Election 2012 Shows that Listening Is More Important Than Talking

While there are a lot of takeaways from this past election season, one of the biggest lessons that should be learned by all is the importance of listening. In our era of cable news, soundbytes, and Sports Shouting, it sometimes seems that the most important way to communicate is by getting one's message out as much as possible while paying little regards to the messages being spread by others. The two defining moments of the campaign came to highlight how this strategy of privileging talking over listening came back to bite both candidates.

The first I will address is Governor Romney's infamous "47%" remarks made at a fundraiser in May. Published in a blog post by Mother Jones in September, Romney was filmed saying that

There are 47 percent [of Americans] who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it...my job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

While there are troubling implications with Romney's remarks in regards to the role of the president to fulfill the needs of all Americans, what really hurt Romney with these remarks was how he seemed to show no interest nor care for that other 47%. He seemed to say that there was one America, "the 53%," that he had an obligation to and that he wanted to help, and that all the rest were not his responsibility. The fact that this was a damaging remark for his campaign is not surprising.

The other key moment of the campaign was President Obama's performance in the first debate. While all due respect should be given to Governor Romney's performance in the debate, the story of the debate was as much about Obama's shortcomings as it was about Romney's success. Over the previous few months, the Obama campaign had worked hard to paint Romney as an out of touch ultraconservative, an image that worked well in light of Romney's primary campaign. In the first debate, however, Romney came out looking much more like the moderate governor of Massachusetts than the conservative presidential candidate who ran in the primaries. Rather than listening to the change and reacting to it, Obama buried himself in his preparation, famously staring at his notes for a much longer amount of time than he spent engaging with Romney in debate.

While the content of the debate had an impact, it was the body language that was much more damaging to the President's campaign. By keeping eye contact and speaking to the President, Romney showed that he was interested in being engaged in a substantive debate. Obama, on the other hand, did not show Romney that he was being listened to, and it hurt his performance greatly.

In the end, Obama's singular blunder proved to be much less damaging than what voters seemed to take as a character flaw of Romney's. Republicans were shocked to find that minorities came out to support the President even more than in 2008, but it should not be such a surprise when one sees which candidate was able to connect and show the he cares more.

This outcome comes naturally as we see the politics of recognition continue to play an important role in contemporary society. This is a phrase I borrow from Charles Taylor's essay "The Politics of Recognition." In his essay, he says that an important part of political and social life, especially for minorities, is recognition: the ability to feel that one is being listened to and that one matters just like everybody else does. This means that politicians need to be people who not only speak their mind for others to hear, but must also listen, not just for content, but for the sake of listening itself. Obama showed in the election that he could do this much better than Romney could as an ABC News election day exit poll showed Obama with a 10 percentage point lead over Romney when respondents were asked who was more "in touch" with regular Americans.

It looks as if Obama may be taking this lesson into his presidency as he has expressed much interest in working with Romney as they move past their election bickering. If there is anything that can be known about the impending "fiscal cliff" debate, it is that more listening will need to be done on both sides of the aisle than has taken place in Obama's first term.

Gerrymandering Poses a Greater Threat to American Democracy than the Electoral College

This post is a letter to the editor I sent to The Columbus Dispatch tonight. It is in response to the following letter to the editor printed today:

The Electoral College is made up of 538 delegates: one delegate for each member of the House and one delegate for each member of the Senate, plus three delegates from the District of Columbia. However, the delegates in almost all cases vote the winner of the popular vote within the various states, making the vote a winner-take-all situation.

In many cases a state, such as Ohio with its 88 counties, could have the residents in as few as 15 counties determine who gets all the delegates’ votes, because of the density of population in those counties. This leaves the voters in the remaining 73 counties theoretically unrepresented.

Would it not make more sense to have a delegate from each congressional district vote the plurality of that district? Since the senators represent the entire state, their two delegates would vote the state popular vote.

This may not change the final results of an election, but it would ensure that each district’s vote represented that district’s sentiments. It might also delay the TV networks predicting winners with less than 5 percent of a state’s votes having been counted.

JERRY W. LAWSON

Galloway

Below is my response:

In his Wednesday letter to the editor “Electoral College Should Be Revised,” Jerry Lawson advocated a system in which Ohio’s electoral votes would be awarded on the basis of congressional districts rather than at the statewide level. While there is a strong case to make that the Electoral College should be reformed, a Congressional district system could not be undertaken until our state’s unfair redistricting system is reformed.

Our current system awards the drawing of congressional districts to the party who controls a majority of five statewide offices. That party can then draw the districts in the manner that most benefits its own interests in the next election. Demographic technology has become so effective that the last redistricting process guaranteed the outcome of all but two of the 148 Congressional, Ohio Senate, and Ohio house races this election season.

Before going on to champion a Congressional district-based approach to the electoral college, we need to do something about the terrible affront to the democratic process that is our own state’s redistricting system.

ROBERT MOORE

Bexley

Romney's "47% Speech" Misses Point of Government Assistance

Mitt Romney's campaign has been struggling recently, suffering from a subpar convention, internal struggles, and a botched response to the recent tragedy in Libya. But the miscue that is making the most news this week is a video posted by Mother Jones Magazine in which Romney characterizes half the country as welfare-dependent freeloaders who he has no need to "worry about."

While much has been written about the factual inaccuracies in Romney's claims in the video, in particular him claiming that the 47% of Americans who do not pay income taxes (many of whom are paying payroll taxes, in the military, or retired) are the same 47% of Americans who receive some sort of benefit from the government and are the same 47% who are currently supporting President Obama's reelection. Others have talked about the troubling ramifications of Romney's assertion that it is "not my job to worry about these people," implying that 47% of Americans should not be of his concern because he cannot ever hope to get their votes

What has not been covered, however, is Romney's troubling misunderstanding of the purpose of government assistance. Throughout the campaign, Romney has railed against a culture of "dependence," trying to paint the current administration and the Democratic Party as a whole as heartless socialists, trying to create a class of Americans that are dependent on government programs and thus dependent on the Democratic Party for subsistence. This came to a head with the Romney campaign's absurd allegations that the Obama administration was somehow trying to gut the Clinton administration work requirement from the current welfare system.

The problem with Romney's rhetoric about government programs is that he consistently overstates his case. While Romney will often pay lip service to the importance of government intervention to help those who are in dire circumstances, he will just as often make the mistake of characterizing all government assistance as demeaning and frivolous.

Both major parties in the United States today are essentially liberal in their political philosophy. Both the Republican and Democratic party espouse the same central values of liberty and equality put forth by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: that men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The function of the government in the eyes of both parties is to, at its core, secure life and liberty for its citizens. This is why, over the years, the federal, state, and local governments of the United States have worked to ensure their citizens have the means to live healthy, productive lives. A person who is hungry all day, cannot afford the health care they need to survive, or has no home to go back to at night  is not being afforded their basic rights of life and liberty.

So when Romney decries Americans for feeling "entitled to health care, to food, to housing," he misses the point of our American system. While he may have never had to feel the pinch in regards to getting food, receiving health care, or finding housing, these are issues that everyday Americans deal with all the time, especially the elderly, the disabled, and the very poor.

The argument that Romney should be making is that it is better to be self-sufficient than dependent on the government. That we should keep the safety nets that are needed and do away with those that keep people dependent. That to earn means on our own is better than to receive means from others, but paying attention to the fact that no one gets a start without help from someone.

Cathy's Comments Overshadow Chic-Fil-A's Progressive Fundamentals

This past weekend was a firestorm in the culture wars. On Thursday, thousands of conservatives and free speech advocates lined up at Chic-Fil-A locations across the country to show their support for the words of President Dan Cathy in opposition to gay marriage. Friday, homosexual couples across America staged a kiss-in protest in opposition to Cathy's remarks. The statement on a small, Christian radio station by Cathy has blown up into a multiple-week saga that has put fast food at the center of one of the most divisive debates in America today.

In response to this debate, I have two comments to offer.

First, I have heard from many the lamentation that food has to be politicized. From most, I hear the simple statement "I want to be able to eat a chicken sandwich without having to worry about the political statement it makes."

While there is something to be said about our lunchtimes being a time for rest, a time for us to put aside worry of judgment and good decision-making for a treat and a break in the middle of a stressful day, eating is not that simple. Philosophers have been writing about this for a good forty years now, but it is also a fact that is becoming more prevalent in mainstream America as well. With every dollar you spend, you contribute to allowing the world to be a certain way. 

Anyone who has done the smallest amount of research (say, trying to go to a location on Sunday) about Chic-Fil-A would know that the company is one that is based on Christian values. Now there is no evidence to lead us to suggest that the company discriminates in employment, service, or otherwise towards homosexuals, but to be surprised when one learns that the President does not favor marriage equality is a strange mistake. The current outcry against and for Chic-Fil-A is not really because of a change in the company, but rather a hype that has exposed something that was already there. The question is whether people will be willing to consume consciously when the choice doesn't involve a trendy cause like Chic-Fil-A is now.

Second, and more disappointing, is how the Chic-Fil-A controversy has overshadowed an important and underappreciated fact: Chic-Fil-A is a model for fast food in America.

What other company provides benefits for its employees (including one day of the week off for the entire company), top-notch customer service built on compassion and empathy, and a product that beats out all of its fast-food competitors? While Cathy is bravely standing by a position he believes in, he is painting Chic-Fil-A as a heartless, backwards company when really it has one of the most progressive organizational cultures of any company in the country.

In a way, Chic-Fil-A is a victim of its own success. The company is built off a Christian message of compassion and community. It could never have built the incredible organizational culture it has without this underlying philosophy. When talking about human rights, Charles Taylor argues that it is not terribly important why different countries believe in human rights as long as they come to the same conclusion. One may not want to adopt the pretenses of Christianity but may still praise Chic-Fil-A for eschewing the profit motive for something greater: treating its employees and customers with dignity and providing them a superior product and dining experience.

But from this philosophy, Cathy has also felt that he had to come forth against marriage equality. And thus Chic-Fil-A, a progressive company in the most literal sense of the word, has become tainted as the lunchtime snack of the reactionary right.

Aurora Tragedy Once Again Exposes America's Love Affair With Guns

Last night's horrible tragedy in Aurora was perpetrated by a lone gunman with an unidentified motive. While more information will undoubtedly lead to more of an understanding of what led this man to do what he did, there is one thing that we do know at this point: if he did not have access to these weapons, this tragedy would not have happened.

Advocates of gun ownership have many strong points in the ongoing national discussion of the place of guns in our culture. In America's early days, gun ownership was near a necessity. Without a national army, local militias would band together to make up the army when war or other conflicts broke out. Thus, the bill of rights guarantees the people that "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Today, population density and the increased prevalence of the handgun has changed the dynamics of the country. Weapons are used less for hunting and self-defense than they are used for gang violence and crime. The conditions of our country have changed, but our laws have not changed with them.

The question before us is whether our gun policy in America does more harm than good. In rural areas, it makes sense to allow for rifle ownership. Allowing controlled hunting helps stem the tide of problems such as deer overpopulation in these areas, and rifles are not generally used for killing sprees or gang warfare in rural areas.

But when we look at the situation in America overall, there is little reason to say that citizens need handguns, shotguns, or automatic assault rifles. The question is this: can the government sufficiently enforce such a law without overstepping the bounds of liberty? This is an empirical question that needs research to bear out. In the United Kingdom, they have been able to do it, but the United States is admittedly a very different country demographically than the UK.

Past the empirical point, if we were able to establish that legislation with proper enforcement could lead to decreased gun-related murders, the question would be this: are we willing to curb the liberty of owning a gun so that people can have the liberty of life? In order to answer this question, it is useful to refer to philosopher John Rawls' distinction between liberty and the value of liberty as put forth in his book Political Liberalism.

A liberty is described as an ability to actually do something. The value of that liberty is how our situation allows us to take advantage of that liberty to live fulfilling lives. The mistake that many gun-rights advocates make is that they see liberty in black/white, yes/no terms. This is characterized by understanding the concept of liberty without understanding the concept of value of liberty. While allowing broad gun ownership almost undoubtedly contributes to the case of liberty in the strict sense, it creates a great threat to value of other core liberties.

And which liberties are threatened by gun ownership? In Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech in his 1941 address to congress, Roosevelt lays out four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Defenders of guns find themselves enamored by the shiny seduction of the firearm, and we all feel it. But when Americans live in a country where they fear late night walks because of the threat of a weapon, when a young family in Denver needs to think twice about take their child to the theatre because of what happened a couple of weeks ago in a theatre downtown, that is when we have taken our obsession with want a little too far. Gun owners cling to guns as a protection, but our only way to become free from fear is to give up our want, and the only way for them to become free from their want is to give up their fear.

Geographic Representation Can Hinder Functional Democracy

Yesterday's Columbus Dispatch editorial "Fitting Failure" was a sigh of relief at the inability of the Coalition for Responsive Government to collect enough signatures to put an issue on the ballot that would return the Columbus City Council to a ward system for the first time in one hundred years. The Dispatch credited the city council's at-large election system as one of the reasons that Columbus has thrived while other midwest cities have faltered.

The argument is that a ward system, which requires representatives to be elected from districts within a city in the same way that states elect congressmen from districts within the state, creates a system where councilmen are more interested in advancing the interests of their ward than advancing the interests of the city as a whole. The Dispatch argues that Columbus has been successful compared to other midwestern cities and at the same time has more buy-in and confidence from its citizens, as evidenced by the willingness of voters to approve a 0.5% city income tax increase in 2009.

The discussion warrants a comparison to the US legislative system. Both of the federal government's two houses are elected on a "district" system: The US Senate elects by state and the House of Representatives by districts within states.

Congress is notorious for its low approval rating amongst Americans. Current data places that approval rating at about 17.5%. On the other hand, it is difficult to find any of the 535 senators or house members who have an approval rating so low. One explanation for this is that each member has reason to cater to and promote his or her own state or district, but has little electoral incentive to advocate for the good of the country as a whole.

Contrast this with the European system of parliamentary voting. While there are many variations of the system, the basics come down to voting for a party rather than a person. In this system, the entire country will cast votes for parties, then each party will get a portion of the legislature's seats equal to the proportion of the total votes they received. Theoretically, these legislatures would then be more interested in advancing the country as a whole. This would mean that their approval ratings amongst their citizens would be higher than that of a federal system such as that of the United States.

This seems to bear itself out in the polls, at least in one example. A 2011 story about the British parliament measured its popularity spread (% approve minus % disapprove) at just over -30. This is not good by any means, but looks like a pittance compared to congress's current spread of -58.

Part of the reason the US system is built in such a manner is because it was conceived in an era of strong states' rights. Since the founding, the power of states has deteriorated greatly, but the system built on their prevalence persists.

The advantage of the ward/district system is that it allows for every geographic area to have an advocate. While an at-large/European system might be more willing to sacrifice a certain geographic area's good for the good of the whole, this becomes harder in the ward/district system. And in some cases, the good of a geographic minority should trump the greater good. The tyranny of the majority raised its ugly head when the state of Ohio voted to place a casino in Franklin County against the will of the residents of the county. 

While an at-large/European system is advantageous to advancing a more holistic good, it does sometimes make the mistake of overlooking the needs of geographic minorities.

Libertarian Mayor of London Boris Johnson: "There is a Limit to Laissez-Faire"

In a recent Slate interview with London Mayor Boris Johnson, Johnson talks about his opinion as to how a community based on well-being and liberty of its citizens requires an active government to be successful. In particular, he comments on the need for government to provide "leadership" in respect to public cleanliness, public transportation, and even diet and exercise amongst the people.

While his comments may seem a bit extreme, they come in context of a recent New York City ban on large-size cups for soda pop. The role of government in these sorts of decisions is also a relevant issue at the federal level as conservative opposition to the Affordable Health Care Act has used the example of compulsory broccoli purchases as the logical outcome of the Supreme Court's recent ruling in favor of President Obama's signature legislative achievement.

Two things come forth from these discussions: an acknowledgement of truth and an acknowledgement of limits. Mayor Johnson puts it very well when he talks about the importance of cities having the feel of villages. While the city brings people close enough together to be advantageous on an economic level, human beings still have millions of years of evolving and adapting to the small-group setting of a hunter-gatherer tribe. While the endless opportunities of the city should, from an economic standpoint, give individuals the free reign to make choices that will make them happy, the similarities we share due to our human nature point towards cities needing be have certain characteristics. These could include cleanliness, easy transportation, and strong neighborhoods that allow for multiple interactions amongst people.

Nonetheless, the limitations of the government intervention model should be heeded. If we are to follow an account of human flourishing that derives partly from our evolutionary history, the modern nation-state does not fit well into that system. Aristotle's polis, or city-state, seems to be a much closer fit to what we are searching for. But this would suggest that a leader such as Johnson, who would be in favor of government "leadership" at the city level, may be more wary of it at the national level. This fits well with an American federal notion of democracy: at the local level, the people have more of an opportunity to use their government for good. As we abstract government to higher and higher levels, the ability of people to use their government becomes less and less possible. Thus, we should always keep in mind that government intervention has to be backed by a strong democracy in order to be effective.