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To change Manchin's mind, we must appeal to his heart
Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016. McIntyre is author of "Post-Truth" (MIT Press, 2018) and "How to Talk to a Science Denier" (MIT Press, 2021).
Now that Sen. Joe Manchin has made it official — he is not going to vote for the For the People Act, nor is he going to agree to repeal or modify the filibuster — it looks like game, set, and match for Republican efforts to obstruct President Biden's legislative agenda. Or is it? What might it take for Manchin (and fellow Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema) to change their minds?
Instead of scorn, what Manchin and Sinema need now are friends in the Democratic Party. Someone needs to figure out a way to bring them to a place where they stop denying the facts — Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has clearly said he is 100 percent focused on blocking Biden's agenda, whatever it is — and recognize what their own obstruction might cost us.
If these two senators actually believed our country could lose its democracy and become an autocratic state, surely they would put the fate of the country ahead of the fate of the filibuster, or even the Senate itself. So why can't they see that this is what the protection of voting rights is about?
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As one of us has written, science deniers are those who refuse to accept empirical reality even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Presenting a science denier with "the facts" just doesn't move them. They retreat into a fog of illogical reasoning, double standards of evidence and reliance on conspiracy theories all meant to protect their identity-driven conviction that what they want to believe in their heart of hearts must be true.
Research shows that the only way to change a denier's mind is to appeal to feelings, rather than logic, and begin to show them the kind of patience, respect and empathy that can break through and build the trust they need to feel safe enough to reconsider. Reason alone — especially when accompanied by ridicule, insults or anger — is not enough to do the trick.
Surely, it's a stretch to compare Manchin and Sinema to flat Earthers and climate deniers, but might the solution be the same? When Manchin announces — despite all evidence to the contrary — that we "have to have faith" that there are 10 "good" GOP senators who will join him in upholding the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, there is some sort of denial going on.
There is no magic solution here, but perhaps the key is to harness one of the central phenomena of our time, namely leveraging, which the other one of us has written about. In all aspects of life, leveraging has become critical to getting things done, whether the issue concerns finance, passage of laws, international negotiation, marketing of products or political outreach.
Indeed, three different kinds of leveraging — financial, bargaining and resource — have all been used in abundance in the last generation as traditional structures of authority have become dismantled, notably the Cold War global environment and the nuclear family where the father is the primary economic provider and the mother is the primary caretaker. When you can no longer just order people to do something, you have to find more creative ways to get them to achieve your ends.
Democratic leaders should appeal to Manchin and Sinema by leveraging nothing less than America itself. It's one thing to try to build a factual case that we are at risk of losing democracy, it's another to talk to them in emotional terms to make them "feel our pain."
Biden should put Manchin to work. If he thinks he can get 10 Republican senators to change their minds on the Lewis voting rights bill, let him. And then, when he fails, Biden can be the shoulder he can cry on, and mourn together the bipartisan Senate they have lost.
Manchin, has spoken quite eloquently about the need for the Senate to maintain bipartisanship, as befits the greatest deliberative body on Earth. But it's now fair for his colleagues to ask him, "Joe, could anything change your mind?"
As it stands, Manchin is so emotionally attached to his goal of preserving the filibuster that he has failed to see what 100 leading scholars of democracy have argued: that the future of American democracy is at stake. If we do not pass a federal voting rights law to override the voter suppression laws that have already been passed in 14 states, "Our entire democracy is now at risk."
In the classic film "The Bridge over the River Kwai," Col. Nicholson, memorably played by Alec Guinness, is so committed to "the bridge" (that his captors insisted he build) that, even when he receives allied orders to blow it up, he refuses. Indeed, upon witnessing his own men's efforts to carry out these orders, he sabotages them.
Finally, after witnessing his men being shot to death, Nicholson realizes his mistake and asks, "What have I done?"
Joe Manchin is one of the most sincere advocates for the integrity of the Senate and bipartisanship in American history. But he has lost sight of what is at stake in this battle for the soul of U.S. democracy. All Democrats must work together to override these racist voter suppression laws, which could move us further in the direction of an autocratic regime and, quite possibly, a second term with Donald Trump as our president.
His fellow senators, President Biden, Vice President Harris and others must help Manchin to "see what he has done" before it is too late. No one can force Manchin to change his mind. All that we can do right now is leverage our mutual love for this country, which might remind Manchin that if he does not change course, American democracy may be lost.
- Beyond rationalization: Joe Manchin exposes his own machinations ›
- Manchin deals critical blow to election reform legislation - The Fulcrum ›
- For the People Act falls victim to partisan dysfunction - The Fulcrum ›
- Progressive campaign aims to weaken filibuster to pass HR 1 - The ... ›
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Democratic leaders are working with with President Biden on a massive infrastructure spending package. But there is so much confused communication that many Americans don't understand how and when the money would be spent.
$6 trillion spending plan exemplifies our communication disorder
Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
President Biden has proposed more than $4 trillion in new spending, about half for infrastructure and about half for family policies. The American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan would provide massive transportation and communication infrastructure funding as well as major investment in subsidies for child care and paid parental and medical leave, universal pre-K, free community college tuition, and funding for other social programs.
Combined with the approximately $1.8 trillion stimulus package that was passed in February (the final amount is unclear since Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia led the effort to scale it down a bit), the total cost is in the $6 trillion range. Almost all Democrats say all of this spending is needed; almost all Republicans say it is not.
Our politics is so dysfunctional that communication from both sides of the aisle and from the traditional media, and social media, is very distorted. Probably half of the dysfunction in our democracy is due to a communication disorder. There is just too much misleading prose — too much spinning and bending and denying of the truth.
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Take a prominent example. The $1.8 trillion stimulus package is for about one year. The $4 trillion is for long-term investments in the country's physical and social infrastructure. But these numbers are thrown around in such a way to make you think the $4 trillion is for one year, too.
The concept of infrastructure also needs to be clarified and indeed redefined. The concept of a "social" infrastructure has been advanced by New America CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter, who has written about the need for "an infrastructure of care" and who has acknowledged the influence of New York University feminist Carol Gilligan's landmark work on moral psychology and an "Ethics of Care."
A social infrastructure of care that includes child care and paid parental and medical leave and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's concept of home health care supplements traditional port-roads-bridges physical infrastructure as well as broadband communication infrastructure.
Social infrastructure concerns all of those core societal institutions that are necessary for society to operate efficiently and effectively. We need child care subsidies for families to function in the same way we need safe roads and bridges for parents to drive on when they go to work, shop and visit their families. Poor people need broadband so that they, like the rest of society, can work, shop and visit with families online as well as in person. Communication infrastructure is less intimately tied to the concept of care, but it is just as much about infrastructure as roads and bridges.
Most of the $4 trillion in Biden's two proposed bills is dedicated to projects that are five or eight or 10 years long. If you spend $4 trillion over the course of eight years, then you are spending $500 billion a year.
There is almost no discussion about the difference between the two patterns of spending: Roughly one-third is for one-time emergency funds (based on a Keynesian rationale), the $1.8 trillion stimulus package (which included $1,400 checks for over 85 percent of the public); and roughly two-thirds is for long-term physical, communication and social infrastructure projects.
Our federal budget is nearing $5 trillion a year. Biden is essentially calling for a 10 percent hike in the budget to serve the needs of all Americans, since the physical infrastructure helps us all, while the social infrastructure is focused on the poor, the working class and the middle class. Moreover, he wants to pay for the 10 percent hike with new taxes on corporations and the very wealthy.
This gross distortion in the dialogue about the $6 trillion also rests on an egregious assumption about the appropriation process. It assumes that a president and a Congress can institute spending plans five to eight to 10 years in advance.
Really?!
Certainly if Biden loses the White House and the Democrats lose control of both chambers of Congress in 2024, everything could be scrapped from this plan. Even in 2022 there could be changes if the Republicans take back the House and Senate.
In short, Congress cannot determine its spending eight years in advance in any firm way in the same way that a company or a family cannot. Companies can definitely set out a plan for revenue and spending for eight years, but their revenue plan may get trashed because competition in the market reduces their revenue by 40 percent or puts them out of business or we have a massive recession or depression and they have to radically cut back on their spending plan.
A family may also set out an eight-year plan, but one of the partners in the marriage may lose his or her job or the family may be radically changed due to death or divorce; likewise the family may suffer from the results of a natural or national financial disaster.
Make no mistake, it is prudent, indeed wise, for politicians, company executives and parents to outline long-term financial plans to meet their physical, communication and social needs. But politicians can at best get budget plans sealed in place for two years, and companies and families probably can really only get things sealed in place for one year.
The reality of budget planning and the appropriations process in Washington should not diminish in significance the progressive agenda of President Biden and almost all members of the Democratic Party. But talk of spending $6 trillion is grossly misleading when the new $4 trillion really comes in at about $500 billion a year for eight years; and it must be taken with a trillion grains of salt because no Congress with a presidential request can appropriate funds for eight years in any serious sense of the term "appropriate."
- Biden's broadband plan would be good for democracy - The Fulcrum ›
- Dark money group urges moderates to back infrastructure plan - The ... ›
Nine in 20 of us identify as independents. So how can we be polarized?
Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
Gallup's fresh quarterly assessment of Americans' political leanings finds 44 percent of Americans regard themselves as independents. This is a remarkable statistic — especially because we are living in a time when traditional media and social media continue to hammer away at the claim that we are a nation that is polarized.
Our people are polarized and, the media's conventional wisdom holds, that is why they have sent politicians to Washington to engage in very little but horrific trench warfare — the policymaking equivalent of what happened when the Allies and Central Powers squared off in France for the first three years of World War I. Our Congress is simply acting out the polarization of its constituents, the theory goes, which of course makes it impossible for them to agree on plans to tackle almost every major issue.
How can this be, that we are a polarized people even though 44 percent regard ourselves as independents? It is not easy to provide a convincing answer. Although Gallup calculated that the share identifying as independents increased 4 percentage points since the final quarter of last year, it was also astounding that two out of every five citizens did not identify with either major party at the time of the presidential election.
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Polarization theorists will tell you the vast majority of self-identified independents aren't really political free spirits — because their voting patterns clearly unmask them as red or blue, in the main. And the fresh numbers from Gallup, which has been taking similar measurements every three months since the 1980s, bears this out somewhat: Only 11 percent insist they have no partisan lean at all. But when pressed, 19 percent of the electorate identifies as independent but with a Democratic tilt and 15 percent reveal themselves as Republican-leaning independents. (The numbers don't perfectly align because of rounding.)
But conceding a leaning toward one party rather than the other — as opposed to claiming allegiance to one side — still says a lot. It may mean that millions of voters have decided that, in deciding to get behind a candidate who has a chance to win, they have ended up pointed most often toward the Republicans or Democrats.
OK, but where is the polarization in the electorate? Where is the fabled 50-50 split? Where is the straightforward statistic that explains the culture wars? Do we need another dozen surveys, asking the political identity question every possible way, to settle the point that we are not divided right down the middle — and maybe not even 55 to 45?
Nine out of every 20 adults do not profess to be either a Democrat or a Republican. This fact cannot be reconciled with the assertion the electorate is polarized, no matter how much you crunch data in an effort to prove otherwise.
What we do know is that the media loves a boxing match between two contestants. Many in the American political press corps — if they were sent to cover the governments of Britain or France or Germany, would get recalled for poor performance in a matter of months. That's because European parliamentary systems often rely on coalitions among as many as five parties, and American journalists who have only been trained to perpetuate the us-versus-them narrative would lack the nuance and the vocabulary and the syntax to explain such complex politics.
They would do better in Russia or China, with systems just as binary as ours. While we have two "small-d" democratic parties, they have autocratic regimes and dissenters. There are the voices of the system, and the voices of the powerless. Democratic and autocratic systems are extremely different, but they share an overall similar structure.
It is also true there are segments of both the Republican and Democratic parties that are loud and clear, even violent. These segments, probably two-fifths of the total electorate, are definitely polarized. Their voters have an intense identity conflict — even if they do not have an intense policy conflict — one that pits those who are threatened by highly educated whites, racial minorities and the LGBTQ community against working-class whites, rural whites, and large segments of the middle class and high-income whites.
Many academics and pundits have discussed the distinction between identity and policy issues, and there is surely some merit to the distinction. It is far from clear, though, that it neatly applies to all 240 million voters — even if it can explain a good deal of the tension between the extremists in the electorate, between the right-wing media and the left-wing media, and between many of the lawmakers at the Capitol.
Even recognizing the importance of the identity-versus-policy distinction, this still leaves all the people between the 20-yard-line "red zones" on the national political football field. Though they differ with those on the other side of the 50-yard line, they are not rigid and uncompromising and are not driven by issues of identity.
Many are moderates, and some are new centrists who want an ambitious synthesis of progressive and conservative values. Most hate gridlock and love bipartisanship.
One thing is plain, and underscored anew by the Gallup numbers released this month: It is time to put the polarization thesis about the American people aside. Washington is polarized. The people of the United States are not.