tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/kansas-13400/articlesKansas – The Conversation2024-02-29T13:41:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2243292024-02-29T13:41:06Z2024-02-29T13:41:06ZCaitlin Clark’s historic scoring record shines a spotlight on the history of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578745/original/file-20240228-20-s0zoch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C126%2C3091%2C1622&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">University of Iowa guard Caitlin Clark celebrates after making the game-winning shot against Michigan State on Jan. 2, 2024.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/iowaguard-caitlin-clark-of-the-iowa-hawkeyes-celebrates-news-photo/1895743985?adppopup=true">Matthew Holst/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When University of Iowa women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/recap/_/gameId/401601593">drained a 3-pointer</a> against the University of Michigan on Feb. 15, 2024, she secured the NCAA women’s scoring record.</p>
<p>Announcers noted that Clark had surpassed <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-husky-basketball/remembering-kelsey-plums-historic-husky-career-as-caitlin-clark-closes-in-on-her-scoring-record/">Kelsey Plum’s 3,527 points</a>. But few added that there was still one more Division I women’s scoring title remaining.</p>
<p>That one belonged to guard <a href="https://www.lynettewoodard.com/">Lynette Woodard</a>, who scored 3,649 points while playing for the University of Kansas from 1978 to 1981. Her record was set before the NCAA offered women’s championships, when the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, or AIAW, was in charge.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/recap/_/gameId/401601613">When Clark surpassed Woodard’s AIAW milestone</a> on Feb. 28, 2024, in the fourth quarter of a game against the University of Minnesota, it opened up another chance to revisit this buried piece of sport history.</p>
<p><a href="https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/collection/data/36723004">The AIAW</a> launched in 1972. Within a decade it was bigger than the NCAA, with nearly 1,000 member colleges and universities. It sponsored 19 sports in three divisions, was the sole organization for women’s intercollegiate athletics and the only one led by women. And the NCAA destroyed it through what SUNY Cortland sports management professor Lindsey Darvin described as a “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/women-college-sports-ncaa-aiaw-11617422325">hostile takeover</a>.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Inside-the-AIAW-the-philosophy-people/9983949592502771">scholar of sport, gender and American culture</a>, I study the AIAW as a key moment in sports history that has been buried, and I’m currently writing a book exploring its philosophy, impact and legacy.</p>
<p>In any history of women’s sports in the U.S., you’ll hear a lot about <a href="https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/advocacy/what-is-title-ix/">Title IX</a>, the federal law dictating that female college athletes must receive equal opportunities in sports.</p>
<p>But you’ll rarely hear about the AIAW, a sporting body led by women that fundamentally changed intercollegiate sports. Its student-centered governance model continues to resonate as college athletes chip away at the power of the NCAA, whether it’s through the <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/2023/12/04/what-is-ncaa-transfer-portal-what-to-know/71799335007/">transfer portal</a> or <a href="https://www.on3.com/nil/deals/">name, image and likeness deals</a>.</p>
<h2>Designed for women, by women</h2>
<p>Throughout the early part of the 20th century, female college students participated in physical education classes <a href="https://www.academia.edu/36681888/_Gendering_the_Gym_A_History_of_Women_in_Physical_Education">focused on health and wellness</a>. There were few opportunities for organized team sports.</p>
<p>By the 1960s, however, women students demanded school-sponsored intercollegiate teams and championships like the men had. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/women-college-sports-ncaa-aiaw-11617422325">Women professors of physical education agreed.</a>. But they had watched the NCAA commercial model of sport descend into exploitation and scandal under what historians have called the “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-512/171481/20210310124813181_20-512%20tsac%20Historian%20Amicus%20Br-final2-PDFA.pdf">cynical fiction</a>” of amateurism. As the NCAA remained exclusively male, there was an opportunity to create something different for women’s athletics. </p>
<p>The AIAW emerged from that momentum – an intercollegiate athletic governance organization designed for and by women, dedicated to creating high-level competition while maintaining focus on the well-being and education of student-athletes.</p>
<p>Under the AIAW, all teams and athletes were supported equally, not singled out for their ability to generate revenue. They had a right to due process, an appeals system and student representatives on local and national committees. The organization ran on dues from member schools and eventually some advertising and media contracts.</p>
<p>Women’s athletic programs were led by physical educators turned coaches and administrators. Some of the most famous coaches in women’s basketball got their start under the AIAW, including <a href="https://scarletknights.com/sports/womens-basketball/roster/coaches/c-vivian-stringer/2805">C. Vivian Stringer</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/sports/ncaabasketball/pat-summitt-obituary.html">Pat Summit</a> and <a href="https://gostanford.com/sports/womens-basketball/roster/coaches/tara-vanderveer/4516">Tara VanDerveer</a>, who recently broke <a href="https://www.si.com/college/2024/01/22/tara-vanderveer-stanford-all-time-winningest-coach-idaho-career">the all-time record for college basketball wins</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to Woodard, other notable AIAW players include <a href="https://wbhof.com/famers/ann-meyers-drysdale/">Ann Meyers-Drysdale</a>, <a href="https://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/nancy-lieberman/">Nancy Lieberman</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/sports/basketball/lusia-harris-dead.html">Lusia Harris</a>, who was recently the subject of an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPFkcoTfr7g">Oscar-winning documentary</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young woman with short hair poses while dribbling a basketball and wearing a red, white and blue Team USA jersey." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After starring at the University of Kansas, Lynette Woodard went on to play for the Harlem Globetrotters, Team USA and the WNBA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lynette-woodard-point-guard-for-the-united-states-womens-news-photo/1224415230?adppopup=true">Tony Duffy/Allsport/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Title IX backlash</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that Title IX, which was <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-ix">signed into law in 1972</a>, had a big influence on the growth of women’s college sports, mandating that educational activities, including athletics, should be the same for men and women.</p>
<p>Congress passed Title IX just before the AIAW’s first championship season, and the law spurred calls for more equitable resources for women’s sports. </p>
<p>There was immediate backlash from male-dominated sporting organizations, including the NCAA, which saw the addition of women’s sports as a loss for men’s sports. Walter Byers, then the NCAA’s executive director, said, “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2019-10-02/college-athletics-reform-ncaa-doomsday-title-ix">The possible doom of college sports is near</a>.” One college football official <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/22/title-ix-anniversary-legacy/">told reporter Sally Jenkins</a> that women’s sports advocates were trying “to tear the shirts off our backs.” </p>
<p>Despite the fearmongering, college sports continued to thrive. Nonetheless, over the past 50 years, even though nearly all schools have been <a href="https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/advocacy/what-is-title-ix/">out of athletic compliance with Title IX</a>, none has lost federal funding for violations. As Title IX scholar Sarah Fields <a href="https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1851&context=sportslaw">has written</a>, “Without punitive damages, the law is limited: it is toothless.”</p>
<p>All along, change has come not from the law’s mere existence but from students filing complaints and lawsuits, and the determination of administrators to use the law to carve out and protect athletic opportunities for women. During the 1970s, those administrators were almost all in the AIAW.</p>
<h2>The NCAA elbows its way in</h2>
<p>By the late 1970s, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare had laid out clearer standards for athletic compliance with Title IX.</p>
<p>While the NCAA and AIAW were not subject to the law, their member institutions were, and the two organizations’ efforts to collaborate failed. Instead, the NCAA, which had long fought Title IX’s application in athletics, changed course and set its sights on taking control of women’s sports. </p>
<p>The NCAA offered women’s championships in all three divisions for the first time during the 1981-82 school year. Leveraging all of its presumed legitimacy and financial resources, the 75-year-old men’s athletic organization <a href="https://www.si.com/college/2022/06/14/aiaw-ncaa-womens-college-basketball-league-title-ix-daily-cover">offered all-expenses-paid women’s championships on the same weekends as the unpaid AIAW championships</a>.</p>
<p>The strategy worked. The AIAW lost significant members and ceased operations in mid-1982, despite the fact that women athletes, coaches and administrators <a href="https://andscape.com/features/forty-years-later-the-ncaas-takeover-from-the-aiaw-still-isnt-perfect/">preferred its educational model and leadership structure</a>. </p>
<p>The NCAA made vague promises to support women’s athletics but refused to give women more than token representation on its governance boards. Women student-athletes were, for the first time, led by a male-dominated governance organization.</p>
<p>To this day, <a href="https://ncaagenderequityreview.com/">institutional sexism remains entrenched in the NCAA</a>.</p>
<p>Women hold only <a href="https://www.ncaa.org/news/2022/6/23/media-center-title-ix-report-shows-gains-in-female-participation-though-rates-lag-increases-by-men.aspx">41.3% of head coaching positions for women’s teams and 23.9% of athletic director positions</a> – roles that were largely held by women under the AIAW. A recent gender equity review found that the organization <a href="https://kaplanhecker.app.box.com/s/y17pvxpap8lotzqajjan9vyye6zx8tmz">under-resourced nearly all of its women’s championships</a>, a result of <a href="https://kaplanhecker.app.box.com/s/xc1v5gjnmk4ndku1s2n2n1net4fwczeh">gender bias and its focus on making money</a>.</p>
<p>The NCAA and its corporate partners would like you to believe that their organization is the be-all and end-all of college sports. </p>
<p>But the story of the AIAW – created by and for women, rejecting the crass commercialism of the NCAA and empowering student-athletes to speak up – offers ideas for a more equitable future for college sports.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diane Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Before being pushed aside by the NCAA, the AIAW, which was designed for and by women, governed women’s college athletics.Diane Williams, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, McDaniel CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1941402022-11-09T22:33:15Z2022-11-09T22:33:15ZIn first nationwide election since Roe was overturned, voters opt to protect abortion access<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494537/original/file-20221109-21-3148v1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C444%2C8194%2C5042&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voters in Michigan said 'yes' to Prop 3, a ballot protecting abortion rights.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/proposal-3-stickers-are-displayed-for-volunteers-at-the-news-photo/1439552294?phrase=abortion%20midterm&adppopup=true">Brandon Bell/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first major election since the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade</a> saw abortion rights on the ballot <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-abortion.html">in a record number of states</a>. The <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/2022-live-primary-election-race-results/2022/08/02/1115317596/kansas-voters-abortion-legal-reject-constitutional-amendment">outcomes of these initiatives suggest</a> that when Kansas voters in August 2022 rejected a proposed constitutional amendment declaring there is no state right to abortion, it was not a fluke.</p>
<p>Indeed, results following the close of polls on Nov. 8 revealed that voters in Kentucky had followed suit and rejected a similar constitutional amendment. And in three other states — California, Michigan and Vermont — voters approved constitutional amendments to safeguard abortion access as part of a broader protection of personal reproductive autonomy, including contraception. In Vermont, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-abortion.html">margin of victory was sweeping</a>: 77.2% to 22.8%, with 95% of votes in.</p>
<p>In Montana, where restrictive abortion laws already prohibit post-viability abortions – that is, those after 24 weeks of pregnancy – voters <a href="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/62/fd/c2a1150c481fb245d9e81585ada3/lr-131-ballot-statement-language-1.pdf">rejected a referendum</a> that threatened doctors with criminal penalties of up to 20 years in prison if they did not try to sustain the life of a fetus “born alive” after an abortion. </p>
<p>All told, the outcome of the initiatives underscores the crucial role of state law after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling returned the issue of abortion access back to “the people” and the states.</p>
<h2>Abortion on the ballot and the campaign trail</h2>
<p>But abortion was also “on the ballot” indirectly – in key state and federal elections in which abortion appeared to have been a campaign issue.</p>
<p>In Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state’s Attorney General, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/josh-shapiro-declared-winner-2022-pennsylvania-governor-midterm-electi-rcna55169">won the race for governor over</a> Republican Doug Mastriano, and Democrat John Fetterman defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz for the available U.S. Senate seat. Access to abortion care and protecting abortion rights were key themes in Shapiro’s campaign, while Mastriano stressed culture war issues. <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/election-day-pennsylvania-abortion-reproductive-rights-voters-20221108.html">Commentary and exit polling suggest</a> that abortion was a motivating issue among Pennsylvania voters – especially younger voters. </p>
<p>In New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul defeated Republican challenger Lee Zeldin, the Democrat incumbent billed herself as “the reason why abortion is protected in New York” and <a href="https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/ny-state-of-politics/2022/11/02/hochul-says-she-s-a-bulwark-for-abortion-rights-in-new-york">stressed a governor’s “immense” power</a> to affect abortion rights.</p>
<p>Exit polls indicate <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/midterm-elections-exit-polls-live-updates/?id=92683687">60% of voters nationwide</a> – up 9% since 2020 – believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.</p>
<p>A majority – 60% – of voters <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/midterm-elections-exit-polls-live-updates/?id=92683687">expressed anger</a> at the Supreme Court over the Dobbs ruling and indicated that they trusted the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party on the issue by a margin of 52% to 42%. These sentiments played out in the election results. For example, in New Hampshire, Democrat Maggie Hassan held onto her Senate seat against a Republican challenger, Don Bolduc, who called the Dobbs ruling <a href="https://www.wmur.com/article/hassan-bolduc-new-hampshire-us-senate-debate/41849758#">a reason to “rejoice</a>.” And 35% of New Hampshire voters <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/midterm-elections-exit-polls-live-updates/?id=92683687">said abortion was their top issue</a>, behind only inflation at 36%. Polls also show a gender gap, with more women than men reporting abortion as their top issue.</p>
<h2>More state battles over abortion?</h2>
<p>Ballot initiatives are likely to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/11/abortion-rights-advocates-eye-ballot-measures-2024/">continue into the 2024 presidential election</a> given voters’ response on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The midterm elections point toward protecting access to abortion, more so than preelection polls suggested they would.</p>
<p>As of this writing, the House and Senate hang in the balance, yet federal bills that would protect or restrict access to abortion were already unlikely to become laws given that the Supreme Court has <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-would-it-mean-to-codify-roe-into-law-and-is-there-any-chance-of-that-happening-182406">indicated states should decide their own laws</a>. This means state laws remain on the front line, and the midterm election was just a “hold the line” moment. </p>
<p>Most states have not yet had legislative sessions or elections, and most candidacies were declared before Dobbs was decided. The midterm elections didn’t make the landscape worse for access to care – indeed, the right to abortion care was expanded, or least protected in some places. But the <a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/dashboard/abortion-in-the-u-s-dashboard/">high variability of state laws</a> will mean that <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-idaho-protect-reproductive-rights">conflicts continue both among states, and between states and the federal government</a>.</p>
<p>Patient and provider confusion will likely continue, given the high degree of state law variability, which will <a href="https://www.smfm.org/repro">limit access to care and increase risks</a> in some states.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Abortion rights were on the ballot in five states during the midterm elections – all broke in favor of abortion-rights advocates.Linda C. McClain, Professor of Law, Boston UniversityNicole Huberfeld, Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law and Professor of Law, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1466532020-10-02T13:24:16Z2020-10-02T13:24:16ZIn ‘The Good Lord Bird,’ a new version of John Brown rides in at a crucial moment in US history<p>Was abolitionist <a href="https://www.historynet.com/john-brown">John Brown</a> a psychopath, a sinner or a saint?</p>
<p>The answer depends on whom you ask, and when.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://tvreleasedates.com/the-good-lord-bird-delayed-showtime-announces-new-release-date/">long-awaited premiere</a> of Showtime’s “<a href="https://www.sho.com/the-good-lord-bird">The Good Lord Bird</a>,” based on <a href="https://www.jamesmcbride.com/">James McBride’s</a> <a href="https://www.nationalbook.org/books/the-good-lord-bird/">novel</a> of the same name, comes at a time when evolving popular perceptions of Brown have once again gotten people thinking and talking about him.</p>
<p>Since he cemented his place in history by leading a failed slave revolt at Harpers Ferry, the flinty-eyed militant’s cultural significance has waxed and waned. To <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3097254?seq=1">some</a>, he’s a revolutionary, a freedom fighter and a hero. To <a href="https://www.historynet.com/john-brown">others</a>, he’s an anarchist, a murderer and a terrorist. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.vermonthumanities.org/video-reading-the-rails/">My research</a> tracks how scholars, activists and artists have used Brown and other abolitionists to comment on contemporary racial issues.</p>
<p>With the prominence of the <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter</a> movement and the president’s push for “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/us/politics/trump-patriotic-education.html">patriotic education</a>,” Brown is perhaps more relevant now than at any other time since the dawn of the Civil War. </p>
<p>So which version appears in “The Good Lord Bird”? And what does it say about Americans’ willingness to confront racial oppression?</p>
<h2>From farmer to zealot</h2>
<p>Born in 1800 in Torrington, Connecticut, John Brown was living a relatively undistinguished life as a farmer, sheep drover and wool merchant until the 1837 murder of abolitionist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elijah-P-Lovejoy">Elijah Lovejoy</a>. An outraged Brown publicly announced his dedication to the eradication of slavery. Between 1837 and 1850 – the year of the passage of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts">Fugitive Slave Act</a> – Brown served as a “conductor” on the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html">Underground Railroad</a>, first in Springfield, Massachusetts, and then in the Adirondacks, near the Canadian border. </p>
<p>Gifted a farm by wealthy abolitionist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gerrit-Smith">Gerrit Smith</a>, Brown settled in <a href="https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/johnbrownfarm/amenities.aspx">North Elba, New York</a>, where he continued helping escaped slaves and assisting the residents of <a href="https://www.adirondack.net/history/timbuctoo/">Timbuctoo</a>, a nearby community of fugitive slaves, with their subsistence farming. </p>
<p>In 1855, Brown took his anti-slavery fight to Kansas, where five of his sons had begun homesteading the previous year. For the Browns, the move to “<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/bleeding-kansas">Bleeding Kansas</a>” – a territory riven by violence between pro- and anti-slavery settlers – was an opportunity to live their convictions. In 1856, pro-slavery forces sacked and burned the anti-slavery stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas. Outraged, Brown and his sons captured five settlers from three different pro-slavery families living along Pottawatomie Creek and slaughtered them with broadswords.</p>
<p>These brutal murders thrust Brown onto the national abolitionist stage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361198/original/file-20201001-15-e6i48h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="John Brown, arms splayed out, triumphantly screams as troops battle behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361198/original/file-20201001-15-e6i48h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361198/original/file-20201001-15-e6i48h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361198/original/file-20201001-15-e6i48h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361198/original/file-20201001-15-e6i48h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361198/original/file-20201001-15-e6i48h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361198/original/file-20201001-15-e6i48h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361198/original/file-20201001-15-e6i48h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Tragic Prelude,’ a mural painted by John Steuart Curry, depicts John Brown’s role in ‘Bleeding Kansas,’ with the bloodshed, fire and tornado hinting at the coming Civil War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/The_Tragic_Prelude_John_Brown.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the next two years, Brown led raids in Kansas and went east to raise funds to support his fights. Unbeknownst to all but a few co-conspirators, he was also planning the operation that he believed would deal slavery a death blow. </p>
<p>In October 1859, Brown and 21 followers raided <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/john-browns-day-of-reckoning-139165084/">the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia</a>. </p>
<p>Brown had hoped that both <a href="http://ap.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/failure-compromise/essays/admiration-and-ambivalence-frederick-douglass-and-john-brow">Frederick Douglass</a> and <a href="https://exhibits.tufts.edu/spotlight/john-brown-tufts/about/harriet-tubman">Harriet Tubman</a> would join him, but neither did; perhaps their absences help explain why Brown’s expected uprising of enslaved Virginians never materialized. In addition to dooming the initial raid, the absence of a slave army torpedoed Brown’s grand plan to establish mountain bases from which to stage raids on plantations throughout the South, which he referred to as taking “<a href="http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/jbchapter7.html">the war to Africa</a>.” </p>
<p>In the end, Harpers Ferry was a debacle: Ten of his band died that day, five escaped, and the remaining seven – <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-brown-hanged">Brown included</a> – were tried, imprisoned and executed. </p>
<h2>The myth of John Brown</h2>
<p>From Pottawatomie to the present, Brown has been something of a <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095824238">floating signifier</a> – a shape-shifting historical figure molded to fit the political goals of those who invoke his name.</p>
<p>That said, there are certain instances in which opinions coalesce. </p>
<p>In late October 1859, for instance, he was roundly vilified and decried as a violent madman. The outrage was so strong that five of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/brown-secret-six/">the Secret Six</a> – his most ardent supporters and active financial backers – denied association with Brown and condemned the raid.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361196/original/file-20201001-14-1i4v6d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="John Brown kisses a Black baby on the way to his execution." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361196/original/file-20201001-14-1i4v6d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361196/original/file-20201001-14-1i4v6d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361196/original/file-20201001-14-1i4v6d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361196/original/file-20201001-14-1i4v6d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361196/original/file-20201001-14-1i4v6d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361196/original/file-20201001-14-1i4v6d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361196/original/file-20201001-14-1i4v6d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In his circa 1884 painting ‘The Last Moments of John Brown,’ Thomas Hovenden depicts Brown as a martyr.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucker/49646423671">profzucker/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But by that December, the cultural tide shifted in Brown’s favor. His jailhouse interviews and abolitionist missives, <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538119105/Freedom%27s-Dawn-The-Last-Days-of-John-Brown-in-Virginia">published in papers ranging from The Richmond Dispatch to the New-York Daily Tribune</a>, galvanized admiration for Brown and amplified Northern horror over the evils of slavery. Historian <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/140728/john-brown-abolitionist-by-david-s-reynolds/">David S. Reynolds</a> deems those documents Brown’s most important contribution to the destruction of American chattel slavery. </p>
<p>Praised and defended by <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/">Transcendentalist</a> writers <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2922276?seq=1">Henry David Thoreau</a> and <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emerson/">Ralph Waldo Emerson</a>, who declared the freedom fighter would “<a href="https://www.ushistory.org/us/32c.asp">make the gallows glorious like the cross</a>,” Brown was later described as a <a href="http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh18-1.html">martyr</a> to the anti-slavery cause. During the Civil War, Union troops sang <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/brown-history-john-browns-body/">a tribute to him</a> as they went into battle. For many, he was the patron saint of abolitionism.</p>
<p>Artists, meanwhile, conjured and deployed versions of Brown in service of their work. In the 1940s, painter <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/artist/jacob-lawrence-2828">Jacob Lawrence</a> created a <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/education/oh-freedom/jacob-lawrence-john-brown">wild-eyed firebrand Brown</a> while <a href="https://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american_art/bios/pippin-bio.htm">Horace Pippin</a> depicted a <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/horace-pippin/john-brown-reading-his-bible-1942">contemplative, sedentary Brown</a> to showcase their divergent perspectives on Black history. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young John Brown, freshly shaven, sits at a table in front of an open Bible." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361206/original/file-20201001-24-1ttjddj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361206/original/file-20201001-24-1ttjddj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361206/original/file-20201001-24-1ttjddj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361206/original/file-20201001-24-1ttjddj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361206/original/file-20201001-24-1ttjddj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361206/original/file-20201001-24-1ttjddj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361206/original/file-20201001-24-1ttjddj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Horace Pippin’s ‘John Brown Reading His Bible’ (1942).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/horace-pippin/john-brown-reading-his-bible-1942">Wikiart</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, during the <a href="https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm">Jim Crow era</a>, most white Americans – even opponents of segregation – either ignored Brown or condemned him as an anarchist and a murderer, perhaps because the delicate politics of the civil rights struggle made him too dangerous to discuss. For followers of <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/nonviolence">Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy</a> of nonviolence, Brown was a figure to be feared, not admired.</p>
<p>In contrast, Black Americans from <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/303226?seq=1">W.E.B. DuBois</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_McKissick">Floyd McKissick</a> and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7411333-we-need-allies-who-are-going-to-help-us-achieve">Malcolm X</a>, faced with waves of seemingly endless white hostility, celebrated him for his willingness to fight and die for Black freedom. </p>
<p>The past three decades brought renewed interest in Brown, with no fewer than 15 books on Brown appearing, including children’s books, biographies, critical histories of Harpers Ferry, an assessment of Brown’s jailhouse months and the novels “<a href="https://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/02/15/daily/cloudsplitter-book-review.html">Cloudsplitter</a>” and “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/15/daily/33127.html">Raising Holy Hell</a>.” </p>
<p>At the same time, right-wing extremists have invoked his legacy. Oklahoma City bomber <a href="https://oklahoman.com/article/700006/ready-for-execution-mcveigh-says-hes-sorry-for-deaths">Timothy McVeigh</a>, for instance, expressed the hope that he would “be remembered as a freedom fighter akin” to Brown.</p>
<p>Yet Brown’s contemporary admirers also include left-wing Second Amendment advocates like the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/22/if-others-have-rifles-well-have-rifles-why-leftist-groups-are-taking-up-arms">John Brown Gun Club</a> and its offshoot, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/22/if-others-have-rifles-well-have-rifles-why-leftist-groups-are-taking-up-arms">Redneck Revolt</a>. These groups gather at events like Charlottesville’s 2017 <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/sites/default/files/Unite_the_Right_Rally_in_Charlottesville_Timeline.pdf">Unite the Right March</a> to protect liberal counterprotesters. </p>
<h2>John Brown the … clown?</h2>
<p>Which brings us to McBride’s novel, the inspiration for Showtime’s miniseries.</p>
<p>Among the most distinctive features of McBride’s novel is its bizarre humor. Americans have seen a devout John Brown, a vengeful John Brown and an inspirational John Brown. But before “The Good Lord Bird,” Americans had never seen a clownish John Brown. </p>
<p>McBride’s Brown is a tattered, scatterbrained and deeply religious monomaniac. In his ragged clothes, with his toes bursting out of his boots, Brown intones lengthy, discursive prayers and offers obtuse interpretations of Scripture that leave his men befuddled. </p>
<p>We learn all of this from Onion, the narrator, a former slave whom Brown “rescues” from one of the families living on Pottawatomie Creek. At first, all Onion wants is to get back home to his owner – a detail that speaks volumes about the novel’s twisted humor. Eventually, Onion embraces his new role as Brown’s mascot, although he continues to mock Brown’s ridiculously erratic behavior all the way to Harpers Ferry.</p>
<p>Like many <a href="https://www.latimes.com/books/la-xpm-2013-aug-30-la-ca-jc-james-mcbride-20130901-story.html">reviewers</a> – and apparently <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/21/the-many-faces-of-ethan-hawke">Ethan Hawke</a>, who plays Brown in the Showtime series – I laughed loud and hard when I read “The Good Lord Bird.” </p>
<p>That said, the laughter was a bit unsettling. How and why would someone make this story funny? </p>
<p>At the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urOO9cedz54">Atlantic Festival</a>, McBride noted that humor could open the way for “hard conversations” about America’s racial history. And Hawke’s hilarious portrayal of Brown, along with his commentary about the joys of playing this character, suggests he shares McBride’s belief that humor is a useful mechanism for fostering discussions about both slavery and contemporary race relations. </p>
<p>While one might reasonably say that the history of American race relations is so horrific that laughter is an inappropriate response, I think Hawke and McBride may be on to something. </p>
<p>One of humor’s key functions is to change people’s way of seeing, to open the possibility for a different understanding of the subject of the joke. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>“The Good Lord Bird” gives readers and viewers a mechanism for seeing past the historical Brown’s violence, which is the defining feature of most iterations of him and the basis for most judgments of his character. For all of Brown’s madness, for all of his commitment to ending slavery, his care and affection for Onion show that he is fundamentally kind – an attribute that invests him with an appealing humanity more powerful than any physical blow he strikes.</p>
<p>Given all of the cultural baggage that John Brown has carried since Pottawatomie, giving audiences a means of empathizing with him is no mean feat. </p>
<p>Perhaps it will help Americans move the needle in the ongoing struggle for racial understanding – an outcome that’s as necessary now as it was in 1859.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146653/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Nash does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The abolitionist’s legacy is often molded to fit various political agendas. Yet the Brown who appears in Showtime’s new miniseries is one we haven’t seen before.William Nash, Professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures, MiddleburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1336052020-04-17T12:11:15Z2020-04-17T12:11:15Z1918 flu pandemic killed 12 million Indians, and British overlords’ indifference strengthened the anti-colonial movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327346/original/file-20200412-8893-1ihy43t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C56%2C4200%2C4011&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cremation on the banks of the Ganges river, India.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/crémation-sur-les-bords-du-gange-à-benarès-inde-circa-1920-news-photo/833384176?adppopup=true">Keystone-France via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In India, during the 1918 influenza pandemic, a staggering <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-012-0116-x">12 to 13 million people died</a>, the vast majority between the months of September and December. According to an eyewitness, “There was none to remove the dead bodies and the jackals made a feast.” </p>
<p>At the time of the pandemic, India had been under British colonial rule for over 150 years. The fortunes of the British colonizers had always been vastly different from those of the Indian people, and nowhere was the split more stark than during the influenza pandemic, as I discovered while researching <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zQnyI1cAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my Ph.D. on the subject</a>. </p>
<p>The resulting devastation would eventually lead to huge changes in India – and the British Empire. </p>
<h2>From Kansas to Mumbai</h2>
<p>Although it is commonly called the Spanish flu, the 1918 pandemic likely <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-american-history/americas-forgotten-pandemic-influenza-1918-2nd-edition?format=PB">began in Kansas</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy191">killed between 50 and 100 million people</a> worldwide. </p>
<p>During the early months of 1918, the virus incubated throughout the American Midwest, eventually making its way east, where it <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/210420/worldwide_flu_outbreak_killed_45000_american_soldiers_during_world_war_i">traveled across the Atlantic Ocean</a> with soldiers deploying for WWI. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indian soldiers in the trenches during World War I.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/indian-soldiers-in-the-trenches-world-war-i-1914-1918-news-photo/463957843">Print Collector / Contributor via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Introduced into the trenches on Europe’s Western Front, the virus tore through the already weakened troops. As the war approached its conclusion, the virus followed both commercial shipping routes and military transports to infect almost every corner of the globe. It <a href="https://www.macmillanlearning.com/college/us/product/Influenza-Pandemic-of-1918-1919/p/0312677081">arrived in Mumbai in late May</a>.</p>
<h2>Unequal spread</h2>
<p>When the first wave of the pandemic arrived, it was not particularly deadly. The only notice British officials took of it was its effect on some workers. A report noted, “As the season for cutting grass began … people were so weak as to be unable to do a full day’s work.” </p>
<p>By September, the story began to change. Mumbai was still the center of infection, likely due to its position as a commercial and civic hub. On Sept. 19, an English-language newspaper reported 293 influenza deaths had occurred there, but assured its readers “The worst is now reached.” </p>
<p>Instead, the virus tore through the subcontinent, following trade and postal routes. Catastrophe and death overwhelmed cities and rural villages alike. Indian newspapers reported that crematoria were receiving between 150 to 200 bodies per day. According to one observer, “The burning ghats and burial grounds were literally swamped with corpses; whilst an even greater number awaited removal.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the British Raj out for a stroll, circa 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-british-raj-walking-together-in-an-indian-news-photo/3398825?adppopup=true">Fox Photos/Stringer via Getty images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But influenza did not strike everyone equally. Most British people in India lived in spacious houses with gardens and yards, compared to the lower classes of city-dwelling Indians, who lived in densely populated areas. Many British also employed household staff to care for them – in times of health and sickness – so they were only lightly touched by the pandemic and were largely unconcerned by the chaos sweeping through the country. </p>
<p>In his official correspondence in early December, the Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces did not even mention influenza, instead noting “Everything is very dry; but I managed to get two hundred couple of snipe so far this season.”</p>
<p>While the pandemic was of little consequence to many British residents of India, the perception was wildly different among the Indian people, <a href="https://www.saada.org/item/20130823-3118">who spoke of universal devastation</a>. A letter published in a periodical lamented, “India perhaps never saw such hard times before. There is wailing on all sides. … There is neither village nor town throughout the length and breadth of the country which has not paid a heavy toll.” </p>
<p>Elsewhere, the Sanitary Commissioner of the Punjab noted, “the streets and lanes of cities were littered with dead and dying people … nearly every household was lamenting a death, and everywhere terror and confusion reigned.” </p>
<h2>The fallout</h2>
<p>In the end, areas in the north and west of India saw death rates between 4.5% and 6% of their total populations, while the south and east – where the virus arrived slightly later, as it was waning – generally lost between 1.5% and 3%. </p>
<p>Geography wasn’t the only dividing factor, however. In Mumbai, almost seven-and-a-half times as many lower-caste Indians died as compared to their British counterparts - <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001946468602300102">61.6 per thousand</a> versus 8.3 per thousand. </p>
<p>Among Indians in Mumbai, socioeconomic disparities in addition to race accounted for these differing mortality rates.</p>
<p><iframe id="9Mq9o" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/9Mq9o/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The Health Officer for Calcutta remarked on the stark difference in death rates between British and lower-class Indians: “The excessive mortality in Kidderpore appears to be due mainly to the large coolie population, ignorant and poverty-stricken, living under most insanitary conditions in damp, dark, dirty huts. They are a difficult class to deal with.” </p>
<h2>Change ahead</h2>
<p>Death tolls across India generally hit their peak in October, with a slow tapering into November and December. A high ranking British official wrote in December, “A good winter rain will put everything right and … things will gradually rectify themselves.” </p>
<p>Normalcy, however, did not quite return to India. The spring of 1919 would see the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Jallianwala-Bagh-Massacre">British atrocities at Amritsar</a> and shortly thereafter the launch of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/noncooperation-movement">Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement</a>. Influenza became one more example of British injustice that spurred Indian people on in their fight for independence. A <a href="https://www.saada.org/item/20130128-1271">nationalist periodical stated</a>, “In no other civilized country could a government have left things so much undone as did the Government of India did during the prevalence of such a terrible and catastrophic epidemic.”</p>
<p>The long, slow death of the British Empire had begun.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct that the final quote is not from a periodical published by Mahatma Gandhi, but rather a separate nationalist publication of the same name based in New York.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maura Chhun does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When the 1918 influenza pandemic struck India, the death toll was highest among the poor.Maura Chhun, Community Faculty, Metropolitan State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1330512020-03-09T19:02:08Z2020-03-09T19:02:08ZMalnourished bugs: Higher CO2 levels make plants less nutritious, hurting insect populations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319431/original/file-20200309-118881-1bbmkgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">These grasshoppers, like many insects around the world, are declining. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dave Rintoul</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Grasshopper populations, like those of many other insects, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-011019-025151">are declining</a>. My colleagues and I identified a new possible culprit: The plants grasshoppers rely on for food are becoming less nutritious due to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/">Ever-increasing levels of carbon dioxide</a> in the atmosphere tend to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-019-0001-x">promote plant growth by supplying them with extra carbon</a>. But all that added carbon is <a href="https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02245">squeezing out other nutrients</a> that plant feeders – like insects and people – need to thrive. These fast-growing plants end up less dense in nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and sodium – more like iceberg lettuce than kale.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319430/original/file-20200309-118960-sq3cff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319430/original/file-20200309-118960-sq3cff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319430/original/file-20200309-118960-sq3cff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319430/original/file-20200309-118960-sq3cff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319430/original/file-20200309-118960-sq3cff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319430/original/file-20200309-118960-sq3cff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319430/original/file-20200309-118960-sq3cff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Konza Prairie, a protected grassland in Kansas, is a unique research area: decades of data and minimal human influence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ellen Welti</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On our study site in a Kansas prairie, my colleagues and I show that across more than 40 species of grasshoppers, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/03/03/1920012117">total populations are falling at more than 2% a year</a>. This led to an overall reduction in grasshopper numbers over the past two decades of about one-third. These population declines parallel the <a href="http://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/2cf2858e0a8cf82c99f91cfcf191bc14">decline in grassland nutrients</a>. Grasshopper populations vary year to year for many reasons, but my colleagues and I believe that the dilution of plant nutrients caused by elevated CO2 is the most likely reason for the decline.</p>
<p>It adds up to what we call the “nutrient dilution hypothesis”: Increased CO2 is making plants less nutritious per bite and insects are paying the price.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Ecologists have thus far focused on pesticide use and the loss of native habitats as causes for insect declines.</p>
<p>These factors aren’t likely at the <a href="http://lter.konza.ksu.edu/konza-prairie-long-term-ecological-research-lter">large native prairie reserve</a> where I work. Yet the 2% per year decline in grasshoppers our study found is eerily similar to the 2% declines reported from long-term studies around the globe of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216270">moths and butterflies</a>, whose young – caterpillars – are also voracious plant feeders.</p>
<p>Other factors, like pesticide use and habitat destruction, are certainly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12367">hurting insect populations in many places</a>. But since CO2 is increasing globally, my colleagues and I suspect that nutrient dilution is likely bad news for plant-eating insects across a huge variety of habitats, in both pristine and degraded ecosystems. And since insects are crucial parts of all terrestrial food webs, their loss <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/08/insect-bug-medicine-food-macneal">affects many other organisms from plants to birds</a>.</p>
<h2>How we do our work</h2>
<p>Konza Prairie is a large protected prairie in northeastern Kansas, and researchers have been collecting data on the grasses, insects, and animals there since the early 1980s. My colleagues and I relied on this long-term data and physical samples from years past to perform our study. </p>
<p>Grasshopper numbers fluctuate on a roughly five-year cycle that follows changes in the climate, like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-north-america-can-expect-from-el-nino-51959">El Niño</a> Southern Oscillation. Having a decades-long data set allowed my colleagues and me to clearly separate these cycles from the long-term population decline and see how increasing CO2 levels played a part.</p>
<p>This kind of data is surprisingly rare, which has led to a good deal of controversy regarding the ubiquity of insect declines. Sites like the Konza Prairie (part of the NSF-funded <a href="https://lternet.edu/">Long-Term Ecological Research Network</a>) are on the front lines in documenting Earth’s changing ecosystems.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318922/original/file-20200305-106584-15xc07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318922/original/file-20200305-106584-15xc07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318922/original/file-20200305-106584-15xc07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318922/original/file-20200305-106584-15xc07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318922/original/file-20200305-106584-15xc07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318922/original/file-20200305-106584-15xc07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318922/original/file-20200305-106584-15xc07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Block print of a Showy grasshopper (<em>Hesperotettix speciosus</em>) eating a sunflower leaf.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ellen Welti</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What still isn’t known?</h2>
<p>Nutrient dilution by CO2 is a compelling hypothesis for why widespread insect declines are happening. Our data jibes with other experiments that pump CO2 into ecosystems and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2007.01392.x">drive down both plant nutrients and insect growth</a>.</p>
<p>But solid data on insect numbers over time is still quite rare, and there are still more questions than answers. How widespread is nutrient dilution in ecosystems worldwide? Are plant-feeding insects suffering the greatest declines? Which ecosystems will be hardest hit?</p>
<p>At present, we ecologists lack even basic population estimates for most of Earth’s invertebrate species, which comprise the vast majority of animal diversity.</p>
<p>I suspect that if nutrient dilution by CO2 is indeed widespread, it will likely be affecting Earth’s ecosystems and organisms – including humans – for generations to come, at least as long as fossil fuels burn and CO2 levels continue to rise.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ellen Welti receives funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) grants 1556280 and 1440484.</span></em></p>Insect populations are falling as what they eat becomes more like iceberg lettuce and less like kale.Ellen Welti, Postdoctoral Researcher of Biology, University of OklahomaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1269892020-02-19T14:00:54Z2020-02-19T14:00:54ZAnimals large and small once covered North America’s prairies – and in some places, they could again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315363/original/file-20200213-10985-122q85b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3008%2C1999&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bighorn sheep on grassland in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Berger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the grip of winter, the North American prairies can look deceptively barren. But many wild animals have evolved through harsh winters on these open grasslands, foraging in the snow and sheltering in dens from cold temperatures and biting winds.</p>
<p>Today most of our nation’s prairies are covered with the amber waves of grain that Katharine Lee Bates lauded in “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_the_Beautiful">America the Beautiful</a>,” written in 1895. But scientists know surprisingly little about today’s remnant biodiversity in the grasslands – especially the status of what we call “big small mammals,” such as badgers, foxes, jackrabbits and porcupines.</p>
<p>Land conservation in the heartland has been underwhelming. According to most estimates, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/tapr/index.htm">less than 4%</a> of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem that once covered some 170 million acres of North America is left. And when native grasslands are altered, populations of endemic species like prairie dogs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008562">shrink dramatically</a>.</p>
<p>Together, we have more than 60 years of experience using field-based, hypothesis-driven science to conserve wildlife in grassland systems in North America and across the globe. We have studied and protected species ranging from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2012.01.003">pronghorn</a> and bison in North America to saiga and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08676">wild yak</a> in Central Asia. If scientists can identify what has been lost and retained here in the U.S., farmers, ranchers and communities can make more informed choices about managing their lands and the species that depend upon them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Major types of North American grasslands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NAMAP.jpg">Karen Launchbaugh/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Two harsh centuries of settlement</h2>
<p>North America’s prairies stretch north from Mexico into Canada, and from the Mississippi River west to the Rocky Mountains. Grasslands also exist in areas farther west, between the Rockies and Pacific coastal ranges.</p>
<p>When Thomas Jefferson approved the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/lewis-clark">Lewis and Clark Expedition</a> in 1803, this territory was home to Native Americans and abundant wildlife. Vast, unbroken horizons of contiguous grasslands supported millions of <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_gtr135_2/rmrs_gtr135_2_013_034.pdf">prairie dogs, pronghorn, bison and elk</a>, and thousands of bighorn sheep. Birds were also numerous, including <a href="https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Greater_Prairie-Chicken/overview">greater prairie-chickens</a>, multiple types of grouse and more than 3 billion <a href="https://www.si.edu/spotlight/passenger-pigeon">passenger pigeons</a>. </p>
<p>Lewis and Clark kept detailed records of the <a href="https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/item/lc.sup.johnsgard.01">plants and animals they encountered</a> on their three-year journey. Their journals describe grizzly bears and wolves, black-footed ferrets and burrowing owls, sage grouse and prairie chickens. Sources like this and John James Audubon’s <a href="https://www.audubon.org/birds-of-america">“Birds of America</a>,” published between 1827 and 1838, confirm that before European settlement, North America’s prairies teemed with wildlife.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pronghorn, which Lewis and Clark called ‘Speed goats,’ under the shadow of Wyoming’s Wind River Range.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Berger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That changed as <a href="https://www.oupress.com/books/9783608/the-natural-west">European immigrants moved west</a> over the next hundred years. Market hunting was one cause, but settlers also tilled and poisoned, fertilized and fenced the land, drained aquifers and damaged soils. </p>
<p>As humans altered the prairies, bison disappeared from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.00899.x">99% of their native range</a>. Prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets, wolves and grizzly bears followed the same sad course. </p>
<p>In the mid-20th century, conservationists began fighting to protect and restore what remained. It isn’t surprising that wildlife agencies and conservation organizations focused on targets that were big, famous and economically important: Birds for hunting, deer for dinner and fisheries for food and sport.</p>
<p>Some efforts succeeded. Montana has retained every species that Lewis and Clark observed there. In 2016 Congress passed legislation declaring bison the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/bison-bison-bison-americas-new-national-mammal">U.S. national mammal</a>, following various restoration initiatives in places such as the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma and the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/tapr/index.htm">Tallgrass Prairie Preserve</a> in the Flint Hills of Kansas.
Pronghorn antelope, which Lewis and Clark called “speed goats,” have rebounded from fewer than 20,000 in the early 20th century to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170403-americas-pronghorns-are-survivors-of-a-mass-extinction">some 700,000 today</a>, ranging across grasslands from northern Mexico and Texas to North Dakota, Montana and southern Canada.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6YD14WM9j80?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma is a complex environment harboring a rich diversity of plants and animals.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But elk remain rare on the grassy savannas, as do prairie dogs and wild bison. North American grassland birds – larks and pipits, curlews and mountain plovers – are in <a href="https://www.audubon.org/conservation/working-lands/grasslands-report">decline or serious collapse</a>. Introduction of nonnative exotic fish, reduced water flows in prairie rivers and streams due to agriculture, and declines in water quality and quantity have decimated native fish species and aquatic invertebrates, such as freshwater mussels, in the waterways of grassland ecosystems.</p>
<h2>Where the animals still roam</h2>
<p>In contrast to North America, other regions still have large intact grasslands with functional ecosystems. White-tailed gazelles and khulan (Asiatic wild ass) still <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605316000417">move hundreds of miles</a> across the vast unfenced steppes of Mongolia. White-eared kob, a sub-Saharan antelope, travel hundreds of miles every year across a <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/w/white-eared-kob/">North Dakota-sized swath</a> of southern Sudan in one of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aam9712">Africa’s longest land migrations</a>.</p>
<p>Chiru (antelope) and kiang (large wild asses) maintain their historical movements across the vast Tibetan plateau. Even war-torn Afghanistan has <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/alex-dehgan/the-snow-leopard-project/9781610396967/">designated two national parks</a> to ensure that snow leopards, wolves and ibex can continue to roam.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XlzUL4ZscaQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">White-eared kob and tiang, two species of antelope, migrate seasonally across southern Sudan in search of grass and water.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some parts of the North American prairies could support this kind of biodiversity again. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Hills">Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhills_(Nebraska)">Nebraska’s Sandhills</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_Front">Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front</a> all retain areas that have never been plowed, ranging from 1 million to 4 million acres. Public agencies and nonprofit conservation groups are already working in these areas to promote conservation and support grassland ecosystems.</p>
<h2>Knowledge gaps impede conservation</h2>
<p>Conserving native species on American grasslands has moved slowly because this region has been so compromised by land conversion for farming and development. What’s more, despite technological innovations and powerful analytical tools, scientists don’t have realistic estimates today of abundance or population trends for most vertebrate species, whether they are mammal, bird or fish.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">White-tailed jackrabbit in Wyoming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Berger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Measuring remnant diversity is a first step toward deciding what to prioritize for protection. One way we’re doing this is by posing simple questions to families who’ve lived out on these lands for multiple generations. One Montana rancher told us the last porcupine he saw was – well, he couldn’t remember, but they used to occur. Another, in Wyoming, said it had been perhaps two decades since he had last seen white-tailed jackrabbits, a species once common there. </p>
<p>From Colorado to New Mexico and the Dakotas to Utah, responses are similar. Across the region, the status of species like foxes, porcupines, white-tailed jack rabbits, beavers, badgers and marmots is punctuated by question marks. Continent-wide trends remain a mystery.</p>
<p>The good news is that national parks have inventory and monitoring programs that make it possible to assess trends more comprehensively for some of these species. Citizen scientists are helping by reporting occurrences of species such as <a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/43117-Lepus">black-tailed jackrabbits</a>. As scientists delve further into databases, patterns of species retention or loss should become clearer. </p>
<p>For example, our work on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605308001051">white-tailed jack rabbits</a> revealed that decades ago they were abundant in the valleys in and around the Tetons of northwest Wyoming and spanned Yellowstone National Park’s northern range. However, by the year 2000 they were absent from the Tetons and occupied only a small area of Yellowstone.</p>
<p>The U.S. has a history of protecting its majestic mountains and deserts. But in our view, it has undervalued its biologically rich grasslands. With more support for conservation on the prairies, wildlife of all sizes – big and small – could again thrive on America’s fruited plains.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126989/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Berger is a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. He receives funding from the US National Park Service and in-kind support from the Bureau of Land Management. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Beckmann is a conservation scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. </span></em></p>North America’s prairies once were home to millions of wild animals. Today, most of that land is farmed or developed, but some grasslands have never been plowed and could be rewilded.Joel Berger, Barbara Cox Anthony Chair in Wildlife Conservation, Colorado State UniversityJon Beckmann, Adjunct Faculty, University of Nevada, RenoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1048992018-10-22T10:41:01Z2018-10-22T10:41:01ZIt’s the economics: Red states embracing wind energy don’t do it for the climate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241324/original/file-20181018-67173-tjv14b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Energy Secretary and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry checks out a wind turbine.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Perry-Earth-Day/c403f6401bf64eb1ab915143f3e2a1b7/1/0">AP Photo/LM Otero</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The federal government has never played a leading role in restricting the carbon footprint of the nation’s power plants. But now that the <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060095133">Trump administration</a> is <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-may-dismantle-the-epa-clean-power-plan-but-its-targets-look-resilient-68460">trying to dismantle</a> many energy regulations, that national role is even smaller.</p>
<p>Many states have been trying to fill this vacuum for years with <a href="https://www.utilitydive.com/news/virginia-regulators-approve-draft-carbon-cap-and-trade-plan/511225/">cap-and-trade systems</a>, <a href="https://www.agweb.com/article/renewable-standards-help-drive-energy-and-economic-development-/">renewable energy mandates</a> and other efforts to discourage the use of fossil fuels and encourage the deployment of renewable energy like wind and solar power.</p>
<p>These policies have mainly taken hold along the <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/renewable-portfolio-standards.aspx">East and West Coasts</a>, where Democrats command a majority of the vote and <a href="http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/partisan-maps-2016/?est=happening&group=rep&type=value&geo=cd">concern about global warming</a> is highest.</p>
<p>Yet as someone who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BHmUzmYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">researches these policies and incentives</a>, I’m constantly reminded that renewable energy is on the rise in not just Democratic strongholds and the “purple” states where leadership is bipartisan. It’s booming in some of the nation’s <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/red-states-rank-among-renewable-energy-leaders/">most conservative</a> bastions.</p>
<h2>Windy red states</h2>
<p>Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma lead the nation in renewable energy generation, with more than 30 percent of the power generated in each of these states coming from wind turbines and other renewable sources. Three nearby Great Plains states, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota, are also in the top 10. </p>
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<p>Yet on the political map, this swath of the country is usually marked “red,” for Republican.</p>
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<p>One reason why these states are greening their electricity is simple. <a href="https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/324">They are in the nation’s windiest region</a>, which runs through the middle of the country from North Dakota down through Texas. </p>
<h2>An economic boon</h2>
<p>Another reason for this wind boom: Many communities in these states see renewable energy as an economic opportunity.</p>
<p>Landowners <a href="https://www.omaha.com/money/turning-to-turbines-as-commodity-prices-remain-low-wind-energy/article_2814e2cf-83a3-547d-a09e-f039e935f399.html">earn money</a> when they host wind turbines or solar panels on their property. This arrangement provides a <a href="https://www.aweablog.org/concrete-benefits-wind-power-farmers/">drought-proof and pest-proof</a> income stream that supplements what they make from agriculture.</p>
<p>And solar and wind developers also often pay property taxes that fund <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-municipals-windfarms/wind-farms-boost-tax-base-for-local-u-s-governments-moodys-idUSL1N1SE0WH">government services</a>, such as local public schools. </p>
<p>This revenue supplies a much-needed boost in areas that are struggling financially or <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/population-migration/">losing population</a>, two challenges all too many rural communities face. </p>
<h2>Few renewable energy requirements</h2>
<p>As it happens, few of these wind-rich states are using the typical state-level climate policies to drive the growth of renewable energy. For example, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060074965">none</a> are among the dozen states participating in <a href="https://www.c2es.org/content/state-climate-policy/">cap-and-trade</a> systems by 2018. In those parts of the country, quotas limit how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases can be emitted and <a href="https://theconversation.com/taxes-and-caps-on-carbon-work-differently-but-calibrating-them-poses-the-same-challenge-104898">permits authorizing the emissions are traded</a>.</p>
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<p>Iowa was the <a href="http://programs.dsireusa.org/system/program/detail/265">first state in the nation</a> to adopt a <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/renewable-portfolio-standards.aspx">renewable portfolio standard</a> – a policy requiring utilities to get a set proportion of their electricity from renewable energy. But after hitting its initial target years ago, the state has taken <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060087435">no steps</a> to raise its official goals.</p>
<p>Texas is in a similar position. It met its target well before its target date, despite a move in 2015 by state Republican lawmakers to <a href="https://www.utilitydive.com/news/mission-accomplished-inside-the-battle-over-texas-renewable-energy-incen/389444/">repeal its own renewable portfolio standard</a>.</p>
<p>And the Dakotas, Nebraska and Oklahoma never enacted a renewable energy mandate with <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/renewable-portfolio-standards.aspx">any teeth</a>.</p>
<p>Data from a <a href="http://closup.umich.edu/national-surveys-on-energy-and-environment/">national survey</a> that I manage shows that, though Democrats are extremely supportive of state-level mandates requiring the use of renewable energy, Republicans are significantly less enthusiastic about them. The survey finds 94 percent of Democrats say they <a href="http://closup.umich.edu/issues-in-energy-and-environmental-policy/39/solar-wind-and-state-mandates-10-years-of-renewable-energy-in-the-nsee/">support such policies</a>, compared to 69 percent of Republicans – a 25-point gap in support.</p>
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<p>The gap in support for increasing the use of wind or solar is much smaller: just 6 percentage points for solar energy and 10 percentage points for wind.</p>
<p>What that means is that conservatives like wind and solar power. They just don’t want the government to tell them that they must use renewable energy.</p>
<h2>Other policies</h2>
<p>Instead, the wind industry in the Great Plains may have taken off with help from other policies that are less explicitly linked to climate.</p>
<p>Oklahoma, for example, had offered wind developers a <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2017/04/18/fallin-signs-bill-to-end-tax-credit-that-helped-fuel-oklahomas-wind-energy-boom/">sizable tax credit</a>. Texas managed to get more wind turbines than any other state after building extra transmission lines in its windy western region – paid for with money raised from <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602468/the-one-and-only-texas-wind-boom/">a modest fee</a> tacked onto residential electricity bills that Texan lawmakers approved.</p>
<p>While I believe state-level climate policies will undoubtedly play an important role in creating a market for renewable energy, <a href="http://closup.umich.edu/renewable-energy-policy-initiative/">ongoing research</a> at the University of Michigan is looking at some of these other state-level policies that facilitate getting renewable energy projects built – even in places where <a href="https://theconversation.com/red-state-rural-america-is-acting-on-climate-change-without-calling-it-climate-change-69866">talking about climate change</a> may be untenable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104899/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are some good explanations for the mismatch between regional support for climate action and the areas where renewable energy is making the biggest inroads.Sarah Mills, Senior Project Manager, Ford School's Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP); Project Manager, National Surveys on Energy and Environment (NSEE), University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813142017-07-27T01:56:38Z2017-07-27T01:56:38ZKris Kobach and Kansas’ SAFE Act<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179886/original/file-20170726-29425-12jlrf1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Kansas voter prepares to cast her ballot – and prove her identity – in the 2014 midterm elections.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/America-Votes/1eba12c1355b44419761bbff274cef83/67/0">AP Photo/Charlie Riedel</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you want to understand President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission, it helps to study what happened in Kansas. </p>
<p>Six years before <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/802972944532209664">Trump was tweeting about stolen elections</a> and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/24/politics/wh-trump-believes-millions-voted-illegally/">unsubstantiated claims of millions of fraudulent votes</a>, Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, <a href="https://www.kssos.org/forms/communication/canvassing_kansas/june11.pdf">was promoting</a> the idea that widespread voter fraud threatens the integrity of our electoral system. </p>
<p>It should come as no surprise that Trump chose Kobach to be the vice chairman of Vice President Mike Pence’s new Commission on Election Integrity. This appointment gives Kobach a national platform by which to pursue his agenda. </p>
<p>Kansas’ voter ID law went into effect when I was a graduate student at the University of Kansas. The pervasive campaign promoting the new law piqued my interest. My co-author and I set out to <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1065912917691638">assess the impact advertisements</a> – specifically, the <a href="https://youtu.be/b30axrT0v50">“Got ID?” campaign</a> – had on voter turnout during the 2012 election. </p>
<h2>A chilling effect</h2>
<p>Although voter ID laws are nothing new, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704816604576333650886790480">Kobach has succeeded in making them more popular.</a> </p>
<p>Kobach personally drafted the Kansas Secure and Fair Elections Act (SAFE Act), which was signed into law in 2011. He also played an integral role in the proliferation of derivative voter ID laws, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/08/13/kobach-pushes-states-adopt-voter-id-laws/">advocating for them at national conferences</a> and on his <a href="https://audioboom.com/channel/thekriskobachshow">radio show</a>. </p>
<p>Republican Party leaders supported voter ID laws <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=101961">in their 2012 party platform</a>, declaring “we applaud legislation to require photo identification for voting and to prevent election fraud … Voter fraud is political poison. It strikes at the heart of representative government.”</p>
<p>In 2016, the party expanded their support of voter ID laws to back legislation requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. These efforts have spread; <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx">34 states now require voters</a> to show some form of identification prior to voting.</p>
<p>While Kansas was not the first state to pass a voter ID law – that was <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id-history.aspx">South Carolina in 1950</a> – it was and remains one of the most restrictive and comprehensive laws of its kind. The SAFE Act requires voters to 1) present photo IDs prior to casting a ballot, 2) present a full driver’s license number and have their signatures verified in order to absentee vote and 3) provide proof of citizenship to register to vote. </p>
<p>Although a few states had previously adopted one or two of these provisions, Kansas was the first to combine all three. In an interview, Kobach defended the law, stating, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/us/politics/voter-id-firebrand-kris-kobach-takes-a-low-profile-kansas-office-out-of-the-shadows.html">every “time an alien votes</a>, it cancels out the vote of a United States citizen.” </p>
<p>Kobach even continued to enforce the proof of citizenship provision after it was <a href="http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/Fish-StatusReport092916.pdf">struck down by court rulings</a>. </p>
<p>So what was the effect of all Kobach’s efforts? </p>
<p>Our study suggested that, in 2012, the SAFE law and ads about it tended to decrease turnout. However, this effect was mitigated in precincts where <a href="http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/jun/29/douglas-county-clerk-jamie-shew-preparing-voter-id/">local officials</a> played an important role in educating voters about their rights – in stark contrast to Kobach’s statewide advertising. Turnout in these precincts was 2.3 percent higher than statistically identical precincts across the state that were only exposed to the “Got ID?” advertisements.</p>
<h2>Not readily available</h2>
<p>Arguably, the most restrictive provision of the Kansas SAFE Act is its requirement that people show a birth certificate, U.S. passport or other document showing citizenship before they can register to vote. </p>
<p>Other researchers have also found that proof of citizenship requirements make it more difficult for people to vote. Research has found that as many as <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/citizens-without-proof">7 percent of Americans</a>, mostly minorities, do not have these documents readily available. Yet, it is unclear that proof of citizenship requirements actually add any real value to the integrity of the election process. Federal law already requires that individuals registering to vote affirm in writing that they are a U.S. citizen. Lying carries serious criminal penalties. Further, research consistently finds that <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/analysis-noncitizen-voting-vanishingly-rare">voting by noncitizens is extremely rare</a>. </p>
<p>Advocates of voter ID laws insist that requiring all voters to show a photo ID or proof of citizenship makes it more difficult for noncitizens, felons and individuals who have already voted to vote illegally. </p>
<p>Despite these claims, documented <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/analysis-noncitizen-voting-vanishingly-rare">cases of noncitizens voting are extremely rare</a>. <a href="https://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/">A study</a> of all 50 states between 2001 to 2012 found only 633 reported cases of voter fraud, and only 10 of those were from voter impersonation. Opponents of voter ID laws argue that any benefits gained by voter ID laws are not worth the risks of reduced voter turnout and disenfranchisement. Research shows that underrepresented populations, such as <a href="http://mattbarreto.com/papers/PS_VoterID.pdf">minorities and the poor</a>, are less likely than whites to have photo IDs. It is also worth pointing out that <a href="https://theconversation.com/voter-id-laws-why-black-democrats-fight-for-the-ballot-in-mississippi-still-matters-63583">restrictive voting laws have historically been used to prevent racial minorities</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/100-years-of-the-gender-gap-in-american-politics-67833">women</a> from participating in the electoral process. </p>
<p>While Republican lawmakers ostensibly support voter ID laws on the grounds that they want to prevent voter fraud, the lack of evidence of such fraud makes this reasoning suspect. In contrast, research shows that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276832676_A_Principle_or_a_Strategy_Voter_Identification_Laws_and_Partisan_Competition_in_the_American_States">these laws are electorally advantageous for the Republican Party</a>. It hardly seems a coincidence that the individuals most likely to be impacted by ID laws are more likely to support Democrats. Historically, Democrats support policies that encourage turnout, while Republicans support more restrictive voting laws. Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw">famously said</a> “I don’t want everybody to vote … our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” </p>
<p>More recently, North Carolina GOP county precinct chair Don Yelton told <a href="http://www.cc.com/video-clips/dxhtvk/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-suppressing-the-vote">“The Daily Show”</a> that state’s new photo ID law “is going to kick the Democrats in the butt,” adding that “if it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it.” </p>
<p>Given his relentless pursuit of voter fraud and tenacious support for ID laws, it seems likely that Kobach will use his new national influence to push for voting laws that disproportionately <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/688343">impact minorities, low-income people and the elderly</a>. While these laws might help to insure “safe” election margins for Republican candidates, they do not safeguard the rights of all Americans to participate in the democratic process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chelsie Bright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Kansas’ secretary of state, Kobach drafted the nation’s most restrictive voter ID law.Chelsie Bright, Assistant Adjunct Professor, Mills CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/692402016-11-22T15:16:20Z2016-11-22T15:16:20ZWhy Donald Trump should read the Wizard of Oz before becoming president<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147026/original/image-20161122-10994-1lim5bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If he only had a heart. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump may have won the American presidency by promoting himself as the candidate for the common people to overthrow the Washington establishment, but this recent populist surge is certainly not the country’s first. Populists originally threatened to overwhelm American politics in the late 19th century in reaction to changes brought about by industrialisation. They became widely known as the <a href="http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/populists.html">Populist Party</a>. </p>
<p>Concentrated primarily in midwestern farming communities, starting in Kansas in the 1880s, the Populist Party sought to assert the rights of the farmer. They challenged the railroad companies, bankers and East Coast businessmen who kept agricultural prices low and freight costs high and insisted America remain on the gold standard. </p>
<p>The gold standard had kept interest rates high and caused deflation, combining with the other problems to push farmers into debt. The Populists wanted silver coins to become legal tender to expand the money supply and counteract the deflation. Led by one of America’s greatest orators, <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/william-jennings-bryan">William Jennings Bryan</a>, the party became a viable force in American politics in the 1890s, and attracted some urban workers to their movement by promoting an eight-hour work day and restrictions on immigration. </p>
<p>In the congressional elections of 1894, the Populists secured nearly 40% of the votes. Bryan ran in the <a href="http://www.270towin.com/1896_Election/">1896 presidential election</a>, representing both the Populists and the Democrats and made a famous speech in which he accused the banks of crucifying the farmer on a “cross of gold”. In the end he lost to the Republican candidate, William McKinley, by 95 electoral votes. McKinley’s campaign spent five times as much on the election. </p>
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<h2>Not in Kansas anymore</h2>
<p>The story of this original American populist movement is well told through The Wizard of Oz, written by <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/frank-baum-9202328">Lyman Frank Baum</a> in 1900. While the <a href="http://io9.gizmodo.com/5883464/the-1902-adaptation-of-the-wizard-of-oz-looked-extremely-unsettling">musical</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/">1939 Hollywood movie</a> ensured it became one of the best-known children’s stories ever written, many people may not be aware of the political allegory behind it. </p>
<p>Oz is a reference to gold, as the abbreviation for “ounce”. Dorothy represents Everyman, the Scarecrow the farmer, the Tin Woodman the industrial worker and the Cowardly Lion is William Jennings Bryan. The Wizard is the president, the Munchkins the “little people” of America and the Yellow Brick Road the gold standard.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146998/original/image-20161122-21712-1ho3exq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146998/original/image-20161122-21712-1ho3exq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146998/original/image-20161122-21712-1ho3exq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146998/original/image-20161122-21712-1ho3exq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146998/original/image-20161122-21712-1ho3exq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146998/original/image-20161122-21712-1ho3exq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146998/original/image-20161122-21712-1ho3exq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146998/original/image-20161122-21712-1ho3exq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Baum’s original.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-margie/3088211926/in/photolist-5GTTPd-dYSMWo-9phX6H-5GWUb5-fom15q-h99ZGK-eL6f1A-5GQGS4-dW3dYE-96Axu6-9phX3g-9eGkuJ-7ii9xJ-5GLVsH-5GWdVh-9eDd6V-opJum-96DJu5-jtDXxC-5GMFaF-b5htqM-96At9c-Pr4Jr-5GWU5A-4vwb6H-5GQGYk-nT4bSt-5GRY2U-751LDg-4v9zzb-5GLVxK-fpE79S-96Dv1s-4v5e6B-5GPB8n-ah2uBP-nubLVg-3nB9rz-5GM3UT-aAHCBt-kibKhx-9pkZTG-aAHAxi-4v9isU-opJuo-8aWxjJ-3mMWWV-4v5Sdt-ghehe6-axykkT">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The story begins with Dorothy and her house being swept away from Kansas to the Land of Oz by a tornado, landing on and killing the Wicked Witch of the East (the coastal bankers and capitalists), who had kept the munchkin people in bondage. Dorothy begins her journey along the Yellow Brick Road wearing magical silver slippers to represent the desire for silver coinage (note that the ruby slippers were introduced for the movie). </p>
<p>Dorothy meets the Tin Woodman who was “rusted solid”, in reference to industrial factories closed during the <a href="https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/HIST312-10.1.2-Panic-of-1893.pdf">1893 depression</a>. But the Tin Woodman’s real problem was he did not have a heart, having been dehumanised by factory work that turned men into machines. </p>
<p>Later Dorothy meets the Scarecrow who is without a brain. Baum believed the farmer lacked the brains to recognise his political interests. While midwestern farmers backed the Populists, many southern rural people <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Populist-Movement">did not</a> out of traditional loyalty to the Democrats and racism – this was only decades after the effective end of <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/compromise-of-1877">Reconstruction in 1877</a>. Next Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion, who needs courage – Baum is saying William Jennings Bryan had to offer the party more than his loud roar. </p>
<p>Together these friends head for the Emerald City (Washington, DC) in the hope the Wizard of Oz (the president) might be able to help them. But like all politicians, the Wizard plays on their fears – appearing in different forms to each character. To Dorothy he is a disembodied head, to the Woodman a bright ball of fire, to the Lion a predatory beast. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146997/original/image-20161122-21700-flgzw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146997/original/image-20161122-21700-flgzw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146997/original/image-20161122-21700-flgzw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146997/original/image-20161122-21700-flgzw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146997/original/image-20161122-21700-flgzw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146997/original/image-20161122-21700-flgzw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146997/original/image-20161122-21700-flgzw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146997/original/image-20161122-21700-flgzw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wizard of Oz (1939).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-margie/3088211926/in/photolist-5GTTPd-dYSMWo-9phX6H-5GWUb5-fom15q-h99ZGK-eL6f1A-5GQGS4-dW3dYE-96Axu6-9phX3g-9eGkuJ-7ii9xJ-5GLVsH-5GWdVh-9eDd6V-opJum-96DJu5-jtDXxC-5GMFaF-b5htqM-96At9c-Pr4Jr-5GWU5A-4vwb6H-5GQGYk-nT4bSt-5GRY2U-751LDg-4v9zzb-5GLVxK-fpE79S-96Dv1s-4v5e6B-5GPB8n-ah2uBP-nubLVg-3nB9rz-5GM3UT-aAHCBt-kibKhx-9pkZTG-aAHAxi-4v9isU-opJuo-8aWxjJ-3mMWWV-4v5Sdt-ghehe6-axykkT">Insomnia Cured Here</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Soon they discover the Wizard to be a fake – a little old man who likes “making believe”. In other words, the president is only powerful so long as he fools people – and corrupt leaders cannot do this for long. The core of Baum’s message comes when the Scarecrow shouts: “You’re a humbug!” </p>
<p>After Dorothy melts the Wicked Witch of the West, who is just as evil as her counterpart in the East, the Wizard flies away in a hot-air balloon to a new life. The Scarecrow is left in charge of Oz and the Tin Woodman rules the East. Yet Baum seems to realise that the Populist dream of farmer and worker gaining power would never materialise because the Cowardly Lion goes back into the forest. And when Dorothy returns to Kansas, she has lost her magical silver shoes – representing the end of the fight for silver coinage.</p>
<h2>The Populists recede</h2>
<p>The Populists of the 1890s quickly faded after economic prosperity returned under President McKinley. Their anti-immigrant policy was recognised as anti-American, while increasing numbers of people moved to cities and embraced industrialisation. Bryan’s involvement with the Democrats in 1896, who shared the Populists’ views on silver, also saw the parties increasingly become one. Bryan ran again under both nominations in 1900, but by then the Populists were rapidly fading from America’s political scene. </p>
<p>We shouldn’t miss the parallels between the near-miss of the Populists in the 1890s and Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump pushed for economic, social and political change against the elites, despite running on the Republican ticket. Both movements also played on people’s fears of immigration. </p>
<p>The big difference, of course, is that Trump will make it to the White House. He certainly had a loud roar, but it is hard to know what he will now do. He has not yet offered any substantial plans for the future and his message regularly changed during the campaign. In particular it will be interesting to see if he carries out his immigration policies, especially if they too come to be seen as anti-American in the years ahead. </p>
<p>Either way he would do well to remember the message of the Wizard of Oz. If he was merely fooling the people and does not represent those who voted for him, he may not remain powerful for long. Some other group of friends will be on their way to the Emerald City to declare him a humbug. Some things change, but others stay the same.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet Greenlees does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lyman Frank Baum’s classic allegory is a reminder that the populists have been on the march before.Janet Greenlees, Senior Lecturer in History, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/338712014-11-17T10:39:13Z2014-11-17T10:39:13ZBrownback’s Kansas tax experiment may prove death knell for corporate reform<p>Republican gains in this month’s election, which handed the GOP united control of Congress for the first time since 2006, have lifted hopes that the government can pass corporate tax reform next year. </p>
<p>But how justified is this optimism? Not only do Democrats and Republicans have different ideas of what “tax reform” means, there are also underlying fractures within the business community, the traditional constituency for reform. In addition, a recent tax reform experiment in Kansas that the GOP had planned to use as a partial model for their national efforts has led to plunging revenues and budget cuts, emboldening critics. Together, these disagreements make prospects for tax reform in 2015 uncertain at best. </p>
<p>Democrats and Republicans generally agree on the need to lower federal corporate income tax rates. US rates are <a href="taxfoundation.org/blog/us-has-highest-corporate-income-tax-rate-oecd">higher than many other wealthy countries</a>. Yet many large companies, by taking advantage of a variety of exemptions, deductions and tax avoidance strategies, actually pay a <a href="http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/sorrystateofcorptaxes.php">much lower effective tax rate</a>. Nonetheless, lawmakers and lobbyists argue that the high rates and very complex nature of the tax code still discourage investment and make tax enforcement needlessly difficult to manage. </p>
<h2>Little common ground</h2>
<p>Agreement largely ends here. For conservatives, the goal of tax reform has to go beyond merely recalibrating rates and closing tax “loopholes” while still ensuring that the corporate tax continues to generate the same amount of revenue. Many in the GOP would like to see overall corporate tax burdens reduced and major changes made to its structure. In particular, <a href="waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/intl_quotes.pdf">some Republicans have advocated</a> that the US should adopt a “territorial” tax system in which only corporate profits earned in the US are taxed. The current method taxes all income that American multinational companies earn globally.</p>
<p>Many Democrats, on the other hand, would like corporate tax reform to generate new revenue that could be used for public investments. Much of this revenue would come in a one-time windfall from the repatriation of corporate profits now being held overseas which could then be taxed at a lower rate to generate funds for infrastructure spending. Liberals are also generally distressed at the declining role that the corporate income tax plays in the American revenue system. They see <a href="waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/intl_quotes.pdf">corporate tax reform as an important opportunity</a> to restore this progressive tax to a more prominent role in revenue generation.</p>
<h2>Satisfying disparate business interests</h2>
<p>With control of both the House and the Senate in GOP hands, Democrats have less leverage over the corporate tax reform process than in the past, and this shift has increased the likelihood of legislative agreement around a proposal. However, Republicans still have to work out a reform plan that satisfies business interests. </p>
<p>Surprisingly, <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2014/11/05-tax-reform-moment-blah-gale">this might be the hardest task of all</a>. Any tax reform plan creates winners and losers, and success hinges on being able to eliminate a wide variety of tax preferences built into the current system in order to pay for lower rates for everyone. The status quo may be inefficient and unwieldy, but some segments of the business community have benefited from <a href="themonkeycage.org/2010/07/16/the_politics_of_drift/">what political scientists Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker call “policy drift”</a>. That occurs as policies like corporate taxation fail to keep up with changing circumstances on the ground. In other words, some businesses will actually pay higher tax rates if tax reform is successful. The beneficiaries, or winners, if the status quo remains in place tend to be large, multinational corporations that gain the most from our complicated and inefficient tax system</p>
<h2>Bringing the losers to the table</h2>
<p>Social science research <a href="http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/content/tax-expenditures-what-they-are-and-who-benefits">has demonstrated</a> that beneficiaries of tax preferences tend to be good at defending their turf. They also have the most political sway and potential to block tax reform from going forward. Successful reform will require agreeing on who the “losers” will be and getting them to come to the table anyway. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The US has a statuatory tax rate of 35%, the highest among OECD countries, yet the effective rate due to loopholes and breaks is significantly lower.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">OECD</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If these fractures prove difficult to manage, the GOP may end up only enacting a set of less comprehensive tax changes that reinforce rather than reform the corporate tax system. That could include <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-tax-extenders-20141103-story.html">extending some existing tax breaks</a> that are set to expire at the end of the year and will likely be considered during the lame duck session, before the new Congress even takes office.</p>
<h2>Kansas’ tax reform referendum</h2>
<p>Last Tuesday’s election results at the state level may also point to an unexpected wrinkle in the upcoming debate over federal corporate tax reform. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, who spearheaded massive tax cuts to the corporate and individual income tax in his state, <a href="https://theconversation.com/kansas-governor-sam-brownback-unexpectedly-survives-his-own-experiment-33767">was narrowly re-elected</a> despite a heated debate over the state’s budget woes. Brownback’s tax cuts – and over-optimistic revenue projections that relied on assumptions that the tax cuts would stimulate greater economic growth – led to a major budget deficit in the state that deepened just weeks before the election. Then, a few days after Brownback retained office, state budget analysts announced the <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article3729756.html">numbers had continued to worsen</a>, and the state would have to cut an additional $280 million from the current fiscal year’s budget. </p>
<p>The governor’s reforms – or to critics, the <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=4110.#_ftn5">radical implementation</a> of supply-side economics – initially proved popular at the polls. However, the widening deficit in Kansas will give new ammunition to opponents of the Republican vision for corporate tax reform at the national level. </p>
<p>A unique plank of Brownback’s state-level tax reform passed in 2012 was a <a href="kslegislature.org/li_2012/b2011_12/measures/documents/summary_hb_2117_2012.pdf">full exemption</a> of business income for companies whose profits get taxed as part of the owner’s personal income, which is the case for many small businesses. Brownback’s office expected the change to <a href="http://taxfoundation.org/article/not-kansas-anymore-income-taxes-pass-through-businesses-eliminated">eliminate income tax</a> for almost 200,000 businesses. Republicans are eager to see similar provisions included in national corporate income tax reform, and the numbers coming out of Kansas will inject new controversy into the perennial discussion over the economic and fiscal effects of tax reform.</p>
<p>Electoral shifts in Congress have produced a window of opportunity for new debates on corporate tax reform. Whether the GOP can capitalize on these shifts will depend on the lessons they draw from the Kansas experiments, but most of all on how they manage the political task of balancing winners and losers among the business community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>From 2010-2014, Elizabeth Pearson received support for her graduate research on taxation in the United States from the U.S. Department of Education through the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program.</span></em></p>Republican gains in this month’s election, which handed the GOP united control of Congress for the first time since 2006, have lifted hopes that the government can pass corporate tax reform next year…Elizabeth Pearson, PhD Student in Sociology, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/337672014-11-06T18:55:03Z2014-11-06T18:55:03ZKansas Governor Sam Brownback unexpectedly survives his own experiment<p>The 2014 midterm elections were full of surprises, mostly bad for the Democratic Party. Many Democratic candidates were defeated in races where the polls showed them with small but consistent leads. </p>
<p>Chief among those races where Democrats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory was the Kansas governorship where incumbent Republican Sam Brownback surprisingly won reelection 50%-46% over his Democratic challenger, state legislator Paul Davis.</p>
<h2>Brownback’s “radical experiment” in Kansas</h2>
<p>After 14 years in the U.S. Senate and a failed 2008 presidential campaign, Brownback easily won the Kansas governorship in 2010. A stalwart of the Christian conservative movement, his rise to the governorship signaled the triumph of staunch conservatives within the Kansas Republican Party.</p>
<p>Kansas is a strong Republican state, but it is more Republican than conservative. Gallup 2014 <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/177821/kansas-gop-numbers-advantage-support-drops.aspx">data</a> showed that 47 percent of Kansans identify as Republican, but 62 percent are moderate or liberal. Kansas has long functioned as essentially a three party state, with Democrats fighting the winners of conservative versus moderate brawls in Republican primaries. </p>
<p>Brownback promised that his governorship would be a “radical experiment” in conservative governing that would show America that conservative Republican principles created prosperity. </p>
<p>After successfully purging most moderate Republicans from the state legislature with the help of the Chamber of Commerce and political action committees affiliated with the billionaire Koch Brothers, Brownback enacted the centerpiece of his experiment: deep income tax cuts for most citizens, the elimination of income taxes on business owners (and eventually all Kansans) and a higher sales tax. </p>
<p>Brownback promised that his experiment in supply-side economics would create economic boom and reverse the state’s population loss. However, that promise has not come to fruition.</p>
<h2>A painful experience</h2>
<p>Instead, the state’s economic and job growth rates <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article3209717.html">lag</a> behind its neighbors and state revenue projections have fallen massively <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Governors/2014/1031/Do-voters-still-like-tax-cuts-The-curious-case-of-the-Kansas-governor-s-race.">short</a> of their desired targets.</p>
<p>During the 2014 fiscal year, Kansas took in $330 million <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/upshot/kansas-faces-additional-revenue-shortfalls-after-tax-cuts.html?_r=0">less in tax revenue</a> than was forecast, and $700 million less in revenue than during the previous fiscal year. Out of a state budget of roughly $6 billion, that is a gigantic hole to fill. The state’s poor financial situation has led both <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/usa-kansas-ratings-idUSL2N0QC1MO20140806">Standard & Poor’s</a> and Moody’s to downgrade the Kansas credit rating.</p>
<p>Rather than modifying his experiment, Brownback reassured Kansans that there would be pain in the short term, but growth in the long term. </p>
<p>Part of that pain, however, has come from substantial budget cuts, especially to education and other popular government services. Indeed, at a time of slow but general economic recovery in the U.S. when most states are restoring education budget cuts from the recession, Kansas has been one of the few states <a href="http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/election/article3190341.html">cutting education investment</a>.</p>
<h2>The public responds</h2>
<p>Brownback’s experiment cost him dearly with Kansans. </p>
<p>In his first month in office in January 2011, he earned strong positive job approval ratings from Kansans: 55 percent approval versus 34 percent disapproval. But those numbers soured by late 2011, sliding to just 38 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval days before the 2014 election. </p>
<p>Surely, no politician with a negative 16 job approval could survive. Yet Brownback did.</p>
<p>Judging from the exit polls, Brownback survived because only two-thirds of Republicans who claimed to support Davis in the tracking polls actually voted for the Democrat in the end. With Republicans constituting nearly half of the Kansas electorate, that reversed the polls in Brownback’s favor. </p>
<p>However, the same electorate that gave him a second term also said in the exit poll that his tax cuts hurt rather than helped the economy by a 52%-41% margin. </p>
<p>Brownback campaigned strongly on the message that Davis was just another “liberal Obama Democrat.” Evidently, many Kansas Republicans found that message persuasive, holding their noses to reelect Brownback as an anti-Obama message. That combined with stronger than expected Republican turnout on Election Day saved him.</p>
<h2>The message from Kansas</h2>
<p>Most Republicans, including the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/391773/conventional-wisdom-brownback-finished-eliana-johnson">National Review </a>and many party leaders, gave Brownback up for dead. Indeed, shortly before the election Brownback even closed his presidential campaign account, a stunning move given that many conservatives thought his experiment could carry him to the 2016 Republican nomination. </p>
<p>That made it all the more jubilant for Brownback when he declared his underdog victory to be a mandate for his experiment—staying the course on tax cuts and trimming the state budget even further. And for many of his conservative allies in the state legislature, that perceived mandate also includes freedom to move Kansas in an even more conservative direction on hot button social issues like abortion and gay rights. </p>
<p>For Kansas, a second Brownback term means the status quo—continuing policies that have not stimulated the economy as promised. For Kansans’ sakes, one only hopes that that trend reverses. But Brownback’s close call should be a warning sign for Republicans, especially Tea Party conservatives. </p>
<p>Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon from how they talked about racial issues, voters do not like to be experimented on. </p>
<p>Kansas voters declined to hold Brownback accountable for his perceived policy failures, choosing party above policy. Voters in other less Republican states might not be as kind to conservatives looking to enact their own experiments. With less of a Republican tidal wave, Brownback likely would have lost. </p>
<p>Conservatives looking to survive politically will misinterpret Brownback’s narrow win as a mandate at their own peril.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick R. Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 2014 midterm elections were full of surprises, mostly bad for the Democratic Party. Many Democratic candidates were defeated in races where the polls showed them with small but consistent leads. Chief…Patrick R. Miller, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of KansasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.