tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/george-bush-10871/articlesGeorge Bush – The Conversation2021-10-18T18:33:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1701682021-10-18T18:33:14Z2021-10-18T18:33:14ZAs a patriot and Black man, Colin Powell embodied the ‘two-ness’ of the African American experience<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427041/original/file-20211018-20-8qfg2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C3099%2C2063&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A complex legacy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObitPowell/d8c0b643cb3e4277ae88f7fdfcb0edb8/photo?Query=colin%20powell&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=674&currentItemNo=15">AP Photo/Vincent Michel</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Colin Powell knew where he fit in American history.</p>
<p>The former secretary of state – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/18/us/politics/colin-powell-dead.html">who died</a> on Oct. 18, 2021, at 84 as a result of COVID-19 complications – was a pioneer: the first Black national security advisor in U.S. history, the first Black chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and also the first Black man to become secretary of state.</p>
<p>But his “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/133242/my-american-journey-by-colin-powell-with-joseph-e-persico/">American journey</a>” – as he described it in the title of an autobiography – is more than the story of one man. His death is a moment to think about the history of Black American men and women in the military and the place of African Americans in government. </p>
<p>But more profoundly, it also speaks to what it means to be an American, and the tensions that Colin Powell – as a patriot and a Black man – faced throughout his life and career. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=7f443ffde35747ba69faca210faff07145fab78c">scholar of African American studies</a> who is currently writing a book on the great civil rights intellectual W.E.B. DuBois. When I heard of Powell’s passing, I was immediately reminded of what DuBois referred to as the “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-consciousness/">double-consciousness</a>” of the African American experience.</p>
<p>As DuBois put it <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1897/08/strivings-of-the-negro-people/305446/">in an 1897 article</a> and later in his classic 1903 book “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1897/08/strivings-of-the-negro-people/305446/">The Souls of Black Folk</a>,” this “peculiar sensation” is unique to African Americans: “One feels his two-ness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”</p>
<p>This concept profoundly describes Colin Powell as a soldier, a career military man and a politician.</p>
<h2>What it means to serve</h2>
<p>On the surface, Colin Powell’s life would seem to refute DuBois’ formulation. He stood as someone that many people could point to as an example of how it is possible to be both Black and a full American, something DuBois viewed as an enduring tension. There is a narrative that Powell <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3843957">used the military to transcend race</a> and become one of the most powerful men in the country. In that sense, he was the ultimate American success story.</p>
<p>But there is a danger to that narrative. Colin Powell’s story was exceptional, but he was no avatar of a color-blind, post-racial America.</p>
<p>The U.S. Army has long been seen as a route for Black Americans, especially young Black men, out of poverty. Many chose to turn their service into a career. </p>
<p>By the time Powell, the <a href="https://bronx.news12.com/bronx-raised-colin-powell-leaves-behind-a-legacy-in-nyc">Bronx-raised</a> son of Jamaican immigrants, joined the U.S. Army, there was already a proud history of African Americans in the U.S. military – from the “<a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/proud-legacy-buffalo-soldiers">Buffalo Soldiers” who served in the American West, the Caribbean and South Pacific</a> after the U.S. Civil War to the <a href="https://www.tuskegee.edu/support-tu/tuskegee-airmen">Tuskegee Airmen</a> of World War II.</p>
<p>Powell was part of that military history. He joined in 1958, a decade after <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=84">desegregation of the Armed Forces</a> in 1948.</p>
<p>But the military was – <a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-military-racism-discrimination-4e840e0acc7ef07fd635a312d9375413">and still is</a> – an institution characterized by structural racism. That was true when Powell joined the Army, and it is true today.</p>
<p>As such, Powell would have had to wrestle with his blackness and what it meant in the military: What did it mean to serve a country that doesn’t serve you?</p>
<p>As a military man during the Vietnam War, Powell also stood apart from many Black political leaders <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/beyond-vietnam">who condemned U.S. action</a> in Southeast Asia. </p>
<p>While Muhammad Ali <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/28/muhammad-ali-50-years-ago-today-was-told-to-step-forward-he-refused/">was asking why</a> he should “put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people” at a time when “so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights,” Powell was making his way up the military ranks.</p>
<p>It helps explain why despite Powell’s undoubted achievements, his legacy as a Black leader is complicated. His identity – being of Jamaican heritage – posed questions about what it means to be an African American. His life in the military prompted some to ask why he would serve a country that has historically been hostile to nonwhite people in the U.S. and around the world. The veteran activist and singer Harry Belafonte likened Powell in 2002 to a “house slave” in one <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/oct/11/news">particularly contentious remark</a> questioning his loyalty to the U.S. system.</p>
<p>Powell acknowledged the realities of racism in the U.S., while at the same time believed it should never serve as an obstacle nor cause Black people to question their American-ness. In a <a href="http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/cpowell.html">May 14, 1994 commencement speech at Howard University</a>, Powell told graduates to take pride in their Black heritage, but to use it as “a foundation stone we can build on, and not a place to withdraw into.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Colin Powell, seated behind a microphone and 'United States' nameplate speaks to the United Nations Security Council." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427043/original/file-20211018-15-1smds7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427043/original/file-20211018-15-1smds7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427043/original/file-20211018-15-1smds7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427043/original/file-20211018-15-1smds7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427043/original/file-20211018-15-1smds7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427043/original/file-20211018-15-1smds7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427043/original/file-20211018-15-1smds7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Colin Powell addresses the United Nations Security Council.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Obit-Powell/66a341e1e4e2487fbfe7ea59c2ac4fda/photo?Query=colin%20powell%20united%20nations&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=12&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Elise Amendola</a></span>
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<p>And then there are his political affiliations. He was Ronald Reagan’s national security advisor and George H. W. Bush’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at a time when the domestic policies of both presidents were devastating Black America, through <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/history-mass-incarceration">mass incarceration of Black men and women</a> and <a href="https://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc52b.pdf">economic policies</a> that stripped services in lower-income areas.</p>
<p>That was before one of the most consequential and controversial moments in Powell’s political life. </p>
<p>In February 2003, Powell <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/06/lie-after-lie-what-colin-powell-knew-about-iraq-fifteen-years-ago-and-what-he-told-the-un/">argued before the United Nations Security Council</a> for military action against Iraq – a speech that erroneously claimed that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. He hadn’t, and the war that Powell helped steer the U.S. into scars his legacy.</p>
<h2>A complicated existence</h2>
<p>Powell’s two-ness, to use the DuBois phrase, manifested later in his decision in 2008 to endorse Barack Obama as presidential candidate over his fellow Republican and military man, John McCain.</p>
<p>In Obama, Powell saw “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/19/colin.powell/">a transformational figure</a>” in America and on the world stage.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s politics newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>In endorsing Obama, Powell chose the historic significance of the U.S. having its first Black president over loyalty and service to his friend and political party. </p>
<p>His drift from Republicanism furthered after Donald Trump seized the reins of the party. He became <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/colin-powell-calls-trump-liar-says-he-skirts-constitution-will-n1227016">increasingly vocal in opposing Trump</a>, who saw Powell – as did many of Trump’s supporters – as something of a traitor.</p>
<p>That view ignores the history.</p>
<p>Powell was a patriot who embodied DuBois’ “two warring ideals in one dark body.” For Powell to have reached the heights he did required dogged strength and perhaps far greater effort to hold it together than his white predecessors. </p>
<p>In America, being Black and a patriot is – as DuBois hinted at more an a century ago, and as Powell’s life attests to – a very complicated, even painful, affair.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chad 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>A scholar of African American studies explores how the former secretary of state, who died at 84, dealt with what WEB DuBois described as the ‘double-consciousness’ of being Black and American.Chad Williams, Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1511952020-12-01T22:57:57Z2020-12-01T22:57:57ZWhy New Zealand is ideally placed to broker a truce between China and the Five Eyes alliance<p>With tension escalating between China and members of the <a href="https://www.gcsb.govt.nz/about-us/ukusa-allies/">Five Eyes</a> security alliance, most recently over a <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/431856/new-zealand-registers-concern-with-china-over-official-s-unfactual-tweet">Chinese tweet</a> that used a doctored image to attack Australia, New Zealand is arguably in a prime position to broker a kind of truce.</p>
<p>Someone needs to take the initiative. Right now, things are deteriorating, as the
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/29/wto-complaint-next-step-in-tariff-dispute-between-australia-and-china-trade-minister-says">trade stand-off</a> with Australia demonstrates. </p>
<p>With China having already reacted to Five Eyes criticism of its Hong Kong policies by <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/431043/eyes-will-be-plucked-out-over-hong-kong-china-warns">threatening</a> that “their eyes will be plucked out”, the situation is combustible: a large, tinder-dry pile of disputes, with both sides flicking matches of angry rhetoric at each other.</p>
<p>On one side we have the Five Eyes allies — America, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In the minds of many in the West, this is a family of nations in which peoples, culture and values are tightly interwoven.</p>
<p>On the other side is China, with which New Zealand has had an <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/countries-and-regions/north-asia/china/">official relationship</a> since the turn of the 20th century. While the two countries fought on the same side in the second world war, once China became communist their paths diverged. They were on opposite sides in the Korean and Vietnam wars.</p>
<p>These days, of course, New Zealand and China are friends and important <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/free-trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements-in-force/china-fta/key-facts-on-new-zealand-china-trade/">trading partners</a>. Deepening cultural, scientific, environmental and social exchanges support their economic relationship.</p>
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<h2>New Zealand in the middle</h2>
<p>When it comes to its security interests, New Zealand is potentially more attractive to China than the other Five Eyes nations — particularly for its independent foreign policy (including becoming nuclear-free in the 1980s) and the absence of any specific disputes between the two nations.</p>
<p>This balanced position offers New Zealand a unique opportunity to become the catalyst for positive change. To do so will require a short-term feel-good factor and some longer-term goals — starting with a couple of invitations.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-foreign-policy-largely-missing-from-nzs-election-campaign-what-global-challenges-face-the-next-government-147566">With foreign policy largely missing from NZ's election campaign, what global challenges face the next government?</a>
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<p>Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has already <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/11/jacinda-ardern-invites-joe-biden-to-new-zealand-offers-covid-19-expertise-during-very-warm-and-positive-phone-call.html">issued an invitation</a> to President-elect Joe Biden to visit New Zealand. She should now do the same for the paramount leader of China, Xi Jinping.</p>
<p>Such invitations in the past have been about building confidence and trust — often by focusing on something valuable and symbolic nations already share in common. Historically, for instance, Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev bridged the divide in 1973 by committing to <a href="https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/us-and-ussr-sign-environmental-cooperation-treaty.html">joint conservation initiatives</a>.</p>
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<img alt="two birds in flight" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372378/original/file-20201201-14-5pt96g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372378/original/file-20201201-14-5pt96g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372378/original/file-20201201-14-5pt96g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372378/original/file-20201201-14-5pt96g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372378/original/file-20201201-14-5pt96g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372378/original/file-20201201-14-5pt96g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372378/original/file-20201201-14-5pt96g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feathered diplomacy: could the bar-tailed godwit offer common ground for a China-Five eyes summit?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<h2>A bird in the hand?</h2>
<p>Taking that example, then, what better symbol for New Zealand, the US and China than the <a href="http://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/bar-tailed-godwit">bar-tailed godwit</a>, or kuaka? The bird holds the world record for migration, flying between parts of North America, China, Australia and its furthermost destination, New Zealand (depending on its subspecies).</p>
<p>New Zealand could host an international gathering to discuss a dedicated flyway agreement, with rigorous conservation goals, in which all countries jointly strive to protect the birds and their habitats.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-biden-presidency-might-be-better-for-nz-but-the-big-foreign-policy-challenges-wont-disappear-with-trump-148622">A Biden presidency might be better for NZ, but the big foreign policy challenges won't disappear with Trump</a>
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<p>Of course, the real purpose of such a meeting would be to create an environment where the US and China could talk about the key issues that threaten everyone. For precedent, recall <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/reagan-and-gorbachev-meet-in-geneva-nov-19-1985-231579">Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev at Geneva</a> in 1985, when the two leaders met in a neutral location and took the first steps towards building a working relationship that ultimately led to the end of the Cold War.</p>
<p>For such a plan to work, all sides will need a secure venue to communicate directly, without publicly inflaming matters in the international media. To start the ball rolling, New Zealand should offer to host this ground-breaking, face-to-face gathering as the ideally placed mediator.</p>
<h2>Reducing tension the goal</h2>
<p>Although there are many things for China and the Five Eyes partners to resolve, the immediate priority must be to secure peace and reduce tensions. The precedent here is what George Bush senior and Boris Yeltsin finally did in 1992, building on the positive achievements their predecessors had created. </p>
<p>Then, when the trust was solid and the time was right, nuclear control and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/17/world/summit-washington-bush-yeltsin-agree-cut-long-range-atomic-warheads-scrap-key.html">disarmament treaties</a> were concluded, making the world safer.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-australia-can-learn-from-new-zealand-a-new-perspective-on-that-tricky-trans-tasman-relationship-151017">What Australia can learn from New Zealand: a new perspective on that tricky trans-Tasman relationship</a>
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<p>New Zealand’s objective should be nothing less than trying to copy the precedents that ended the first Cold War with the Soviet Union. The objective would be a series of interlinked, equitable agreements. </p>
<p>These would cover nuclear arms control (especially at the regional level, with a starting focus on particular platforms such as intermediate-range nuclear missiles); limits on the amount, build-up and location of conventional weapons; and confidence-building measures (such as <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/openskies">open skies</a> verification agreements).</p>
<p>It would also be necessary to create new rules for military training exercises, mutual observers, and strict protocols to avoid accidental clashes.</p>
<p>None of this is easy or quick, but it is better than standing by while the situation worsens. Rather than be passive hostages to fortune, New Zealand should act. Invite Biden, invite Xi, look at the godwits — and start talking long-term peace, security and stability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151195/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Gillespie 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>With tensions between China and New Zealand’s main security allies increasing dangerously, could Jacinda Ardern play the role of peacemaker?Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1453062020-08-31T20:03:54Z2020-08-31T20:03:54ZRepublicans have used a ‘law and order’ message to win elections before. This is why Trump could do it again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355472/original/file-20200831-17-8cj8wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=553%2C85%2C3971%2C3386&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Evan Vucci/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1991, Donald Trump’s mother, Mary, <a href="https://apnews.com/300adbfc29d7d36658526df78d62c0f8">was mugged</a> on a New York street. As Trump’s niece <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Too-Much-Never-Enough-Dangerous/dp/1982141468">recounts in her new book</a>, the young assailant slammed Mary’s head into her Rolls Royce so hard, her brain haemorrhaged. </p>
<p>This firsthand experience with violent crime <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/1990s-mugging-roots-donald-trump-000000780.html">informed Trump’s hardline views</a> on criminal justice and could serve him well now as he crafts a law-and-order election strategy to try to defeat Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election.</p>
<p>A president cruising to an <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-is-struggling-against-two-invisible-enemies-the-coronavirus-and-joe-biden-139667">almost certain defeat</a> – with the deaths of 175,000 Americans (and rising), urban unrest, a tanking economy and an impeachment trial all on his watch – has hit upon a key issue that will make him competitive in November. </p>
<p>With the possible exception of a vaccine for COVID-19 being found in the next two months, Trump could hardly contrive a more potentially effective campaign theme.</p>
<p>History should give Trump reasons for optimism. The presidential elections in 1968 and 1988 provide a template for Republican victory on a law-and-order platform. Indeed, each of those previous elections presents a parallel that should concern Biden — and which he must counter.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355478/original/file-20200831-24-1cj4hg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355478/original/file-20200831-24-1cj4hg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355478/original/file-20200831-24-1cj4hg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355478/original/file-20200831-24-1cj4hg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355478/original/file-20200831-24-1cj4hg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355478/original/file-20200831-24-1cj4hg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355478/original/file-20200831-24-1cj4hg7.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">
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<span class="caption">As protests against police violence have raged this summer, Trump has sought to capitalise on scenes of unrest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julio Cortez/AP</span></span>
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<h2>Nixon’s pledge to restore ‘order’ in 1968</h2>
<p>When Trump was 22, he saw Republican Richard Nixon run a campaign against a Democratic party and administration struggling to deal with widespread political, social and racial unrest. </p>
<p>In April 1968, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/04/the-riots-that-followed-the-assassination-of-martin-luther-king-jr/557159/">sparked rioting</a> in Washington DC, Baltimore, Chicago and Kansas City — all Democratically controlled cities.</p>
<p>With then-President Lyndon Johnson <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/03/31/a-pearl-harbor-in-politics-lbjs-stunning-decision-not-to-seek-reelection/">refusing to run again</a>, and with his likely successor, Robert F. Kennedy, <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bobby-kennedy-is-assassinated">himself assassinated</a> two months after King, the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, floundered.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/winning-the-presidency-wont-be-enough-biden-needs-the-senate-too-145034">Winning the presidency won't be enough: Biden needs the Senate too</a>
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<p>At the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/1968-democratic-convention">Democratic national convention in Chicago</a> that summer, shocked Americans watched as police beat anti-Vietnam war protesters outside the building. Inside, Democrats were split between pro- and anti-war candidates. Capitalising on the latter’s inability to cohere around a single candidate, Humphrey won the nomination by default. </p>
<p>But the unrest proved insurmountable. Uniting the increasingly warring wings of his party was beyond him.</p>
<p>In response to the social upheaval, Humphrey fell back on ambitious projects to redress racial injustice. His “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1190526?seq=1">war on poverty</a>” theme, however, rang hollow as Americans saw their cities in flames and sons dying in Vietnam.</p>
<p>Nixon offered a simple <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2018/11/05/law-order-campaign-that-won-richard-nixon-white-house-years-ago/">law-and-order alternative</a>. He would later cement this appeal by describing a “<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?153819-1/president-nixons-silent-majority-speech-vietnam-war">great silent majority</a>” of law-abiding men and women ignored by leftist ideologues. </p>
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<p>Tied to a cunning strategy of picking up disaffected Southern Democrats, this “restore order” platform was enough for him to win with <a href="https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1968">only 43.4% of the popular vote</a> (and 32 states in the electoral college).</p>
<p>Four years later, again channelling appeals for law and order, Nixon was <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/07/this-day-in-politics-november-7-963516">re-elected in a landslide</a>, winning every state except Massachusetts.</p>
<h2>Bush campaign stokes racial fears in 1988</h2>
<p>It took another 20 years before the intersection of race and crime dominated another presidential election. </p>
<p>Again, the parallels between that election in 1988 and the current campaign are many. Incumbent Vice President George H. W. Bush trailed his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, by at least <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/26/us/dukakis-lead-widens-according-to-new-poll.html">10 percentage points</a> in July that year. Dukakis looked an odds-on cert to win. </p>
<p>Instead, he lost by nearly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/09/us/1988-elections-bush-elected-6-5-margin-with-solid-gop-base-south-democrats-hold.html">eight points (and 40 states to 10)</a>, considered by many to be one of the weakest men to ever run for the office.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355480/original/file-20200831-18-9k8ffu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355480/original/file-20200831-18-9k8ffu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355480/original/file-20200831-18-9k8ffu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355480/original/file-20200831-18-9k8ffu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355480/original/file-20200831-18-9k8ffu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355480/original/file-20200831-18-9k8ffu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355480/original/file-20200831-18-9k8ffu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Dukakis lost the 1988 presidential contest, in part, due to his rival’s ‘law and order’ campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bob Jordan/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What happened? Several factors explain Dukakis’ defeat. But the law-and-order and race campaign the Republicans ran against him was arguably decisive. </p>
<p>In 1974, Willie Horton, an African-American man, <a href="https://www.history.com/news/george-bush-willie-horton-racist-ad">was involved in the robbery and murder</a> of a teenage gas station attendant. He was sentenced to life without parole, but in 1986 was released on a weekend “furlough” as part of a Massachusetts rehabilitation scheme.</p>
<p>He did not return to prison after the furlough. He was re-arrested the next year in Maryland, having <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2018/12/critics-of-george-h-w-bushs-willie-horton-ad-are-twisting-history-ted-diadiun.html">raped a woman and stabbed her partner</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fury-in-us-cities-is-rooted-in-a-long-history-of-racist-policing-violence-and-inequality-139752">The fury in US cities is rooted in a long history of racist policing, violence and inequality</a>
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<p>Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts when Horton was released. And though he had not designed the furlough program, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/05/us/prison-furloughs-in-massachusetts-threaten-dukakis-record-on-crime.html">he had supported it</a>.</p>
<p>The Bush campaign made great hay. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTdUQ9SYhUw">an ad</a> that became infamous for stoking racial fears, prisoners were shown moving through a revolving prison gate. A Black inmate – in a clear allusion to Horton – featured prominently. </p>
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<p>The Bush team even showcased Horton’s rape victim in a subsequent tour. The message, repeated often and insufficiently rebuffed by the Democrats, was simple and effective: “<a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/crime-reshaped-criminal-justice">weekend prison passes — Dukakis on crime</a>”.</p>
<p>As one political commentator recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/us/politics/bush-willie-horton.html">described the connection to 2020</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In some ways, the Willie Horton ad is the 1.0 version of Trump’s relentless tweets and comments about African-Americans. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Can Trump run a similarly successful strategy?</h2>
<p>These prior campaign failures should make Democrats nervous. While the Democrats can expect to carry most non-white voters by significant margins in this year’s election, they are still vulnerable to Trump’s claims of being soft on crime.</p>
<p>Trump has not much to lose by painting his opponent as Dukakis 2.0 — weak on law and order and a supporter of de-funding the police (<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-abcs-robin-roberts-dont-defund-police-trump/story?id=72524405">which Biden is not</a>).</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-accepts-the-nomination-from-the-white-house-lawn-portraying-a-nation-in-crisis-and-himself-as-its-hero-144909">Trump accepts the nomination from the White House lawn, portraying a nation in crisis and himself as its hero</a>
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<p>Just as Nixon did in 1968, Trump is asserting that Democrat-controlled cities cannot keep order – with an added twist. He <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/us/politics/trump-black-voters.html">claims Black voters should back Republicans</a> in order to have the safer streets and economic opportunities Democratic policies have denied them. </p>
<p>In a tight election, even a small shift in the African-American vote could
prove decisive. The GOP convention was notable for the number of Black Republicans it featured.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355482/original/file-20200831-21-m89who.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355482/original/file-20200831-21-m89who.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355482/original/file-20200831-21-m89who.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355482/original/file-20200831-21-m89who.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355482/original/file-20200831-21-m89who.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355482/original/file-20200831-21-m89who.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355482/original/file-20200831-21-m89who.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">
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<span class="caption">Biden’s lead in the polls has slipped in recent weeks, making Democrats nervous.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Harnik/AP</span></span>
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<p>Herein lies Biden’s key challenge. Biden, like Humphrey 52 years ago, leads a Democratic house divided. He cannot afford to go hard on law and order and thus alienate the left wing of his party that finds common cause with the Black Lives Matter movement. </p>
<p>He must both defend the police <em>and</em> acknowledge their systemic racism. And he must, as Dukakis failed to do, explain effectively and believably that he can keep people safe. </p>
<p>Over the weekend, Biden attempted to do this by <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/30/biden-condemns-portland-violence-goes-after-trump.html">condemning the violence</a> that has erupted between right- and left-wing protesters in the city of Portland as “unacceptable.” And he sought to turn the issue around on Trump:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He may believe tweeting about law and order makes him strong – but his failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rather than the 2020 election solely being a referendum on Trump and his handling of coronavirus, it is now shaping up to be a fight over law and order and racial justice, as well. </p>
<p>This is a tough position for Biden to be in — and one he must resolve quickly to avoid a repeat of both 1968 and 1988.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: This story has been amended to correct Bush was a vice president when he ran against Dukakis in 1988, not incumbent president.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy J. Lynch 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>History should give Trump reasons for optimism. The presidential elections in 1968 and 1988 provide a template for Republican victory on a law-and-order platform in 2020.Timothy J. Lynch, Associate Professor in American Politics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1202582019-07-12T20:39:26Z2019-07-12T20:39:26ZThe ‘giant sucking sound’ of NAFTA: Ross Perot was ridiculed as alarmist in 1992 but his warning turned out to be prescient<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283762/original/file-20190711-173366-achyt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Perot become a household name after making an independent run for president in 1992.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Virginia-United-/f8f37976e5e6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/51/0">AP Photo/Doug Mills</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>H. Ross Perot famously <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osc9AI8aCt4&feature=youtu.be">had a way with words</a> that galvanized ordinary Americans and helped him become the most successful third-party candidate since 1912. </p>
<p>He hurled <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/slow-dancing-snakes-and-giant-sucking-sounds-memorable-quotes-from-ross-perot-2019-07-09">one of his most well-known lines</a> during a 1992 debate with Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush when he assailed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which had just been tentatively agreed to by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. </p>
<p>He predicted Americans would soon hear a “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3LvZAZ-HV4">giant sucking sound</a>” as production operations and factories packed up in the United States and moved to Mexico. Perot said something similar a year later in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fi8OOAKuGQ">debate with Vice President Al Gore</a>, the most high profile in a series of debates on the trade pact, a few of which <a href="https://clas.berkeley.edu/harley-shaiken-0">I participated in</a> as an adviser to key Democratic leaders in Congress who opposed it. </p>
<p>Economists, business leaders, Clinton and most Republicans dismissed Perot’s worries as overblown. Despite the fact that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/17/opinion/in-america-pretty-words-on-nafta.html">most had never read</a> the agreement, they argued free trade would create jobs, period. Over the objections of Perot, <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/103-1993/h575">most Democrats in the House</a> and other critics like me – NAFTA was ratified and went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994. </p>
<p>A quarter century later, another populist billionaire <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/business/economy/ross-perot-nafta-trade.html">is promoting</a> an updated, expanded and renamed NAFTA, which he <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/usmca-60377">rebranded as the United States Mexico Canada Agreement</a> in an effort to avoid any association with the “giant sucking sounds” many Americans experienced from “free trade.”</p>
<p>As it turns out, Perot, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/ross-perot-death.html">who died</a> on July 9, had a point. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/07/11/ross-perot-brought-us-tea-party-president-trump/?utm_term=.a511e05bc767">His projections</a> were often fanciful, but his warning turned out to be prescient. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Perot talks about NAFTA’s ‘giant sucking sound.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Perot’s warning</h2>
<p>“You implement that NAFTA, the Mexican trade agreement, where they pay people a dollar an hour, have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls,” Perot said during the second presidential debate in October 1992, “and you’re going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country.” </p>
<p>The response to that remark was fierce and immediate. Economists <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/17/us/a-primer-why-economists-favor-free-trade-agreement.html">argued</a> he was dead wrong as they sang the praises of free trade. Perot’s warning, however, resonated with workers, unions, environmentalists and people in manufacturing towns across the country, helping him earn <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/ross-perot-death.html?searchResultPosition=1">20 million votes or about 19% of the total</a>.</p>
<p>After Clinton became president, he took over the ratification of NAFTA and managed to add a side agreement with language for labor rights and the environment to bolster support from some Democrats in Congress.</p>
<p>When he finally signed it into law in December 1993, <a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/naftas-impact-u-s-economy-facts/">he declared</a>, “NAFTA will tear down trade barriers between our three nations … and create 200,000 jobs in the U.S. by 1995 alone.” </p>
<p>He was emphatic that the agreement would become “a force for social progress as well as economic growth.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283764/original/file-20190711-173325-1psnmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Al Gore and Ross Perot debated NAFTA with Larry King.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-/6caab51062df4ded8078bb89b4186082/4/0">AP Photo/George Bennet</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Perot’s vindication</h2>
<p>It didn’t quite turn out that way. </p>
<p>Scholars and policymakers <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/naftas-economic-impact">often disagree</a> about the impact that NAFTA has had on economic growth and job generation in the U.S. That impact, they say, is not always easy to disentangle from other economic, social and political factors that have influenced U.S. growth. </p>
<p>It is true that leaders of all three countries did tear down trade barriers and insert effective protections for corporations and investment. But critics like Perot were right – and Clinton was wrong – about the warning on jobs. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.epi.org/blog/fast-track-to-lost-jobs-and-lower-wages/">The Economic Policy Institute</a>, a left-leaning think tank, concluded that the U.S. lost about 850,000 jobs from 1993 to 2013 as a result of NAFTA and that number has undoubtedly risen. And the “social progress as well as economic growth” in relation to the agreement never seemed to appear. Despite strong productivity growth in U.S. and Mexican manufacturing, real wages sank by <a href="https://clas.berkeley.edu/research/trade-nafta-paradox">17%</a> in Mexico from 1994 to 2011 and slid in the U.S. as well.</p>
<p>In key manufacturing industries, such as the auto industry, NAFTA has had a <a href="https://clas.berkeley.edu/research/trade-nafta-paradox">clear impact</a>. Global auto producers built 11 new assembly plants in North America from 2009 to 2017. All but three were sited in Mexico – even though they all primarily made vehicles for the U.S. market.</p>
<p>As a result, Mexican employment in the <a href="http://www.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/bie">sector has soared</a>, while American auto jobs <a href="https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate">have declined</a>. Last year, Mexico had almost the same number of people working in its motor vehicle industry as the U.S. did, with about <a href="https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate">800,000</a> in <a href="http://www.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/bie/">each</a> country. Mexican employment in this sector has almost doubled since 2007 while U.S. employment has slightly slipped. </p>
<p>An even more significant impact has been pushing down on U.S. manufacturing wages as a result of suppressed wages in Mexico due largely to a lack of independent unions in the export sector. With the threat of shifting production to Mexico a factor, real autoworker wages in the U.S. plummeted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/trump-economy.html?em_pos=small&ref=headline&nl_art=9&te=1&nl=opinion-today&emc=edit_ty_20190711?campaign_id=39&instance_id=10831&segment_id=15113&user_id=7ef266ef86ea556ee2bcb48d00ec020d&regi_id=11501198emc=edit_ty_20190711">26%</a> from 2002 to 2013 and have stagnated since. </p>
<p>Ultimately, it’s not just manufacturing workers who are affected by the “sucking sound.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/01/magazine/lordstown-general-motors-plant.html">Families and entire communities</a> can be devastated when a worker loses a job as a result.</p>
<h2>The USMCA and Perot’s legacy</h2>
<p>So will the new NAFTA – the United States Mexico Canada Agreement – end the sucking of jobs south? </p>
<p>Not likely. Mexico <a href="https://www.apnews.com/f076c902045f4cea9236d7093cd00036">has a new reform-minded president</a>, but the obstacles are daunting. They include <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/153467/mexico-brink-labor-revolution">powerful and often corrupt company unions</a> in Mexico who profit off the status quo and employers who have become accustomed to rock-bottom wages.</p>
<p>What Americans need is trade between the U.S. and Mexico that benefits people in both countries. To do that, labor rights need to be harmonized to the best standards in North America, not slide to the lowest. Workers and communities throughout North America should be the beneficiaries of expanded trade, not its victims. </p>
<p>While Mexico has pledged and passed positive labor reforms, it <a href="http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/mexiko/15508.pdf">doesn’t have the capacity</a> to implement them. An important <a href="https://clas.berkeley.edu/research/trade-nafta-paradox">lesson from NAFTA</a> is promises often evaporate once a deal goes into effect. The original NAFTA included similar promises but failed to deliver.</p>
<p>Americans have heard enough of Perot’s “giant sucking sound” over the last 25 years. What they need now is broadly shared prosperity. I’m sure that will sound a lot better to the ear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harley Shaiken is affiliated with Advisory Board Member of the Center for American Progress</span></em></p>As the US prepares to replace NAFTA, a labor scholar who was critical of Perot but shared concerns about the deal revisits the claim that helped him become the most successful third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt.Harley Shaiken, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies and Professor of Letters and Science, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/984282018-06-18T20:00:14Z2018-06-18T20:00:14Z‘The geopolitics of risk’: the new age of uncertainty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223384/original/file-20180615-85869-1srdvbb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C4%2C1425%2C801&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush's former secretary of defense during the war in Iraq.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cdn.destructoid.com/ul/336097-MAC15_RUMSFELD_CAROUSEL01.jpg">DR</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At a press conference at the US Department of Defense, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq by the allied forces in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld addressed a sceptical media, unconvinced by his government’s arguments for immediate intervention.</p>
<p>Reporters demanded to know what information could possibly justify an act of war against a peaceful sovereign state. Rumsfeld’s response went viral:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, from a geopolitical perspective, he believed the very uncertainty created by the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction justified military action.</p>
<h2>Proof or possibility of danger</h2>
<p>We have entered a new age of uncertainty, with a new kind of geopolitical approach to risk. Let us examine this new reality, in which uncertainty – rather than proof and rationality – holds sway over political actions and reactions. In other words, proof of danger has become less important than the possibility of danger. Imagined danger now carries more weight that real danger.</p>
<p>We are living at a political juncture pervaded by the rhetoric of threat and insecurity. This is clear not only in discourses filled with fear, anxiety and uncertainty, propagating imagined threats, but also in the way our everyday experience of insecurity has changed, and in the sharp increase in security measures implemented by authorities.</p>
<p>These new discourses affect us deeply, even transforming us. They change the way we live our daily lives, our relationships with our loved ones and the way we apprehend others, what is alien, unknown. Threats to our safety are therefore not simple external objects that we can observe with scientific objectivity.</p>
<h2>The end of a binary outlook</h2>
<p>On the contrary. The particularity of risk today is that it concerns us directly. Perceiving, analysing and managing risk is a deeply human enterprise, which raises fundamental questions about who we are and the nature of society.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Transformations-of-Security-Studies-Dialogues-Diversity-and-Discipline/Schlag-Junk-Daase/p/book/9781138899490">notion of security and geopolitical attitudes to it</a> have changed radically since the end of the Cold War. We have switched from a binary perspective (dividing countries into East and West) to a more complex approach, across multiple levels, involving various groups and phenomena: international crime, cyber-attacks, climate change, migratory flows, pandemics, terrorism, and so on.</p>
<p>Questions of security and insecurity are everywhere. It is no longer possible to divide the world in two – us and them, friends and enemies, good and evil, pure and impure, safe and dangerous.</p>
<h2>Threats all around us</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172053/original/file-20170602-20569-1tbr4eb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172053/original/file-20170602-20569-1tbr4eb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172053/original/file-20170602-20569-1tbr4eb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172053/original/file-20170602-20569-1tbr4eb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172053/original/file-20170602-20569-1tbr4eb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172053/original/file-20170602-20569-1tbr4eb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172053/original/file-20170602-20569-1tbr4eb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Troops patrolling the streets of Paris as part of the Vigipirate plan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Militaires_%C3%A0_Paris,_plan_Vigipirate_septembre_2013.JPG">Kevin B.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Computer viruses are already on our hard drives, climate change is already being felt, potential epidemics are already present in the ecosystem and, sadly, terrorists are not beings from a far off, imaginary geopolitical landscape: <a href="https://theconversation.com/attentat-de-la-manchester-arena-lincroyable-solidarite-des-habitants-pendant-une-nuit-dhorreur-78213">they are already among us</a>.</p>
<p>The question is no longer “How can we avoid all these threats?”, “How can we keep danger at bay?” or “How can we make the state invulnerable, untouchable?” but “How can we organise ourselves as a society in order to retain our identity in the face of these threats?” And this is not about biology or race, but about values: individual autonomy, respect for others, freedom, equality, tolerance, etc.</p>
<p>At the fundamental level, security is therefore a question of culture, identity, language, democratic institutions, etc. In other words, it has become a societal question, asking us what kind of society we wish to live in.</p>
<h2>Experiencing the future now</h2>
<p>If, as I believe, risk management has now become a social values issue, it is therefore a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Ethical-Subject-of-Security-Geopolitical-Reason-and-the-Threat-Against/Burgess/p/book/9780415499811">kind of ethics</a>. But not in the sense of an external, autonomous code of conduct to determine our behaviour or that of others.</p>
<p>Ethics can be seen as the experience of uncertainty, of the unknown, the unexpected or even the unpredictable; as a way of asking what to do when we are uncertain, when we do not have adequate knowledge to know what to do – for it is then that we rely on our values. Values are therefore the primary lynchpin of risk management.</p>
<p>But just like the values we hold dear, risk is not about the present. It is about the future. It is about our behaviour in the face of future danger.</p>
<p>The question is not whether we want to die or suffer from these potential dangers. Of course we don’t: we want to live! The question is rather how we want to live, what living in society should mean, what values we should advocate for, which principles should guide us in the most difficult, burdensome times, in times of danger and insecurity?</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=121&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=121&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=121&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202296/original/file-20180117-53314-hzk3rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Created in 2007, the Axa Research Fund supports more than 500 projects worldwide led by researchers of 51 nationalities. For more information on J. Peter Burgess’ research, visit the [Axa Research Fund] website (https://www.axa-research.org/fr/projets/peter-burgess).</em></p>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en/">Fast for Word</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>J. Peter Burgess heads the Chair of Risk Geopolitics at the École normale supérieure, whose work is supported by the Axa Research Fund.</span></em></p>The question is no longer how to repel all threats. Instead, it’s how can we organise ourselves as a society to remain ourselves in the face of these multiple threats.J. Peter Burgess, Professeur, philosophe et politologue, École normale supérieure (ENS) – PSLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/816602017-08-08T01:01:51Z2017-08-08T01:01:51ZWhy governmental transparency will not work without strong leadership<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180788/original/file-20170802-18749-18hbili.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Walter Shaub, the former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, has warned that President Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest could put America at the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/31/trump-ethics-chief-walter-shaub-kleptocracy">risk of becoming a “kleptocracy”</a>: that is, a country led by corrupt leaders. </p>
<p>Shaub <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/07/06/535781749/ethics-office-director-walter-shaub-resigns-saying-rules-need-to-be-tougher">resigned recently</a>, six months before his <a href="https://www.oge.gov/Web/OGE.nsf/Resources/Office+of+the+Director">five-year term</a> was set to end. Shaub had been clashing with President Donald Trump since the presidential transition. He was encouraging Trump to either sell his assets or put them in a blind trust. All previous modern presidents have done one or the other to avoid <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/07/06/535781749/ethics-office-director-walter-shaub-resigns-saying-rules-need-to-be-tougher">conflicts of interest</a>. Trump did not. Instead, he turned his company over to his adult children and a long-time business partner. For Shaub, this continued to be an issue of concern.</p>
<p>In his resignation, Shaub offered a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/us/politics/walter-shaub-ethics-recommendations.html">number of recommendations</a> on how to revamp the U.S. federal ethics program, many of them being transparency initiatives. </p>
<p>However, from my perspective as a scholar who studies governmental transparency policies and their implementation, more rules without a strong leadership will not lead to much impact. </p>
<h2>Role of ethics office</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/Mission%20and%20Responsibilities">mission</a> of the Office of Government Ethics is to “[p]rovide overall leadership and oversight of the executive branch ethics program designed to prevent and resolve conflicts of interest.” In other words, the Office of Government Ethics does not investigate complaints but tries to <a href="https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/Mission%20and%20Responsibilities">stop ethical violations</a> before they can happen.</p>
<p>The Office of Government Ethics plays a role in <a href="https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/Resources/PRESIDENTIAL+TRANSITION">presidential transitions</a> as well. Among other things, the office identifies possible conflicts of interest for presidential nominees that need Senate approval. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/theres-department-government-ethics-what-does-it-do-180961265/">origins</a> of the Office of Government Ethics go back to the Watergate scandal. The <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/investigations/Watergate.htm">Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities</a>, also known as the Watergate Committee, made a number of recommendations, one of which was to establish the Office of Government Ethics, through the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/investigations/pdf/Watergate_EthicsGov.pdf">Ethics in Government Act of 1978</a>. Ten years later the <a href="https://www2.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/0/0AF839BE583CB71F85257F1C0073CD52/$FILE/PL100-598.pdf">Office of Government Ethics became an independent agency</a>. In 2016, the office finalized a new set of <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-11-18/pdf/2016-27036.pdf">ethics standards</a> which included new standards on the solicitation and acceptance of gifts by executive branch employees.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180789/original/file-20170802-9082-mrtpyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180789/original/file-20170802-9082-mrtpyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180789/original/file-20170802-9082-mrtpyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180789/original/file-20170802-9082-mrtpyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180789/original/file-20170802-9082-mrtpyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180789/original/file-20170802-9082-mrtpyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180789/original/file-20170802-9082-mrtpyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Walter Shaub Jr., director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the case of President Trump, the concern is that he has not put his assets in a blind trust, or divested them. This implies he still knows what his assets are and therefore he could put his company’s interests before the country’s interests. Of course, this might never happen. But even the perception of such a conflict is a problem for many. </p>
<p>On Jan. 23, 1989, <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16616">President George Bush</a> at the swearing-in ceremony for members of the White House staff encouraged them to avoid even the perception of a conflict, when he stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[O]ur actions must always be of the highest integrity. It’s not really very complicated. It’s a question of knowing right from wrong, avoiding conflicts of interest, bending over backwards to see that there’s not even a perception of conflict of interest.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What is the role of transparency?</h2>
<p>As Shaub resigned on July 6, he offered ethics <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/us/politics/walter-shaub-ethics-recommendations.html">recommendations</a> to Congress. The bulk of Shaub’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/us/politics/walter-shaub-ethics-recommendations.html">recommendations</a> deal with disclosure. </p>
<p>Shaub recommends that federal employees, including the president, disclose business liabilities and debts in entities they control. Currently federal employees are required to disclose only their personal debt. Shaub also recommends that men and women running for the presidency and vice presidency be required to disclose their tax returns and file them with the Federal Elections Commission and the Office of Government Ethics. </p>
<p>Promoting transparency of the executive branch ethics program is one of the Office of Government Ethics’ <a href="https://www2.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/Resources/OGE+Promotes+Transparency+of+the+Executive+Branch+Ethics+Program">goals</a>, and so it is no surprise that Shaub should make these recommendations. However, I argue that transparency and ethics are related but are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399713519098">two distinct concepts</a>. </p>
<p>The fact is that the impact of transparency on important democratic accountability concepts, such as trust in government is unclear. </p>
<h2>Why transparency is not enough</h2>
<p>Scholars <a href="http://www.sdabocconi.it/en/faculty/cucciniello-maria">Maria Cucciniello</a>, <a href="https://spaa.newark.rutgers.edu/gregory-porumbescu">Gregory Porumbescu</a> and <a href="https://www.uu.nl/staff/SGGrimmelikhuijsen/0">Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen</a> systematically reviewed 187 journal articles focusing on North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa over 25 years that <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12685">addressed issues of transparency in government</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180790/original/file-20170802-23530-1epfoe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180790/original/file-20170802-23530-1epfoe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180790/original/file-20170802-23530-1epfoe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180790/original/file-20170802-23530-1epfoe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180790/original/file-20170802-23530-1epfoe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180790/original/file-20170802-23530-1epfoe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180790/original/file-20170802-23530-1epfoe4.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Organizations need more than rules on ethics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/culturecat/428779117/in/photolist-DTB6p-i9D73-UcZtbt-68cUpm-2CMkSL-auPQkf-4u2x3W-4RW4Sm-oGC7CS-6kNSNw-sqcb24-cnCiyW-8GggAp-dMGwMQ-oetNbb-MioTi-4CC5dC-ayVWdw-gx24R-UBu7TF-fp2hqE-VR6VRV-nHNRJq-ptyuFA-fbo5KK-psANed-8h6gJC-9tLrFk-X2shQs-psANc9-pL1iUK-ayJ8RL-8nJ6f9-3f9otk-UBu7PH-aSaSPe-pL5C3Y-pL5BJw-pL5BPb-ptz44k-82RJAJ-pHUVAQ-pL5BQo-6pa3UQ-psDndh-psDnZs-a9vzo5-a7aWir-aYQeQv-qkjPH">Clancy Ratliff</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They found that greater transparency appeared to improve the quality of financial management and reduced levels of corruption. However, they found mixed results with respect to increasing trust, legitimacy and accountability of government. </p>
<p>In other words, greater transparency has a lot to offer but it is a not a cure-all. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470873949.html">ethics literature</a> reveals that effective ethics programs need formal rules and regulations, <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470873949.html">as well as leadership and training</a>. </p>
<p>Federal employees are <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/975784?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">clearly influenced</a> by the ethical standards set by their bosses. Good <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470873949.html">ethical leaders</a> realize that their conduct and their words affect employee behavior. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02074820">classic piece</a> on organizational ethics, management scholars <a href="http://business.ucf.edu/person/robert-ford/">Robert Ford</a> and <a href="http://www.umw.edu/directory/employee/woody-richardson/">Woodrow Richardson</a> concluded that top management influences the behavior of their employees by setting a strong example in what they say and how they act and by sanctioning employees who do not act appropriately.</p>
<p>Organizations have codes of ethics as part of their formal rules and regulations. These are referred to as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/972907?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">external controls</a>. Ford and Richardson found that codes of conduct are more effective if top management rewards people for following them or punishes them for not adhering to them.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cengage.com/c/public-administration-concepts-and-cases-9e-stillman">Internal controls</a> are individuals’ values and standards. These can be shaped through training and professional socialization. <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/fbi-ethics-and-integrity-program-policy-guide">Law enforcement agencies</a> have regular <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/PIN1099-9922120103?journalCode=mpin20">ethics training</a> for their employees. The Office of Government Ethics itself holds <a href="https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/OGE%20Summits%20&%20Conferences?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=2011%20National%20Government%20Ethics%20Conference">training programs</a> for ethics officers in the federal agencies and produces <a href="https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/Education%20Resources%20for%20Ethics%20Officials">training resources</a> for them. Individuals’ internal controls can be positively shaped by training supported by top management. Also, employees watching management’s positive ethical behavior may start to internalize the same values. </p>
<h2>Strong leadership is needed</h2>
<p>The point being that organizations, include the U.S. federal government, already have rules related to transparency and ethics. More rules, regulations and codes, such as those proposed by Shaub, will have limited effect without a strong push from the leadership to reinforce ethical norms.</p>
<p>In short, while Shaub’s recommendations deserve serious consideration and have the potential to improve the ethics program in the U.S. federal government, without consistent and strong leadership from the top – in this case the president – the impact of these reforms would be muted, at best.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81660/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzanne J. Piotrowski 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>A scholar argues why more rules, regulations and codes, such as those proposed by Walter Shaub, will not have much effect.Suzanne J. Piotrowski, Associate Professor of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/803042017-07-20T01:50:22Z2017-07-20T01:50:22ZExplaining the rise in hate crimes against Muslims in the US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178864/original/file-20170719-13567-pyqde6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Muslim women hold signs to express opposition to hate crimes and rhetoric.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hate crimes against Muslims have been on the rise. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/us/portland-train-attack-muslim-rant.html?_r=0">murder of two samaritans</a> for aiding two young women who were facing a barrage of anti-Muslim slurs on a Portland train is among the latest examples of brazen acts of anti-Islamic hatred. </p>
<p>Earlier in 2017, a mosque in Victoria, Texas was <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/irl/victoria-texas-mosque-islamic-center-burned-muslim-ban/">burned to the ground</a> by an alleged anti-Muslim bigot. And just last year, members of a small extremist group called “The Crusaders” <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/142346/kansas-meatpacking-somali-muslim-refugee-murder-plot-trump-supporters">plotted a bombing “bloodbath”</a> at a residential housing complex for Somali-Muslim immigrants in Garden City, Kansas. </p>
<p>I have analyzed hate crime for two decades at California State University-San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. And I have found that the rhetoric politicians use after terrorist attacks is correlated closely to sharp increases and decreases in hate crimes.</p>
<h2>Hate crimes post 9/11</h2>
<p>Since 1992 (following the promulgation of the <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2011/resources/hate-crime-statistics-act">Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990</a>), the FBI has <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime">annually tabulated</a> hate crime data voluntarily submitted from state and territorial reporting agencies. A “hate crime” is defined as a criminal offense motivated by either race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity. </p>
<p>According to the FBI’s data, hate crimes against Muslims reported to police surged immediately following the terror attacks of 9/11. There were 481 crimes reported against Muslims in 2001, up from 28 the year before. However, <a href="https://csbs.csusb.edu/sites/csusb_csbs/files/Statement%20by%20Prof.%20Brian%20Levin%20Responses%20to%20the%20Increase%20in%20Religious%20Hate%20Crime%20for%20the%20U.S.%20Senate%20-%20Committee%20on%20the%20Judiciary%20-%20May%202%2C%202017.pdf">from 2002 until 2014</a>, the number of anti-Muslim crimes receded to a numerical range between 105 to 160 annually. This number was still several times higher than their pre-9/11 levels. </p>
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<p>It should be noted that other government data, such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which relies on almost 200,000 residential crime surveys, as opposed to police reports, show <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/hcv0415.pdf">severe official undercounting</a> of hate crime. These studies, based on respondents’ answers to researchers, indicate a far higher annual average of hate crime – 250,000 nationally – with over half stating that they never reported such offenses to police. </p>
<p>FBI data show that in 2015 there were <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-levin-jd/fbi-hate-crime-up-68-in-2_b_12951150.html">257 hate crimes against Muslims</a> – the highest level since 2001 and a surge of 67 percent over the previous year. </p>
<p>As I noted in a prepared statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee in May 2017, this was the <a href="https://csbs.csusb.edu/sites/csusb_csbs/files/Statement%20by%20Prof.%20Brian%20Levin%20Responses%20to%20the%20Increase%20in%20Religious%20Hate%20Crime%20for%20the%20U.S.%20Senate%20-%20Committee%20on%20the%20Judiciary%20-%20May%202%2C%202017.pdf">second-highest number</a> of anti-Muslim hate crimes since FBI record-keeping began in 1992. Not only did anti-Muslim crime cases rise numerically in 2015, they also grew as a percentage of all hate crime. They now account for 4.4 percent of all reported hate crime even <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/">though Muslims are estimated to be only 1 percent</a> of the population. </p>
<h2>When do the spikes happen?</h2>
<p>At our center, we analyzed even more recent disturbing trends related to hate crimes. Based on the latest available police data for 2016 from 25 of the nation’s largest cities and counties, we found a 6 percent increase in all hate crimes, with over half of the places at a multi-year high. In particular, hate crimes against Muslims had increased in six of the seven places that provided more detailed breakdowns. </p>
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<p>We also observed a spike in such crime following certain events.</p>
<p>In 2015, for example, we found <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3110202/SPECIAL-STATUS-REPORT-v5-9-16-16.pdf">45 incidents of anti-Muslim crime in the United States</a> in the four weeks following the November 13 Paris terror attack. </p>
<p>Just under half of these occurred after December 2, when the San Bernardino terror attack took place. Of those, 15 took place in the five days following then-candidate Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/07/donald-trump-calls-for-total-and-complete-shutdown-of-muslims-entering-the-united-states/?utm_term=.5c12d91e000c">proposal of December 7</a>, seeking to <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4566084/donald-trummp-ban-muslim">indefinitely ban all Muslims</a> from entering the United States. </p>
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<p>In contrast, as I observed in my prepared statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee, after an initial sharp spike following the 9/11 attacks, sociologist <a href="http://soca.wvu.edu/faculty-and-staff/faculty-directory/james-nolan">James Nolan</a> and I <a href="https://csbs.csusb.edu/sites/csusb_csbs/files/Statement%20by%20Prof.%20Brian%20Levin%20Responses%20to%20the%20Increase%20in%20Religious%20Hate%20Crime%20for%20the%20U.S.%20Senate%20-%20Committee%20on%20the%20Judiciary%20-%20May%202%2C%202017.pdf">found that there was a drop</a> in hate crimes after President George W. Bush delivered a speech promoting tolerance on Sept. 17, 2001.</p>
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<p>Other groups too, have found similar spikes in anti-Muslim hatred: The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), for example, noted that from the month of the presidential election, through Dec. 12, 2016, <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/huge-growth-anti-muslim-hate-groups-during-2016-splc-report-n721586">there was a spike</a> in hate “incidents” against many minority groups. The SPLC found that the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/12/16/update-1094-bias-related-incidents-month-following-election">third most frequently targeted group</a> after immigrants and African-Americans were Muslims. And just this month the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, <a href="http://www.cair.com/images/pdf/Civil-Rights-Data-Quarter-Two-Update-Anti-Muslim-Bias-Incidents-April--June-2017.pdf">reported</a> 72 instances of “harassment” and 69 hate crimes that had occurred between April and June 2017.</p>
<h2>Fear of Muslims</h2>
<p>Prejudicial stereotypes that broadly <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2017/02/16/3-views-of-islam-and-extremism-in-the-u-s-and-abroad/">paint Muslims in a negative light are quite pervasive</a>. </p>
<p>From 2002 to 2014, the number of respondents who stated that <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2016/02/03/republicans-prefer-blunt-talk-about-islamic-extremism-democrats-favor-caution/">Islam was more likely to encourage violence</a> doubled from 25 percent to 50 percent, according to Pew research. A June 2016 Reuters/Ipsos online poll found that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-muslims-idUSKCN0ZV20C">37 percent</a> of Americans had a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Islam, topped only by antipathy for atheism at 38 percent. </p>
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<p>The latest <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2017/02/16/3-views-of-islam-and-extremism-in-the-u-s-and-abroad/">polls also show how Muslims are feared and distrusted</a> as a group in America. While most Americans do not believe that Muslims living in the U.S. support extremism, these views vary widely by age, level of education and partisan affiliation: Almost half of those 65 and older believe that Muslims in America support extremism, whereas only few college-educated adults do so. </p>
<p>Interestingly, current polls also show that when people personally know someone who is a Muslim, <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2017/02/16/3-views-of-islam-and-extremism-in-the-u-s-and-abroad/">the bias is much less</a>. This confirms what psychology scholar <a href="https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/gordon-w-allport">Gordon Allport</a> concludes in his seminal book, <a href="http://www.basicbooks.com/full-details?isbn=9780201001792">“The Nature of Prejudice,”</a> that meaningful contact with those who are different is crucial for reducing hatred. </p>
<p>Indeed, before we can truly say “love thy neighbor(s),” we need to know and understand them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Levin currently receives no external funding. </span></em></p>FBI data show that in 2015 anti-Muslim hate crimes spiked to the highest level since 2001. A scholar finds political rhetoric correlates to both sharp increases and decreases in hate crime.Brian Levin, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice and Director, Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism, California State University, San BernardinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/795372017-06-23T01:15:19Z2017-06-23T01:15:19ZWhat happens if Trump’s White House invokes executive privilege?<p>Donald Trump’s presidency has been defined by a central theme: Trump’s belief that ordinary rules and laws do not apply to him.</p>
<p>Trump has made clear that he believes it is up to his <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-james-mattis-override-torture-2017-1">personal discretion</a> to order torture – even though torture is <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2008/05/06/under-u-s-law-torture-is-always-illegal/">illegal under all circumstances</a>. In ordering a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/04/07/syria-attack-legal-only-congress-can-say-column/100163700/">military strike against Syria</a> in April, Trump brushed aside constitutional requirements that Congress approve such action unless the U.S. faces imminent attack. And he has defended his presidency by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brianne-j-gorod/can-courts-hold-trump-accountable_b_13306772.html">falsely claiming</a> that the <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trumps-new-boast-the-president-cant-have-conflict-interest">president is incapable of having conflicts of interest</a>.</p>
<p>I have argued in the past that Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama showed there is reason to be concerned about post-9/11 presidents testing the <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/chris-edelson/power-without-constraint/">legal limits of their power</a>. The stakes are even higher now with Trump. He has demonstrated <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/opinion/sunday/is-donald-trump-a-threat-to-democracy.html">authoritarian tendencies</a> and <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-kleptocracy-could-be-turning-the-us-into-a-banana-republic-2017-05-03">contempt for the rule of law</a> that goes beyond anything Bush or Obama did. </p>
<p>The issue may be coming to a head with investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice. As the nation has watched witnesses appear before congressional committees and read Trump’s tweets about Department of Justice officials, the key question to ask now is whether Trump <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-very-very-dangerous-situation">will refuse</a> to let any investigation continue. If he does so successfully, Trump will effectively place himself <a href="https://lawfareblog.com/disabled-executive-special-counsel-investigation-and-presidential-immunities">beyond the reach of the law</a>.</p>
<h2>The rule of law</h2>
<p>The various ongoing investigations are all, in theory, governed by legal rules. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3726385-Order-3915-2017-Special-Counsel.html#document/p1">Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s task</a> is to speak to witnesses, review documents, gather evidence and decide whether there is any basis for prosecution under federal law. Congressional committees, meanwhile, hear from witnesses who testify under penalty of perjury if they lie under oath. </p>
<p>But such legal rules are not self-enforcing. When the rules are violated or flouted, someone has to act in order to give them force and meaning.</p>
<p>Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee is a case in point. Sessions refused to answer a number of questions about communications he’d had with the president. By itself, that is not extraordinary. If the communications were protected by executive privilege or involved classified information involving national security matters, there may have been a legitimate basis for Sessions to decline to answer senators’ questions. After all, the Supreme Court has recognized that <a href="http://markrozell.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Presidents_Executive_Privilege_Rozell_and_Sollenberger.pdf">the Constitution implicitly allows</a> the president to invoke executive privilege in some circumstances in order to protect the confidentiality of discussions with close advisers in the executive branch. </p>
<p>But Sessions, the top lawyer for the U.S. government, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/06/14/trump-sessions-and-the-executive-privilege-paradox-did-the-president-leave-his-most-loyal-follower-out-to-dry/">did not point to any legal grounds</a> for his refusal to respond. He simply said he <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/06/14/trump-sessions-and-the-executive-privilege-paradox-did-the-president-leave-his-most-loyal-follower-out-to-dry/">could not speak about private conversations</a> he’d had with the president, and that he was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-executive-privilege-jeff-sessions-testimony-2017-6">protecting Trump’s ability to claim executive privilege</a>, if he later decided to do so.</p>
<p>Sessions was not the first. A week earlier, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/07/outrageous-contempt-of-congress/?utm_term=.c4864e548194">Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats similarly declined</a> to answer questions involving conversations he’d had with the president. Like Sessions, Coats did not invoke privilege, conceding that he <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-06-07/lawmakers-challenge-officials-refusal-to-talk-trump-comey">wasn’t sure there was any legal basis</a> he could rely on.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-executive-privilege-jeff-sessions-testimony-2017-6">Sen. Martin Heinrich noted</a> during the hearing, that’s not the way executive privilege is supposed to work. If the administration wants to invoke the privilege, it must do so expressly. In that case, the matter would be worked out either in <a href="http://www.libertylawsite.org/2012/07/12/the-constitution-and-executive-privilege/">negotiations between the executive and legislative branches</a> or (less frequently) through review by the federal courts. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175228/original/file-20170622-12015-jfc8rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175228/original/file-20170622-12015-jfc8rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175228/original/file-20170622-12015-jfc8rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175228/original/file-20170622-12015-jfc8rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175228/original/file-20170622-12015-jfc8rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175228/original/file-20170622-12015-jfc8rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175228/original/file-20170622-12015-jfc8rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175228/original/file-20170622-12015-jfc8rr.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former President Richard Nixon points to the transcripts of the White House tapes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most famous example of a court weighing in on executive privilege was the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/418/683">Supreme Court’s 1974 decision in U.S. v. Nixon</a>. President Richard Nixon’s administration refused to hand over Oval Office tapes, claiming recorded conversations were protected by executive privilege, as defined by the president. The court rejected this view, observing that constitutional separation of powers depends on checks and balances that prevent any one branch from self-policing. The court found, in this case, the need for checks on power outweighed the executive branch’s interest in keeping discussions confidential. With the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/06/16/the-missing-18-12-minutes-presidential-destruction-of-incriminating-evidence/?utm_term=.98bae4cd1030">specter of impeachment looming over him</a>, Nixon was forced to hand over the tapes. He resigned from office a few weeks later.</p>
<p>At the close of Sessions’ testimony, Sen. Richard Burr <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/13/full-text-jeff-session-trump-russia-testimony-239503">instructed Sessions</a> to “work with the White House to see if there are any areas of questions that they feel comfortable with you answering…” That’s not good enough: If the legislative branch is to enforce the rule of law, witnesses must be compelled to answer legitimate questions under oath. </p>
<h2>Will Congress act?</h2>
<p>Special Counsel Mueller may be investigating the president to determine whether his actions amount to <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-sessions-and-trump-conspire-to-obstruct-justice-79388">an obstruction of justice</a>. Trump has already fired former FBI Director James Comey, and <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/if-trump-fires-mueller-or-orders-his-firing">there is speculation</a> that he might also fire Special Counsel Mueller in an effort to bring the investigation to a close. Sen. Ron Wyden has warned that, if Trump fires Mueller, it would be an <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidWright_CNN/status/876813652183187456">attack on the rule of law</a> itself. The onus would fall squarely on Congress to <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/143293/trump-fires-robert-mueller-impeached">either initiate impeachment proceedings</a> or else acquiesce in a presidential power grab.</p>
<p>As Sen. Heinrich noted, when witnesses refuse to answer questions but fail to provide any sufficient legal reason for doing so, they are <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-executive-privilege-jeff-sessions-testimony-2017-6">obstructing investigation</a> – preventing Congress from carrying out its inquiry. If other senators agreed, they <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/6/14/15796078/jeff-sessions-testimony-russia-donald-trump-comey-fbi">could vote to cite the witness(es) for contempt</a>, which could lead to criminal prosecution.</p>
<p>Congress could also threaten to hold up Trump’s nominations to key positions such as federal court judges, or refuse to move on the administration’s legislative priorities like tax cuts for high earners (it <a href="http://markrozell.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Presidents_Executive_Privilege_Rozell_and_Sollenberger.pdf">took some similar actions</a> in response to Nixon). Congress could even begin impeachment proceedings if it decided presidential misconduct rose to the constitutional level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” – for instance, if Mueller’s investigation concluded that there is evidence to support this conclusion.</p>
<p>Of course, since Republicans are members of the same party as the president, none of this is likely – yet. But if Trump administration officials continue to make investigation difficult, and if Trump escalates an already tense situation by continuing to question Mueller’s legitimacy or even by firing the special counsel, Republicans may face <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-very-very-dangerous-situation">a crucial test on behalf of American constitutional democracy</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79537/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Edelson 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>Laws that limit presidential power won’t enforce themselves – Congress must act.Chris Edelson, Assistant Professor of Government, American University School of Public AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/780212017-05-22T02:05:33Z2017-05-22T02:05:33ZWhat Trump missed in his address on tolerance - American Muslims<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170232/original/file-20170521-12242-hes5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump delivers a speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit on Sunday, May 21, 2017, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump, like his predecessors before him, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/21/politics/trump-saudi-speech-transcript/index.html">has discovered</a> the potent language of religious tolerance and interfaith unity when discussing Islam, as he demonstrated in his speech in Saudi Arabia to leaders of some 50 Muslim nations. But unlike previous presidents, he has not linked that rhetoric with recognition of the large, vibrant Muslim community in the U.S. </p>
<p>As a historian who has <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100411860">studied efforts in the past</a> to build acceptance of religious pluralism in the United States, I am concerned by Trump’s departure from historical precedent. </p>
<p>Can a message of tolerance to Islam abroad be persuasive without a corresponding affirmation of American Muslims at home?</p>
<h2>Toned-down Trump</h2>
<p>In his widely anticipated remarks on Islam and terrorism, President Trump avoided many of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15654560/trump-foreign-trip-middle-east-europe-islam">missteps his critics feared</a>. He notably abandoned the harsh rhetoric that characterized descriptions of Islam during his 2016 campaign. Trump has set aside his insistence on the use of the phrase <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-muslim-ban-224272">“radical Islamic terrorism.”</a> He has also rejected the broad generalizations of Islam that marked his demand for a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2015/12/07/e56266f6-9d2b-11e5-8728-1af6af208198_story.html?utm_term=.9e33bdb48d93">total and complete shutdown”</a> of Muslim immigration because their hatred was “beyond comprehension.”</p>
<p>With the exception of one apparent reference to “Islamic terror” – present in his spoken words but not in the written text of the speech – Trump otherwise struck a tolerant, inclusive tone. In his declaration that he was “not here to lecture” was the promise that the U.S. would not tell others “how to worship.” </p>
<p>More notable than the language of tolerance was Trump’s new emphasis on interfaith commonality. He declared the campaign against terrorism not “a battle between different faiths” but rather a fight that encompassed them all. He noted that a terrorist who “falsely invokes the name of God” should be considered “an insult to every person of faith.” </p>
<p>He used the language of a shared humanity and common God in his powerful – albeit macabre – description of victims of terrorism, noting,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“when we look upon the streams of innocent blood soaked into the ancient ground, we cannot see the faith or sect or tribe of the victims – we see only that they were Children of God whose deaths are an insult to all that is holy.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Echoes of past presidents</h2>
<p>In proclaiming tolerance and highlighting commonality with Muslims, Trump walked a well-worn path. </p>
<p>In 1980, during the Iran hostage crisis, <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=32899">Jimmy Carter noted</a> the many “human and moral values” which all Americans shared with Islam. These included a “deep faith in the one supreme being” and a shared respect for “the family and the home.”</p>
<p>Twenty-one years later, George W. Bush, in his <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/">speech to Congress</a> in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, emphasized a spirit of tolerance. Addressing “Muslims throughout the world,” Bush proclaimed, “we respect your faith.” Of Islam, he added: “its teachings are good and peaceful.”</p>
<p>Likewise, in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html">speech given at Cairo University</a> shortly after taking office, Barack Obama affirmed that Islam “has a proud tradition of tolerance.” He also pointed to interreligious commonality. The principle “that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us” was a value that “transcends nations and peoples” and was not limited to “Christian, or Muslim or Jew.”</p>
<h2>Missing: Muslims in America</h2>
<p>This was one thing that was strikingly absent from Trump’s speech, though. The Saudi speech lacked any acknowledgment of the large Muslim population in the United States or discussion of its contribution to American society. </p>
<p>This absence, I argue, suggests an important limit to the evolution of Trump’s views on Islam.</p>
<p>In the speech, Trump made little mention of the U.S., except for a brief litany of terrorist attacks on American soil, including 9/11, San Bernardino and Orlando. The millions of Muslims <a href="https://theconversation.com/48-hours-as-a-muslim-american-a-professor-reflects-60991">who live in the U.S.</a> and are integral parts of American society went unmentioned. </p>
<p>On this crucial point, the contrast between Trump and his predecessors is striking.</p>
<p>In 1980, <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=32899">President Carter noted</a> that the U.S.’ “kaleidoscopic population includes a vigorous Islamic community.” After 9/11, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/">President Bush reminded</a> the nation that the Muslim faith was “practiced freely by many millions of Americans.” And, in 2009, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html">President Obama forcefully emphasized</a> that “Islam is a part of America.” </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html">Obama described</a> his personal experience “in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.” Obama reached back into history as well. Islam was not merely a part of the American present but also its past. “Since our founding,” <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html">Obama noted</a>, “American Muslims have enriched the United States.” </p>
<h2>Islam as foreign</h2>
<p>For Trump, I argue, Islam remains something foreign. It is something that belongs in what he describes as “the Muslim world” rather than a religion integrated into American society. It seemingly did not occur to Trump’s speechwriters that a discussion of Islam should make some mention of American Muslims. </p>
<p>Until Trump stops presenting Islam as something distinct from American society, speeches like this one will do little to change perceptions of him. The president appeared admirably tolerant abroad. But he did nothing to acknowledge Muslims in the U.S.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78021/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mislin 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>Trump avoided many of the missteps his critics feared, but he failed to acknowledge the presence of America’s large Muslim population and its contribution to American society.David Mislin, Assistant Professor, Intellectual Heritage Program, Temple UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/749732017-04-12T00:38:29Z2017-04-12T00:38:29ZBeyond instant runoff: A better way to conduct multi-candidate elections<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164512/original/image-20170407-27621-1e5q4aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A vote is cast in New Hampshire 2012 primary. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-New-Hampshire-Primary-2012/de5da42595844cceb510a83af8150039/15/0">AP Photo/Matt Rourke</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last November, <a href="https://theconversation.com/maine-ballot-initiative-would-let-voters-rank-candidates-67694">Maine voters approved</a>, by a slim majority, a ballot initiative to adopt a voting system called “instant runoff.” </p>
<p>This system has been proposed as an alternative to our traditional election method – called “plurality voting” – by several politicians, including 2016 Green Party presidential candidate <a href="http://www.jill2016.com/ranked_choice_voting">Jill Stein</a>. It has also been implemented in <a href="http://www.fairvote.org/rcv#where_is_ranked_choice_voting_used">various municipal elections</a> in the United States. </p>
<p>Many other multi-candidate election methods have been proposed. Most of them have the drawback of being complicated, and therefore are probably not politically viable. I want to suggest a method that I believe is much better than both plurality voting and instant runoff, and just as simple as instant runoff. </p>
<h2>Plurality voting and its problems</h2>
<p>In plurality voting, every voter names their favorite candidate, and the candidate named most often wins. </p>
<p>This is the only reasonable thing to do when there are only two candidates, but it becomes problematic when there are more. The problems are <a href="https://electology.org/blog/top-5-ways-plurality-voting-fails">well-recognized</a>. For example, if you were every voter’s second choice among five candidates, you’d be doing very well, quite possibly better than any other candidate by most reasonable measures – yet you would lose. Plurality voting in fact appears to promote the emergence of two-party systems. Political scientists call this <a href="http://scorevoting.net/Duverger.html">Duverger’s Law</a>.</p>
<p>When there are two major candidates and some much weaker third-party candidates, plurality voting leads to “spoiler” problems. The weak candidates can change the outcome, sometimes in ways that their supporters find highly undesirable. For instance, the presence of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader on the presidential ballot in Florida in 2000 may very well have caused Al Gore to lose Florida, and thereby the presidency, even though it’s likely that a large majority of Nader voters preferred Gore to George Bush. </p>
<p>Attempts to improve plurality voting have a long history, with primaries in the U.S. as well as runoff rounds in presidential elections in France, Brazil and other countries. </p>
<h2>Instant runoff and its problems</h2>
<p>With instant runoff, every voter ranks the candidates. The candidate who is ranked first by the fewest voters is then removed from the ballots, and candidates who were ranked underneath the removed candidate move up by one notch. Then the process is repeated until only one candidate remains. That candidate wins.</p>
<p>In practice, one would want to allow voters to rank only some, not all, of the candidates, and one would want to allow ties. These are complications that are important, but also easy to deal with. For simplicity, we’ll assume here that all voters rank all candidates, with no ties.</p>
<p>When there are two strong candidates and some much weaker third-party candidates, instant runoff clearly does away with the spoiler problem. Weak candidates are eliminated early on. </p>
<p>For example, if instant runoff had been used in the 2000 presidential election in Florida, Gore would likely have been president. Nader would have been eliminated early on in the process, and those among his 97,421 voters who preferred Gore over Bush would have been counted as Gore voters. Considering that the final official margin by which Bush won Florida was 537, it seems likely that this would have changed the outcome.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, instant runoff – just like plurality voting – also immediately eliminates the candidate who is everyone’s second choice but nobody’s first.</p>
<p>And, just like plurality voting, instant runoff does not work well when there are more than two strong candidates. It can then produce quite arbitrary outcomes. If there are five strong candidates, should you really be eliminated just because 18 percent of voters put you first, while the other four candidates were placed first by 19 to 22 percent of voters? Shouldn’t we look at how many voters put you second, for instance, before ruling you out as the winner? </p>
<h2>Condorcet and Borda</h2>
<p>Two French noblemen of the 1700s thought about how to organize multi-candidate elections: the Marqis de Condorcet and Jean-Charles de Borda. (Condorcet was friends with Thomas Jefferson, who appears to have paid little attention to Condorcet’s writings about voting.) </p>
<p>Condorcet suggested that, if an absolute majority – more than half the voters – prefers Candidate X to Candidate Y, then Candidate Y should not be the winner. That seems very reasonable. Why not make the majority happier by making X the winner? </p>
<p>Unfortunately, when there are more than two candidates, this principle can easily rule out everyone. There can be a situation where, say, 55 percent of voters prefer Candidate A to Candidate B, 60 percent prefer B to C and 65 percent prefer C to A. </p>
<p>Condorcet didn’t say what should happen in such a case. His proposal refers only to situations in which there is a single candidate, the “Condorcet candidate,” who would beat every other candidate in head-to-head contest. He suggested that a Condorcet candidate, if there is one, should win. </p>
<p>As sensible as this sounds, both plurality voting and instant runoff violate it. Take my earlier example of an election with five candidates. If you are ranked second by every single voter, you might well win head-to-head contests against each of your four competitors. But, under plurality voting or instant runoff, you will lose.</p>
<p>Borda proposed <a href="http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/borda-count">his own election method</a> that allots each candidate points based on their ranking. For instance, if there are five candidates, then Borda proposes to give a candidate five points for first place on a voter’s ballot, four points for second place, and so on. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, Borda and Condorcet can clash in a rather dramatic way. Even if an absolute majority of voters place you first, Borda may have you lose if most of the other voters strongly dislike you.</p>
<p>Borda’s method tends to handicap polarizing candidates. This seems like a good thing. However, if an absolute majority of voters place me first, then I should win, according to Condorcet, and most people would probably agree. When Borda’s method makes me lose because I am strongly disliked by a substantial minority, one could – and Condorcet would – argue that this goes a bit too far.</p>
<h2>Merging Condorcet’s and Borda’s ideas</h2>
<p>Merging Condorcet’s and Borda’s ideas creates an election method which, in my view, is much better than instant runoff, and just as simple. (I discuss this method at greater length in <a href="http://epubs.siam.org/doi/book/10.1137/1.9780898717624">my textbook</a> on this subject.) </p>
<p>In the system I propose, voters rank candidates, as in instant runoff and many other election methods. The outcome is then evaluated in two stages: a “Condorcet stage” where we pick out the strongest candidates, followed by a “Borda stage” where we identify the winner. </p>
<p>In the Condorcet stage, we determine the “strong” candidates. We define the “strong” candidates to be the smallest group of candidates with the property that everybody inside the group would beat everybody outside the group in two-person races. (This is also often called the <a href="http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Smith_set">Smith set</a>, after the mathematician <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Smith_(mathematician)">John H. Smith</a>.) For instance, if there is a Condorcet candidate X, then X is the only strong candidate. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164701/original/image-20170410-8840-rpb1l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164701/original/image-20170410-8840-rpb1l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164701/original/image-20170410-8840-rpb1l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164701/original/image-20170410-8840-rpb1l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164701/original/image-20170410-8840-rpb1l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164701/original/image-20170410-8840-rpb1l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164701/original/image-20170410-8840-rpb1l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Condorcet stage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christoph Borgers</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We then remove all candidates who are not strong from the ballots, and move on to the Borda stage. The winner is computed with the reduced ballots based on Borda’s method. </p>
<p>In a presidential election, voters would all rank all the candidates: Republicans, Democrats and others. A computer would then determine the strong candidates. (No cause for alarm: Anybody who knows the election results could quite easily verify the computer’s work by hand.) Borda’s method would then decide from among this group. </p>
<p>I believe that many of the people who now support instant runoff should, and would, like this scheme even more. It eliminates weak candidates right away, removing the possibility of spoiler effects. It allows two candidates from the same party to run without interfering with each other so much that neither can win. It allows more than two strong candidates to emerge. When there are several strong candidates, the results are intuitively sensible. The method retains one of the advantages of Borda’s method – namely that polarizing candidates often lose – but, unlike Borda’s method, it does not allow a Condorcet candidate to lose. Equally importantly, the method is simple and transparent, and therefore might be politically viable. </p>
<p>There is no doubt that the issue is important: We cannot value democracy, yet refuse to think about the question how to conduct elections in a fair way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christoph Borgers 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>Some American voters hope that instant runoff can make our elections better. But a mathematician has an idea for another solution.Christoph Borgers, Professor of Mathematics, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/636222016-08-26T10:43:22Z2016-08-26T10:43:22ZThe US has blurred the lines on assassination for decades<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135533/original/image-20160825-6614-1xjqt0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold lands in Israel.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MR._Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld_ARRIVES_AT_LYDDA_AIRPORT,_ON_HIS_WAY_FROM_BEIRUT_TO_CAIRO,_1956.jpg">http://www.gpo.gov.il</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki Moon, is set to open a new investigation into the death of former secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold, whose plane crashed during a peace mission in the Congo in September 1961. New documents have surfaced that seem to implicate the <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/01/u-n-to-probe-whether-iconic-secretary-general-was-assassinated/">CIA</a> – which should, perhaps, not come as a complete surprise.</p>
<p>From the late 1950s, the CIA was involved more or less directly in plots to assassinate several foreign leaders. Among them was Cuba’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/aug/03/cuba.duncancampbell2">Fidel Castro</a>, Congo’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/21/usa.davidpallister">Patrice Lumumba</a>, and the Dominican Republic’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/13/archives/cia-is-reported-to-have-helped-in-trujillo-death-material-support.html">Rafael Trujillo</a>. In the mid-1970s, a series of revelations about the CIA’s involvement in assassination attempts prompted numerous inquiries by the government and Congress.</p>
<p>One Senate committee <a href="http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf">concluded</a> that the CIA had been able to get involved in these incidents thanks to a combination of secrecy, ambiguity about lines of responsibility between the agency and the White House, and “plausible deniability”. The term – initially coined to suggest that US covert operations should be conducted in such a manner as to plausibly deny US involvement – was later interpreted as the need to isolate the president from the details of covert operations in order for him to plausibly deny knowledge of them.</p>
<p>The committee recommended establishing a statute that would outlaw “assassination” and would specify the meaning of the word and identify categories of foreign officials that could not be targeted (including leaders of movements and parties). But in 1975 the <a href="http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB522-Church-Committee-Faced-White-House-Attempts-to-Curb-CIA-Probe/">Ford administration</a> blocked any congressional effort to reform the intelligence services. Ford did ban assassination in an <a href="http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo11905.htm">Executive Order</a> of 1976 but the meaning of assassination remained deeply vague. It stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The order was expanded during the Carter years by dropping the adjective “political” and was confirmed by Reagan in <a href="http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html">Executive Order 12333</a>. This remains the standing regulation when it comes to US involvement in assassination. Its inherent ambiguity has not ceased to cause problems ever since.</p>
<h2>Skirting around the order</h2>
<p>In the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration identified Muammar Gaddafi as its main enemy. Gaddafi had been sponsoring terrorist attacks and after Libya was connected to a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1653848.stm">1986 bombing in Berlin</a> in which two US servicemen and a Turkish woman were killed. The US retaliated. In Operation El Dorado Canyon, US planes bombed one of Gaddafi’s residences and military targets.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-truth-about-1986-us-bombing-in-libya/2011/07/03/gHQAjAWHyH_story.html">US officials denied</a> that the bombing constituted an assassination attempt. They argued that the strike was not directly aimed at the Libyan dictator, but at degrading his military capabilities and support for terrorism. Officials, including the secretary of state George Shultz, argued that terrorists represented a particular category of enemy and that a more aggressive posture – including pre-emptive strikes – was needed. </p>
<p>In 1989, officials in George H W Bush’s administration allegedly lamented that the constraints imposed by the ban on assassinations had prevented the US from playing a larger role in a (failed) coup to oust Panama’s dictator Manuel Noriega. A few months later, a memorandum written by <a href="https://www.law.upenn.edu/institutes/cerl/conferences/targetedkilling/papers/ParksMemorandum.pdf">Hays Parks</a> in the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Army seemed to ease these concerns. The memorandum provided a new legal position for counter-terrorism operations. </p>
<p>The memorandum clarified that “a decision by the president to employ clandestine, low visibility or overt military force” did not constitute assassination.</p>
<p>It also added that the ban on assassination didn’t prevent the targeting of a broad category of enemy, including terrorists. Since they could be said to pose an imminent threat, they could be targeted in self-defence under both international law and the power of the president as commander-in-chief. These arguments – similar to those used in the Reagan years – would provide a baseline for future justifications.</p>
<p>Later on, the administration, targeted <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/18/world/confrontation-gulf-air-force-chief-dismissed-for-remarks-gulf-plan-cheney-cites.html">Saddam Hussein’s</a> residence and headquarters. When Air Force chief of staff Michael Dugan admitted that Saddam himself had been the target of the bombing, secretary of defense Dick Cheney <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-09-18/news/mn-585_1_air-force-official">fired him</a>.</p>
<p>In 1998, the Clinton administration also targeted the residence of Saddam Hussein. Once again, officials denied that Saddam himself was the target. </p>
<h2>Al-Qaeda and 9/11</h2>
<p>The rise of al-Qaeda in the late 1990s brought the issue of assassination back to the fore. The <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/sept11/911Report.pdf">9/11 Commission report</a> revealed that the Clinton administration had authorised several kill or capture operations against Osama Bin Laden. The operations never went ahead but US officials agreed that if Bin Laden had been killed in one of them, it would not have amounted to an assassination. He was a terrorist leader, they reasoned, and the US would have been acting in self-defence against him. </p>
<p>The waters were muddied further after 9/11. George W Bush gave the CIA authority to <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cias-license-to-kill/">target terrorists</a> abroad (including American citizens). The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress also made clear that the US could now target “persons,” that is, conduct premeditated strikes against individual targets. </p>
<p>The Obama administration has dramatically increased the number of operations against suspected terrorists, especially through drone strikes. The alleged imminence of the threat posed by terrorists still plays a key role in the <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/whence-imminence-drone-memo-puzzle-and-theory">justification</a> used for these operations.</p>
<h2>Where are we now?</h2>
<p>So, while <a href="https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-12333-2008.pdf">Executive Order 12333</a> prohibits any form of assassination, a series of targets has been identified as permissible. Several operations (such as those described above) have been defined as legal, regardless of how close they have come to the commonsense understanding of assassination. What started as a black-and-white distinction soon developed into an endless series of qualifications and exceptions.</p>
<p>In this context, two main interpretations can be identified. If we interpret the order as being a ban on killing outside war, its erosion is almost complete. However, it could be argued that the order only aimed to prevent the type of stealth assassination conducted in the 1960s – operations using explosive shells, poisoned darts and other devices, like those conducted against Castro and Lumumba. In this second interpretation, the order has stood the test of time, but its applicability is so narrow as to be, perhaps, meaningless. </p>
<p>Still, the fact that the Obama administration has been hard pressed to explain why its policies – and even its aggressive drone campaign – do not constitute a violation of the ban might suggest that it prefers to assume the second interpretation over the first.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luca Trenta receives funding from the British Academy. </span></em></p>Attempts to outlaw the practice have proven difficult, thanks to a tendency on the part of leaders to skirt around the rules.Luca Trenta, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/610702016-06-23T10:05:36Z2016-06-23T10:05:36ZTrump’s dog whistle: the white, screwed-over sports icon<p>While <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Sport-Stars-The-Cultural-Politics-of-Sporting-Celebrity/Andrews-Jackson/p/book/9780415221191">athletes and coaches</a> can be overlooked vehicles of political ideology, they often play key symbolic roles in the cultural and political life of any nation. Look no further than Muhammad Ali, whose recent death reminded us how an athlete can also stand up for racial justice and religious freedom.</p>
<p>In this year’s presidential race, one candidate has been especially eager to capitalize on the support of athletes and coaches. On June 11, at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QhomID2IuM">crowed to his supporters</a> that Steelers star quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had his back. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I love Big Ben. Do we love Big Ben? I just spoke with him, what a great guy. And he’s with us 100 percent. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The only problem? Roethlisberger reportedly told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ed Bouchette that <a href="https://sportsnaut.com/2016/06/ben-roethlisberger-will-not-endorse-acquaintance-donald-trump/">he hadn’t endorsed Trump and doesn’t plan on doing so</a>.</p>
<p>This wasn’t the first time Trump name-dropped a famous local sports hero to try to ingratiate himself with an audience. </p>
<p>Along with Roethlisberger, he has humble-bragged about friendships with New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight and the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. He’s appeared at campaign events with Knight, NASCAR CEO Brian France and NASCAR drivers Bill and Chase Elliott. </p>
<p>Reportedly, Trump even wants to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-convention-sports-celebrities.html?_r=0">hold</a> a “winner’s evening” during the Republican convention that will showcase American athletes, because “our country needs to see winners… We don’t see winners anymore. We have a bunch of clowns running this country.”</p>
<p>So what, exactly, is Trump doing? Well, these sports figures all have one thing in common: They’re all white men. </p>
<p>As someone who has examined the racial and gender meanings embedded in media stories about sport stars, I’ve been fascinated by Trump’s repeated use of white male sports icons on the campaign trail – especially in a contemporary American sports landscape where people of color increasingly dominate the playing ranks.</p>
<p>Unlike other politicians’ use of sports stars when campaigning, Trump seems to be taking it a step further, using them as a way to “dog whistle” his support for white, male entitlement.</p>
<h2>Sports as presidential symbols</h2>
<p>For years, presidential candidates have attempted to connect themselves with sports or famous athletes to endear themselves to voters. </p>
<p>For candidates seeking to cultivate mass appeal – especially in an era of media fragmentation – there’s perhaps no better association to make. <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/183689/industry-grows-percentage-sports-fans-steady.aspx">Nearly 60 percent</a> of Americans call themselves sports fans, and almost 112 million <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/media/super-bowl-50-ratings/">tuned in for Super Bowl 50</a>.</p>
<p>In his book <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Leading_Men.html?id=MNcUfuPYeB4C">“Leading Men: Presidential Campaigns and the Politics of Manhood,”</a> masculinity scholar <a href="https://www.jacksonkatz.com/">Jackson Katz</a> has documented how American presidents and presidential candidates have long used sports metaphors – and even invented personal sporting histories – to try to endear themselves to the electorate.</p>
<p>Teddy Roosevelt loved to talk about how he followed boxing and college football, while Ronald Reagan drew his nickname – “The Gipper” – from his performance as Notre Dame football star George Gipp in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne, All American.” John F. Kennedy famously played vigorous games of touch football with family and, of course, Gerald Ford was a standout football player at the University of Michigan. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gerald Ford was a star football player at the University of Michigan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gerald_Ford_on_field_at_Univ_of_Mich,_1933.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More recently, George W. Bush made Little League baseball games on the front lawn of the White House an annual event. Sarah Palin’s playing days as a high school point guard <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0809/13/se.03.html">were highlighted </a> when she was first introduced as John McCain’s vice presidential nominee. </p>
<p>And even though he made <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/weekinreview/06vannatta.html">an embarrassing attempt at bowling</a> to better connect with working-class white voters, President Barack Obama regularly talks about his love of basketball. He’s also made filling out NCAA March Madness basketball brackets on <a href="http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/14984934/president-barack-obama-chooses-kansas-jayhawks-win-tournament">ESPN</a> an annual event. </p>
<h2>On dog whistles</h2>
<p>But when it comes to Trump’s direct appeal to sports fans, there might be something more sinister at play.</p>
<p>Many have wondered whether Trump’s fiery rhetoric and policy proposals are simply <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/11/us/politics/where-trump-breaks-with-the-republican-party.html">a less filtered version of the usual Republican stances</a> or whether they signal a more dangerous <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-fascist-354690">proto-fascist</a>, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/doandl-trump-face-fascism-home-and-abroad#.V168axYzGIQ.facebook">far right</a>, <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/21/the-plague-of-american-authoritarianism/">authoritarian</a> political turn.</p>
<p>But no one has addressed how Trump’s use of white sportsmen operates as an important “dog whistle” during his bid for the presidency.</p>
<p>According to UC-Berkeley law professor Ian Haney-Lopez, a “dog whistle” occurs when one makes a racial appeal to a targeted audience without explicitly mentioning race. </p>
<p>In his book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dog-whistle-politics-9780199964277?cc=us&lang=en&">Dog Whistle Politics</a>,” Haney-Lopez shows how American politicians – most often, Republicans – have used this sort of coded talk since the civil rights movement to appeal to white voters who fear that changes to American society have diminished their social status. Phrases like “<a href="http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/09/the-long-ugly-history-of-law-and-order-candidates/405709/">law and order</a>,” “<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2012/07/top-five-racist-republican-dog-whistles">states’ rights</a>,” “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/23/politics/weflare-queen/">welfare queens</a>” and “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/09/17/romneys-theory-of-the-taker-class-and-why-it-matters/">the makers and the takers</a>” have been regularly used by politicians to stoke white fears without any explicit mention of race. </p>
<p>In Trump’s case, he may be using these white sportsmen as crucial symbols to connect voters with his political message.</p>
<h2>The racial undertones of Trump’s athletes</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-trumpian-coalition/481272">According to data</a> collected by the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, “Trump’s core strength remained his advantage amongst men and non-college-educated whites.” </p>
<p>Trump taps into and cultivates the anger and angst of those white men who feel as though they’ve lost social standing relative to immigrants, LGBT individuals, women and people of color (<a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/topics/race-and-ethnicity/page/2/">despite all evidence to the contrary</a>). </p>
<p>Through his inclusion of white sports legends like Brady, Paterno and Knight in his campaign to “Make America Great Again,” Trump symbolically reveals how white men who are – in his vernacular – <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-tom-brady-suspension-deflategate-2015-9">“total winners”</a> constitute his vision for America’s future. </p>
<p>But these athletes and coaches aren’t just “winners.” They’re also each, in their own way, polarizing figures who have suffered falls. </p>
<p>Talk to fans of Knight, Paterno or <a href="http://thornography.weei.com/sports/boston/2015/07/29/5-arguments-youll-need-to-defend-tom-brady/">Brady</a> and they’ll rant about how their legacies have been tarnished by bureaucrats, ranging from university officials to the NFL’s commissioner’s office. </p>
<p>Listen more closely and you’ll hear, in coded form, a defense of white male entitlement. You’ll hear echoes of Trump’s belief that the country is now run by “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/12/09/donald-trump-says-were-all-too-politically-correct-but-is-that-also-a-way-to-limit-speech/">PC-police</a>” who have withdrawn institutional support for white men.</p>
<p>Recall how <a href="http://www.musicboxfilms.com/happy-valley-movies-115.php">Penn State students swarmed the streets of Happy Valley</a>, overturned cars and demonstrated vociferously when Penn State fired Paterno, despite his complicity in protecting assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/06/jerry_sandusky_verdict_sandusk.html">who had been found guilty of 45 counts of child sexual abuse</a>.</p>
<p>Or Knight’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/sports/ncaabasketball/12hoosiers.html?_r=0">astonishment</a> when he was fired from his job as the basketball coach at Indiana University after decades of documented abusive behavior toward students, players, staff and administrators. (IU students also took to the streets and even issued <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=100606&page=1">threats</a> to Knight’s final accuser, an IU student himself.) </p>
<p>In both cases, Paterno, Knight and their devout supporters seemed unable to comprehend how a white male sporting legend was not entitled to a blank check of protection from an institution – perhaps even society writ large – because they were “winners” who had brought moments of joy to their communities. (Even <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2015/07/28/armour-tom-brady-deflategate-cover-up/30791437/">Brady</a> and <a href="http://steelerswire.usatoday.com/2015/07/07/steelers-ben-roethlisberger-crime-charges-legacy/">Roethlisberger</a> have also had their moments of notoriety.) </p>
<p>And Trump probably realizes that to his crowds, these sports icons evoke a version of white manhood – embattled, unapologetic, and uncompromising – that strongly resonates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle W. Kusz 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>Politicians are often eager to embrace the support of sports stars. But when Donald Trump trots out a very specific type of athlete and coach at his events, who’s he really trying to appeal to?Kyle W. Kusz, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies of Sport/Media, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/364872015-03-05T00:34:09Z2015-03-05T00:34:09ZFamily ties: why political dynasties rule in America’s democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69577/original/image-20150121-29740-vaj150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Could former Florida governor Jeb Bush (right) join his brother George (left) and father in having held America's top office?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Shawn Thew</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In November 2014, George Bush was <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/midterm-election-2014-george-p-wins-texas-election-accomplishes-bush-family-first/">elected</a> Land Commissioner of Texas. This was not the former president, nor his presidential father. Instead, 38-year-old George P. Bush, eldest son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, became the latest member of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_family">his family</a> to enter public office.</p>
<p>At the same time in Massachusetts, <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/02/18/newest-kennedy-congress-charts-different-path-from-hard-charging-father/Fqe1mltWHqZOqdbiN3gB8M/story.html">Joseph Kennedy III</a>, son of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy_II">former congressman</a>, grandson of a former US senator and presidential candidate (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy">Robert F. Kennedy</a>) and the scion of the storied <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_family">Kennedy family</a>, was re-elected to the US House of Representatives. These are but a few examples of the many politicians with significant close family ties who voters elected in 2014.</p>
<p>Could Americans be faced with a choice between former First Lady <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supporters-say-clinton-developing-smarter-more-relevant-campaign-for-2016/2015/01/19/503f910e-9a9b-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html">Hillary Clinton</a> and <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/jeb-bush-is-driving-the-squeeze-for-establishment-2016-support-20150120">Jeb Bush</a> when electing their next president in 2016?</p>
<h2>Why is this important?</h2>
<p>A guiding principle of the US Declaration of Independence was that <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html">“all men are created equal”</a>. This notion is reinforced in the US Constitution, which states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The problem is that this is simply not true.</p>
<p>Political dynasties have played a significant role throughout America’s history. Their ongoing existence and prominence convey a level of inequality in access to political influence that has spanned the country’s history. </p>
<p>Despite successfully revolting against Britain’s ruling monarchy, <a href="http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/Pedro_Dal_Bo/pd.pdf">almost half</a> of the elected representatives to the first US Congress (1789-1991) served alongside a blood relative. Since the US became an independent republic in 1789, almost 400 parent-child duos and more than 190 pairs of siblings have served in Congress. More than 700 families have had two or more members in Congress.</p>
<p>The existence of dynasties in American politics brings into question the legitimacy of the country’s democracy. </p>
<p>Businesses oppose monopolies and cartels because they are considered bad for the economy. Competition is thought to deliver better economic outcomes. Why, then, in the world’s leading capitalist economy and arbiter of democracy do political dynasties exist, particularly when power is enshrined with the people through free elections?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69485/original/image-20150120-24441-1jr4sca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69485/original/image-20150120-24441-1jr4sca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69485/original/image-20150120-24441-1jr4sca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69485/original/image-20150120-24441-1jr4sca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69485/original/image-20150120-24441-1jr4sca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69485/original/image-20150120-24441-1jr4sca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69485/original/image-20150120-24441-1jr4sca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How can the political dynasties be explained if ‘all men are created equal’?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">US Constitution</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The historical context</h2>
<p>America’s Founding Fathers were so determined to prevent the rise of monarchy that they created a system of government whereby voters elect almost every conceivable public office.</p>
<p>Last November, citizens in Georgia voted for 19 different public offices. Including primary elections and run-off elections (where the top-two vote-winners advance when no candidate receives a majority of the vote), Georgian voters had potentially participated in seven separate elections in ten months, from March 2014 to January 2015. </p>
<p>By comparison, voters in Victoria, Australia, cast a ballot for just four public offices (the lower and upper houses) in two separate elections between September 2013 (federal election) and November 2014 (state election).</p>
<p>This highly democratic process results in hundreds of elections each year across America. As a result, it is unreasonable to expect voters to remember who is running for what office in every instance.</p>
<p>At the same time, almost all of the candidates for these offices would have undertaken election campaigns. As a result, voters would have experienced a seemingly unending flow of political advertising. Is it then possible that, in the modern information age, voters might actually be less informed as a result of the constant “noise” of election advertising causing them to tune out?</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69693/original/image-20150121-29846-18zgtxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69693/original/image-20150121-29846-18zgtxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69693/original/image-20150121-29846-18zgtxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69693/original/image-20150121-29846-18zgtxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69693/original/image-20150121-29846-18zgtxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69693/original/image-20150121-29846-18zgtxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69693/original/image-20150121-29846-18zgtxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Kennedy dynasty continues to be represented in Washington by Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy III.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Tannen Maury</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Name recognition is therefore highly desirable in American election campaigns. Voters are often more comfortable with <a href="http://apr.sagepub.com/content/7/4/509.short">what and whom they know</a>. Name (or brand) recognition is common in marketing, because if consumers like and trust one product, then they are more likely to favour another product of the same brand over an unknown or untested brand. Consequently, voters may be more likely to favour a name they recognise once inside the polling booth.</p>
<p>This is not to say that the same families have dominated America’s politics, although my research has thus far identified 167 families with members elected to public office for at least three consecutive generations. Twenty-two families have had at least four consecutive generations elected to public office, while four families – <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_political_families_(D)#The_Doyles_and_Bachhubers">Bachhuber/Doyle</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_political_families_(C)#The_Cockes">Cocke</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_family">Lee</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washburn_family">Washburn</a> – have had at least five generations.</p>
<p>The relative fluidity with which voters appear to favour new families is one interesting aspect of American politics. What remains constant, though, is that while political families are gradually replaced, they are succeeded by new political families. For a long time, American voters were enamoured with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_political_families_(H)#The_Harrisons">Harrison family</a> (Continental Congress to 1969), electing four successive generations, including two presidents. Voters then moved on to the Bush family (1952 to present), also electing four generations, and two presidents.</p>
<p>The existence of political dynasties has important consequences for America’s democratic legitimacy. A small number of families monopolising political power can undermine the quality of democratic representation for citizens. Consider this as we prepare for the impending flood of interest in the 2016 presidential race.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryan Cranston 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>Political dynasties have played a significant role throughout America’s history. Their ongoing existence and prominence convey a level of inequality in access to political influence.Bryan Cranston, Lecturer in Politics, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/279492014-06-13T13:59:43Z2014-06-13T13:59:43ZBush’s folly has left Obama out of options as ISIS surges in Iraq<p>Dorothy Parker famously reacted to the ringing of the telephone with the phrase, “What fresh Hell is this?” Occupants of the White House could be forgiven for having adopted the same practice when it comes to Iraq, to say nothing of its broader neighbourhood. </p>
<p>Since 2003 (and, really, for years before that) Iraq has become, with only the most fleeting exceptions, a source of nothing but the most exquisitely awful sort of news. But even by its own standards, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/isis-sweeps-across-borders-and-takes-grip-of-an-iraq-collapsing-back-into-civil-war-27886">events of the past 72 hours</a> have surely exceeded the expectations of even connoisseurs of tactical disaster.</p>
<p>Events on the ground have been moving faster than anyone – least of all the government in Baghdad – can keep up with. But as of the time of writing, Sunni militants under the banner of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-isis-and-where-did-it-come-from-27944">Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant</a> had taken military control of Mosul, the country’s second city, as well Tikrit and its environs. With the national army sent into disarray and retreat, Kurdish forces have moved to assert their military control over their regional domain, including the long-contested city of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/12/iraq-isis-kirkuk-baghdad-kurdish-government">Kirkuk</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile in the capital, prime minister <a href="https://theconversation.com/iraq-government-in-post-election-gridlock-as-al-maliki-stays-put-27554">Nouri al-Maliki</a>, whose ruthless and authoritarian approach to embedding the dominance of his own Shiite faction in national government has contributed to the renewed uptick in sectarian violence, seeks <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27813239">emergency powers</a> to facilitate a strike back against the militants. Thus far he has struggled to muster a quorum in parliament.</p>
<h2>Is it all Obama’s fault?</h2>
<p>Hanging over all this is the question of the United States’ role. After <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314">somewhere north of $2 trillion dollars</a> spent and thousands of American lives sacrificed (to say nothing of Iraqi ones), can this harvest of ashes really be the sum total of what has been achieved? And wasn’t the worst case scenario of a fractured Iraq torn, wracked by extreme sectarian violence, supposed to have been averted by the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/thegamble/timeline/">surge</a> of American troops in 2007 and the counterinsurgency strategy that went with it?</p>
<p>It has been reported that in the run-up to the fall of Mosul the Iraqi government <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/06/iraq-maliki-appealed-us-air-strikes-20146122452458216.html">requested the support of US air power</a> and was rebuffed. And the fact that no agreement was reached to keep a <a href="http://www.wired.com/2011/11/iraq-war-flip-flop/">rump American military presence</a> in Iraq after 2010 was the result not just of Iraqi reticence but also of minimal American interest in securing such rights. </p>
<p>That, certainly, was the narrative that underwrote the withdrawal of all American troops under President Obama. Does that decision now look like an irresponsible rush for the door on the part of this president? When viewed alongside the current withdrawal from Afghanistan, the “<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/09/05/110905taco_talk_remnick">leading from behind</a>” approach to regime change in Libya, and the minimalist approach to the agonies of the Syrian civil war (itself a major contributor to renewed instability in Iraq), does this add up to a president dogmatically turning his face against military intervention, even when the alternative is a major advance on the part of forces militantly hostile to the United States?</p>
<p>Does Obama’s perceived inward turn, and particularly his aversion to any new or prolonged military entanglement in the Middle East, bear responsibility for what is now unfolding in Iraq? The answer is a qualified yes, but that answer must be placed in the context of the grimness of the options he faces. These options have their origins in the bleak legacy inherited from his predecessor’s disastrous strategic misstep in invading Iraq in 2003.</p>
<h2>Damned if he does …</h2>
<p>Let’s recall the original rationale proffered for regime change in Iraq, by the Bush administration and its supporters (aside from the notorious disappearing weapons of mass destruction). </p>
<p>It was argued that by overthrowing tyranny, and replacing it with a liberal democratic state where Sunni, Shia and Kurd lived side by side in peace and prosperity, the United States would be facilitating the birth of a new a new role model for the Muslim world. They would be draining the swamp of disillusion, economic decline and extreme religiosity that had given rise to radical Islamist militancy. It seems remarkable now that this scenario could have been sincerely proposed by so many serious people.</p>
<p>This best of all possible worlds having proven elusive, Obama faces an appalling set of choices in Iraq. These options are either (a) stand aloof and watch the most virulently hostile anti-American force in the world carve out a swathe of territory in Iraq and Syria to use as a base of operations; or (b) reinsert a level of direct American military force into Iraq which he has not previously contemplated, in order to aid a Baghdad government whose escalating authoritarianism and sectarianism – not to mention its <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/iran-deploys-forces-to-fight-al-qaeda-inspired-militants-in-iraq-iranian-security-sources-1402592470">close Iranian ties</a> – have contributed to the insolubility of the conflict. </p>
<p>Both courses will result in the hardening of anti-American anger among a large number of dangerous people. Neither is assured to work. Staying out may allow circumstances to unfold which later compel intervention against a direct security threat (see Afghanistan, 2001). Supporting Maliki directly even as he declares emergency powers and cracks down will re-establish a pattern of US support for antidemocratic strongmen as a bulwark against ideological enemies which has regularly generated blowback.</p>
<p>It should also be noted that this decision must be made in the context of a domestic political scene in which public appetite for major military intervention overseas is close to zero, and where – helped along by the inordinately expensive Iraq misadventure of the past decade – resource constraints are tighter than ever.</p>
<p>President Obama is <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-d-day-to-today-us-foreign-policy-is-at-a-turning-point-27667">no isolationist</a>, and to suggest that he is when he oversees the edifice of globe-spanning diplomacy, military presence and intelligence that he does tells us more about the imperial-level baseline of assumed for modern US foreign policy than it does about him. </p>
<p>He is, however, a temperamentally cautious and realistic leader, whose core analysis hasn’t wavered much over his time in office. The way Obama sees it, the United States has suffered from a surfeit of counterproductive military interventionism over the past decade, not a dearth of timely force-exertion, the American people have no appetite for more, and he is disposed to give them what they want.</p>
<h2>Original sin</h2>
<p>Critique of Obama’s judgement in choosing between the array of bad options open to him at this time is justified. It is the administration of today that must answer for its decisions in response to the hand it has been dealt. And having had the scale of the threat thrown into stark relief by the events of recent days, he may be in the process of revisiting the assumptions behind his earlier disengagement. </p>
<p>If there is deemed to be a real risk that the Baghdad government cannot fight back effectively against ISIS, a group whose status as a direct enemy of US interests cannot be disputed, then we should expect a grudging recommitment to direct action in Iraq. This president is nothing if not a pragmatist.</p>
<p>But we should not forget that he has been forced to chose between courses of action which all seem likely to end badly, and this is the legacy of the American decision to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003.
That is the original sin of American strategic miscalculation in the 21st century, and it will continue to define the terms of its engagement with the region for the foreseeable future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Quinn receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council</span></em></p>Dorothy Parker famously reacted to the ringing of the telephone with the phrase, “What fresh Hell is this?” Occupants of the White House could be forgiven for having adopted the same practice when it comes…Adam Quinn, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/277032014-06-10T01:31:01Z2014-06-10T01:31:01ZMissteps on climate change could cost Australian diplomacy dearly<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50465/original/cmtthmqd-1402031481.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Abbott government is at risk of sullying its international reputation if it fails to acknowledge the seriousness of climate change as a global issue.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Yuli Seperi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tony Abbott will arrive in the US this week for his first face-to-face meeting with US president Barack Obama in Washington since becoming prime minister. It comes at an important time: Australia is to host the G20 summit at the end of the year. </p>
<p>But given his government’s rocky start to international relations, Abbott’s handling of sensitive diplomatic issues such as climate change could result in the same type of missteps that caused a stir with <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/spying-scandal-australian-flags-burnt-as-protests-heat-up-in-indonesia-20131121-2xx9k.html">Indonesia</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-27/china-rejects-australian-criticism-of-new-air-zone/5120920">China</a>.</p>
<p>Few doubt that Abbott knows how to play domestic politics – although some may be reconsidering this assessment after the budget – but questions remain about his performances on the international stage.</p>
<p>Last October, Abbott succeeded in offending more than just China in one of his first foreign forays. On a trip to Japan, he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgixA3eQ2Dg">declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Japan is Australia’s best friend in Asia. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This comment not only <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/japan-tony-abbott-must-tread-lightly-on-his-northeast-asia-trip-20140407-zqrwr.html#ixzz33kaopPPO">upset</a> China and South Korea, but it was unnecessary. In international relations, at times it is necessary to stand up to friends to defend your country’s values and interests. Here, there was no reason to take sides and start “ranking” Australia’s Asian friends.</p>
<p>A month later, Abbott exacerbated tensions with Indonesia by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/19/tony-abbott-no-apology-explanation-indonesia-spying">failing to offer</a> any explanation following revelations that Australian surveillance <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-18/australia-spied-on-indonesian-president-leaked-documents-reveal/5098860">targeted</a> the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and his inner circle. </p>
<p>Whether an apology was in order is one thing, and intelligence issues always require careful language, but no prompt explanation? No attempt to reach out and reassure Yudhoyono about Australia’s relationship with Indonesia in the immediate aftermath was quite another.</p>
<p>So, after a fractious start with China and Indonesia – two of our most critical relationships – the risk is that the US could be next.</p>
<p>Following Obama’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/02/obama-rules-coal-climate-change">historic announcement</a> last week to cut pollution from power plants, it seems almost certain that climate change will be on the agenda when he meets Abbott. The US is likely to continue to push for its inclusion on the G20 agenda as well.</p>
<p>This is clearly not one of Abbott’s priorities if his domestic agenda is anything to go by. But this is not Australian politics. He can’t simply blame Labor, claim a mandate to remove the carbon price, and move on.</p>
<p>Instead, Abbott must handle the issue differently. He would do well to learn the lessons of the previous US president, George W. Bush, on climate change.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50476/original/dtqrmw98-1402035797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50476/original/dtqrmw98-1402035797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50476/original/dtqrmw98-1402035797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50476/original/dtqrmw98-1402035797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50476/original/dtqrmw98-1402035797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50476/original/dtqrmw98-1402035797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50476/original/dtqrmw98-1402035797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50476/original/dtqrmw98-1402035797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&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 Bush administration never recovered from early missteps on climate policy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Daniel Acker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2001, Bush <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/news/u-s-withdraws-from-kyoto-prot/">walked away</a> from the <a href="http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php">Kyoto Protocol</a>, the global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The announcement sent shockwaves around the world including in Australia. However, perhaps the biggest shock was to the Bush administration itself, which had not anticipated the scale of the reaction.</p>
<p>The problem was not just the announcement but the handling of it. There were no phone calls to European governments to warn them ahead of the announcement, or to Asian leaders – or any others for that matter – who had invested significant political capital in the agreement. Instead, Bush announced his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol in a private letter to <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=45811">four US senators</a>.</p>
<p>As former diplomatic advisors to Bush will tell you, it was a major diplomatic bungle and one they regret. They failed to realise the seriousness with which the rest of the world saw the issue and underestimated the blowback.</p>
<p>The Bush administration’s climate diplomacy never recovered. Bush was still trying to make up ground six years later when he <a href="http://2001-2009.state.gov/g/oes/climate/mem/">established</a> the Major Economies Process on Energy Security and Climate Change as a supplement to the UN negotiations. Bush’s handling of the announcement in his first months in office unnecessarily sullied his administration’s international reputation on climate change.</p>
<p>The Abbott government is at risk of doing the same if it fails to acknowledge the seriousness with which other global leaders treat the issue. This will surely be apparent when Abbott meets a US president who is determined to make climate change a legacy issue of his administration.</p>
<p>If Abbott doesn’t learn from the past, Australia may well have another diplomatic bungle on its hands – one that is completely unnecessary and could take many years to recover from.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27703/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Downie 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>Tony Abbott will arrive in the US this week for his first face-to-face meeting with US president Barack Obama in Washington since becoming prime minister. It comes at an important time: Australia is to…Christian Downie, Vice Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow , UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.