Fractured

"The Opinions" from the New York Times is one of the podcasts in my regular rotation. A recent episode is part of a continuation of Robert Siegel's Friday politics wrap-ups that formerly ran on National Public Radio. David Brooks has retired from the New York Times, so there's been something of a rotating cast presenting the Conservative position in the discussions. This week, the chair was filled by Timothy Carney of The Washington Examiner and American Enterprise Institute.

While Messrs. Carney and Dionne were discussing how the Democrats could appeal to more conservative/Evangelical Christian voters, Mr. Carney made the following comment, which I quote here, at length, because I want to capture all of the context.

And that Religious Right is just harder for the Democrats to reach when you've got the national party -- I mean the Biden Administration, and Biden wasn't some crazy Culture Warrior, they changed documents to say "chestfeeding" and "birthing people" instead of "breastfeeding" and "mom." That cultural extremism, that's going to turn off people who, you know, are just regular churchgoing people in the Middle America, who might not even be 100% pro-life. They might not even care so much about the cultural issues. They just want somebody who seems sort of normal. And I think that is, part of Iowa, and if Democrats want to win that place back, you know, they're going to run candidates in those places who are more moderate.

Can those people distance themselves from the national leadership, or can the national leadership and the Democratic Party dial down the culture warring?

Mr. Carney's contention that use of terms deigned to appeal to the transgender community and other parts of the Democratic constituency that wants to push back against (or even completely overturn) conventional gender norms is "cultural extremism" and "culture warring" struck me as interesting. Changing some government documents is going to an extreme, and prosecuting the Culture Wars against Christians in the United States? That's all it takes? After all, there's no change in law in the example that Mr. Carney notes. Nothing new is being enacted on a policy level with the change in terminology. It's just the adoption of Progressive ideas of inclusive language. While I understand that (and why) this may be a big deal to some people, if that's what counts as extremism, I wonder what "more moderate" will need to look like in practice.

As an aside, I found it interesting that Mr. Carney spoke of inclusive language as "going to turn off people who [...] might not even be 100% pro-life." Inclusive language and abortion rights are not the same, even if both positions are associated with Progressives. Which brings me to my next point...

As the conversation continued, E. J. Dionne made the following comment, which I think is more important that in was credited for:

[T]he alienation between these two constituencies, is kind of a push-pull thing, because for an awful lot of liberals, including some religious liberals, the dominance of a hard Religious Right on the Conservative religious side has really turned off a lot of people.

One of the things that I have understood to be true about the United States for a long time now, and I don't believe will change anytime soon, is that the American public is not unified. Further, many of its factions have mutually hostile relationships to other factions. And I think that this is because many people see themselves as the primary characters in other people's stories.

I've told this story several times before, so I'm going to keep it short. In my time at a HBC/U, other students didn't see the fact that I spoke like a White kid from the suburbs as being the result of growing up in a suburb that was approximately 90% White. They saw it as an intentional repudiation of themselves; I had made a deliberate choice to not be like them, as a way of placing myself above them.

For many conservative/Evangelical Christians, people don't reject conventional gender labels and roles because those labels and roles don't work for them. They do it out of a desire to oppose conservative/Evangelical Christians and Christianity more broadly. And the same with abortion. This is why Mr. Carney conflates the two issues. There are many Conservatives who understand the entire Progressive (or more broadly Liberal) project as a hateful plot against their just deserts, rather than something with a rationale, and goals, of its own.

And this is a problem for the Democrats, because their coalition is made up of a number of smaller interest groups, which may or may not have much in common with one another, but (in certain races) can damage the prospects of the whole by staying home on any given Election Day. The LGBTQ-et cetera cluster of Democratic voters wants to be shown that they matter and are important. And there are Democratic politicians, candidates and party operatives who want to make that show for them, as a means of delivering something to a voting block that they can't afford to ignore. But the alienation (or, if you'd rather, hostility) between them and the "just regular churchgoing people in the Middle America," means that any overtures to the one are going to be seen as an attack on the other. But each side feels that it has a right to such overtures, and sees the resentment of the other side as unjustified.

This places Democrats in a difficult position, because it's then difficult to mobilize parts of their coalition to turn out for them without also giving Republicans ammunition to drive hostile factions to turn out against them. Because there's no such thing as distancing oneself from the Culture Wars, "Woke 1.0," or some or another flavor of "extremism." There's simply distancing oneself from people, and their interests. Mr. Carney suggests, without coming out an saying it, that Democrats should exile the transgender community to the political wilderness, in hopes that they'll pick up enough "regular churchgoing people" in places like Iowa to make up the shortfall. And in so doing, he legitimizes the alienation between those two groups, when that's part of the problem the nation needs to solve.

There Are Only Us

While the world outside has seen reams of coverage of the war – and seems to have largely forgotten that it started with Hamas’ massacre of some 1,200 people – Israel’s media has mostly averted its eyes from the suffering in Gaza.
‘NAZA’: the film causing outrage in Israel

"The world outside" of Israel is billions of people, not just the Jewish state's vocal critics in the industrialized west. And presuming that "I think, therefore I am" is accurate, I am one of those people. And I have not at all forgotten the events of October 7th, 2023. But I, like many people, don't believe that the Hamas attack on Israel justifies any given action that the government of Israel might take in response to it. One can recall the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians while not concluding that Israel has followed international humanitarian rules with regard to the treatment of Palestinian civilians.

Because Hamas is not a formal military force with uniforms, bases and dedicated military infrastructure, it's undeniably difficult to understand, just by looking at a person, whether or not they are a member of the group, someone who provides material support to the group or is an outspoken critic of the group. But that doesn't mean it's reasonable to prosecute a war with an attitude of "kill them all, God will know his own." And that's really what the Israeli government and military has been accused of. And it seems that there's some sensitivity around that; if the Israeli government felt that the general public in Israel would support putting the screws to Gazans, whether or not they were Hamas members, Israel's media would have "averted its eyes." They'd be celebrating actions as victories.

Despite what the Netanyahu administration might believe, it has no right to the support of people outside of Israel. If it wants such support, it must request it. And requests are granted on the benefactor's terms. If "the world outside" wants more measured action in dealing with the people of Gaza, the world is within its rights to condition support for Israel on that. Countering with a charge that Hamas' 2023 attack has been somehow forgotten is disingenuous. Israelis are allowed to see themselves as being unambiguously the Good Guys in their conflict with Hamas. But that's different than being entitled to everyone else, or even all of their fellow Israelis, having an obligation to concur with that self-assessment.

Breezy, With a Chance of Blackouts

It being late September here in the Seattle area, the Rainy Season has started up again. So from now until about next July, the skies will be gray off and on, and every so often, a relatively small amount of water will fall from the sky. (And by small, I mean between one-tenth and one-quarter of an inch over the course of a day. Seattle may be famously rainy, but a tropical storm or a hurricane drops more water over several hours to a day than we commonly see up here in a year.)

Sometimes, there's a little bit of wind, to go with all of that rain. And that's when things become hairy. Today, for instance, the winds were forecast to be southerly, at about 10 miles per hour or so, with gusts peaking at a little more than twice that.

The winds struck me as calm today. I went out to the grocery store, and while I was gone, a squall or two brought down some branches and a bunch of leaves, but nothing particularly strong was in evidence.

But, as I type this, some fifty thousand people in the greater Puget Sound area are without power, mostly just south of the state capitol, Olympia, which is some ways south of here. On a day that was admittedly wet, but barely windy enough to really be noticeable.

And that seems par for the course around here. Power outages seem to be a regular occurrence whenever the weather is the slightest bit ornery. Are the winds strong enough to actually fly a kite? Have the kite surfers called in from work to rush down to the shores of the Sound? Then you can pretty much bet that the power is out somewhere.

A lot has been made of the fact that China, and likely other state actors, have been putting in a lot of work to infiltrate utility networks across the United States, to cut off the power or wreck energy supplies in the case of a war. Here, they don't need to put in the effort, just looking at a power line funny seem to be all it takes. Part of the problem is, I suspect, that I don't live in Seattle proper, which appears to have much more durable infrastructure (and a different power company) than the suburbs. Still, this is a major metropolitan area, and electricity isn't a new technology.

This lack of reliability in the power grid is the source of a certain amount of friction, as state and local governments work to wean the area from fossil fuels, through regulations such as not allowing natural gas to be used in newly-constructed homes for heating and cooking. Which is fine, but if the power goes down somewhere every time Mother Nature so much as twitches, an exclusive reliance on electricity leaves people in the cold and dark, rather than just the dark. And this drives opposition to climate initiatives.

I have no idea how power companies are run, so maybe PSE is doing their best, and this is just a difficult place to keep the lights on. But it seems to me that other places have solved this.

Sign Off

The sign reads: "If you were to die tonight, are you sure you're going to heaven? Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved - you and your household. Acts 16:31."

At first, I thought that the woman on the far corner was a panhandler. It's somewhat common for them to put a fair amount of detail into their signs, explaining their plight. Or, perhaps, a protester... this particular corner in the next suburb over seems to be a somewhat popular one for people with axes to grind against something or another.

As it turned out, she was something of a missionary, holding up her neatly-lettered white sign with a message of salvation on it. Despite the fact that western Washington has a reputation for being a secular place, there are a fair number of churches out this way, including a local megachurch on the other side of town that seems to change its name (and controlling pastor) every couple of years or so. So, I find it somewhat surprising when people are out stumping for Christianity in general, rather than seeking attendees for their church in particular.

But the other thing that I found interesting about this is something that I hadn't really thought about previously. The bottom of the woman's sign references a particular passage from the Bible that it (partially) quotes: "Acts 16:31." For someone who was unfamiliar with Christianity, that citation wouldn't mean anything. Although I suppose the Internet would help with that, it still strikes me that this is the sort of thing that's aimed more at lapsed Christians (who would be more likely to understand the notation) than non-Christians.

In any event, by the time I made it to the store and back, she was gone, as is common. I wonder if she prompted anyone to change. Or, other than myself, to even take specific notice of her. 

Telephone

Social media isn't much difference from any other source of information, except for the fact that pretty much anyone can provide that information, regardless of their qualifications, or the source of their information.

Take this snippet about travel writer Rick Steves helping a local foundation that runs a hygiene center for homeless people a bit north of here, in Lynnwood, Washington:

While the broad strokes of the story are roughly correct, the only details that are accurate are the fact that Mr. Steves spent $2.25 million and that it was the best $2.25 million he could imagine spending.

• The hygiene center was not in Seattle. It is, as I noted above, in Lynnwood, which is one of the northern suburbs. Seattle has a number of hygiene centers of its own.
• Mr. Steves did not purchase the center. He purchased the property that housed it, which it had been allowed to use rent-free until the previous owner sold it. The center was, and still is, run by a local foundation, and can still operate rent-free.
• Renovations and expansion were paid for by further donations from the community, and it was already serving about 700 people.

Still an inspiring story? Sure. But that's kind of the point... an accurate telling of the story is just as inspiring. It's still a good thing done for the community.

In any event, the purpose of this blog post isn't to complain that someone screwed up the details of what is, for me, a local story. It's to note how quickly it happened. The events recounted here are less than a year old at this point.

I doubt that the narrative was changed due to any sort of deliberate intention to misinform people about what happened. I'm sure that part of it came from squeezing the whole things down to just 35 words. But it's interesting to see how a story can change in this way, and how quickly the social media machine will make changes to things. Interestingly, the post where I saw this picture had the story correct, so I'm not sure why the author went with a picture with such clear errors.

But maybe that's how this happens... people don't really read through things like this, even when they are presenting them to other people.