Chapter 05 - When There Aren't Checks And Balances
The writing task proved more challenging than the members of the writing group had expected. Making a forceful argument, in effect prosecuting a case, but doing so in a dispassionate way, was itself a challenge. This is not how courtroom lawyers operate. Then, there was the matter of keeping the argument simple. As there are several online engines that measure the reading difficulty of a work, the group decided to target a seventh grade reading level for all the white papers. This was consistent with making the white papers accessible to a broad audience. They learned the hard way that they needed to reduce the scope in any individual white paper, so rather than just one white paper on a topic there would be part 1 and part 2 as separate white papers but on the same topic and sometimes there would even be part 3. Once they came to this conclusion, the writing became easier. They modified the process rules that the group as a whole had agreed to so that the same team authored each part.
Caroline assumed responsibility for writing the press release that would accompany making a white paper publicly available on The Minute Women’s Website. In addition, she would email certain contacts in the press she knew from her time working for the Congressman. If some well regarded news outlets picked up the release, read the white paper, and then wrote an article about it, there’d be independent confirmation that what they were doing was on track. A couple of days after part 1 of the white paper on President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland went public, there were short pieces about it in both The Guardian and Vox. A few days after that Michael reported about ten thousand hits on the white paper, which could be read online. And there were a few hundred dollars contributed in donations. When part 2 was publicly released, there was a virtual replay of the reporting, hits on the white paper, and donations. Caroline congratulated the group for a job well done. Privately to herself, however, she said that with future efforts the numbers had to increase dramatically if they were to succeed in their mission.
* * * * *
Earlier in the day part 1 of the white paper, What Were You Afraid Of President Trump?, was made publicly available. The writing group meeting had gotten underway only a few minutes earlier.
Elena asked, “Caroline, you’ve been quite explicit about what you want to have happen to the Supreme Court Justices who were appointed by then President Trump, but you haven’t said much at all about the Republican Senators. Can you fill us in on that? Also, can you tell us how you expect this to play out thereafter?”
Caroline responded, “Elena, it would be really good if we could have some reporter who is known to be friendly to Republicans to interview former Speaker Ryan or his most recent chief of staff while he was Speaker. We might learn the real reason why he stepped down, what he did to try to contain Trump from his excesses, and possibly other crimes that were committed to which the public has not been told. There may be others who have some of this information as well, Mitch McConnell for one, but after what we wrote about him in our first white paper, I don’t think he’ll talk to any reporter who is known to be connected to us.
Then Caroline continued, “What I suspect the plan was before the inaugural in 2017, was for both McConnell and Ryan, and perhaps other friends Trump had in Congress, to contain Trump from his excesses. If he could be so contained, then the deal we discussed in the first white paper makes a lot of sense from the Republican point of view. But then things became something like Frankenstein’s monster. As we all know, Dr. Frankenstein lost control of his creation. The Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville was an early indication of that loss of control. Steven Bannon had Trump’s ear more than McConnell and Ryan did. There really was no containing Trump.”
“If we could get some public admission of this by the Republican leadership, that would be great. Almost as good would be other Republicans saying essentially the same thing, even if it wasn’t McConnell and Ryan saying it. Then the question would be whether their strategy was flawed, before the election in 2016, or if the strategy would have worked reasonably well had it been any other Republican candidate for President than Trump. They’d have to work through that another candidate would have likely lost to Hillary Clinton. This makes the strategy itself look flawed. They likely have come to that conclusion already, but haven’t said so publicly.”
“Under the circumstances, it may be tempting to refer to the Republican leadership as latter day Neville Chamberlins. I think we should strenuously avoid making that type of comparison or mentioning Nazi Germany at all in what we write or say. It’s alienating without adding anything of substance. In any event, as with the Supreme Court Justices, it would be far better for the Republican Senators to reach these conclusions on their own. But, frankly, given the current political situation, that may be impossible. We’re not there yet. If the current situation calms down and/or Trump is charged with crimes, that might change things. The Republican leadership might then find their voice and weigh in with mea culpas.
“One last point is that these Republican Senators will eventually have to face the voters or step down. As appointments to the Supreme Court come with lifetime tenure, we don’t have the former alternative for the Supreme Court Justices. For the Senators, it may be that facing the voters is sufficient as a form of punishment. I certainly don’t want us to seem vindictive in requesting other punishment.”
Jackie then followed up, “While we are not officially affiliated with either party, some of this is going to make us seem highly partisan. If we can’t get around that, how are we going to convince any Republican voters, even if they want to see Roe restored?”
Caroline responded, “I think we need to pose this rhetorical question. There was a majority on the Court who had been nominated by Republican Presidents before Justice Scalia passed. Justices Kennedy and Scalia were nominated by President Reagan. Justice Thomas was nominated by President George H.W. Bush. And Justice Alito as well as Chief Justice Roberts were nominated by President George W. Bush. The last of these to assume office was Justice Alito, which happened at the end of January 2006. This majority existed for about ten years. Why wasn’t Roe challenged by the Court in that decade?”
“Then we have to say that we don’t know what internal discussions the Justices had and whether the topic of overturning Roe ever came up. So, we will answer the question as outsiders looking in. Justice Kennedy was considered the swing vote on the Court. It is quite unclear how he would have voted in a case that was trying to overturn Roe. With only a small margin to begin with and with this added uncertainty about how the Court would decide, it made sense tactically not to have a case that challenged Roe.”
“Then look at what happened after Justice Scalia passed away. Had President Trump and the Republican Senators played fair and square, we’d have no recourse and wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing. We’re pushing our argument because what they did wasn’t kosher. Indeed, it was criminal. Then look at the consequence. The new appointees, Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett were all recommended by the hard right Federalist Society. On the left-right spectrum, that might be parity in replacing Scalia, but it was a rightward shift in replacing Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a liberal icon. If it wasn’t correct for Merrick Garland to replace Scalia, an argument made at the time, then it surely wasn’t correct for Coney Barret to replace Bader Ginsburg. Yet there was absolutely no hesitation to do so.”
“Now I am going to make it personal. It is true that for a while I worked for a Democratic Congressman. But my dad, whom I loved dearly, was a Reagan Republican. And he continued to vote Republican for President until the second war in Iraq, which made no sense to him. After that he became an independent. I wonder today how many children about my age had parents who were Reagan Republicans. Are they still loyal Republicans and hence part of Trump’s base? Or have they come to realize that Trump has led the party astray? That’s the argument I would make.”
The room got quiet for a few seconds. Then Jackie said, “Caroline, I really loved that response.”
Next, Jeffrey stepped in. “I agree with Jackie, that was a great response, Caroline. But I wonder if it is enough. The Republicans sometimes use bullying tactics and just keep doing that till it wears down the opponent. We’re going to need to anticipate that and have a counter for it.”
Caroline responded, “Maybe we do, Jeffrey. I wonder if a comparison with the Reagan era would be helpful as a response. Does anyone know off the top of their head what the composition of Congress was when Reagan was President?”
After the others shook their head, Nicole, who mostly remained silent during these sessions chimed in, “I can do some Internet searches to answer that.”
Caroline replied, “Please do, Nicole.”
Nicole said, “Just a minute. Ah, I got it. In the House, the Democrats had control the entire time. During the first six years under Reagan, Tip O’Neill was Speaker. He retired from Congress after that. Jim Wright became Speaker the last two year of Reagan’s Presidency. Then, in the Senate, the Republicans had the majority for the first six years, while the Democrats had it the last two years. But in neither case was it a Filibuster-proof majority.”
Elena remarked, “This might not really matter, but when I was born Reagan was President. I don’t have much memory of that, however.” This brought some laughs from the others.
Caroline replied, “You might remember when I first was talking with Team A I brought up the case of Robert Bork. He was nominated by Reagan. That nomination failed. Bork was a very divisive figure. I believe that Anthony Kennedy eventually filled the seat that Bork had been nominated for. Perhaps you can look at that episode in two different ways. The way I prefer is to think of it as Checks and Balances at work. The Kennedy nomination represented a compromise between the President and the Senate. I associate Checks and Balances with compromise. Others who are quite conservative might look at it as a failed attempt to get a true conservative on the Court. The more recent experience with Supreme Court nominations makes it seem like there is no room for compromise anymore.”
Jeffrey wanted to give his reflection on the matter. “Elena’s little bit about being born during Reagan’s Presidency makes me want to know what other changes happened between then and now that are relevant for considering how the politics changed. There was no Internet then, so no social networking. I think personal computers had just started to be a thing. Cellphones didn’t yet exist. Cable TV was comparatively new. There certainly weren’t streaming services that you could subscribe to. I think news programming was different too. The main network news with the well known TV anchors was only a half hour or an hour, though I can’t remember which. Those networks had entertainment programming the rest of the time. CNN was the innovator, by having news programming 7x24. But much of its programming then was actual news shows. The opinion/commentary shows had limited time slots. By the way, I know this because to better do my job at the State Department I recently took an online course that was about media in third world countries, and they made some comparisons to how the U.S. did things back then.”
Alice wondered, “Is this just nostalgia, or would we as a group truly want to go back to how things were back then? That the technology has created a dystopia seems like a theme I hear a lot about on campus, but there the focus is on how the students learn, or closer to the truth how they go through the motions, and how fragile they seem with so many experiencing anxiety and depression. Did the technology create a dystopia for our politics as well? Or is something else going on?”
Jackie asked, “Does anyone know when Fox News started or when MSNBC started?” Nobody responded to Jackie’s question, so Caroline asked Nicole to search the Internet for this information.
Nicole was staring at her computer screen. “Wikipedia says that Fox News was founded in 1996 and that Roger Ailes became CEO in 2001. A year later Fox News had overtaken CNN as the most watched cable news network. MSNBC was founded around the same time as Fox News, but got off to a slower start.”
Jeffrey said, “I think all of us pretty much understand what happened after that. These news channels were supported by TV commercials rather than by subscription. They also got some revenue from the particular cable provider. They could charge more for each of these the more viewers they had, putting them in a competition for eyeballs. So they utilized a familiar approach that, unfortunately, is socially debilitating. They played to the the viewers fears and grievances, stoking their anger in the process. The different networks did this differently because their audiences are different, but this underlying truth is common to them both. And in this agitated state, the viewers want absolutist solutions. They are not in the mood to compromise. On top of that, they get positive reinforcement to their views from social media.”
Alice said, “It’s called a virtual echo chamber.” Jeffrey agreed.
Then Caroline said, “If we’re going to do a comparison between the time of Reagan and now as to how national politics played out, the differences in news media would seem to be a critical part of the story.”
Elena said, “Before we do that, let’s speculate some. Suppose we are wildly successful with our building of a coalition that cuts across party lines and includes a very large fraction of the voting population. To be concrete, let’s say we marshal 70% of the voting population who back the idea that the Justices appointed under Trump should step down and that after new Justices are appointed the Court restores Roe. And then everyone notices the size of this coalition, even those who are staunch pro-Trump people. Does this mean such a coalition can be built in other cases as well or is it a unique case, after which we return to politics as it was?”
Jackie added, “I may have mentioned this before. Caroline and I took the same American Politics class while in college. We learned there that the current process of candidate selection via primaries tends to make it less likely to get moderate candidates. Primary voting has lower voter participation than does the general election. Those who vote in the primaries tend to have more extreme views. Their passion makes them overcome the normal inertia that keeps moderate voters from going to the polls during the primaries. The news media as it currently is constituted makes this even more likely. Somehow, we either need to inject more passion into moderate voters or find some other way of having the candidate selection represent the full population who will vote in the general election.”
Caroline responded, “While I remember that class, I think I’m in over my head as to what type of reforms might be helpful here. Maybe we could research that some if we are to argue for it in one of the white papers. Otherwise, we might say something milder but more obvious, if as Elena speculated we are wildly successful in our aim. Our current political process is not working well as it disenfranchises the moderate voter, in both parties. If our normal politics is to survive and not descend into tyranny, there needs to be a solution to this problem.”
Elena said, “I want to make one more point. If we are successful, get those Justices off the Court and then restore Roe, the Republican leadership in Congress will be angry, but they’ll also recognize that they are in a much weaker position than they were before. And if Trump is brought to justice more or less at the same time, there will calls to protect the system from that happening again. If the Democratic leadership were then reasonable and sensitive to the situation rather than strutting about their success, this would be a good time to negotiate for an alternative approach that made compromise between the two parties a feature.”
Jeffrey added, “Personally, I’d like to see the Citizens United decision reversed as well. It has created a plutocracy where most of the plutocrats know nothing about noblesse oblige. Indeed, many of the high rollers who make major political contributions have extremist views about politics. It’s another driving factor in why our politics are so screwed up.”
Caroline responded. “I’d like to wrap up this discussion for now with the following point. We are an organization not affiliated with either political party. I started the organization because I couldn’t see how to get what we want done through the normal political process. When we talk about political reform to give those in the middle more of a say, we need to ask whether that can happen through the normal political process or not. I don’t have an answer now, but my inclination is to only push on this lever if we know it won’t happen should we leave it to the normal political process.”
As the meeting was winding down, Alice asked if she could bring up another topic. Everyone was okay with her doing so.
“I’m finding that I don’t have sufficient downtime between projects to recharge my batteries. I could use more of a break. Do the the rest of you have any thoughts on that?” Jackie, Elena, and Jeffrey nodded in agreement.
Caroline responded, “Alice, I have found that coffee ice cream has remarkable restorative powers.” They all laughed.
Elena asked, “Caroline, does that mean that you’ll be getting a freezer for the office?” This was followed by more laughter.
Caroline said, “Looks like I really put my foot in it with that one.” There was still more laughter.
The meeting came to a conclusion. The next day in the office there was a freezer and a microwave. The freezer had both coffee ice cream and fruit popsicles. Next to the microwave there were quite a few bags of microwavable popcorn.
The same day Caroline sent out a message to the group that the rate of output for publishing the white papers could slow down, to account for Alice’s concern. They had been averaging one white paper published per week. They could go to half that rate and have Caroline’s blessing in doing so.
* * * * *
It was six weeks later. Part 1 of the white paper on the Supreme Court Justices stepping down as a pathway for restoring Roe had just been released. Caroline was in her office doing her regular briefing with Nicole. But Caroline’s tone was different than it usually was. Caroline was whining, not something she was apt to do. There had been a slight upward trend in the recognition the white papers were receiving and in the donations they were receiving, but it was insufficient to matter much at all. Caroline was at wits end about how to generate much greater impact. And she was worrying about this so much that she was not getting enough sleep. Nicole, who was usually deferential in these briefing sessions asked, “Caroline, would you mind if I offered a couple of suggestions?”
“Sure, Nicole, go ahead.”
“Well, first, the white paper approach presupposes the reader will be at a computer. But many people spend most of the time on their phones. We need an approach that will reach them.”
“What type of approach would that be?”
“Either audio or video, as an alternative to a massive amount of text.”
“Okay. What’s the other suggestion.”
“We’ve been relying on news articles to give credibility to what we say in the white papers. Suppose, instead, we get very well known and highly regarded people to make reference to our stuff. Use them instead of the news.”
“Who are these well known and highly regarded people? And how do we get them aware of what we do?”
“I’m thinking first off of legal scholars who have high visibility, measured by how many followers they have in Twitter. I can write a Tweet to them about a white paper or a video made about the white paper. Better still is that I include the information as a reply to one of their Tweets, so it is offered in context of something they already care about. That gives a better chance of them following the links and reading the white paper. Then we have to hope that they are impressed with what they have read from us and make their own referral to our stuff.”
“I see. And are there others than legal scholars who are well known and might make referrals?”
“There are. Possibly politicians. Possibly celebrities. I think we want to start with those who are most likely to read the white paper and not just bs about it. So they can speak with some authority.”
“Well, this sounds like the elements of a plan. What do we need to do to get it underway?”
“Somebody has to appear in the videos. Since the writers are using pseudonyms, I think that somebody has to be you. The videos can’t be too long, or nobody will watch them. So some thought about what’s in them needs to be given. You will probably need to get Michael to help you with recording the videos. Then you need to let me reallocate my time some, so I can spend more of it tracking the Twitter feeds of these legal scholars and others who might help us this way.”
“Okay, anything else?”
“Yeah, keep your fingers crossed.”
Caroline sent a message to the writing group, copying both Nicole and Michael. She said she had decided to make videos of her reading the executive summaries of the white papers, followed with a bit of information about her and then more information about The Minute Women. Each video would be the reading of a single executive summary. The Minute Women would have a channel in YouTube and publish the videos there. The hope is that this will jump start the dissemination of our work. Each member of the working group replied with a thumbs up. Then Caroline was quick to tell them this was Nicole’s idea.
Mark set up her laptop so it could be used like a teleprompter and so as Caroline read the text on the screen she was looking straight at the laptop’s camera. Mark also changed where Caroline was sitting so the external light in the room illuminated Caroline’s face. Caroline rehearsed once to get a sense of the pace at which she should talk. She found that without rushing she could speak about 180 words per minute. Reading the executive summary and the bit of bio information took about 3 minutes. Then for another 30 seconds or so, there would be scrolling text with background music that would describe the work of The Minute Women. Links to the Website and the specific white paper would be given in the video description.
Caroline felt very nervous while recording the first video. She asked Michael about that. He said he didn’t see it in her facial expression or hear it in her voice. They didn’t commit to the frequency that subsequent videos would be made and then released. They’d base that on how this first video appeared to be doing.
Less than a half hour after Michael posted the first video, Nicole told Caroline that she had posted several Tweets along the lines they had discussed earlier. Each Tweet had a bit about why the information to be provided was relevant to the thread. Then there were links to the video, the white paper, and to a news article that referenced the white paper.
Caroline went about hiring two undergraduates from the local university to track references to the The Minute Women in social media and to categorize those references as favorable, unfavorable, or neutral. They’d make a report that could be shared with the writing group.
Then Caroline took a deep breath and crossed her fingers.
Caroline assumed responsibility for writing the press release that would accompany making a white paper publicly available on The Minute Women’s Website. In addition, she would email certain contacts in the press she knew from her time working for the Congressman. If some well regarded news outlets picked up the release, read the white paper, and then wrote an article about it, there’d be independent confirmation that what they were doing was on track. A couple of days after part 1 of the white paper on President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland went public, there were short pieces about it in both The Guardian and Vox. A few days after that Michael reported about ten thousand hits on the white paper, which could be read online. And there were a few hundred dollars contributed in donations. When part 2 was publicly released, there was a virtual replay of the reporting, hits on the white paper, and donations. Caroline congratulated the group for a job well done. Privately to herself, however, she said that with future efforts the numbers had to increase dramatically if they were to succeed in their mission.
* * * * *
Earlier in the day part 1 of the white paper, What Were You Afraid Of President Trump?, was made publicly available. The writing group meeting had gotten underway only a few minutes earlier.
Elena asked, “Caroline, you’ve been quite explicit about what you want to have happen to the Supreme Court Justices who were appointed by then President Trump, but you haven’t said much at all about the Republican Senators. Can you fill us in on that? Also, can you tell us how you expect this to play out thereafter?”
Caroline responded, “Elena, it would be really good if we could have some reporter who is known to be friendly to Republicans to interview former Speaker Ryan or his most recent chief of staff while he was Speaker. We might learn the real reason why he stepped down, what he did to try to contain Trump from his excesses, and possibly other crimes that were committed to which the public has not been told. There may be others who have some of this information as well, Mitch McConnell for one, but after what we wrote about him in our first white paper, I don’t think he’ll talk to any reporter who is known to be connected to us.
Then Caroline continued, “What I suspect the plan was before the inaugural in 2017, was for both McConnell and Ryan, and perhaps other friends Trump had in Congress, to contain Trump from his excesses. If he could be so contained, then the deal we discussed in the first white paper makes a lot of sense from the Republican point of view. But then things became something like Frankenstein’s monster. As we all know, Dr. Frankenstein lost control of his creation. The Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville was an early indication of that loss of control. Steven Bannon had Trump’s ear more than McConnell and Ryan did. There really was no containing Trump.”
“If we could get some public admission of this by the Republican leadership, that would be great. Almost as good would be other Republicans saying essentially the same thing, even if it wasn’t McConnell and Ryan saying it. Then the question would be whether their strategy was flawed, before the election in 2016, or if the strategy would have worked reasonably well had it been any other Republican candidate for President than Trump. They’d have to work through that another candidate would have likely lost to Hillary Clinton. This makes the strategy itself look flawed. They likely have come to that conclusion already, but haven’t said so publicly.”
“Under the circumstances, it may be tempting to refer to the Republican leadership as latter day Neville Chamberlins. I think we should strenuously avoid making that type of comparison or mentioning Nazi Germany at all in what we write or say. It’s alienating without adding anything of substance. In any event, as with the Supreme Court Justices, it would be far better for the Republican Senators to reach these conclusions on their own. But, frankly, given the current political situation, that may be impossible. We’re not there yet. If the current situation calms down and/or Trump is charged with crimes, that might change things. The Republican leadership might then find their voice and weigh in with mea culpas.
“One last point is that these Republican Senators will eventually have to face the voters or step down. As appointments to the Supreme Court come with lifetime tenure, we don’t have the former alternative for the Supreme Court Justices. For the Senators, it may be that facing the voters is sufficient as a form of punishment. I certainly don’t want us to seem vindictive in requesting other punishment.”
Jackie then followed up, “While we are not officially affiliated with either party, some of this is going to make us seem highly partisan. If we can’t get around that, how are we going to convince any Republican voters, even if they want to see Roe restored?”
Caroline responded, “I think we need to pose this rhetorical question. There was a majority on the Court who had been nominated by Republican Presidents before Justice Scalia passed. Justices Kennedy and Scalia were nominated by President Reagan. Justice Thomas was nominated by President George H.W. Bush. And Justice Alito as well as Chief Justice Roberts were nominated by President George W. Bush. The last of these to assume office was Justice Alito, which happened at the end of January 2006. This majority existed for about ten years. Why wasn’t Roe challenged by the Court in that decade?”
“Then we have to say that we don’t know what internal discussions the Justices had and whether the topic of overturning Roe ever came up. So, we will answer the question as outsiders looking in. Justice Kennedy was considered the swing vote on the Court. It is quite unclear how he would have voted in a case that was trying to overturn Roe. With only a small margin to begin with and with this added uncertainty about how the Court would decide, it made sense tactically not to have a case that challenged Roe.”
“Then look at what happened after Justice Scalia passed away. Had President Trump and the Republican Senators played fair and square, we’d have no recourse and wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing. We’re pushing our argument because what they did wasn’t kosher. Indeed, it was criminal. Then look at the consequence. The new appointees, Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett were all recommended by the hard right Federalist Society. On the left-right spectrum, that might be parity in replacing Scalia, but it was a rightward shift in replacing Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a liberal icon. If it wasn’t correct for Merrick Garland to replace Scalia, an argument made at the time, then it surely wasn’t correct for Coney Barret to replace Bader Ginsburg. Yet there was absolutely no hesitation to do so.”
“Now I am going to make it personal. It is true that for a while I worked for a Democratic Congressman. But my dad, whom I loved dearly, was a Reagan Republican. And he continued to vote Republican for President until the second war in Iraq, which made no sense to him. After that he became an independent. I wonder today how many children about my age had parents who were Reagan Republicans. Are they still loyal Republicans and hence part of Trump’s base? Or have they come to realize that Trump has led the party astray? That’s the argument I would make.”
The room got quiet for a few seconds. Then Jackie said, “Caroline, I really loved that response.”
Next, Jeffrey stepped in. “I agree with Jackie, that was a great response, Caroline. But I wonder if it is enough. The Republicans sometimes use bullying tactics and just keep doing that till it wears down the opponent. We’re going to need to anticipate that and have a counter for it.”
Caroline responded, “Maybe we do, Jeffrey. I wonder if a comparison with the Reagan era would be helpful as a response. Does anyone know off the top of their head what the composition of Congress was when Reagan was President?”
After the others shook their head, Nicole, who mostly remained silent during these sessions chimed in, “I can do some Internet searches to answer that.”
Caroline replied, “Please do, Nicole.”
Nicole said, “Just a minute. Ah, I got it. In the House, the Democrats had control the entire time. During the first six years under Reagan, Tip O’Neill was Speaker. He retired from Congress after that. Jim Wright became Speaker the last two year of Reagan’s Presidency. Then, in the Senate, the Republicans had the majority for the first six years, while the Democrats had it the last two years. But in neither case was it a Filibuster-proof majority.”
Elena remarked, “This might not really matter, but when I was born Reagan was President. I don’t have much memory of that, however.” This brought some laughs from the others.
Caroline replied, “You might remember when I first was talking with Team A I brought up the case of Robert Bork. He was nominated by Reagan. That nomination failed. Bork was a very divisive figure. I believe that Anthony Kennedy eventually filled the seat that Bork had been nominated for. Perhaps you can look at that episode in two different ways. The way I prefer is to think of it as Checks and Balances at work. The Kennedy nomination represented a compromise between the President and the Senate. I associate Checks and Balances with compromise. Others who are quite conservative might look at it as a failed attempt to get a true conservative on the Court. The more recent experience with Supreme Court nominations makes it seem like there is no room for compromise anymore.”
Jeffrey wanted to give his reflection on the matter. “Elena’s little bit about being born during Reagan’s Presidency makes me want to know what other changes happened between then and now that are relevant for considering how the politics changed. There was no Internet then, so no social networking. I think personal computers had just started to be a thing. Cellphones didn’t yet exist. Cable TV was comparatively new. There certainly weren’t streaming services that you could subscribe to. I think news programming was different too. The main network news with the well known TV anchors was only a half hour or an hour, though I can’t remember which. Those networks had entertainment programming the rest of the time. CNN was the innovator, by having news programming 7x24. But much of its programming then was actual news shows. The opinion/commentary shows had limited time slots. By the way, I know this because to better do my job at the State Department I recently took an online course that was about media in third world countries, and they made some comparisons to how the U.S. did things back then.”
Alice wondered, “Is this just nostalgia, or would we as a group truly want to go back to how things were back then? That the technology has created a dystopia seems like a theme I hear a lot about on campus, but there the focus is on how the students learn, or closer to the truth how they go through the motions, and how fragile they seem with so many experiencing anxiety and depression. Did the technology create a dystopia for our politics as well? Or is something else going on?”
Jackie asked, “Does anyone know when Fox News started or when MSNBC started?” Nobody responded to Jackie’s question, so Caroline asked Nicole to search the Internet for this information.
Nicole was staring at her computer screen. “Wikipedia says that Fox News was founded in 1996 and that Roger Ailes became CEO in 2001. A year later Fox News had overtaken CNN as the most watched cable news network. MSNBC was founded around the same time as Fox News, but got off to a slower start.”
Jeffrey said, “I think all of us pretty much understand what happened after that. These news channels were supported by TV commercials rather than by subscription. They also got some revenue from the particular cable provider. They could charge more for each of these the more viewers they had, putting them in a competition for eyeballs. So they utilized a familiar approach that, unfortunately, is socially debilitating. They played to the the viewers fears and grievances, stoking their anger in the process. The different networks did this differently because their audiences are different, but this underlying truth is common to them both. And in this agitated state, the viewers want absolutist solutions. They are not in the mood to compromise. On top of that, they get positive reinforcement to their views from social media.”
Alice said, “It’s called a virtual echo chamber.” Jeffrey agreed.
Then Caroline said, “If we’re going to do a comparison between the time of Reagan and now as to how national politics played out, the differences in news media would seem to be a critical part of the story.”
Elena said, “Before we do that, let’s speculate some. Suppose we are wildly successful with our building of a coalition that cuts across party lines and includes a very large fraction of the voting population. To be concrete, let’s say we marshal 70% of the voting population who back the idea that the Justices appointed under Trump should step down and that after new Justices are appointed the Court restores Roe. And then everyone notices the size of this coalition, even those who are staunch pro-Trump people. Does this mean such a coalition can be built in other cases as well or is it a unique case, after which we return to politics as it was?”
Jackie added, “I may have mentioned this before. Caroline and I took the same American Politics class while in college. We learned there that the current process of candidate selection via primaries tends to make it less likely to get moderate candidates. Primary voting has lower voter participation than does the general election. Those who vote in the primaries tend to have more extreme views. Their passion makes them overcome the normal inertia that keeps moderate voters from going to the polls during the primaries. The news media as it currently is constituted makes this even more likely. Somehow, we either need to inject more passion into moderate voters or find some other way of having the candidate selection represent the full population who will vote in the general election.”
Caroline responded, “While I remember that class, I think I’m in over my head as to what type of reforms might be helpful here. Maybe we could research that some if we are to argue for it in one of the white papers. Otherwise, we might say something milder but more obvious, if as Elena speculated we are wildly successful in our aim. Our current political process is not working well as it disenfranchises the moderate voter, in both parties. If our normal politics is to survive and not descend into tyranny, there needs to be a solution to this problem.”
Elena said, “I want to make one more point. If we are successful, get those Justices off the Court and then restore Roe, the Republican leadership in Congress will be angry, but they’ll also recognize that they are in a much weaker position than they were before. And if Trump is brought to justice more or less at the same time, there will calls to protect the system from that happening again. If the Democratic leadership were then reasonable and sensitive to the situation rather than strutting about their success, this would be a good time to negotiate for an alternative approach that made compromise between the two parties a feature.”
Jeffrey added, “Personally, I’d like to see the Citizens United decision reversed as well. It has created a plutocracy where most of the plutocrats know nothing about noblesse oblige. Indeed, many of the high rollers who make major political contributions have extremist views about politics. It’s another driving factor in why our politics are so screwed up.”
Caroline responded. “I’d like to wrap up this discussion for now with the following point. We are an organization not affiliated with either political party. I started the organization because I couldn’t see how to get what we want done through the normal political process. When we talk about political reform to give those in the middle more of a say, we need to ask whether that can happen through the normal political process or not. I don’t have an answer now, but my inclination is to only push on this lever if we know it won’t happen should we leave it to the normal political process.”
As the meeting was winding down, Alice asked if she could bring up another topic. Everyone was okay with her doing so.
“I’m finding that I don’t have sufficient downtime between projects to recharge my batteries. I could use more of a break. Do the the rest of you have any thoughts on that?” Jackie, Elena, and Jeffrey nodded in agreement.
Caroline responded, “Alice, I have found that coffee ice cream has remarkable restorative powers.” They all laughed.
Elena asked, “Caroline, does that mean that you’ll be getting a freezer for the office?” This was followed by more laughter.
Caroline said, “Looks like I really put my foot in it with that one.” There was still more laughter.
The meeting came to a conclusion. The next day in the office there was a freezer and a microwave. The freezer had both coffee ice cream and fruit popsicles. Next to the microwave there were quite a few bags of microwavable popcorn.
The same day Caroline sent out a message to the group that the rate of output for publishing the white papers could slow down, to account for Alice’s concern. They had been averaging one white paper published per week. They could go to half that rate and have Caroline’s blessing in doing so.
* * * * *
It was six weeks later. Part 1 of the white paper on the Supreme Court Justices stepping down as a pathway for restoring Roe had just been released. Caroline was in her office doing her regular briefing with Nicole. But Caroline’s tone was different than it usually was. Caroline was whining, not something she was apt to do. There had been a slight upward trend in the recognition the white papers were receiving and in the donations they were receiving, but it was insufficient to matter much at all. Caroline was at wits end about how to generate much greater impact. And she was worrying about this so much that she was not getting enough sleep. Nicole, who was usually deferential in these briefing sessions asked, “Caroline, would you mind if I offered a couple of suggestions?”
“Sure, Nicole, go ahead.”
“Well, first, the white paper approach presupposes the reader will be at a computer. But many people spend most of the time on their phones. We need an approach that will reach them.”
“What type of approach would that be?”
“Either audio or video, as an alternative to a massive amount of text.”
“Okay. What’s the other suggestion.”
“We’ve been relying on news articles to give credibility to what we say in the white papers. Suppose, instead, we get very well known and highly regarded people to make reference to our stuff. Use them instead of the news.”
“Who are these well known and highly regarded people? And how do we get them aware of what we do?”
“I’m thinking first off of legal scholars who have high visibility, measured by how many followers they have in Twitter. I can write a Tweet to them about a white paper or a video made about the white paper. Better still is that I include the information as a reply to one of their Tweets, so it is offered in context of something they already care about. That gives a better chance of them following the links and reading the white paper. Then we have to hope that they are impressed with what they have read from us and make their own referral to our stuff.”
“I see. And are there others than legal scholars who are well known and might make referrals?”
“There are. Possibly politicians. Possibly celebrities. I think we want to start with those who are most likely to read the white paper and not just bs about it. So they can speak with some authority.”
“Well, this sounds like the elements of a plan. What do we need to do to get it underway?”
“Somebody has to appear in the videos. Since the writers are using pseudonyms, I think that somebody has to be you. The videos can’t be too long, or nobody will watch them. So some thought about what’s in them needs to be given. You will probably need to get Michael to help you with recording the videos. Then you need to let me reallocate my time some, so I can spend more of it tracking the Twitter feeds of these legal scholars and others who might help us this way.”
“Okay, anything else?”
“Yeah, keep your fingers crossed.”
Caroline sent a message to the writing group, copying both Nicole and Michael. She said she had decided to make videos of her reading the executive summaries of the white papers, followed with a bit of information about her and then more information about The Minute Women. Each video would be the reading of a single executive summary. The Minute Women would have a channel in YouTube and publish the videos there. The hope is that this will jump start the dissemination of our work. Each member of the working group replied with a thumbs up. Then Caroline was quick to tell them this was Nicole’s idea.
Mark set up her laptop so it could be used like a teleprompter and so as Caroline read the text on the screen she was looking straight at the laptop’s camera. Mark also changed where Caroline was sitting so the external light in the room illuminated Caroline’s face. Caroline rehearsed once to get a sense of the pace at which she should talk. She found that without rushing she could speak about 180 words per minute. Reading the executive summary and the bit of bio information took about 3 minutes. Then for another 30 seconds or so, there would be scrolling text with background music that would describe the work of The Minute Women. Links to the Website and the specific white paper would be given in the video description.
Caroline felt very nervous while recording the first video. She asked Michael about that. He said he didn’t see it in her facial expression or hear it in her voice. They didn’t commit to the frequency that subsequent videos would be made and then released. They’d base that on how this first video appeared to be doing.
Less than a half hour after Michael posted the first video, Nicole told Caroline that she had posted several Tweets along the lines they had discussed earlier. Each Tweet had a bit about why the information to be provided was relevant to the thread. Then there were links to the video, the white paper, and to a news article that referenced the white paper.
Caroline went about hiring two undergraduates from the local university to track references to the The Minute Women in social media and to categorize those references as favorable, unfavorable, or neutral. They’d make a report that could be shared with the writing group.
Then Caroline took a deep breath and crossed her fingers.
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