Category Archives: Politics

A tale of two elections

By Steve Brawner

© 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Voters in two very different countries have been going to the polls recently.

One is the world’s oldest continuous democracy. It enjoys prosperity to the point of excess, a stable government and the rule of law. Voters have weeks to go to the polls and usually face at most the inconvenience of a short wait, probably inside.

The other does not have a democratic tradition. In some ways it’s less a country and more of a collection of factions, including violent ones, contained within an arbitrary international border. It avoids collapse only through the presence of heavily armed foreigners concentrated in its capital city. Government corruption is rampant.

As its election neared, one of its factions threatened citizens that polling places could be attacked. That’s what happened. At least 28 people have died, including in one attack by a suicide bomber who killed 10 civilians and five police officers at a polling site north of the capital.  Continue reading →

The caravan, the pipe bomber and the truth

By Steve Brawner, Copyright 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

There’s what we know to be true, suspect to be true, want to be true, and don’t care if it’s true. As much as possible, we should strive to make the first three the same, and stay away from the last one. Unfortunately, too often it’s the last three where we make our home. That brings us to two separate news items this week: the caravan and the pipe bomber.

Here’s what we know to be true about that caravan: Thousands of Central Americans are so desperate to flee gang violence and poverty that they’re trying to march all the way up Mexico to get to the United States. Look at a map or a globe, and try to imagine the enormity of that task. As of Thursday, they’d traveled 95 miles in six days with more than 1,000 miles to go in the Mexican heat. No wonder many have already dropped out.

A society that most values what it knows to be true would respond by asking itself difficult questions about its responsibility. If they make it, do we help them, or do we turn them away? There are reasonable arguments for both.

Unfortunately, truth is not always our highest aim. The president of the United States charged one day that the caravan included “Middle Easterners,” and then later said he had no proof of that. When he originally made the charge, did he suspect it was true, want it to be true, or not care if it was true? Meanwhile, some Americans are openly questioning, again without proof, if the caravan is being funded by liberal political forces like billionaire George Soros who somehow want to influence the upcoming and future elections. Continue reading →

Bring your IDs to vote on IDs

vote, Mark Moore, 16-year-olds, Arkansas primaries, Goodson, photo IDBy Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

One of the issues on which you’ll be voting this election will be the act of voting itself.

Issue 2, referred by the Arkansas Legislature in 2017, would enshrine in the Constitution a requirement for voters to show a photo ID at the ballot box.

Yes, you already did that during the May primary elections. Legislators that year also passed a law that does the same thing and has already gone into effect.

Why both a law and a constitutional amendment? A previous photo ID law unanimously was declared unconstitutional in 2014 by the Arkansas Supreme Court. The majority opinion said it illegally added a new qualification to voters. Another three justices said the Legislature didn’t pass the law by the required two-thirds majority. Justice Courtney Goodson wrote that second, concurring opinion. Opponents have used that against her in her re-election campaign this year.

In response, the Legislature covered its bases.  Continue reading →

Who’s your daddy? Trump knows it’s not him

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Say what you want about President Trump, but he’s accomplishing much of what he wants to do. Maybe that’s because he grasps a reality in today’s politics: The president is not our daddy.

That’s one role presidents have played since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created an activist government during the Great Depression, spoke to Americans through radio fireside chats, and shepherded the country through most of World War II. Before him, the president was a relatively remote part of Americans’ everyday existence. After him, presidents led the country through the Cold War. When the space shuttle exploded or terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, the president comforted the nation and led the response.

In political science terms, the president is the “head of state,” the face of the country. Unlike some other democracies, here the same person is also the head of government. Great Britain has a prime minister to wallow in the muck of politics, and a queen who sits on the throne above it all. Presidents have tried to temper their language and speak in unifying terms knowing they played both roles.

But now that the country has become more divided and doesn’t face a common enemy, it’s become harder to serve as head of state. There’s no point in trying to be America’s daddy, and besides, that’s not President Trump’s nature anyway. He’s about “winning,” not nurturing. Forty percent of the country is with him, about half is against him, and nothing much is going to change those two groups. He knows most of his 40 percent fear and dislike Nancy Pelosi more than they do Vladimir Putin. His presidency depends on holding on to that base, and that’s what he’s done. Continue reading →

Should the Supreme Court nomination be a lifetime decision?

Lake View, Supreme Court, Issue 1, KavanaughBy Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Regarding the appointment of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, you know as much as I do about what happened, or didn’t happen, so many years ago. Likewise, your guess is as good as mine as to what happens next. I hope the FBI investigation provides something definitive. I suspect it won’t.

If that’s the case, the few senators who haven’t made up their minds will be faced with a difficult choice. Do they appoint to the Supreme Court a man who may have once, or more than once, terribly abused another kind of power? Or do they keep a person out of office based on unproven allegations?

Instead of trying to answer questions that for the moment are unanswerable, let’s camp out on another aspect of this story: The fact that justices serve for life.  Continue reading →