices opposed to this decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor responded as such. “We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work in a low-wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.” She is trying to remind the court of long held principles, like probable cause, steps embedded in the Constitution to protect the basic rights of people. She, and her two progressive colleagues, are waging a hopeless fight to keep America as a nation of laws.

In my prior blog, I argued that we have always had an authoritarian tendency in America, despite being considered a laboratory for democracy and freedom. Aside from George Washington (see prior blog), one of his later political opponents (James Madison) also argued in the Federalist Papers arguing for ratification of the Constitution that extremist political factions could arouse partisan passions and possibly threaten our emerging and yet fragile Republic. One thing the Founding Fathers agreed upon was the need to avoid a return to authoritarian rule, such as a renew form of monarchy or any similar strongman rule.

However, let us next look at what is considered an authoritarian outlook? Well, it is a perspective that values order over liberty, hierarchy over equality, tradition over change, rigidity over innovation, obedience over participation, loyalty over individuality, and certainty over nuance. Real Democracy, when practiced (and which took a long time to mature in America) challenges the authoritarian outlook. It is inclusive, messy, uncertain, and very difficult to effect and sustain. Thus, authoritarians prefer a more hierarchical, top-down form of governance that values stability and predictability.

Authoritarians,  and their designated leaders, often seek to master the elemental instruments of control: the bureaucracy, the military, internal security,  the legal system, higher education, the media, election protocols, and the civil society or culture. Even a cursory review of Trump’s second term is a classic example of authoritarian usurpation of these essential systems. Make no mistake, his purpose is to institute permanent MAGA rule, thus ending the American experiment.

Perhaps a brief comment on where authoritarianism creeps into overt mental illness is in order. Most dimensions of human belief and behavioral tendencies lie on a spectrum. Authoritarian personalities, in the extreme, can border on various forms of psychopathy. Think of Steve Miller, Steve Bannon, the late Charlie Kirk, several cabinet members (Pete Hegseth or Robert Kennedy Jr.). Such individuals, and many others in the Trump’s immediate orbit appear to have psychopathic traits … either in the form of malignant narcissism, apparent sociopathic tendencies, or outright psychopathy. Let us peek at each of these.

Narcissism (especially of the malignant variety) is revealed as a constant need for praise and recognition. Most of us have ego needs to some extent. But a few have such compelling and overwhelming needs in this regard that the afflicted individual cannot empathize with the legitimate needs or perspectives of others. Their world centers on themselves. Witness Trump turning cabinet meetings into childish gatherings in which each official is expected to heap egregious praise on his excellency.

Still, normal narcissists can feel some remorse when confronted with their extreme behaviors. Those with a malignant form of the condition, however, likely are evidencing borderline sociopathic or psychopathic traits.

Sociopathic individuals have zero regard for ordinary societal rules that govern interpersonal relations. They take pleasure in being manipulative, even aggressive to the point of inflicting pain or harm on others. When things go wrong, they blame those same others though, in some cases, can appreciate their own culpability. Unlike those afflicted with psychopathy, there is little evidence that this condition is hard wired. There might be more nurture than nature in this affliction.

Psychopaths represent the extreme form on this spectrum though, admittedly, it is not always easy to separate one condition from another. However, the true psychopath has no empathy for others. They literally cannot feel what others experience. Thus, they cannot form relationships, though they can be charming and fake superficial forms of attachment. At their core, they have a meanness that is incalculable, spilling over into outright joy at inflicting pain on others.

Psychopathy is more of an innate trait (nature over nurture), often identifiable from distinctly different developments in the amygdala and other parts of the brain. People are born as psychopaths. Steven Miller seems to possess all the classic traits though he is far from the only one who does at the top of the Trump circus.

Of course, most of Trump’s base support do not possess any of these overt mental diseases, at least we hope that’s the case. For more insights into the typical MAGA cultist, let us look at the work of Political scientist Mathew MacWilliams who has researched and written extensively on the topic of authoritarianism.

He notes that there has always been an embedded attraction to strongman rule in America. A. Palmer Mitchell used his government position to launch the so called Palmer raids at the end of WWI, anticipating today’s ICE raids by slightly over a century. He hoped to first exploit and then ride a growing fear of Bolshevism straight into the White House but never achieved enough name recognition to do so. Huey Long of Louisiana achieved name recognition during the great depression but was assassinated before he could do serious national harm. Various American neo-nazi groups (the Silver Shirts, the German-American Bund, other neo-Nazis) espoused the virtues of strongman rule until the attack on Pearl Harbor changed all. Senator McCarthy from Wisconsin tried to ride the post WWII Red scare to prominence but fell short in light of his advancing alcoholism before totally imploding.

Based on his extensive survey work, MacWilliams notes that between 35 and 40 percent of the U.S. population agree with the statement … ‘we need a strong leader who pays no attention to Congress or the Courts.’ This is a core sentiment embedded in the authoritarian personality. In the 50s and 60s, those with such authoritarian tendencies were distributed across the parties and, as a consequence, had no political base from which to do much harm. But the political and ideological realignment during the post-civil rights era irrevocably changed all that.

Three other factors are associated with the visible rise of authoritarianism we see fully expressed by the Trump era. First is the scale of communications. Contemporary social media platforms permit the almost instantaneous communication of views across like minded groups without the moderating influence of major centrist venues. These niche outlets permit the like minded to communicate with one another absent contradictory input. Remember that Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propoganda chief, sought to place cheap radios in every German home to spread the pernicious Nazi message.

Second, we have the phenomenon of demographic succession. All generations have somewhat common, though unique, experiences that they share. Old farts like me can recall times when government did good things … ended the depression or defeated Fascism or improved the nation’s infrastructure. Their (our) memories lead them (us) to a deeper faith in democratic impulses. The younger generation grew up in a world that distrusted government and most large institutions, where political lying or chicanery was routinely revealed, and where economic inequality spiraled and social opportunities seemed to diminish. Not surprisingly, there are dramatically different attitudes toward authoritarian rule across generations. While 65 Percent of old farts like me express a strong affinity for democracy, only 24 percent of today’s youth evidence similar sentiments.

Finally, there is a strategy called the path-dependent or critical path process to be considered. The current administration has blatantly, and without adequate resistance, employed obvious differential rewards to favor friends and punish enemies. No politician has threatened so called enemies as outrageously and effectively as Trump. Just ask the Presidents of our top Universities. Or ask the Board of the iconic New York Times that has been hit with a $15 billion dollar libel suit by Trump merely for printing all the news that’s fit to print, including items unfavorable to our dictator wanna-be. Not since John Adam’s infamous Alien and Sedition Act at the end of the 19th century has an administration sought to so transparently punish political opponents, though John was far less effective in doing so.

If today’s authoritarianism starts with a natural base of some 35 to 40 percent of the population, then these ancillary processes will quickly expand the base to a majority, or nearly so at least. Absent some countervaling set of circumstances or adverse political head winds, democracy in America will soon be spoken of only in the past tense.

In my head, I keep going back to the apochryphal Ben Franklin story. When asked by a curious bystander what form of government the founding fathers had created, he replied “a republic, if you can keep it.’ Now we face the severest test of his condition … if we can sustain it against today’s unrelenting attacks.

There are many hypotheses being raised to explain the rise of Trumpism. Some are quite reasonable, like the hollowing out of the middle class, the destabilizing rapid pace of change in contemporary society, the loss of inherent hegemony among white nativists, or rising inequality and perceived loss of social mobility. These, and many others, have merit. But I would not rule out an explanation based on basic flaws inherent within the American character. Perhaps this is what is meant by the phrase American exceptionalism. That is, we have a tendency to be exceptionally bat-shit crazy.

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