Adieu to Florida’s Gold Coast: Beyond Money and Politics

In October 2014, the City of South Florida passed a resolution in favor of South Florida seceding from Florida and becoming the 51^st State of the United States. Vice Mayor Walter Harris, the resolution’s sponsor, told the city’s commission that the government of Florida had not been addressing adequately the issue of the sea-level rising. Already, Miami was subject to regular flooding at high tide. This reason for secession has a serious downside, however; a better rationale may ironically come from the perspective of Floridians in North Florida.

The proposed State of South Florida would include the counties in orange. (Orlando Sentinel)

Harris was obviously frustrated. “We have to be able to deal directly with this environmental concern and we can’t really get it done in Tallahassee.”[1] However, even though a government of South Florida might indeed be more willing to legislate to save much of South Florida from the inevitable, that State would be more vulnerable to sea-water disasters. A hurricane could cut out a good part of tourism dollars along the “Gold Coast” (i.e., West Palm Beach to Miami), and still Tallahassee could count of unhampered tax revenue from the northern regions of Florida to fund clean-up and restoration projects. A government of South Florida would not have this spread-out diversity, so a major storm could effectively cripple that government’s wherewithal to respond.

So Harris’s rationale is a double-edged sword, meaning it cuts both ways. More pliability but more risk. Mayor Philip Stoddard’s rationale is more solid, and yet more effusive and thus easy to overlook or dismiss. “It’s very apparent that the attitude of the northern part of the state is that they would just love to saw the state in half and just let us float off into the Caribbean. They’ve made that abundantly clear every possible opportunity and I would love to give them the opportunity to do that.”[2] I submit that Northern motive here does not stem from fiscal or even political self-interest; rather, people living in South Florida have a bit of a bad reputation, attitudewise.

After four months living in Miami, I came away wishing that the U.S.  might someday kick South Florida out of the Union for not being civil enough to warrant inclusion in American society. On a daily basis, I found not only irate, impatient drivers honking incessantly, but also extremely rude retail employees dominating the service industry—such rudeness easily passing as passive and even active aggression toward customers. More generally, I found a mix of self-absorption and fastidiousness to be so common that it characterizes the dominant culture.  Obviously, not everyone living in the stretch of urbanization from West Palm Beach to South Miami had this mentality; in fact, I ran into some nice people who admitted to me that the real problem with South Florida is the people. How damning an assessment this is!

In short, enough residents of South Florida do not play well with others that the sordid attitude and its ensuing behaviors can enjoy the validity that comes with being the established norm. Transferring to a local bus at a light-rail station in Dade County (i.e., Miami), for example, I was literally thrown out of kilter mentally when a black 25 year-old fat guy body-slammed me into the side of the opened front-door because he thought I should have let all the Blacks on first rather than wait in line as I did. Adding insult to injury, the black bus driver refused to call the police when I asked him while I was still body-pressed by Fat Albert. “You shouldn’t have gotten on then,” the middle-aged driver said.  I submitted a complaint to the transit company, but never received a reply. At the very least, I concluded, a corrupt institutional culture enables the interpersonal aggression there.

While in Miami Beach on a bus, I was perplexed to find a driver ignoring two local black men shouting at each other in the bus. At the very least, the black woman driving the bus was not concerned about what impression the tourists standing in the aisle would have of the vacation spot. The situation quickly turned surreal when one of the black men lurched down the steps from the back third of the bus to hit the other man standing in the aisle near the back door. From my seat, I caught a glimpse of tourists falling over like dominos in the aisle toward the front of the bus. As they stood up, several of them demanded that the driver stop and call the police. Incredibly, she just kept driving. Eventually, when we stopped to let off some passengers, the driver did call the police, but only to ask if the man who was hit wanted to press charges. He did not, so the driver told the police they did not have to come. Eventually, the troubled man got off the bus of his own accord.

On nearly a daily basis, I encountered aggressively rude people in Fort Lauderdale and Miami of every race. At a Starbucks in a nice suburb of Miami, I was stunned when a woman of about 60 decided even before I had put away my things that I was leaving; she sat down at my small table while I was still drinking coffee.  “You’re leaving,” she said as if she could not be wrong. “No, I’m still here,” I replied, but this made no difference to her sense of entitlement. The employees I encountered at more than one Starbucks store were—how shall I put it—a piece of work. I called the company’s customer service on one occasion to report that a veteran (i.e., not new) employee didn’t know what a pull-over is.  Adding insult to injury, she refused to ask her manager. “No, we don’t have those,” the employee said, scolding me with her tone merely for ordering a French-roast pour-over because none was brewed.  It is Starbucks policy that if a roast is not brewed at the time, it is to be made by the pour-over method. The customer-service representative in Seattle said after I relayed the account, “You’re right; that really is beyond the pale—she doesn’t know what a pour-over is and she is not in training? Yeah, that is bad.” I agreed, adding, “That’s how it is here in Miami.” At another Starbucks, a manager explained that South Florida is challenged in the service industry. In other words, so many people are rude it is difficult to find nice people to hire. Several people living in the metro area told me that employees in the service sector there are notoriously rude, so I concluded that the culture must be really bad.

Doubtless the sordid reputation had reached many ears in North Florida by the time of Stoddard’s resolution in South Miami. He was conveniently ignoring this point when he sought to have South Florida play the victim role. They would just love to float us off into the Caribbean. Northern Floridians might want to send the commissioners there a thank you note, and not because much of the problems stemming from the rising sea-level would be obviated; rather, it may be more a question of culture—a decadent, pathological culture wanting out and neighbors to the immediate north willing to help them along to make their wish come true. In other words, the resolution might be a case of “be careful what you wish for; you might get it.”

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[1] Adrienne Cutway, “Officials Want South Florida to Break Off into Its Own State,” The Orlando Sentinel, October 21, 2014.

[2] Ibid.

China’s Increasing International Role: A Historical Departure

Historically, China was isolationist. The Opium Wars in the mid-19^th century is a good illustration of why. From this context, China’s announcements of a series of international trade and finance initiatives by which China would assume a larger leadership role internationally are stunning. Doubtless the enhanced role is in line with China’s geopolitical and economic interests. After all, political realism is hardly a dead theory in the 21^st century. Even so, the impact of the reversal on the culture is significant, and thus worthy of study. Specifically, the traditional mistrust of foreigners is likely to diminish. As it does, the Chinese will be more likely to consider and even advocate for economic and political principles, such as liberty and rights, that are valued elsewhere in the world but not so much in China. The result could be increased political instability. In short, the initiatives timed to coincide with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in November 2014 could eventually weaken the Chinese government’s grip on power.

The full essay is at “China’s Increasing International Role”

Sen. Mitch McConnell Re-elected: A Washington Insider Sustained by the Establishment

The human brain is likely hard-wired to assume that tomorrow will be like today. This coping mechanism effectively narrows the window of our cognitive and perspectival range. The status quo not only endures; it is dominant, whereas reform must push hard to see the light of day. In politics, establishment interests, made wealthy in the status quo, bet their contributions on the political insiders—the establishment politicians who embrace the status quo. As a result, an electorate is manipulated and mislead by branding ads to the extent that it cannot be said that the real will of the people is done. The ensuing public policy is also not of that will; rather, legislation protects the vested interests in return for their contributions. A republic in the grip of this self-sustaining cycle can be said to suffer from a kind of hardening of the arteries. As times change, such a ship of state becomes increasingly unmoored from its people. Eventually, the ship sinks, after the pressure of incongruity has reached an unsustainable level. I contend that the 2014 U.S. Senate election in Kentucky between the Senate’s minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and his Democratic challenger, Alison Grimes, illustrates this political illness in action.

In a Louisville Courier-Journal poll conducted January 30 through February 4, 2014, only 27 percent of registered Kentucky voters viewed Mitch McConnell favorably, while fifty percent had an unfavorable opinion of the minority leader.[1]  President Obama’s approval rating came in 2 percentage points above that of McConnell’s.  With a 3 percent margin of error, the poll gave McConnell 42 percent to Grimes’ 46 percent—meaning that were the election held then and the actual turnout was not skewed, Grimes would be the next U.S. Senator from Kentucky.

With the U.S. House and the president deadlocked through the midterm election in November, legislative achievement cannot explain how McConnell’s 27 percent turned into the 56.2 percent who voted for him. Similarly, Pat Roberts of Kansas had had low favorability ratings only to come up with 53.3 percent of the vote. Both senators were Washington insiders who had strayed from their respective home states. Yet in the end, this is what saved them.

According to the New York Times, McConnell’s campaign benefitted from $23 million in spending from independent groups including the National Rifle Association, the National Association of Realtors, and the National Federation of Independent Business. The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, registered as a social welfare organization, spent $7.6 million on attack ads against Grimes.[2] That organization ran more political ads in Kentucky than any other outside group, which means that Grimes could not counter the critical ads sufficiently. In short, McConnell’s strategy was at least in part to bring in out-of-state money to get a chunk of Grimes’ favorable rating.  Although positive correlation is not causation, the widening spread between the two candidates through the summer and fall, with McConnell on top, coincided with the onslaught of outside-group spending on attack ads against Grimes. 

It is possible that the people of Kentucky sent their incumbent senator back to Washington in spite his low favorability rating. In other words, Kentucky’s electorate may have been manipulated and mislead, deprived in effect of making the choice.

The implications in terms of public policy are just as bad. Contributors to the “social welfare” organization are not publically listed, so they have cover should anyone accuse the incoming majority leader of paying them back with favors. Whereas Grimes as a freshman senator would have much less power with which to make the favors happen, McConnell’s position as majority leader attracted the contributions like a tall beacon on a clear night. The establishment money, in other words, backed up the Washington insider, effectively protecting the status quo and thwarting real reform.

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[1] James Hohmann, “2014 Election Poll: Mitch McConnell Trails Alison Lundergan Grimes by 4,” Politico, February 6, 2014.

[2] The Editorial Board, “Dark Money Helped Win the Senate,” The New York Times, November 9, 2014.

Narrowing Public Debate: Political Narrative as Fact

For ordering his men at Gettysburg to keep firing at over 10,000 Virginian infantrymen in what is now known as Pickett’s Charge, Alonzo Cushing—who died in the battle—was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama on November 6, 2014. As a result of that charge, Pickett lost his entire division. In the 1984 film, Gettysburg, General Lee tells Pickett after the battle to look after his division. “General Lee,” Pickett declares, “I have no division.” Suddenly Lee is confronted with the true magnitude of his military blunders at Gettysburg. 

From this point of view, Cushing’s military honor looks rather different than from Obama’s point of view. As conveyed by the media, that vantage point enjoyed a virtual monopoly, and thus the interpretation could easily be taken as true rather than relative. I submit that much from the political discourse as sourced or conveyed by the media is projected as truth when it is highly subjective and thus subject to question and debate.

At the ceremony, President Obama said, “I’m mindful that I might not be standing here today as president, had it not been for the ultimate sacrifices of those courageous Americans.”[1] Hardly a partisan comment, the statement is nonetheless partial even if it seems indisputably true. Firstly, whereas Lincoln referred to all of the fallen when he spoke at Gettysburg to commemorate the national cemetery, Obama was likely referring only to the Union troops. What of the courageous men under Pickett who walked more than a mile over open field as canon-fire came from the hills on the sides and from directly ahead where the Union’s artillery fired shots from behind a stone wall? Considering that the entire division was slaughtered during that “charge,” is it even ethical to honor a man who ordered his troops to keep shooting? My point is that what we take as a given may be anything but.

Even the Union’s battle cry during the CSA-USA war that the USA would cease to exist should it lose the war is faulty. The CSA never put a claim on the states that remained with the Union, or the Union itself; rather, the Confederate states formed their own federal system. So it is erroneous to claim that the U.S. would not exist in the twenty-first century had the Union army not beaten the CSA in 1865. So it is odd that Barack Obama thought he would not be president. If he was referring to his multi-racial makeup, the U.S. without the “Southern” states would hardly be more racist in the twenty-first century.

I realize that the winner of a war gets to write the history, but that account should at least be coherent. Even such an account would be partial, but it would be conveyed as tantamount to fact by the source as well as the media. I submit that both elected officials and journalists have an ethical responsibility to represent partial or ideological statements as such. For example, the media could add alternative takes in the reportage, hence widening the window of interpretations held to be viable. In short, I contend that the American political discourse tends to be very narrow, especially when possible policy prescriptions are being debated. Having a duopoly of two major parties contributes to this tunnel vision, but so too does the confounding of partial and full accounts by candidates, elected officials, and the media.

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[1] Gregory Korte, “Union Soldier Honored for Gallantry at Gettysburg,” USA Today, November 7-9, 2014.