American crooks and clowns who present themselves as leaders or potential leaders not only pander to factions (name your flavor); they also pander to the wind.
Wherever the wind
blows, they go for the moment—a period of
- political theater
- televised electioneering
- character assassination commercials
- Pinocchio in a cascade of self-made crises.
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andering is the design of a self-centered man (or woman). Pandering
is never about human rights more generally, about rights of the citizenry, the community,
the society; not about domestic or national security; nor, worst of all, about
responsibility. Dare I add self discipline?
There is a difference between individual “rights” of the private
person, and individuals’ community responsibilities
for the whole. Personal “rights” (selfishness, factionalism, individualism) must
end where the health of the whole is at risk, or is likely to suffer harm.
A Wall Street Journal journalist today on “The Brian Lehrer Show” focusing
on last night’s non debate made perhaps a slight but important error when she characterized
the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) as “nonpartisan.” For all intents
and purposes, though it advertises, erroneously, as “nonpartisan,” this corporation
is partisan (partisan x2).
In practice, there is no bipartisanism in the United States, particularly
in U.S. public officials’ thought and practice; and as passed on to their
followers and sycophants.
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n day to day reality, evidenced in successive congresses and administrations, there exists a single political party. Call it what you like—the corporations’ party, the war party and war industry party, the arms trafficking party, the pandering party, the party of plutocrats or kleptocrats. Nevertheless, the parties calling themselves “Democratic” and “Republican” are one political party—unfortunately, accepted by the majority of the American people as two parties, simultaneously ruling out “second” or “third” parties.
We are locked in a regressive status quo because Americans are like children with teddy bears, Santa Claus, and other fictions and fantasies.
Media, politicians, commerce, and other influential entities, in the
process of serving their own purposes, use Americans’ intellectual laziness—a weakness,
which is largely, though not entirely, the fault of substandard (under- staffed,
-budgeted, -resourced, -supplied) U.S. schools and institutions of learning. These influential entities’ manipulation of
Americans effectively disables the proper functioning of the body politic, and the
functioning of a truly constitutional or representative democracy.
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aking of a Participatory Citizenry (forgotten)
Carrie Chapman Catt and League of Women Voters
Carrie Chapman Catt was an American Woman Suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In 1920, approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment gave women (some women) the right to vote, Carrie Chapman Catt co-founded the League of Women Voters, which was created in a merger of National Council of Women Voters (founded by Emma Smith DeVoe), and National American Woman Suffrage Association (led by Chapman Catt). The League of Women Voters, originally for women only (until 1973), “aimed to help newly enfranchised women exercise their responsibilities as voters.”
The League today has state and local chapters in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, and Hong Kong. Though the League of Women Voters supports
“a variety of progressive public policy positions, including campaign finance reform, universal health care, abortion rights, climate change action and environmental regulation, and gun control, it is officially an American nonpartisan civic organization that “neither supports nor opposes candidates or parties.”
In her lifetime (January 9, 1859 – March 9, 1947), Carrie Chapman Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (1900-1904; 1915-1920). In 1919, she led many “voteless women” to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote, and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920.
She founded
the League of Women Voters in 1920 and the International Woman Suffrage
Alliance (later named International Alliance of Women) in 1904. In the first
half of the twentieth century, Carrie Chapman Catt was “one of the best-known
women in the United States,” entered on “all lists of famous American women”
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.S. Presidency: Candidates Debates 1976 – 2020
The League of Women Voters
“wanted to create one space where candidates would have to answer substantive questions about their plans for governance without the distractions of roaring crowds and hecklers,” a space in which voters could see and hear candidates “outside the partisan context of conventions, rallies and advertisements” or campaign commercials.
The League of Women Voters chose the topics and the debate panelists and created a structure based on ensuring equal time for each candidate.
The League in 1976 sponsored the televised debate between President Gerald Ford and Democratic Party challenger James “Jimmy” Earl Carter. The event occurred after a hiatus of sixteen years, since the presidential debate of John F. Kennedy and Richard Milhous Nixon debates.
The 1976 event drew a television audience of nearly 70 million Americans.
President Carter in1980 objected to Independent candidate John Anderson being given a platform in what he believed should be a debate with only the Republican contender, Ronald Reagan. The League held its ground and Anderson participated with Reagan. Carter withdrew.
Because of partisan intrusion, wrangling and toxicity, the League of Women Voters in 1984 withdrew its sponsorship of the presidential debates.
“In a stinging press release, the group’s then-president Nancy M. Neuman said that ‘the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter.’”
The campaigns of President Reagan and Democratic challenger Walter Mondale in 1984 had rejected “100 proposed debate panelists before agreeing upon journalists who suited them both.”
The presidential campaigns of Vice President George H.W. Bush and Democratic challenger Michael Dukakis in 1988 drew up “their own set of rules,” which included denying follow-up questions, and choosing people to fill the audience.
Neuman commented on the deterioration of the debate process
“It had become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim was to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions
“The League had no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”
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nter
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), formed in 1987 by partisans, chairs of the two major U.S. political parties, Republican and Democratic, though the group pretends a nonpartisan status. On its website, CPD describes itself as a District of Columbia incorporated “private, not-for-profit, nonpartisan corporation to ‘organize, manage, produce, publicize and support debates for the candidates for President of the United States.”
The Commission fails to disclose names of its funders but declares that it “obtains the funds required to produce its debates every four years and to support its ongoing voter education activities from the communities that host the debates and, to a lesser extent, from corporate, foundation and private donors.”
Exclusivity prevails unlike the LWV: Democratic Participation, Differing Ideas Barred
The Commission (effective in 2020 election cycle) declares that “no candidate or nominee of a party receives an automatic invitation.” Under its established rules, a candidate who receives its invitation to debate must:
- Be eligible under the U.S. Constitution (age, native born, period residence) to hold the office of President of the United States
- Appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College
- Have a level of support of at least 15 percent of the national
electorate, as determined by five (CPD pre-selected) national public opinion
polling organizations, using the average of those organizations’ most recently
publicly-reported results at the time of the determination. (“The polls to be relied upon will be selected based on the quality of
the methodology employed, the reputation of the polling organizations and the
frequency of the polling conducted.”)
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n her Newsday commentary reflecting on the most recent presidential candidates (non) debate spectacle, Los Angeles Times culture columnist and critic Mary McNamara concludes this way.
- Perhaps we should consider a return to the original intent of the presidential debates.
- Perhaps “the rules and agreements should not come from the campaigns.”
- Perhaps the rules and agreements should come from a nonpartisan host dedicated to serving not the candidates but the American people; not serving up entertainment, but serving with essential information.
- Perhaps it is time “for women to take charge, again.”
Indeed, serious, able, civic, caring women!
Sources and news pegs
The Brian Lehrer Show “VP Debate Recap; 30 Issues: Religious Freedom and LGBTQ Rights; Local COVID-19 October 8, 2020 https://www.wnyc.org/story/the-brian-lehrer-show-2020-10-08
Hear callers respond to the vice-presidential candidates' debate between current Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris, plus analysis -- first from Tarini Parti, politics reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and then from Christopher Cadelago, national political reporter for Politico.
Emma Green, staff writer at The Atlantic covering politics, policy, and religion, explains why LGBTQ rights and religious freedom are often in conflict, and whether they can peacefully co-exist.
The Governor's plan to partially shut down parts of Brooklyn and Queens amid several localized outbreaks has left residents of the boroughs with some confusion. Jake Dobkin, co-founder of Gothamist where he's been the de facto numbers-cruncher-in-chief for all things COVID-19, and WNYC reporter Jessica Gould clarify what the plan means for New Yorkers, and particularly what it means for kids who live or attend school in the designated shutdown zone.
The Brian Lehrer Show produced by WNYC. Airs weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern, archived online.
Newsday “Presidential debates worked a lot better when women called the shots” opinion Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times (TNS) October 3, 2020 https://www.newsday.com/opinion/commentary/presidential-debates-league-of-women-voters-donald-trump-joe-biden-2020-presidential-debate-1.49997166
The Commission on Presidential Debates: An Overview https://www.debates.org/about-cpd/overview/
League of Women Voters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Women_Voters
Carrie Chapman Catt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Chapman_Catt
Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights Reserved
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