Unintended effects

Iowa today

As you know, the title of this daily column is Actions Create Consequences. I chose it in November 2022 because I am convinced people so rarely consider the reality in the statement. You eat more calories than you burn—no matter the time, ‘quality’, colour, or what any menacing voice in a chat room claims, you are guaranteed to gain weight. It is an iron clad rule of physics. You rob a bank wearing a tee shirt saying ‘USS Bazap’, and the authorities will search for you on that ship first thing; iron clad again.

Sometimes things are a bit more subtle or take longer to kick in than the Honolulu police after said robbery. But, robbing a bank will create further consequences as well: greater apprehension for tellers and customers at that branch, greater security monitoring and/or rent-a-cop security in the grounds, less cash in any teller’s drawer, so all sorts of actions will result.

When I make this point day in and day out, I am not judging the merits of the consequences; you are perfectly capable of doing so yourselves. Indeed, as a teacher for forty years, I always worried my views would influence others inappropriately. I might have been provocative pedagogically to spur discussion but I abhorred (and still do) sharing my preferences. This is because, in the end, I believe the answer to saving our Republic lies in our individual responsibilities (note plural) to educate ourselves with facts (not fairy dust, not internet crap, not the views of our third grade Sunday school teacher who likely had no authority on anything other than the third grade topic for the week, and certainly not self-created authorities embued with their ‘knowledge’ by self-satisfying reinforcement loops which is what far too much of our civic discussion across the political spectrum has become, and never ever something bouncing around on the internet without any evidence remotely supporting it). The military has a wonderful phrase for this: a self licking ice cream cone, although the phrase was born of different circumstances than I am describing in our current dilemma. I believe if you are over the age of 14 and live in this country, you ought read as widely as possible-foreign and domestic sources—consciously perusing voices you know you might disagree with so you have to consider other views. Ask the why question at each and every turn. Why does this make no sense? why is this true? Why does this lead to that?

I am not suggesting we seek out stupid. Sadly, stupid seems common enough that it finds us. I am suggesting we use the brains we are endowed with to think logically about relevant questions which affect us today and into the future.

Back to the actions and consequences, however. I have a dear friend who has railed at me for over a decade about the need for term limits in Congress. He points out that Senators and Representatives keep their jobs so long as to be out of touch and that giving them a fixed contract will ensure they produce for us.

He doesn’t like it when I suggest that term limits won’t solve some of the problems we have. Democrats famously controlled the House between 1958 and 1994. Speaker of the House Tom Foley fell to George Nethercutt of Washington in a major upheaval. Nethercutt had blasted Foley throughout the campaign for retaining his seat for decades, vowing to self limit to six years once he got to town. Right. Once Neathercutt arrived, he decided term limits really were not such a hot idea so he reversed himself for two additions terms. Senator Tom Daschle, the former Senate Majority Leader, lost to John Thune in 2004 after the latter charged Daschle with being a creature of Washington. Thune, in his fourth six-year term, is now Senate Minority Whip, Mitch McConnell’s likely successor when McConnell returns to his old Kentucky home. So much for worrying about time inside the Beltway.

Term limits could—believe it or not—encourage corruption among the less than civic- minded of our elected representatives. Both parties have had their share of individuals with extremely sticky fingers and rather broad interpretation of what you and I ought know to be legal behaviour. But problems might be not merely overt corruption.

But term limits could also allow people to act more rashly on major, complicated pieces of legislation for fear of time running out to help their districts or friends and supporters. None of us can foresee each and every implication possible but we ought mentally recognize some of them to assure we are not creating something worse. Term limits don’t substitute for our sustained, educated involvement in governing ourselves.

I raise all of this after 100,000 Iowans grabbed world attention last night. The headlines were that 49% of the Republican caucus attendees supported someone but Trump or that Trump won 51% of the votes, a landslide. Fifty-five years ago, no one focused on Iowa as bellweather for what the country feels about its presidential Candidates. Before the 1970s, New Hampshire was the first primary and Iowa, a good Midwestern state with corn fields, beautiful small towns, and Interstate 80, was just one of fifty states sending representatives to the summer conventions to choose candidates. ?Que’ paso?

Watergate happened, Chicago happened, George McGovern happened, and we, in good American style, set out to fix it all because that is who we are.

Uh, not so easy.

What are now known as the 1974 Reforms have had substantial impacts on our political system but that includes some unexpected effects that skew the system somewhat.

Richard Nixon’s fall from grace fifty years ago this August led to furious investigation of the tentacles of his corruption. It turned out Nixon and National Security Advisor-turned-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger used the Central Intelligence Agency in some pretty nefarious ways. Perhaps the greatest scandal included attempts to thwart the legitimate democratic election of Socialist Salvador Allende Gossens in 1970, followed by tampering in the Chilean economy to undermine Allende Gossens’ adverse actions towards U.S. corporations such as IT&T. Congress reacted by setting into motion oversight hearings, best known being the Church Committee. These major public efforts led to restrictions on U.S. presidential actions overseas and steps to preclude the intelligence apparatus from collecting against U.S. citizens at home without specific legal authorization.

An unexpected outcome was a much broader emphasis today on using the oversight power of the constitution which some people would argue created the extended Benghazi hearings after 2012’s debacle, arguably hurting Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run. Oversight, as we see today with Hunter Biden, is a major cudgel today opponents and their families. These hearings are extended, extensive, and often conclude with no recommendations as a reusult of millions of dollars in federal expenditure. But one person’s oversight is another’s witch hunt.

More relevant were the election reforms resulting from the hideous spectacles within the Democratic Party in 1968 and four years later. Television coverage of Chicago policemen on horseback pursuing protestors in Grant Park and the city’s mayor hurling anti-Semitic barbs at a sitting Senator on the floor of the Party’s convention in 1968 were a fitting bookend to the Tet Offensive flooding into American homes in late January of that same year. 1968 was a world run amok as the official war optimism disintegrated and the true power politics of the Democratic Party consiglieres showed. Four years later, the weakened Democrats chose a World War II fighter pilot hero tagged as a knave for supporting peace efforts over ‘harder policies’ in Vietnam, even as Kissinger was engaging in backchannel negotiations to sign a deal with Hanoi to cut and run. All of the internal politicking inside the Democratic side signaled the exclusion of average Joe and Joanna voters in Xenia, Ohio, or Buffalo, New York, who sought a change from whatever had brought us to this time in our politics as their sons died in the rice paddies of Vietnam.

When the Democrats swept out the Republicans in November 1974, the Watergate Reform class and party afficionados sought to replace a closed, ‘smoke filled room’ image with a far more inviting system to maximise political engagement. What could be better than democracy in action for selecting candidates at all levels? Turnouts, fifty years later, the move to assure greater participation through enhanced mechanisms of the caucus and primary voting systems had consequences.

First, states began asking what made New a Hampshire with its small population the nest place to start this process? It was tradition but why was tradition sacred? Few asked whether states with relatively small numbers of voters were ethnically, racially, demographically or socio-economically diverse enough to signal anything to the country. Neither New Hampshire nor Iowa is exactly brimming over with ethnic diversity at a minimum. Instead, as the U.S. population has self segregated into communities of like-minded folks, Iowa has become less representative of the nation as a whole, although spillover of refugees from expensive Massachusetts suburbs and taxes did alter New Hampshire’s demographics along the way.

In Iowa, the caucus system, a modification of the colonial era ‘Stand by Your Man/Woman’ (a.k.a. The beloved town meeting), was a superb way to bring personal responsibility to the fore as long as everyone across the spectrum wanted to be involved. Instead, the caucus system hewed in fact towards the fringes because the most passionately committed folks well almost invariably people of the extreme left or right who were determined to show up to get their views out. On a frigid, snowy night in Keokuk, would you really go out if you supported Asa Hutchinson (yes, the former Arknpansas governor and Congressman is still running) if you know seven voting age people in the next four houses were rounding up their friends to vote for Trump? Not necessarily. Plus, after two years of listening to fairly pathetic pandering, name calling, and juvenile policy prescriptions, one might be forgiven for exhaustion—and associated ennui on the part of virtually everyone—except the fringes on both sides (assuming there are radical pro-Biden voters.)

There are multiple causes beyond the reforms such as the media circus atmosphere, the facile politicians across the board, the idea that every political novice who thinks about running can replicate the victories of two of the last three presidents who no one thought had sufficient experience to BE president (few threw that at Biden even if he wasn’t their choice for other reasons). But we should never assume a single seemingly easy ‘fix’ won’t have major impacts that could create greater complications, even if the fixes address the stated desired outcome.

The day after the Iowa caucuses, many voters would probably endorse this wonderful bumper sticker I saw in Alexandria in 2016.

Democracy, however, requires participation and patience. The Founders intended that, hoping the citizens would be wise and educated enough to maintain the gem they bequeathed to us. We keep trying to perfect it but with unexpected complications. How about just becoming educated, honest, listening to the other side, then voting according to what your analysis tells you, finally accepting the outcome after trusting your fellow citizens to be honest in their endeavors? Doesn’t sound much like these days, does it?

Thank you for reading this series of thoughts. I welcome any and all feedback; genuinely so. Thanks especially for those of you who are paid subscribers.

Be well, be educated with evidence rather than diary dust or innuendo, and be safe. FIN