Symbolism, Substance and the Search for Sanity

Symbolism, Substance, and the Search for Sanity


There is nothing earthshaking about politicians doing things for purposes that are more political than practical.   Maybe you call it hot air or something a little more crude.  Its something we all acknowledge, but also something we have no means to quantify in any comparable way.

Immeasurable though it may be, the rational among us can delineate an issue with a more deceptive degree of symbolism than another.  A candidate posing with an infant is less deceptive than phony rhetoric over fiscal policy for political gain which is less deceptive than a made up crisis that puts people in jail which is less deceptive than a made up crisis that kills people.

The broad commonality between the extremes could be called symbolic politics, a concept defined by the late University of Wisconsin Professor Murray Edelman.  Politicians frame a situation as a crisis and imply to varying degrees that they have an ability to solve it.  The real effects of political action, which Edelman refers to as principal value, can be quite different than the symbolic value, politicians would prefer the public accept as truth.  Edelman was a leader in examining this duality.

“According to Edelman, political players subconsciously and based on their own roles produce a make-believe political world for the electorate using political symbols and rituals for and by the mass media; this process is increasingly being superimposed upon the principal value of political actions,” (UNESCO via d@dalos).

Symbolic politics is a concept so broad that it almost lacks boundries.  Everything politicians do has a degree of political gain attached to it.  Not every formula produces the projected outcome, but no politician does anything they feel will be a political loss.

 It might be that the concept is too broad to be useful, but I suggest that it is so prevalent that it is laughable to ignore.  Lacking the means to measure the gap doesn’t reduce its significance.  It might be a leading cause of low political participation rates.  Pew reports that in 2010 73% of non-voters trust Washington to do what is right only sometimes or never.  (Pew)  Perhaps they can see through the symbolism.

The use of symbolic politics is not limited to a specific ideology, party or even system of government.  Depression era fascists, developed Democracies, and the Russian Federation, have applied the same formula to stockpile legitimacy through symbolism.

Politicians and activists create meaning using inflammatory rhetoric and action.  The fear that is manufactured is met with similarly produced, equally erroneous solutions.  If the narrative is accepted by the electorate the reward is political legitimacy.

 Sane people of all political persuasions understand that taxes are a necessary cost of living in any civilized place.  This hasn’t stopped many politicians from demonizing the very idea of taxes.  Consider Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, that binds signers not to raise taxes under any circumstance.

It is true that the Boston Tea Party was a revolt against taxes.  The event is also correctly considered a defining moment when colonists became Americans.  Modern Tea Partiers and their anti-tax friends fail to realize that the story didn’t end in Boston Harbor.  The party became a revolution, the revolution became a nation, and the nation became one that realized that it needed revenue to function.

 Land sales negated the need for any substantial taxes, but once all the land was sold the need for revenue didn’t disappear.  Taxes replaced land sales as the primary source of federal revenue.  So unless the Tea Party has a continent’s worth of land to sell, they should accept the burden of paying taxes.

“In short, no matter how one slices the data, the Tea Party crowd appears to believe that federal taxes are very considerably higher than they actually are, whether referring to total taxes as a share of GDP or in terms of the taxes paid by a typical family...Tea Partyers also seem to have a very distorted view of the direction of federal taxes.  No taxpayer anywhere in the country had his or her taxes increased as a consequence of Obama's policies,” (Bartlett).

Bartlett is mostly correct, although he omits that Obama raised taxes on poor people by raising the federal cigarette tax by 60 cents per pack, as well as some increases in airline fees.  For the average smoker who is disproportionately poor this amounts to about a annual $220 tax increase, albeit one that is likely offset by tax cuts.   He points out that 40% of Obama’s stimulus paid for tax cuts and that 90% of taxpayers received tax cuts in 2009.  

 “Whatever the future of the Tea Party movement in American politics, it's a bad idea for so many participants to operate on the basis of false notions about the burden of federal taxation. It only takes a little bit of time to look at one's tax return to see what one is actually paying the Treasury, calculate the percentage of one's income that goes to taxes, and compare it with what was paid last year and the year before. People may then discover that their anger is misplaced and channel it into areas where it is more likely to bring about positive change,” (Bartlett).

Yet the Tea Party continues to cling to symbolism over substance as they stand up to the tax and spend liberalism that President Obama has so clearly displayed by spending large sums on tax cuts.

The anti-tax movement really took off in 1978 in California in the form of proposition 13.  Proposition 13 was a ballot measure that restricted revenue streams by freezing property taxes.  Many economists have concluded that proposition 13 is responsible for California having America’s lowest credit rating and highest debt.

“The measure, approved in 1978, was the inspiration for an anti tax movement that has taken hold of the public discourse in Washington and in state legislatures throughout the country. It caps real estate levies at 1 percent of a property’s most-recent sale price. Before it passed, local governments could raise revenue as they saw fit.

In July, anti tax fervor fed by the Tea Party movement led Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to dig in against any increase in the nation’s debt ceiling that included raising taxes. The compromise that resulted threatens automatic spending cuts across the government if a congressional super committee can’t agree on ways to cut the federal deficit by more than $1 trillion.,” (Palmeri).

It is not unreasonable to assume that if rhetoric about a debt ceiling produces automatic spending cuts without precision, the country could experience the unintended consequences of tax limits on a scale that dwarfs the Golden State.  There are hints of compromise coming out of Washington on fiscal policy as politicians from both sides agree in principal on the counterproductive economic effects of a high U.S. corporate tax rate relative to the rest of the developed world.  Any agreement could be hindered by the transparency that could be required to analyze the current system against any changes.

The symbolic debate is whether or not there should be taxes.  The substantive outcome is whether or not specific budget items get funding, like the military, infrastructure, schools, health care, and entitlements.  No politician wants to cut any of these but they may not have a choice.  The books are not balancing themselves and nobody wants to talk about it in any kind of constructive way.

Symbolic rhetoric about fiscal policy is not limited to the conservatives.  The Democrats would have you believe that seniors are under attack.  Frightening seniors into thinking that they will lose their entitlements has been a proven formula for success in turning out elderly Democratic voters.  The strategy works so well in a highly participatory demographic that Republicans say that Democrats attack seniors on other fronts.  Politifact.com’s 2011 lie of the year was Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad that claimed, “Republican’s voted to end medicare,”  (Adair, Drobnic Holan).

 A wise old politician once told 90 % of 90 year olds vote, 80% of 80 year olds vote, 70% percent of 70 year olds vote, 60% of 60 year olds vote and so on.  There is not an office holding politician in the country that would fathom removing even a speck of gristle from the platter of political pork that American seniors depend on unless it was positively unavoidable.  Even the leader of the supposed Republican attack, Congressman Paul Ryan, understands this, which is why his plan for medicare doesn’t touch benefits for people over 55.

Mr. Ryan almost felt compelled to talk frankly with Barney Frank about another symbolic sore thumb, U.S. marijuana policy during an ABC News This Week Great American Debates segment.  (This Week) Fortunately for Paul, time ran out before he could be pressed to explain the sanity of the policy.

The symbolic value of marijuana prohibition and drug prohibition as a whole is laughable to rational people when compared to its principle value.  Maybe that’s what Mr. Ryan was smirking about in the debate.  Symbolically criminalizing drug use represents a patriotic defense against threats to the community while substantively prohibition drives up the costs and profits of the drugs, creates costly bureaucracies, jails otherwise law abiding citizens, and nurtures a booming black market.

Conservative estimates of the U.S. black market economy are around 1 trillion or roughly 9% of G.D.P. (McTague) This is merely the amount of money spent on purchasing things on the black market, it does not include the costs of attempting to stop them or the opportunity costs of criminally prosecuted users. At a time when we are wondering how to pay for our entitlements, we are committed to an iron triangle of politicians who gain from anti-drug rhetoric, misallocated law enforcement resources, and cartels who become wealthier and more murderous.

Demand for illicit drugs are what they are.  Pharmaceutical companies and even less desirable entities use all the science they can muster to fill the minor void in supply that illegality causes in the illicit drug market.  If you doubt this, do a little investigating into how much time the U.S. military spends combating synthetic drugs.  “A ban was placed on five synthetic cannabis compounds commonly found in the designer drug Spice, but also sold under different names, just one year ago March 1,”  (Howard).

The synthetic drug market an attempt to fill an economic void called deadweight loss, the loss to society created by market inefficiencies.  Prohibition creates market inefficiencies in the supply of drugs that get more than filled by prescription and synthetic drugs.  Drug laws protect pharmaceutical profits and provide a means for racial and socioeconomic intimidation by elites.

“It is not easy to see much intrinsic difference between drugs that are legally approved and their strictly prohibited chemical cousins.  One therapy drug such as Prozac becomes a vast commercial success, while another, nicknamed Ecstasy, is laden with sanctions just as severe as those surrounding heroin, though there is little evidence that Ecstasy is any more or less harmful than Prozac.  One drug is banned because it is associated with some stigmatized ethnic or racial group, while another is tolerated, either because it is used and accepted by a social elite or because it becomes a profitable commodity for mainstream business.  One is proscribed, while its near chemical relation is prescribed, and quite lavishly.  The boundary between legal and illegal drugs, between medicine and dope, is shifting and arbitrary,”  (Jenkins 3).

“The idea that drugs can reduce users to primitive savagery is inextricably bound up with the racial fears that have always been so critical an element of America’s drug scares,”  (Jenkins 11).

Every now and then the misguided substance produced by the symbolism of politicians hits them a little too close to home.  Their children get in trouble using drugs and the politicians find themselves pleading for mercy from the laws they callously trumpeted.

“The son of Duke "Death Penalty for Drug Kingpins" Cunningham (R-CA) was convicted for possession of 400 pounds of marijuana. In court, the congressman cried and pleaded for mercy, explaining that his son "has a good heart. He works hard. He's expressed to me he wants to go back to school." While out on bail, the hard working son tested positive for cocaine three times; when an officer tried to apprehend him following the third positive test, Randy hurled himself out a window and broke his leg. Still, the congressman--who has denounced Clinton's "soft-on-crime liberal judges" and railed against "reduced mandatory-minimum sentences for drug trafficking"--won for his son the mercy denied so many others. Randy got 30 months--half the federal "mandatory" minimum sentence,”  (NORML).

Just as in the case of drugs the symbolic rhetoric and actions concerning prostitution suggests that some solution is possible through criminal prosecutions.  Substantively the negative effects of prostitution on public health are likely magnified by its illegality.  Prostitution laws have historically been used as a way of criminalizing foreigners, particularly women of Chinese descent.  

The Global Sex Survey estimates that 100 million intercourses occur every day. Many of these union’s occur in the US, but most do not.  The AIDS epidemic is under more control than it was a decade ago.  American tax dollars played a large role in this, with the Bush administration committing large sums to fighting AIDS in Africa.

The generosity didn’t come without a strong dose of symbolism designed more for religious conservatives in the U.S. than solve a global health problem.  Condom distribution, the most cost effective and realistic AIDS prevention method, was heavily curtailed during the Bush years.

“[T]he White House's AIDS prevention mantra -- which prescribes abstinence and marital fidelity, with condoms only for "high risk" groups like prostitutes and truck drivers -- is a sick joke,”  (Goldberg).

So let me be bold enough to conclude that the one of the oldest professions in the world isn’t going away anytime soon.  Risky sexual behaviors will continue along with illicit drug use.  The manner in which the U.S. approaches the issues as a threat to public health have unnecessary damaging consequences when symbolism overshadows substance.

Just under 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001.  This was an act heinous enough to for the Americans to declare perpetual war against a noun.  In the first 9 months of 2011, just under 13,000 people were killed in Mexico in a civil war. (Planas)

 The civil war is being fought because one faction, drug cartels which service the enormous U.S. black market, are fighting the Mexican Army that seeks to appease the U.S. government by cracking down on the cartels.  The fact that these deaths are caused by symbolic U.S. drug laws is embarrassing for the government to admit, so we will continue to deal with the substantive consequences like economic inefficiencies and too many people dead or in jail.

When they aren’t plainly handing over weapons as they did in the fast and furious program, the U.S. government further assists the cartels by failing to adopt a sensible immigration policy.  Spending large sums increasing border security the increases demand for cartel assistance in illegal border crossing.  The cases where symbolism starts to kill people gets uncomfortable to talk about.  Perhaps we can take some reassurance that the problem is not limited to the U.S.

The crown jewel of the Russian navy, the aircraft-carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, remains in the Syrian port of Tartus  since arriving there in January.  The Russian aircraft carrier is nothing but a symbol of Russian strength that lacks any substantive military value.  It is one of 20 seaworthy Russian warships according to the Economist.

It has some political value as a physical symbol of Russian veto power at the UN.  Russian veto power on the UN Security Council is one of the remnants of Soviet power that the Kremlin clings to.  The vessel intends to symbolize Russian insistence on the protection of the sovereignty of states.

In reality the aircraft carrier is better viewed as one of the last pieces of scrap metal left from the iron curtain. Ironically a piece of military machinery that was made to instill fear in Russia's enemies is more a symbol of the Kremlin fear of losing its remaining legitimacy.

“Russia has its own problems with Islamists in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and it fears rebellions similar to Syria’s breaking out in such areas as Dagestan, Abkhazia, Ingushetia or Chechnya. By supporting its ally in Syria, the Kremlin is sending a strong message to dissident groups that might want to fight unpopular governments within the Russian federation,”  (Beinglass and Brode).

Protecting a tyrant like Assad does not advance Russia’s national interest.  The resulting international isolation and mistrust is more damaging than the practical application of the port of Tartus for the Russian fleet is beneficial.  They have 20 ships.

“Not only is Russia denying the desires of its own people by suppressing protests and real democracy, it is now leading the opposition to the wave of popular revolutions that the world witnessed over the past year, said the Georgian president, who fought a five-day war with Russia in 2008. The latest and greatest example, he said, is Russia’s support for the brutal Syrian regime led by President Bashar al-Assad.

‘Syria stands as a symbol,’ Saakashvili said. ‘[The Russians] fully identify themselves with Libya but they thought that in Libya they were a fooled into action.  And now with Syria they think that if Syria falls, it's the last bastion before Moscow. And this is exactly the kind of attitude that will bring problems closer home to Moscow. It's not going to help Syria in any way, but it's certainly damaging Russia a lot,’  (Rogin).

In developing countries like Russia, the government can control media outlets and web access more easily than in developed ones.  This can cause symbolic politics to be more effective in less transparent societies, The stranglehold might not last forever because the Russian Federation still has some substantive implements of democracy like their connectedness and some structural, like elections.  Putin will likely return to the Kremlin, but the world will continue to notice when voices of opposition are prematurely silenced.

“The Arab spring has shown us that nobody can hold back the power of modern technology to inform and to mobilise. Technology has empowered the people,”

“[W]atch with interest the results of this year's election. In France and the US, the presidential vote is about choosing between differing political visions and outcomes. In my country the electoral calculus is a little simpler: choose Putin in the first round or in the second round. But do not be fooled! "President" Putin's return to the Kremlin, after either manipulating the first round or being forced into a second round, without doubt puts the world on notice that real political change in Russia is unavoidable. It will be welcomed,”  (Khodorkovsky).

The Russians have manufactured an imaginary threat of foreign domination in domestic affairs, and offer an equally implausible solution of military protection of the Assad regime.  The international community generally respects sovereignty until the rulers start killing the ruled, and even then their are serious impediments to coordinated action as we are witnessing in Syria.

Symbolic impediments like the Russian navy are secondary to substantive impediments. Any move towards humanitarian action in Syria is countered by a lack of willingness by global military powers to venture into and pay for a conflict that has the probability of being at least as messy as the Iraq war.  So Mortar shells will continue to fall on civilians, dentists will try and act as surgeons, and the world will continue to watch the blood flow as symbolism continues to shield politicians from making any substantive commitments.

 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) certainly has a better scope on the issue from a global perspective than myself, and they suggest that symbolic politics are on the rise.  If this is true I would suggest that this is a short term trend, the autocrats last gasp.

 In the long term as global interconnectedness becomes less new and more ordinary it will be more difficult for politicians to use symbolic politics in the extreme degrees that they have been able to in the past.  Government’s across the world are broke, and some introspection as to why is in order.

Interconnectedness has brought with it unprecedented transparency.  Egregiously symbolic acts will be more widely seen for what they are, symbols without substance whose continuance borders on the insane.  With their impact reduced so to might their frequency.  We can at least hope.  






References -

ABCNews. This Week.  Great American Debate.  Part III.  12/18/11.  Retrieved from:  http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/great-debate-part-iii-15183113;

Adair, Bill.  Drobnic Holan, Angie.  Lie of the Year 2011: Republicans voted to end Medicare.  12/20/11.  The Tampa Bay Times.  Retrieved from:  http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/dec/20/lie-year-democrats-claims-republicans-voted-end-me/;

Bartlett, Bruce.  The Misinformed Tea Party Movement. 3/19/10.  Forbes.com.  Retrieved from:  http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett_2.html;

Beinglass and Brode,  Russia's Syrian Power Play,  1/30/12.  The New York Times.  Retrieved from:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/opinion/russias-syrian-power-play.html;

The Economist.  Wait and Sea.  1/14/12.  Retrieved from:  http://www.economist.com/node/21542793;

Goldberg, Michelle.  How Bush’s AIDS Program is Failing Africans.  7/10/07.  The American Prospect.  Retrieved from:  http://prospect.org/article/how-bushs-aids-program-failing-africans;

Howard, Latunya.  Navy Maintains Crackdown on Synthetic Chemical Compound Use.  2/23/12.  Military.com.  Retrieved from:  http://www.military.com/news/article/navy-news/navy-maintains-crackdown-on-synthetic-chemical-compound-use.html;

Jenkins, Phillip.  Synthetic panics: The Symbolic Politics of Designer Drugs.  NYU Press.  1999.  New York.

Khodorkovsky, Mikhail.  Real political change in Russia is unavoidable.  2/26/12.  The Guardian.  Retrieved from:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/26/political-change-russia-unavoidable-putin;

McTague, Jim.  Going Underground: America's Shadow Economy.  1/6/05.  Baron’s.  Retrieved from:  http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=10024;

NORML.  Politicians' Children's Encounters with Marijuana Prohibition.  NORML.  Retrieved from:  http://norml.org/pdf_files/NORML_politicians_childrens_arrests.pdf;

Palmeri, Christopher.  California Diminished by Tax Revolt of 1978 Shows How U.S. Invites Decline.  10/16/11.  Bloomberg News.  Retrieved from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-17/california-diminished-by-1978-tax-revolt-shows-u-s-in-decline.html;

Pew Research Center.  The Party of Non-Voters.  10/29/10.  Retrieved from: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1786/who-are-nonvoters-less-republican-educated-younger;

Planas, Roque.  A Murder Every Half Hour in Mexico's Drug War.  1/13/11.  New York Daily News.  Retrieved from:  http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-01-13/news/30621243_1_drug-cartels-fight-drug-war-alejandro-poire;

Rogin, Josh. Saakashvili: The Arab Spring will topple the Russian government. 2/2/12.  Foreign Policy.  Retrieved from: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/02/saakashvili_the_arab_spring_will_topple_the_russian_government;

UNESCO via d@dalos.  What is understood under the term "symbolic politics"?  Retrieved from:  http://www.dadalos.org/int/parteien/grundkurs5/symbolische_politik.htm;

Why It Doesn’t Pay to Listen to This Year’s Immigration Debate

Why It Doesn’t Pay to Listen to This Year’s Immigration Debate

Meaningful political conversations are moving away from the nominating process to who  Mr. Romney might select as his running mate.  Rumors have been concentrated around Florida Senator Marco Rubio, on the grounds that Sen. Rubio’s Cuban descent could give Romney a much needed boost among Latino constituencies.  

Whether or not Romney picks an Hispanic running mate, the very notion will trigger hours upon hours of talking head discussions on immigration reform.  Immigration discussions will be centered around fence building, narrow minded legislation, and deportations, which these days is akin to placing a bandaid on a gunshot wound. 

This decade is different from the last regarding immigration demography.  Inflows of undocumented foreign born workers have been drastically reduced.  The capabilities and motives of the relevant actors in the immigration situation have changed.  The debate is now about whether increased security or a lagging economy has been the more determinative factor in slowing the tide, rather than debating how to slow it more. 

“Ten years ago, border agents caught 1.6 million illegal immigrants in one year. Last year they caught just 463,000. The drop is attributed in part to the U.S. recession which decreased jobs here, but it's also an indication, according to federal officials, that fewer people are attempting to illegally cross the border,” (Mendoza).

“Porous corridors along the 2,000-mile border do remain, mostly in the Tucson area, requiring constant vigilance. But beefed-up enforcement and the job-killing effects of the great recession have combined to reduce the flood of immigrants in many former hot spots to a trickle,” (Marosi).

“According to the Pew Hispanic Center, nearly two-thirds of the country's estimated 10.2 million adult illegal immigrants have been living in the United States for at least 10 years. A decade ago, fewer than half had been in the U.S. that long... ‘Increasingly the problem is the 11 million people (in the country illegally), rather than the border itself,’ said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, Border Patrol arrested 327,577 people trying to cross the southern U.S. border. Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials deported a record 396,906 people over the same period. That marks the first time in decades that formal removals from the U.S. outpaced arrests at the border,” (Caldwell).

Americans today are living in the 4th decade of the of the country’s 4th major wave of migration.  12.9 percent of the current labor force is made of foreign born workers which approaches historical records. 1/6 of the American workforce is foreign born and 1/2 new workers are foreign born.  (Migration Policy Institute, Meissner)

One piece of legislation that will be brought up this summer is the The Dream Act.  It is designed to provide a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who graduate from college or serve in the military.  It addresses the issue of what to do with people already here, although not all of them.  22 Republican Senators supported the Dream Act when it was initially authored in 2006, today the number is down to 3.  President Obama will continue to call for the passage of the Dream Act.

If the Dream Act is the President’s idea of appearing humane towards potential latino voters, then Operation Cross-Check could be considered his -lets get tough on illegals- approach to attract moderate voters.  Operation Cross-Check has rounded up over 3,000 undocumented foreigners who have committed crimes and arranged for their deportation.  About half are felons and the other half are lesser criminals.  The President is trying to be the tough guy and the humanitarian at the same.  He might pull it off, but even if he does the macroeconomic realities of cross border migration will remain a stronger influence on  immigration dynamics than any current piece of legislation.  

Native born American workers are subject to the coast phenomenon, where they tend to migrate toward the coasts.  This leaves a serious labor shortage in the middle of the country that gets filled with foreign born workers, or if you would prefer, illegal immigrants.  

Let me make you one promise that our favorite politicians won’t:  Nothing substantive will change, and listening to any politician discuss the matter could be one of the worst uses of your time.  The issue is an uncomfortable one for both parties, but the immediacy of localized pressures makes avoiding discussion considerably more difficult than avoiding substantive action. 

Immigration has traditionally affected a small number of states disproportionately, New York, Florida, Illinois, Texas, and California.  These states have developed their own systems to accommodate newcomers.  

In the last decade or two the percentage growth rates of foreign born workers has increased substantially in states that are less familiar with the effects of immigration.  Leading the pack are Alabama with 92% growth in foreign born workers, South Carolina with 88%, Tennessee with 81%, Arizona and Kentucky both having 71%.  Nevada, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri are not far behind.

These numbers help to explain the rise of nativism in these states that can be observed in the success of the Tea Party.  The broad scope of the immigration issue tends to take a back seat to the benefits of being an anti immigrant politician.  

Alabama lawmakers have scared many legal immigrants out of the state, creating unfilled labor shortages that have caused some legislative reconsideration as crops are left to rot.  South Carolina is home to Governor Haley who, “has long taken a hard-line stance on immigration issues,” (Mustufa).  

Tennessee is home to state Rep. Tony Shipley (R-Kingsport), who made nativism a hallmark of is 2008 campaign.  He is an advocate of closing our border and co-chairs Newt Gingrich’s Tennessee campaign.  Iowa is home to Representative Stephen King who is an strong advocate of installing electric fencing to put a charge in border security while comparing immigrants to livestock.  In 2010 20 of 37 gubernatorial contests featured candidates who endorsed Arizona style anti immigration standards according to Politico.  (Budoff Brown)

Arizona style can be roughly defined as criminalizing the act of being in a particular state without the federal authority to do so.  Contrary to popular belief, it is not a federal criminal offense to be in the U.S. without a visa.  

We can see evidence of differences in state attitudes towards immigration in the relatively tolerant position of Texas Gov. Rick Perry when compared to more extreme positions from candidates whose home states who are not traditionally destinations for foreign born workers.  

“In the debate over immigration among the Republican presidential candidates, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota signed a pledge last week to build double-fencing the entire length of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.  Herman Cain called for an electrified border fence, 20 feet high with barbed wire.  

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, claiming superior experience as the leader of the state with 1,200 miles of the border, advocated a more complex strategy, combining fencing and surveillance technology with ‘a lot of boots on the ground.’ Mr. Perry said that building a border-length fence would take ‘10 to 15 years and $30 billion’ and would not be cost-effective,” (Preston).

The division between Republican party elites and their Tea Party allies on immigration policy is stark.  If the GOP fails to bridge this gap  the issue has the potential to decrease turnout among the Republican faithful.  The ripple effects of decreased turnout could hurt conservative causes in Senate and Congressional contests.  

“There’s a division coursing through the party; many of the Tea Party types and social conservatives believe the tough-on- immigration posture paid dividends in the November congressional elections and want to ratchet up the pressure. Congressional leaders want to put the issue on the back burner.

 (F)order Florida Governor Jeb Bush and former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman held a conference to plan more effective Republican outreach to Latino voters. This coincides with plans by newly muscular Republican majorities in more than a dozen state capitals for Arizona-type legislation to crack down on undocumented workers,” (Hunt).

“Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized Mitt Romney's "self-deportation" immigration policy, stating that Republicans should adopt a "very humane approach" to immigration in order to secure Latino voters.  McCain, who does not support the Dream Act, said that Republicans should address the problems posed by border insecurity, but also must consider the human side to the issue of the country's 12 million undocumented immigrants, as well as the impact that aggressive reform policies may have on the party's ability to win over voters,” (Huffington Post).

Republican policy makers have demonstrated a high degree of hostility towards undocumented immigrants but Democrats haven’t exactly been a beacon of humanity.   “Over the past two years, the Obama administration has deported more than 780,000 undocumented immigrants, an increase of more than 120,000 compared with the last two years of the Bush administration,”(Hunt).

There are absolutely zero current immigration policy proposals that realistically address the macroeconomic causes of influxes of undocumented foreign born workers.  The federal government makes no meaningful attempt to equalize the amount of foreign born laborers demanded by our economy and those supplied in by our immigration policy.  Supply will continue to find a way to match demand through other methods.  

Foreign born workers generally enter our economy in something called the hour glass phenomenon, where most immigrants legal and otherwise fall into either extreme of the economy.  Many legal immigrants occupy areas of the economy that are highly skilled where supply is lacking while illegal immigrants occupy the low end of the wage scale by filling jobs that are also lacking in supply.  Native born Americans with skills are far less likely to find themselves in competition with foreign born workers than low skilled native born workers.

The sensible thing to do would be to drastically increase the amount of visa’s granted particularly to low wage workers.  Every year the US allows a fixed amount of visas.  2/3rd of the allotment are typically awarded on the basis of family connection leaving only 1/3 of all available visa’s for the labor market.  All of the labor based visa’s go to highly skilled applicants, rendering low-skilled workers almost no opportunities to work in the US legally.  Only 5,000 work visa's are granted to low skilled workers out of the 1 million applied for annually.  (Migration Policy Institute, Meissner)

This is why former INS commissioner Doris Meissner to characterizes the current immigration system as dysfunctional, indefensible and sinister.  Government leaders are well aware of the economic inevitability of foreign born workers migrating to the US yet they remain unwilling to recognize the humanity of undocumented foreign born workers by granting them any legal protection.  

Tightening border security by itself does nothing to lessen demand for the low wage labor.  What it does is increase demand for the human trafficking services provided by organized crime.   Consequently the increases in demand lead to inflation in the price and revenue generated by cartels for both human and narcotics trafficking services.  

“(S)pending has not worked to stop the flow of illegal drugs. Last year, border guards seized a record 254,000 pounds of cocaine, 3.6 million pounds of marijuana, and 4,200 pounds of heroin. In response, Mexico's cartel bosses simply sent more: trainloads of marijuana, cocaine stuffed in fenders and dashboards, heroin packed into young men's shoes.

An estimated 660,000 pounds of cocaine, 44,000 pounds of heroin and 220,000 pounds of methamphetamine are on American streets in a given year, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. A fraction of that amount is seized at the border, a small operating cost for Mexico's drug lords, who will reap an estimated $25 billion this year from their U.S. sales,”(Mendoza).

“For 2012, the Obama administration's record high budget for border security proposes an additional $242 million to pay for high tech watch towers and movable screeners along the border, $229 million to raise border agents' pay, and $184 million to identify and deport criminal aliens in state prisons and local jails. That's on top of about $14 billion to support the ongoing infrastructure.

The AP tallied it all up: $90 billion in 10 years.  For taxpayers footing this bill, the returns have been mixed: fewer illegal immigrants but little impact on the terrorism issue, and certainly no stoppage of the drug supply.,”(Mendoza).

The previous decade saw at least three distinct sources of reasoning for increased scrutiny at the southern border.  To stop terrorists,  stop violent drug cartels from slaughtering people and to stop migrants from taking American jobs.  As we found out in Alabama, we need the migrants to work.  Fences don’t stop drug cartels, and do not offer a cost effective way to fight terror.  One wonders if there could be any better use for the $90 billion dollars?

Both candidates promise to continue to throw money at the situation blindly.  Rationality on immigration is out the window, so judge the candidates on something else.    I would like to suggest that political discourse move to adopting an immigration policy rooted in the economic realities of our time as opposed to our fear of newcomers.  We have plenty of laws against crime, lets not make any more that criminalize being alive in a particular place.  

Budoff Brown, Carrie.  Gov. Candidates in 20 States Endorse Anti-Immigration Laws.  Politico.  9/2/10.  Retrieved from:  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/41692.html; 

Caldwell, Alicia A.  Arrests at Mexican Border Continue to Drop.  Associated Press. 12/7/11.  Retrieved from Deseret News:  http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700204731/Arrests-at-Mexican-border-continue-to-drop.html;  

Huffington Post. John McCain Slams Mitt Romney's 'Self-Deportation,' Advocates 'Humane Approach' To Immigration.  2/6/12.    Retrieved from:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/06/john-mccain-mitt-romney-self-deportation_n_1257368.html;

Marosi, Richard.  Plunge in border crossings leaves agents fighting boredom.  Los Angeles Times.  4/21/11.  Retrieved from:  http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/21/local/la-me-border-boredom-20110421;  

Mendoza, Martha.  U.S. border security: Huge costs with mixed results.  Associated Press. 6/25/11.  Retrieved from Deseret News :  http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700147134/US-border-security-Huge-costs-with-mixed-results.html?pg=2&s_cid=s10;    

Migration Policy Institute:  http://www.migrationpolicy.org/;   Facts with this citation were obtained from a UW-Milwaukee Center for International Education Forum.  Tuesday February 7, 2012.  Doris Meissner Senior Fellow.  

Mustufa, Asraa.  South Carolina’s Gov. Nikki Haley Makes Good on Anti-Immigrant Promises.  ColorLines.com. 6/30/11.  Retrieved from:  http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/06/south_carolina_governor_signs_anti-immigrant_bill_into_law.html; 

Preston, Julia.  Some Cheer Border Fence as Others Ponder the Cost.  The New York Times.  Retrieved from:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/us/politics/border-fence-raises-cost-questions.html; 

Technology is Killing the Robot...Good.

Technology is Killing the Robot...Good. 

Our favorite TV programs have very short seasons these days.  One of my recent favorites, the 2012 Republican nominating process, ended when Mitt Romney won the Florida Primary. 

Grandpa Paul, the angry Newt and the rest of the clown college may have proved unable to defeat the Romney robot, but the show must go on.  Just like the network competition, the race for the Republican crown will continue in the form of low rated spinoff shows and reruns until even the most ardent supporters can take no more.  

The summer conventions figure to be uneventful. That’s good, because summer is pleasant and offers many distractions from real political decision making.  This shouldn’t be surprising since a united convention is the broadcast format that elites in both parties prefer. 

 We will have to wait until summer ends to see the heavyweight matchup of the year between President Obama and Governor Romney really heat up.  In the mean time they will battle for critical swing voters in all 18 swing states, through robotic attempts to relate to we the people.   

Almost all politicians are robotic, so the issue must be examined in relative terms.  Few would argue that the Republican candidate most likely to be a robot is anybody other than Mitt.  After 5 years of campaigning one wonders if it is possible for him for him to lose that awkward smile. 

“Few candidates are as deft as Mr. Romney at genially brushing off unwelcome queries and comments.

In Bedford, N.H., a woman walked up to him after a speech and declared: ‘I have a lot friends who say you are the robotic type. And I am like, no, you need to stay that way because you are a leader.’

Mr. Romney’s mouth arched into a somewhat pained smile as he rushed to conclude the conversation. ‘Nice to see you guys,’ he said as he walked away.” (Parker/Barbaro).

The robotic Romney is the choice of the Republican establishment just as John F. Kerry was the choice of the Democratic political elite in 2004. The Democrats thought that their robot had won in 2000, so it seemed plausible that the 2004 edition could defeat an unpopular president.  But there was something not quite right about the way Kerry translated to swing voters. 

“The suspicion is that there is something robotic about Mr Kerry: that he is programmed to say what he thinks most people want to hear...One reason why Mr Bush won last time was that he appeared happier in his own skin than Mr. Gore,” (The Economist 2004).

Kerry and Gore’s efforts were losing ones in part because they were more robotic than George W. Bush.  It is reasonable to suggest that Romney’s robot resemblance was the reason that a sizable group of conservatives were able to overlook Newt’s personal misgivings.  

It is difficult to quantify the extent a candidate resembles a robot.  It’s just too silly of a question for pollsters to ask.  Perhaps they should, because it is a plausible explanation for the preferences of less ideological voters.  

According to a recent Washington Post poll (Cohen) that asks respondents how well they feel each candidate understands the problems of average Americans, President Obama scored much higher than Romney and Gingrich.  55% said that Obama is doing a decent job with 30% of those saying he does very well.  Romney’s numbers for the same question are 39% decent and 7% very well, demonstrating a clear gap.  

“Polling suggests that voters find President Obama more empathetic with their plight than Mitt Romney,” (Dickerson).  

It isn’t surprising that the establishment elites in both parties prefer robotic candidates who roll with the political tides and are easily malleable.  Robotics has never been a formula for political success and voters will continue to reject it, perhaps more strongly than ever.   

The preferences of party elites are becoming less influential as social media continues to change the broadcast format of Presidential campaigning.  More evidence of the changes are found in the Democratic party, but this is a large political trend that Republicans are not immune to. 

Election strategists operate in an evolving discipline that is subject to external forces like changing technology.  The railroad caused the candidates to try and actually meet the voters.  Radio forced candidates to be better speakers and television required them to look attractive on top of it.  The recent explosion in social media should be expected to increase the demands on candidates in similar ways.  Social media has had enough time to sink in with a broad section of the electorate, even if some demographics are more engaged than others.  We should expect that its influence on elections to become more apparent.  

Television and radio have historically offered a medium capable of reaching a mass audience.  Social media has reduced communication costs while simultaneously increasing the demand for more personalized content, reaching a different mass audience in more specific ways.   It is now cheaper to reach voters but arguably more difficult to capture their attention. 

Rational observers could expect that both the content and delivery systems for campaign messaging adapt accordingly.  Today the Democrats are doing a better job grappling with the implications of social media than their counterparts. 

 The 2004 Howard Dean campaign was the first attempt by a national campaign to get the most out of social media.  Dean’s campaign was a pioneer of cyber-campaigning, as it explored new ways to motivate and communicate with potential voters.  

In 2006, a very influential paper was published called, Powering Up Internet Campaigns, Zephyr, Teach-out.  It said that parties should involve more local political entrepreneurs, by encouraging them to create local political communities.  The strategy allows parties to tailor their campaign messages to particular local audiences. Decentralizing campaign messaging offers a means of maintaining and expanding intra-party diversity. 

The Democrats refined and applied the lessons of the Howard Dean campaign in the 2006 congressional elections successfully.  Decentralization of party messaging helped to allow candidates in more conservative districts to better tailor their message to their constituencies.  Democrats realized that their cause could be strengthened  by being less ideologically rigid, particularly on culturally sensitive issues.  

Democrats were able to turn over 30 house seats in part because of their willingness to field and support candidates who were allowed to deviate from the party norms.  Blue Dog Democrats accounted for 20% of the House Democrat’s voting bloc in the 110th Congress.

Republicans have yet to substantially copy this effort.  This would be a prudent juncture to consider it because it is much simpler to change the position of a candidate of a particular party, than to change the preferences of an unfriendly voting district.  What if Republicans put in a serious effort to represent urban areas? 

It is a mistake to conclude that the increase in news coverage causes candidates to have to be, “on,” 24 hours a day.  They need to stop trying to do so.  People are not perfect and neither are their candidates.  

The mass marketing efforts of the days of TV and radio dominance presented candidates as a detached group of elites.  The comparatively limited content of the TV and radio days allowed politicians to maintain carefully crafted public images.  The image control that TV/radio allowed politicians is virtually gone, replaced by what Donald Rumsfeld might call an unknown unknown - the next major news breaker could be a blogger that nobody in the establishment has heard of (ie Meredith Whitney).  So perhaps candidates should just act like themselves.

Newt has figured something out even if his own campaign is doomed.  His campaign marks a long term turning point in American politics.  The rejection of the robot. When South Carolina voters supported Newt they indicated that the Newt’s humanity, however brutish, was preferred to the Romney Robot. 

Romney will win the Republican nomination but he will lose the general election because he demonstrates less humanity than President Obama.  Romney comes across as being less human than Newt who is as unabashedly self-interested as the public he vainly seeks to lord over. 

I feel for Newt, he didn’t ask to be born, he is just being the best Newt he can be with the endowments his god gave him.  He sailed to wild political heights fueled by his own hot air and crashed back down when his hot air didn’t mix with his political messages. 

He is in the sunset of his days and has little left to lose, his wife seems willing to support him in most any circumstance. One has to wonder if has has any unspent ammo, similar to the moon base that he can use when he gets cornered.  He is cornered again. With the nomination gone his most important variable seems to be the value of his speaking fees.  

 Normal people don’t always say and do the right things. The 24 hour news cycle will continue to expose politicians who see it as their duty to be perfect as the human beings that they are.  Voter’s will be less and less shocked by personal scandals and more willing to overlook less than perfect personality traits.  

The Republican elites don’t understand this yet.  They continue to invest millions in their robot candidate, hoping to invent the right app that can make Romney relatable.  

TV and radio messages are targeted at massive audiences and not surprisingly produced candidates  that appeal on a massive, generic level.  Social media is much more personal. The impact of social media on campaigning will continue to become more apparent in the way candidates present themselves to voters.  

 What people like about Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama is not that they were the best at being flawless.  Instead voters were able to relate to their imperfections.  The era of the robotic candidates who are bankrolled by party elites like Mitt Romney, John Kerry, and Al Gore will end as voter’s will increasingly expect their leaders to demonstrate their humanity, flaws and all.    

Cohen, Jon.  Poll: Obama tops Romney and Gingrich on ‘understanding’ average Americans.  1/30/2012.  Retrieved from:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/poll-obama-tops-romney-and-gingrich-on-understanding-average-americans/2012/01/03/gIQAcfnqcQ_blog.html; 

Dickerson, John. Who’s more aloof -- Obama or Romney.  2/2/2012.  Retrieved from:  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57370406-503544/whos-more-aloof-obama-or-romney/; 

The Economist.  Not Dean, Not Bush, Not a Robot.  7/2/2004.  Retrieved from:  http://www.economist.com/node/2941610; 

(Parker/Barbaro).  The Retooled, Loose Romney, Guessing Voters’ Age and Ethnicity.  12/27/2011.  Retrieved from:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/us/politics/a-new-romney-seeking-to-connect-reveals-some-quirks.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all;