Legitimacy in the Headlines

October 19, 2016
Posted by Jay Livingston

How is Donald Trump doing in his campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the presidency? He has been at it a while. His “birther” campaign – begun in 2008 and still alive – was aimed specifically at the legitimacy of the Obama presidency. Most recently, he has been questioning the legitimacy of the upcoming presidential election and by implications all presidential elections.

If he is successful, if the US will soon face a crisis of legitimacy, that’s a serious problem. Legitimacy requires the consent of the governed. We agree that the government has the right to levy taxes, punish criminals, enforce contracts, regulate all sorts of activities. . .  The list is potentially endless.

Legitimacy is to the government what authority is to the police officer – the agreement of those being policed that the officer has the right to enforce the law. So when the cop says, “Move to the other side of the street,” we move. Without that agreement, without the authority of the badge, the cop has only the power of the gun. Similarly, a government that does not have legitimacy must rule by sheer power. Such governments, even if they are democratically elected, use the power of the state to lock up their political opponents, to harass or imprison journalists, and generally to ensure compliance.

Trump is obviously not alone in his views about legitimacy.  When I see the posters and websites claiming that Obama is a “tyrant” – one who rules by power rather than by legitimate authority; when I see the Trump supporters chanting “Lock Her Up,” I wonder whether it’s all just good political fun and hyperbole or whether the legitimacy of the US government is really at risk.

This morning, I saw this headline at the Washington Post website (here).

Scary. But the content of the story tells a story that is completely the opposite. The first sentence of the story quotes the Post’s own editorial, which says that Trump, with his claims of rigged elections, “poses an unprecedented threat to the peaceful transition of power." The second sentence evaluates this threat.

Here’s the key evidence. Surveys of voters in 2012 and 2016 show no increase in fears of a rigged election. In fact, on the whole people in 2016 were more confident that their vote would be fairly counted.

(Click on the image for a larger view.)

The graph on the left shows that even among Republicans, the percent who were “very confident” that their vote would be counted was about the same in 2016 as in 2012. (Technically, one point lower, a difference well within the margin of error.)

However, two findings from the research suggest a qualification to the idea that legitimacy has not been threatened. First, only 45% of the voters are “very confident” that their votes will be counted. That’s less than half. The Post does not say what percent were “somewhat confident” (or whatever the other choices were), and surely these would have pushed the confident tally well above 50%.

Second, fears about rigged elections conform to the “elsewhere effect” – the perception that things may be OK where I am, but in the nation at large, things are bad and getting worse. Perceptions of Congressional representatives, race relations, and marriage follow this pattern (see this previous post). The graph on the left shows that 45% were very confident that their own vote would be counted. In the graph on the right, only 28% were very confident that votes nationwide would get a similarly fair treatment.

These numbers do not seem like a strong vote of confidence (or a strong confidence in voting). Perhaps the best we can say is that if there is any change in the last four years, it is in the direction of legitimacy.

The Trump Phenomenon Cracked Open

October 14, 2016
Posted by Jay Livingston

The best social/cultural/political explanation that I have read of the continued support for Trump is at Cracked. Yes, Cracked. By David Wong.

Here’s the opening.

(Click for a larger view.)

It’s long for a blog post – two full screens – but worth reading.

[HT: Melanie Allen]

The Genuine Article

October 12, 2016
Posted by Jay Livingston

Donald Trump has a tell – an unconscious tic that divulges genuine ideas and feelings that are different from the views he consciously wants to convey. His tell is the word “the.”

“I will be phenomenal to the women, I mean I'lI want to help women,” said Donald Trump back in August of 2015, when he was one of many Republicans campaigning for the party’s nomination. John Dickerson on “Face the Nation” had asked him why women should vote for him.

I bring this up not because women voters reject Trump’s own self-assessment, though reject it they do.  Here is Nate Silver’s estimate of what the election would look like if only women voted.

What struck me was Trump’s use of the definite article. “Phenomenal to the women,” rather than just “phenomenal to women.” On the surface, Trump was saying that when it came to women voters, he was on their side. But the definite article subtly the contradicted that assertion. As I blogged at the time (here),

when you add “the” to a demographic group and speak of “the women” or “the Blacks,” you are separating them from the rest of society.. . . turning them into separate, distinct groups that are not part of a unified whole.

Linguist Lynne Murphy (here) heard something similar during the most recent debate, regarding not women but minorities.

One of the littlest words in the English language gives the biggest clue about where Donald Trump’s head is at: his use of the word “the.” Trump promised, “I’m going to help the African-Americans. I’m going to help the Latinos, Hispanics. I am going to help the inner cities. [Clinton has] done a terrible job for the African-Americans.”

By using the definite article, says Murphy, the speaker builds a wall between himself and the group he is talking about. “The” turns them into the “other.”

“The” makes the group seem like it’s a large, uniform mass, rather than a diverse group of individuals. This is the key to “othering:” treating people from another group as less human than one’s own group.

Nate Silver has not offered maps showing what the election would look like if only Blacks, Hispanics, and inner-cities voted, but I suspect they would resemble that of the women.

Murphy, a “reader” in linguistics at the University of Sussex, notes a similar “the” othering among her fellow UK linguists. This same tell reveals how they feel about those of us on this side of the Atlantic. Are we “Americans,” or are we “the Americans”?

British writers’ views on American English are a good predictor of whether they’ll write “Americans say it that way” or “The Americans say it that way.” Those who feel that American English threatens British English use “the” to hold Americans at arm’s length (possibly while holding their noses).

Hypocrisy – Public Virtue, Private Vice

October 8, 2016
Posted by Jay Livingston

“What’s the deal with hypocrisy anyway?” asks my inner Seinfeld. The answer comes from La Rochefoucauld four centuries ago: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”

I was never sure what this meant. But politicians’ reactions to Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” remarks offer a perfect of example.

Mitch McConnell says that Trump’s comments are “repugnant and unacceptable.” Paul Ryan was “sickened” by what he heard. Reince Priebus gave the official GOP response:  “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever.”

I am not privy to the private conversations that take place among the men who are our political leaders. But I would bet a lot of money that Ryan, McConnell, and all the other guys on both sides of the aisle hear this kind of talk regularly. Poor Paul Ryan must be sick a lot. I would also bet that even those who thought that what they heard was sickening or repugnant ever said so at the time or called their colleague out on his sexism. Ever.

For them now to claim that they are shocked, shocked that the nominee of their party used such language and expressed sexist attitudes towards women – that’s hypocrisy.  It is also vice (holding or condoning degrading views of women) paying tribute to virtue (treating women decently and speaking about them decently).

Still, I wonder if La Rochefoucauld would join the Republicans who are now saying that they will not vote for Trump? (As Dylan Matthews points out, these politicians are also saying by implication that they were fine with all of Trump’s other statements and attitudes – the ones about Megyn Kelly, Rosie O’Donnell, John McCain, et al.) Or would La Rochefoucauld say that the public world of politics is distinct from that of private life, and that personal virtue has little to do with the ability to govern?.

American politics seems to be unique in its demand for a perfect congruency of private and public personas. I would guess this demand is a legacy of our Puritan origins. These Puritan ideas still have a place in the public sphere, but their power is slowly waning. The publication of Trump’s privately expressed views about women will probably ensure and augment Hillary’s victory. But, like Bill Clinton’s surviving the Monica Lewinsky scandal, it may be yet another sign that America is loosening the constraints of the Protestant Ethic. In the meantime, we’ll just have to get used to hypocrisy.