Scholar, documentary attempt to cover America's divided politics - WBFO

Politics

Scholar, documentary attempt to cover America's divided politics – WBFO

Published

3 years ago

January 14, 2020

Harry Miller

Tonight on WNED-TV, Frontline will air the final segment of its two-part documentary: “America’s Great Divide: From Obama to Trump.” The series focuses on the nation’s increasingly bitter, divided and toxic politics. It’s a familiar theme for UB’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Doctor James Campbell. In 2016, he addressed the topic at the beginning of the Trump Presidency with his book, “Polarized: Making Sense of a Divided America.”

WBFO’s Jay Moran reports.

UB’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science Dr. James Campbell discusses his book “Polarized: Making Sense of a Divided America.”

“We’ve been having very, very polarized elections now for some time, but they’re getting more so,”Campbell said.

“And we know the American public has become more polarized. It’s partly events and it’s partly the parties now. The people have chosen up sides.”

When it comes to the impeachment of President Trump, Campbell understands why Speaker Nancy Pelosi was originally reluctant to start the process. While many Democrats were hungry for impeachment, Campbell believes Pelosi also understood the need to play to the center where voters were more ambivalent about impeachment.

Many Americans are avoiding political discussions, feeling that it’s better to remain silent than to engage in unwinnable arguments. Emotions may be running higher, but to Campbell’s perspective the wide divide between parties is nothing new.

“I think polarization in American politics is more natural than unpolarized politics.”

Yes, things were different in the post-Word War Two era, Campbell notes. A majority of Americans came to an understanding that larger matters–the Depression, fighting wars across the globe–took precedence over parochial issues. He cites a study from the 1950’s by the American Political Science Association.

“The complaint back then was that the parties were too muddled, that they were too moderate. They didn’t present a clear choice. “

In the middle of the 20th century, the Republican Party was nearly nonexistent in the southern United States. As that began to change in the sixties, the ferocity of political opinions began to change. Party leaders, Campbell argues, shouldn’t be blamed for fueling that evolution.

“I think they’re responding to where the votes are,” Campbell said.

“You have a much larger body of the electorate who are calling themselves conservatives and a fairly large group that call themselves liberals and they want to be represented by political leaders that reflect their views.”

Research shows that conservatives have felt they have been losing on most issues in recent times. In Donald Trump, voters found a “fighter” who could “win” for them, Campbell maintains. That’s reflected in the favorability ratings among Republicans. Even if Trump were to lose the White House in November, polarization is likely to continue.

“But I think there are perhaps remedies to the dysfunctional aspects of polarization. And that is the lack of civility, the unwillingness to compromise with the other side, ” Campbell said.

“I think we have to work on creating a new civics in our educational system, in our broadcasting that emphasizes discussion across sides that doesn’t demonize each other.”

Instead, discussions should focus on ideas and how to find common ground. It should be accepted that liberals and conservatives are not going to be able to transform the other side.

Campbell encourages voters to try to understand “why we think as we do about it (politics) and, maybe, see the other side. If we see the other side, maybe we can find a way to work things out.”

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Politics

John King delivers heartfelt signoff from 'Inside Politics' – CNN

Published

34 mins ago

June 9, 2023

Harry Miller

John King delivers heartfelt signoff from ‘Inside Politics’

CNN’s Chief National Correspondent John King delivers a heartfelt signoff as anchor of “Inside Politics” and will take on a new role at CNN. Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash will take over as anchor of the esteemed program.

02:17

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Politics

British politics is littered with fake taboos

Published

8 hours ago

June 9, 2023

Harry Miller

“We’re in one hell of a mess,” declared Chris Patten, a former Conservative minister and establishment grandee, ruing the state of the nation. Inflation, slow economic growth and cack-handed monetary policy had condemned the country, he declared on “Question Time”, a current-affairs show. “It’s also, and this is a word one isn’t supposed to use any more, it’s also because of Brexit.” The Leicester audience nodded. Finally, someone had said it. The great Brexit taboo had been broken!

If discussing the downsides of Brexit is taboo, people have been falling foul of it for years. Leaving the eu has dominated political discourse for approaching a decade. Economists and analysts have pored over its economic effects, filling newspapers, television and social media. Commentators wail about it daily. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, boasted of fixing the myriad problems Brexit caused for Northern Ireland. Labour has promised to darn the obvious holes in Britain’s relationship with the eu. For a word that folk are no longer supposed to use, it is used a lot.

British politics is littered with fake taboos: topics that are supposedly unmentionable, yet discussed incessantly. From reforming the National Health Service (nhs) to cutting immigration and Brexit, politicians and voters engage in the fiction that some topics are verboten. It is a useful tool. Ideas that are unpopular can be laundered as forbidden. Impractical schemes can be painted as merely transgressive rather than foolish. Pretend taboos cover a host of failings. If there is a taboo in British politics, it is admitting that most political taboos do not exist.

Pretending that they do has lots of upsides. A fake taboo can mask hard questions. An immaculate return to the eu, as offered by a polling question, would indeed be popular. About half of voters would support it, while a third would oppose it. But it is also impossible. The same problems that encouraged people to leave, such as free movement and the fundamental question of sovereignty, would emerge on re-entry. Would British voters still support rejoining if it meant Schengen or the euro? Crying taboo is far easier than grappling with reality.

Leaving the eu is only the latest fake taboo. Ever since Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech in 1968 predicting racial strife, immigration has been supposedly off limits. Yet Britain has, somehow, managed to argue about it for 50-odd years. When statisticians revealed record net inward migration of 606,000 in 2022, those on the right insisted cutting immigration was beyond the political pale. This is backward. Cutting immigration is the stuff of political consensus: both main parties say it is too high, as do most voters. If governments are supposed to do what they say they will do, then immigration policy has been a failure. Conjuring a taboo is preferable to facing that.

This is a common tactic. Consider the poor performance of white working-class boys in schools. “Why has it become such a taboo subject to speak out on behalf of the under-privileged?” wondered Ben Bradley, a backbench Conservative mp, on the topic. But sharpening up white working-class boys has been a goal of every government for a quarter of a century. In 1996 Chris Woodhead, the chief school inspector, labelled it the “most disturbing” problem in education. In the David Cameron years, mps discussed extending the school day to boost their performance. Throughout it all, white working-class boys have stayed near the bottom of the class. Every government has targeted them. Every one has failed.

Sometimes a pseudo-taboo is an excuse for inertia. Any criticism of the nhs is a no-no, say some politicians. If it is a religion, as the cliché goes, then blasphemy is on the rise. The nhs has become the butt of jokes. TikTok is filled with spoof videos about grumpy receptionists telling the unwell to get lost. More Britons are dissatisfied with the nhs than at any point on record.

Reforming the nhs, which is free at the point of use, is, apparently, another taboo. Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown spent years fighting over what now seem to be arcane debates about nhs structures; Mr Cameron pledged no top-down restructuring of the nhs, then noticed that his health secretary had, in fact, done a top-down restructuring of the nhs. A wholesale shift to a European-style insurance model is not taboo. It would merely be expensive, difficult and unpopular. Better to pretend something is forbidden rather than tricky or hated.

Breaking supposed taboos is cheaper than fixing the problems they shroud. Politicians speak regularly about the need to “reduce the stigma” surrounding mental health. In an interview Mr Sunak revealed that his mental disposition was improved by the family dog. At the same time, Sir Mark Rowley, head of the Metropolitan Police, said the force would no longer respond to mental-health call-outs, in a change that is part husbanding of resources and part accelerationism. Ensuring that the police and hospitals are able to cope with psychosis is expensive. Reducing the stigma is free.

So controversial, so brave

Building an imaginary taboo and then smashing it has long been a tactic of the populist fringe. “But you can’t say that!” is a line from the How To Speak Populist phrasebook. But now it is used by all wings of politics. Once influential populist parties such as the uk Independence Party may have all but died. Those politicians who played up to it, most notably Boris Johnson, have been booted out. Yet the style of politics they espoused—of enlightened voters speaking truth against the wishes of a complacent elite—lives on.

And no wonder. Transgression is enjoyable for a life-long insider, such as Lord Patten. Establishment figures can paint themselves as revolutionaries, daring to speak truth to power. Even the tamest of events, such as attending a pro-eu rally, enjoy an added frisson if an idea is, supposedly, forbidden. Middle-of-the-road ideas —“Brexit is not going well, is it?”—can be laundered as thrillingly transgressive. Why let populists have all the fun? ■

Read more from Bagehot, our columnist on British politics:
Britain’s new political sorcerer: the Reform Fairy (May 31st)
British voters want more immigrants but less immigration (May 25th)
Truss Tour: 2023 (May 17th)

Also: How the Bagehot column got its name

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Politics

Liberals, Conservatives ready to stop House from rising for summer break – National Post

Published

21 hours ago

June 8, 2023

Harry Miller

Pierre Poilievre is looking to rewrite the budget, while Mark Holland wants to a permanent hybrid Parliament

Government House leader Mark Holland blasted Poilievre for raising a fictitious budget when there already is one that is well underway in the parliamentary process. Photo by Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Conservatives and Liberals are both threatening to block the House of Commons from rising for the summer recess to make sure their demands are met.

Conservatives say they are prepared to stay in Ottawa for as long as it takes to rewrite a new budget, while Liberals say no one is going home for the summer until their new proposal to make hybrid House of Commons sittings permanent is adopted.

On Thursday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre reiterated his call for the Liberal government to scrap its budget bill. But it passed third reading in the House of Commons later in the day with Liberal and NDP support.

“Conservatives are prepared to work all summer long to rewrite a budget that balances budgets in order to bring down inflation and interest rates and that cancels all increases in taxes. Canadians cannot afford to pay more,” said Poilievre during a press conference in Ottawa.

Minutes later, government House leader Mark Holland blasted Poilievre for raising a fictitious budget when a real one was well underway in the parliamentary process.

“We’ve already presented a budget and, by the way, it’s supported by the House of Commons. So he’s saying he wants a new budget. What would you present, Mr. Poilievre? What would you cut? (…) What would your budget look like? Put it on the table,” he said.

“I mean, if we want to talk about fake things, let’s talk about dragons and unicorns, right?”

On Thursday, Holland tabled a proposal that would allow MPs to continue participating virtually in debates and committee meetings and vote electronically. He said it is important that these changes be voted on before the end of June, which is when the current hybrid measures expire.

“We have, at the beginning of every session, as folks will remember, had to debate these provisions. And that has taken a lot of time at the beginning of every session,” he said. “Now I think it’s time to not do this every time we start a new session of Parliament.”

Holland said his proposal would be debated next week but could not speculate as to when a vote would occur — pointing to recent tactics of obstruction by the Conservatives that have slowed debate on the budget bill, among many other pieces of legislation.

“But I want to be absolutely clear. We’re not leaving Parliament until we get hybrid adopted,” he said.

The House is set to rise for the summer on June 23 at the latest, but MPs have been reconvened for occasional summer sittings during pandemic years to adopt emergency measures to help Canadians.

Poilievre promised this week Conservatives would use all the procedural tools at their disposal to delay the adoption of the billions of dollars in the budget bill, which he claims will stoke inflation.

The Conservatives presented more than 900 amendments, essentially scrapping all the clauses contained in the bill. But the Speaker in the House rejected some of them and regrouped the rest of the amendments into nine votes that were put to MPs on Wednesday afternoon.

The process took four hours, during which Conservatives complained of technical issues during the electronic voting process so many times that Liberals and the NDP asked the Speaker to investigate if those were real issues.

Poilievre spoke in the House for nearly four hours on Wednesday evening, running the clock until the end of the budget debate at midnight. Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer attempted to get unanimous consent for Poilievre to be allowed to speak longer but was denied.

The Liberals, with the support of the NDP, voted for a time allocation that limited debate on the budget bill to ensure that the vote would happen this week.

Having exhausted their tools in the House, the Conservatives are now counting on their senators to continue the obstruction in the Upper Chamber next week.

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