Mediaboss Marketing

BRIT HAPPENS: Rep. McKenzie blew lots of hot air, but his resolution tuckered out like a silent fart.

The legislative special session, which finished up business yesterday, primarily focused on yet another round of tax cuts, along with wrapping up the Game and Fish Commission budget kerfuffle. But legislators love to grandstand, so we also got a couple of meaningless House resolutions attacking a pair of popular ballot initiatives.

The resolutions encouraged voters not to back the measures. One would reverse the states abortion ban. The other would require private schools receiving public funding to be held to the same standards as public schools, and would also require the state provide additional education services.

It was a strange gambit do legislators really think people want to be told how to vote by a bunch of politicians soaking up per diem cash at the Capitol?

If anything, it seemed wildly counterproductive as a political strategy. In the House committee meeting on Tuesday, citizens lined up to defend the ballot measures, and Democratic lawmakers got a chance to do the same on the House floor on Wednesday. It amounted to free publicity for the two campaigns just as theyre in the homestretch of their efforts to collect signatures. To make the ballot this November, 90,704 registered Arkansas voters must sign each respective petition by July 5.

Rep. Deborah Ferguson (D-West Memphis) made this very point on the House floor, noting that she was pleased the measure to expand abortion rights was getting some extra airtime: Im glad the resolution was brought, because I want the public to be aware that canvassers are gathering signatures now to pass the amendment.

The resolution absolutely fired up our volunteers, who were outraged that the Legislature would try to interfere in their constitutionally protected right to engage in direct democracy, said Rebecca Bobrow, director of strategy for Arkansans for Limited Government, the group backing the abortion rights amendment. Our volunteers were also thrilled to see that the Legislature seems to be very nervous that were going to qualify for the ballot hard not to notice they framed the resolution as a directive to vote no rather than a directive not to sign. Were hopeful that the conversation around these silly resolutions inspires more people to come out and sign the petition during our super signing events across the state this weekend.

The anti-abortion resolution passed easily in the House on Wednesday, but surprisingly, the amendment attacking the education ballot initiative was pulled and never voted on.

Rumors were swirling about why this might be, so I called Rep. Brit McKenzie (R-Rogers), the resolutions sponsor, that afternoon. He told me he wanted to gather his thoughts and was on the road, and that hed get back to me with a written statement by email.

That sounded good to me! But he never emailed. Perhaps thats just as well, as the quotes that he offered other outlets were such incoherent gobbledygook that I could only stare at them in wonder.

Heres how the D-G struggled through making sense of what McKenzie said:

McKenzie said his goal was to spark a public debate about the amendment, but he withdrew the resolution to avoid drawing attention away from the group leading the campaign against the amendment.

I dont want to distract from that with, you know, media headlines that either have a bias or dont, McKenzie said. I think its important for those leaders in the grassroots and those leaders in the policy spaces to command every little bit of attention they can between now and the end of the ballot (petition) cycle.

So. He wanted to draw attention but didnt want to draw attention to it? Or something?

I dont think Im fluent in whatever language McKenzie is speaking, but my interpretation here is that he belatedly realized the obvious issue that his resolution had backfired. I think thats the simplest theory. Other ideas floating around the Capitol:Perhaps there were some Republicans squishy on LEARNS who did not want to go on record opposing the amendment; maybe Attorney General Tim Griffin didnt love that the resolution said the ballot title was misleading given the fact that hed certified it as being sufficiently clear; maybe there was some legal issue with the inevitable lawsuits. But thats all just speculation.

Asked by the Arkansas Advocate, House Speaker Matthew Sheppard said, I dont think that should be interpreted as a weakness in the majority of the Houses support for the LEARNS Act. I think its just a combination of factors.

At least Sheppard elected to respond with nothing as opposed to incoherent nonsense.

We were happy to have the opportunity to tell the straight truth about what the Educational Rights Amendment does and why its so important, and the resolution gave the media another opportunity to tell that story, saidBill Kopsky, treasurer for the For AR Kids ballot committee, the group backing the amendment.

The facts are that the AR Educational Rights Amendment is a simple proposal that requires any school receiving public financing to follow the same standards and to create an opportunity for every Arkansas student to have access to the most powerful education tools we know about, Kopsky said. Access to quality special education, early childhood education, afterschool and summer programs and support for kids in poverty to achieve an adequate education should be rights for all Arkansas students.

Kopsky said his group was glad that McKenzie withdrew his amendment. There were several assertions in the resolution that were demonstrably false, he said. We think Arkansas voters are smart enough to know how they want to vote without politicians telling them.The claim that he filed the resolution to create public debate is laughable weve offered to debate the opposition to the Arkansas Educational Rights Amendment numerous times since the campaign started and theyve refused. Weve also held dozens of town halls to answer questions from voters and they have not appeared at a single one to ask a question.

As for the anti-abortion resolution that actually passed, Bobrow said it revealed the Legislatures callous attitude toward both reproductive rights and direct democracy. The extremists in the Arkansas Legislature, once again, have proved that they are uncaring, untruthful, and undemocratic, she said. The resolution is a clear attempt by lawmakers to weaponize private, intimate healthcare decisions that should be left between patients and their doctors. It misleads the public about the contents of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment and interferes in Arkansass constitutionally protected democratic process. The sponsors of this resolution know that the Arkansas Abortion Amendment will pass. They have decided that lying to the public is their best chance at stopping it. Reasonable Arkansans can see through this politicking.

Read the original post:
Ham-fisted House resolutions attacking direct democracy efforts may have backfired - Arkansas Times

Axios published a scoop Wednesday about the misgivings a certain presidential candidates advisers are having about his strategy. Even for those close to the center of power, the story alleged, there is a hesitance to raise skepticism or doubt about the current path, for fear of being viewed as disloyal.

I know what youre thinking, reading that. But youre wrong.

The candidate in question isnt the man whose party now operates as a cult in which personal loyalty to him is the supreme virtue. The candidate described by Axios is Joe Biden, whose inner circle remains intent on making Jan. 6, political violence, democracy and Donald Trumps character central themes of their campaign.

The main advocate for that approach internally is Biden crony Mike Donilon. Turning the election into a referendum on the soul of the nation worked in 2020, Donilon has reportedly reasoned, so why wouldnt it work again? Elsewhere hes compared the relevance of January 6 in this campaign to the importance of 9/11 in the 2004 campaign, believing that Democrats lost that year because they failed to grasp what the race was about. Hes determined not to make the same mistake again.

Per Axios, Donilon is apparently also prone to saying that Joe Biden is a great president, and great presidents get reelected, an opinion not shared by the vast majority of American voters. No wonder his colleagues on Team Joe worry that he doesnt have his finger on the pulse of the electorate.

Were now almost three weeks removed from Donald Trumps criminal conviction in Manhattan, plenty of time for the public to process the verdict and to have it influence their presidential vote. According to the national polling, it hasnt: Trump has gone from leading by 0.9 points on May 30, the day he was found guilty, to leading by 0.8 points now. In the battleground states that will decide the election, hes actually gained two-tenths of a point on Biden over that same stretch in the RealClearPolitics average.

If the sudden prospect of electing the first president who is a convicted felon hasnt put Americans off Trump, why would Joe Biden, Mike Donilon, or anyone else think that reminding them of his coup plot and the insurrection it led to will do so?

On the other hand, how can one run against Donald Trump and not make his authoritarian ambitions the centerpiece of the campaign? Hes not shy about expressing those ambitions; should he win in November, the next four years will in fact be defined by his attempts to subvert the constitutional order. The rights hostility to Western liberalism is the elephant in the room of this election. How can the president resist making a spectacle of it?

I think his and Donilons strategy of making the race about democracy is simultaneously weak and quite possibly the strongest one available to them.

If you dont think protecting democracy should be Team Bidens central argument, what should it be?

Certainly, well hear from the White House before November about Americas stupendous job growth since 2021 and the stimulus supplied by Biden initiatives like the infrastructure bill. And if the campaign is smart, itll deploy sympathetic economists like Larry Summers to explain why Trumps protectionist agenda is a prescription for the mother of all stagflations.

But the reason Summers opinion carries special weight is because he predicted three years ago that Democrats passing another round of COVID relief would result in inflationand was roundly ignored by his party. Thats Bidens economic problem in a nutshell: Why should any voter trust him more than Trump when the cost of living soared under his administration but did not under Trumps?

By wide margins, poll after poll shows that Americans trust the Republican to handle the economy more than they do the incumbent. Inflation has darkened public perceptions of the economys health so starkly that the White House ended up quietly dropping the term Bidenomics last year, fearing that it would become a byword for soaring prices rather than for rising employment and GDP.

Im skeptical that Democrats can talk voters into greater economic optimism in the next four months after dismally failing to do so over the past three years. Perhaps they could if Bidens opponent were unknown and untested, but Trump is a former president with an economic record of his own. Good luck getting voters to believe his program will be more inflationary than Bidens when theyve already lived through both and seen otherwise.

Economic comparisons arent going to win Biden the election, so what should he focus on instead?

Immigration policy? Please. The less said about that, the better.

Ukraine? Hes been solid on the war, but Americans dont let foreign policy dictate their votes unless U.S. troops are in the field.

Abortion? Democrats will get some mileage out of the backlash to Roes demise on Election Day but I doubt that the issue is potent enough to drive presidential preferences, especially with Trump straining to moderate on it. Pro-choice Republicans may have little difficulty reconciling support for abortion rights on their state ballot initiatives with support for a second Trump presidency.

If none of those issues can provide Biden with a trump card (no pun intended) in the election, whats left except trying to make it a referendum on democracy and January 6?

Remember, this race will be decided by the vast number of double haters who hold unfavorable opinions of both candidates. Among the presidents own supporters, more than half say theyre voting for him mainly to oppose Trump; just 27 percent say theyre voting for him because they like him. The winner in November will have prevailed not by persuading Americans to like him more than the other guy but by persuading them to hate him a little bit less.

The Donilon strategy recognizes that. Sure, Joe Biden gave us inflation, a border crisis, and an era of high international tensions, it concedesbut he didnt plot a coup, or rile up a mob to attack Congress, or commit any crimes, or make retribution a higher priority for his second term than serving the American people.

The least unfit candidate will win. January 6 is Democrats strongest argument that Grandpa Joe, for all his flaws, remains less unfit than Trump.

Theres another case for the Donilon strategy. Namely, its worked before. And I dont just mean in 2020.

Five days before the 2022 midterms Biden delivered a speech warning Americans that, with so many Trump-backed post-liberal populist Republicans running for major offices, democracy is on the ballot. He called on voters to ask themselves this question when considering a candidate: Will that person accept the legitimate will of the American people and the people voting in his district or her district? Will that person accept the outcome of the election, win or lose?

Some pundits called the address head-scratching in light of polling that showed the economy, not democracy, dominating when voters were asked what the most important issue in the election was. Yet five days later Republicans ended up underperforming badly in a midterm in which the out-party typically cleans up. One Trump-endorsed MAGA acolyte after another fell short in key races, holding the GOP to modest gains in the House and helping Democrats gain a seat in the Senate.

The polling shows that democracy ended up a top issue of concern for voters in 2022, Biden advisers reminded Axios this week. For swing voters, fear of what a Trumpy Congress might do to undermine American elections may have been decisive.

Go figure, then, that Donilon might see merit in revisiting the subject now that the coup-plotter-in-chief himself is on the ballot. In fact, protecting democracy appears to carry special weight with the huge bloc of senior citizens whom Democrats are courting this year, with more than a third in one recent poll listing it as the most urgent issue facing the country. Seniors are famous for turning out at a high rate in elections; if Biden convinces them that this race is a choice between American politics as they remember it and American politics as Trump would like it to be, they just might drag the president over the finish line.

Really, you cant go wrong attacking Trump for being unfit for office. Across eight years and three presidential cycles, never once has he reached as high as 48 percent in the head-to-head polling average at RealClearPoliticsand thats despite having had the advantage of running against two freakishly unpopular Democrats in Hillary Clinton and 2024 Joe Biden. A durable majority of Americans refuses to support a figure as loathsome as Trump even when his opponents are objectively terrible.

So January 6 really might be the strongest hand the president has to play. Which is different from saying that its a strong hand.

Even if we agree that Democratic chatter about the soul of the nation was a key ingredient in their victories in 2020 and 2022, theres reason to fear itll matter less this year.

The 2020 comparison is frankly inapt because Biden had no presidential record to speak of at the time. The choice before voters was between a safe, familiar generic Democrat and a madman who had failed to contain a pandemic. Since then, that generic Democrat has saddled them with inflation not seen since the early 1980s and migrant crossings at the border not seen since ever. Hes four years older too, and appears confused at times in his public appearances at an unnervingly regular rate.

Intangibles like the soul of the nation are good arguments for ousting an already unpopular president, as Trump was four years ago. Theyre not as stirring as reasons to keep an unpopular president, especially when that presidents term has generated real kitchen-table pain.

The 2022 comparison is also troubled. Typically, if a president is unpopular, his party will lose big in midterm elections. That happened in 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018but not in 2022 for Biden, and Democrats have argued over why ever since. Maybe the democracy talk really did save them. Or maybe, as the White House prefers to believe, the public likes the president more than his job approval numbers would indicate.

My theory is different. I think Bidens age and infirmity have, ironically, insulated Democrats down ballot from his unpopularity to an unusual degree because many voters view the country as functionally leaderless right now. When the White House fails on policy, its easy for voters to assume that its due to Biden being elderly and incompetent, no longer fully in control of events. When they do that, theyre not blaming his ideology; the problem as they see it is specific to him, and so younger Democrats dont share the usual blame for his failures.

That may explain how weve ended up with Biden reliably trailing in presidential polling while Democratic candidates reliably lead in key Senate races.

But it also poses a problem for the White House. If Im right that voters arent holding Bidens failures against other members of his party, hand-wringing about the soul of the nation might be enough to rescue Democrats in a midterm. When Biden himself is on the ballot, though, and the full weight of his apparent infirmity is pressing on voters, it might plausibly not be enough.

I wonder, frankly, if returning yet again to the well of protecting democracy will be treated by weary Americans as evidence that a very old president has run out of ideas and lacks any affirmative argument for his own reelection. Hes had two years to fix inflation and hasnt; hes had three years to do something about the border and hasnt. All he can think to do to convince them to prefer him to Trump, it might seem, is to jump up and down and shout January 6!

To me, thats more than enough reason never to trust Trump with power again. But to those who havent yet been moved by it despite having heard about it every day since January 7, 2021, it will probably be unpersuasive. The insurrection is completely priced in to Trumps political stock.

To find a demographic that hasnt formed a firm opinion about it one way or another, youd have to look to very young voters. And if you do, you might be disappointed: As we saw recently, young Americans might not view coup plots as electorally disqualifying. In the country theyve grown up in, coup attempts are standard operating procedure.

In the 2016 and 2020 cycles, Trump never made it as high as even 46 percent in head-to-head polling with Clinton and Biden. This year, post-impeachments, post-indictments, and post-insurrection, hes come within a whisker at times of 48 percent. Reflect on that and tell me how much political juice is left in reminding Americans what a disgrace he is.

Maybe just enough. Ultimately, the best argument for the Donilon strategy is shame.

The insurrection is priced into Trumps stock, as Ive said. Everyones heard about it ad nauseam. Warning Americans that democracy is on the ballot wont educate anyone about anything.

But insofar as the matter is front and center this fall, it might shame a meaningful few into reconsidering their vote.

Most Trump supporters are unreachable, but millions will go into the booth in November intending to vote for him yet nagged by their intuition that doing so would be grossly irresponsible. Traditional conservatives, Nikki Haley Republicans, centrists who bear Biden a grudge over inflation or some other policy failurethey know that absolving Trump for January 6 by reelecting him would be an indefensible betrayal of Americas civic tradition.

They know it, but knowing it and letting themselves be persuaded by it are two different things. The mind has a remarkable ability to rationalize and compartmentalize indefensible behavior, especially when its otherwise preoccupied. Between now and November 5, Trump is going to fire off an armorys worth of demagogic nonsense to preoccupy the American mind.

Given Bidens record, Im not sure theres a more effective response available to Democrats than to rhetorically look voters who are leaning toward Trump in the eye and say, You know whats at stake. Youre not really going to do this, are you?

For me, the great virtue of the Donilon strategy is that itll leave America with no excuses if Trump wins. An election framed around the economy or immigration that ends in Republican victory will let denialists about the countrys decline insist that things would have been different if only Biden had taken a different approach. He should have emphasized the coup attempt and January 6, theyll say. Surely Americans wouldnt have reelected Trump if the election had been about that.

Im not sure of that at all, personally. Id like to test the proposition. And if Trump is returned to power, Id find comfort in knowing that we maximized our collective shame by approaching the race as a referendum on the constitutional orderand chose the other option. If we do this, lets be clear-eyed about it. No excuses. Trump 2024: Maximum Shame.

Go here to read the rest:
Gambling on Democracy - The Dispatch

Norsk versjon.

On Monday, the debate series High Noon starts as part of the Arctic Arts Festival in Harstad, Northern Norway.

Over the course of four days, topics such as child-rearing environments and resilience in the North, Nordic democracy, arts and moral, will be raised.

Voices from arts and culture, research, politics, public agencies, and other parts of societywill contribute with input.

The debates will be led by Arne O. Holm, Editor of High North News.They can be followed from 11.30 AM at caf Prandium on the campus of UiT the Arctic University of Norway in Harstad.

"This year's debate series during the Arctic Arts Festival takes the major challenges of our time seriously, seen from the High North and the Arctic. With participants from Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, we are facilitating an international dialogue on topics that are significant to us all, across country borders," says Holm and continues:

"In addition, we also offer world-class artists in each debate, placing us at the core of our journalistic mission. Combining arts and politics this way is only possible through a close and good cooperation between the Arctic Arts Festival and High North News."

Read the original here:
High Noon 2024: Northern Debate on Youth, Preparedness, Democracy and Moral in the Arts - High North News

Our nations Founding Fathers assumed that candidates for elected office would be God-fearing, moral, highly principled folks committed to the ideals enshrined in the Constitution.

To further safeguard the integrity of the American experiment, the states established free, public schooling (Horace Manns Common School Movement), equipping future voters with the ability to differentiate statesmanship from political chicanery.

Specifically, the schools were charged with teaching citizens to separate fact from opinion; to recognize authors and speakers biases, purposes and intended audiences; to identify inconsistencies and contradictions in written and oral discourse; to draw conclusions based upon relevant, timely and influential facts; and to remain open-minded by setting aside personal feelings.

When followership abandons these aforementioned problem-solving techniques, democracy is imperiled.

Sustaining a democratic form of government requires cognitive effort and critical thinking on the part of those who elect their representatives. Once elected, these government servants must be held accountable by their constituencies. While in office, oversight should be wielded by Congress itself but, ultimately, the voting public passes judgment by exercising its will to reelect (or not).

It is my hope and prayer that statesmen and stateswomen who are committed to the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, the uplifting of all people, the pursuit of justice, fairness and domestic tranquility will replace self-serving ideologues whose conduct can be described as hateful and treasonous. Their conduct also seems fearful and beset by feelings of perceived persecution, which scapegoat the disenfranchised for ones imagined loss of past bounties.

For my prayer to be answered, those casting ballots Nov. 5 must vote rationally, reasonably and empathetically, while minimizing prejudices, biases, distortions and uncritically accepted false narratives.

James L. DeBoy

West Lampeter Township

Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.

Error! There was an error processing your request.

More:
Public education and maintaining democracy [letter] | Letters To The Editor | lancasteronline.com - LNP | LancasterOnline

Story comments on theday.com are intended to be civil, friendly conversations. Please treat other participants with respect and in a way that you would want to be treated. You are responsible for what you say. Please, stay on topic. If you see an objectionable post, please report it to us using the "Report" link included on every post.

Please note that comments are monitored by theday.com staff. We reserve the right at all times to remove comments that are off-topic, unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable. Personal attacks, especially on other participants, are not permitted. We reserve the right to permanently block any user who violates these terms and conditions.

Comments that are long, have multiple paragraph breaks, include code of any kind, or include hyperlinks to objectionable material may not be posted.

Read the full policy here.

Close

Go here to read the rest:
Voters sound off on disinformation and democracy - theday.com