The List: A Critique of Trump's Proposed Presidential Agenda

Donald Trump took the oath of office last week as the 45^th President of the United States amid pomp and circumstance, celebration by part of America, but trepidation, foreboding, protest, and fear by other parts.  His 40% approval rating represents the lowest ever for a new President, so Trump has his work cut out for him.  We won’t say we wish him well because, frankly, such a platitude from us seems meaningless and insincere given our attitude toward some things Trump has said he wants to do, like dismantling the Affordable Care Act, banning Muslims, giving new tax breaks to billionaires, and getting into bed with Vladimir Putin and the Russians. As patriotic Americans who deeply love this nation, we’ll just say we wish the country well and leave it at that.

A number of thorny issues fill Trump’s plate for the foreseeable future.  Some he put there himself in his zeal, and that of his fellow Republicans, to undo the policies of the previous administration.  Others he campaigned on, meaning the electorate will judge him on how he does with them. Some are there because they’re there for every President. We can think of dozens of things Trump needs to deal with, but we’ll hone in on seven that will likely move front and center during the early weeks and months of his tenure. Most have a domestic tilt, a few fall within the international realm, and some overlap.  All this presupposes Trump doesn’t face an early, unexpected foreign policy crisis or a domestic trauma we can’t now predict. 

Affordable Care Act Repeal   Republicans moved at warp speed in the early days of the current session of Congress to repeal the ACA. What they’re going to replace it with remains a major mystery. People who understand this issue know one thing: keeping the “goodies” in the ACA that even Republicans like, such as coverage for pre-existing conditions and letting young people stay on their parents’ policies until they’re 26, seems exceedingly difficult without the taxes and mandates the GOP hates.

Infrastructure/Jobs   Trump’s promise to bring jobs back to the rust belt may have won him the election. Can he now deliver? During the campaign, he talked about a major infrastructure program to create jobs by rebuilding roads, bridges, airports, water systems, and other public works.  Passing a major infrastructure bill, especially one that puts significant federal dollars, and not just tax credits, into play probably requires Democratic votes in Congress since Republicans usually detest such programs.  Will Trump propose something with real meat that Democrats could vote for? Or will he take the path of least resistance and offer up a tax credit scheme Republicans will support, produces profits for Trump’s wealthy corporate friends, but yields few improvements in the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and even fewer jobs.  

Russian Hacking/Intelligence   The new President will have a hard call once Congressional committees finish their review of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia attempted to swing the 2016 election to him through computer hacking of his political opponents. Does he ignore a clear attack on American sovereignty and democracy? Does he reverse course and move to punish the Russians as his predecessor did? Can he repair his relationship with the intelligence agencies?  The questions bear on U.S. national security and our concept of the nation.

Supreme Court   Trump said he’d put up a nominee for the Scalia seat that’s been vacant almost a year about two weeks after he takes office. Does he propose a moderate conservative at least some Democrats could vote for or does he put up a right wing zealot, thereby inviting a bruising Senate confirmation battle? Which way he goes may signal something important about how he plans to govern.

Syria/Middle East   Trump never really said during the campaign what he thought about Syria except that it was a “disaster” and he offered vague, almost incoherent ramblings about Assad and the Russians being better for Syria than ISIS. Does Trump have a Syria policy or doesn’t he?  Maybe we’ll find out soon.

Immigration   Will Trump follow through on three promises he made (at least at times he seemed to promise them) during the campaign: (1) banning Muslims from entering the United States; (2) starting mass deportation of undocumented persons in the country illegally; and (3) building a wall between the U. S. and Mexico that would keep out illegal immigrants.  These ideas have legislative and legal components and Trump may not have the last word on them. 

Criminal Justice Reform   Trump didn’t campaign on this issue and it isn’t a high priority for his core supporters. Many of them, in fact, may oppose efforts to reduce incarceration levels and eliminate race based sentencing disparities. His business allies probably like it that private prison companies reap more and more tax dollars from warehousing inmates.  Communities of color, however, care passionately about this, and that concern presents a potential political opportunity for Trump.  He won’t ever get the lion’s share of black and Latino votes, but he could score major points with those groups, and some moderate to progressive whites, by going against type and taking on an issue outside his natural wheelhouse. It would resemble Richard Nixon, the unrepentant cold warrior, visiting China.

Trump and the country, of course, have things other than these seven issues to worry about, including the President’s business conflicts, ISIS, trade policy, voting rights, and many others.  But these seven issues represent headaches and opportunities. Minefields, and a few safe harbors, lie within this constellation.   Your ideas?

       

  

       

Missing President Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama gave his farewell address this week. Shortly, he leaves office as the 44^th President of the United States. We lament his departure and not just because of the dire prospects his successor offers. We’ve stated clearly how much of a mistake we think the country made in electing Donald Trump. We’ll have more to say about that in due course. For now, we celebrate and commemorate the Obama Presidency.

As the first African-American President, no matter how he did, Obama occupies a unique place in American history. That he accomplished as much as he did makes the man all the more important. Republicans, right after the 2016 election, started talking about shrinking his legacy. They will do away with many of his executive actions and some legislative accomplishments, given their Congressional majorities. They won’t diminish Obama as a president who changed the nation, impacted people’s lives, and altered American culture.

CHANGING POLITICS   

Obama campaigned as the candidate of hope and change. Even he’d admit he didn’t live up to all that hype – no one could. But, Obama changed an accepted tenant of American politics, just in getting elected. He showed that a person of color could win the Presidency. The idea of a black (or brown) President no longer represents a fantasy of novelists and screenwriters. That he won by capturing the nomination of his party and taking the general election in an electoral college landslide made his triumph even more remarkable. We’d guess most people who dreamed a black person could become President assumed it would happen through vice presidential succession – a black elevated by tragedy. Obama did it the old fashioned way. He earned it. No back bench Republican Congressman can erode that part of Obama’s legacy just by voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

A DIFFERENCE IN PEOPLE’S LIVES  

Americans may have forgotten how stuck in a ditch the U.S. economy was in 2009 when Obama took office – unemployment at 7.9 % and rising (vs. 4.7 % now), the stock market at 7,949, the lowest inauguration day number ever, as opposed to flirting with 20,000 now, home foreclosures skyrocketing, and, most important, confidence at all economic levels at lows unseen since the 1930s. That many give Obama minimal credit for changing things says more about them than him. He admits he never took a victory lap touting his success and that perhaps he should have. By rescuing the auto industry, pushing through Congress a stimulus package that paved the road back, and reassuring the financial markets, Obama got the nation headed in the right direction. That the recovery hasn’t been perfect – we know about the lack of wage growth – doesn’t detract from the significance of his economic accomplishments.

The Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature legislative program, of course, remains controversial. Polls show the electorate almost evenly divided about it. Those polls also show, however, that even opponents want it replaced with something that provides widespread coverage. Very few want to return to the Wild, Wild West that characterized health coverage before the Affordable Care Act passed. That fact alone demonstrates that Obama, by finally passing a national health insurance law, changed the dynamic around the issue. Republicans, in their zeal to repeal the Affordable Care Act, must realize that they take health coverage away from Americans at their peril. Why? Barack Obama.

GRACE   

Even before January 20, 2009, the new President acquired the moniker “No Drama Obama.”  He wasn’t prone to snap judgments, he didn’t indulge conspiracy theories, and he didn’t stir up or manufacture crises. He didn’t seem scandal prone. None of that changed over Obama’s eight years in office. In fact, he presided over a deliberate White House that, with a few exceptions, avoided the controversies, blow ups, and intrigue that had become common place in American Presidential politics. Above all, no scandals marred his Presidency. Even the trumped up IRS affair proved much ado about nothing. Vultures never circled the Obama White House because he and his aides didn’t leave battered carcasses lying around. Obama, his wife, and daughters conducted themselves with grace, dignity, and decorum. While many of his adversaries didn’t meet that standard, the President and the First Lady kept their cool in the face of both real disrespect and mere tackiness.

Obama wasn’t perfect. From time to time, even we objected to things he did or didn’t do. He occasionally misread the national mood, as when he used the words “cop” and “stupid” in the same sentence when discussing the Henry Louis Gates arrest early in his tenure. He whiffed on Syria. He likely deserves some blame for the decline in his party’s fortunes at the state and local level. In fact, his most significant failure might have been his inability to find meaningful involvement in the political and leadership process for the millions of young Americans who propelled him into office in the first place. Had he done so, the Trump insurgency might never have taken hold. We’re not sure any Democrat could have done better legislatively once Republicans took over Congress, but Obama sometimes seemed aloof from the legislative process. Yes, Obama has a few things to regret but, as Frank Sinatra might say, “too few to mention.”

The first sentence of Obama’s obituary will, no doubt, reference his status as the nation’s first African-American president. What happens between now and then will determine what else goes into it. Is there another President of color in his life time?  Does another Democratic President revive signature Obama policies the Trump administration dismantles? Do subsequent economic events demonstrate just how well he handled that part of the job?  Will anyone else govern with his dignity and intelligence? Will another family so graciously inhabit the White House? No one can answer these questions now, but they will bear on how history ultimately treats Obama and his times. What we can say now, is, “Well done and we’ll miss you.”

Election 2016: From Here, Where?

The Trump Presidency stands around the corner with many Americans anxious, fearful, and angry. The President-elect lost the election by almost three million votes, but on January 20 he takes the oath of office nevertheless. Fully acknowledging that we stand with progressives, we ask: What now?

If solving a problem first requires admitting the existence of a problem, Democrats and progressives initially must take ownership of their 2016 defeat.  That compels us to suggest that former President Bill Clinton rethink his public pronouncement that Hillary Clinton overcame every obstacle standing in her way  except FBI Director James Comey’s October/November mischief and Russian computer hacking.  

Leaving aside how much either Comey’s pronouncements or the Russian interference influenced the outcome, and despite our enormous respect for the former President’s political knowledge, we think he disserves our cause by suggesting that his wife would have won but for those two dispiriting developments.  Looking at it that way allows the Clintons, and other Democrats, to evade accountability and delays the process of moving forward.

The suggestion Secretary Clinton lost only because of Comey and the Russians roughly equates to a football coach whining at the post game news conference about officiating while ignoring his team’s five turnovers.  We see at least three conceptual shortcomings in the 2016 Democratic campaign that helped lose it and, more important, have implications for the future.

Strategic    

Clinton’s failure to campaign at all in Wisconsin now symbolizes the campaign’s strategic flaws.  That, however, wasn’t the only tactical error.  The candidate’s thin schedule, when compared with Trump’s intense barnstorming, the selection of Tim Kaine as a running mate instead of a candidate who might have energized young voters (i.e. Elizabeth Warren) or voters of color (i. e. several possible Hispanic nominees), and the failure to deploy President Obama in the Midwest when he advised the campaign he should put in more time there all strike us as potentially outcome determinative decisions the campaign got wrong.

Judgment   

Hillary Clinton did not wake up in 2015 and just happen to decide she’d run for President.  That die was cast from the moment she stepped to the microphone at the 2008 Democratic convention and moved to nominate Barack Obama by acclimation. 

Given that, some decisions the Clintons made defy logic. Could not they, or those around them, imagine the problem a private e-mail server might cause in a presidential campaign?  Did none of their advisers warn them of the danger of the Secretary having ANYTHING to do with the Clinton Foundation?  With the prospect of a White House run looming, how hard was it to see that speeches to Wall Street executives might yield embarrassing quotes?  Or did someone warn them about all these things and they chose not to listen?

Message   

Secretary Clinton had the makings of a strong economic message in 2016.  She made substantive proposals on infrastructure, job retraining, health care, and tax policy that might improve the lives of the working class whites who swung the election to Trump. Clinton, however, buried her proposals in a weak slogan (Stronger Together than what?) and a conviction that if she talked enough about the evils of a Trump Presidency everything would turn out fine.  

Elections for many Americans turn on what a candidate proposes to do that will improve their lives.  Clinton never figured out how to make that case, all the while permitting the untrustworthy, unethical, unlikeable narrative to play out.

Democrats need to own up to these mistakes and not fall for the comforting eye candy implicit in the notion that ‘we wuz robbed’ by Comey and the Russians.  Why?  Avoiding such failures in coming years, that’s why.

The Future   

After the election, President Obama reminded Democrats they need to “show up,” even in hostile red territory.  He won in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan and not just with minority votes in the cities. Many working class whites in those states voted for him and, he noted, he lost some rural areas by small margins.  With the election decided by about 100,000 votes in three states, Democrats ignore his admonition at their peril.  The Clinton campaign made the decisions it made, for better or for worse, but the President’s “show up” theory offers an organizing principle Democrats should remember.

No doubt, wanna be Democratic candidates have begun plotting 2020 campaigns.  We urge them to consider the front page test: If you’re contemplating doing anything that reeks of ethical taint, ask what it will look like on the front page of the New York Times or splashed all over cable news and the internet. We may have struggled with the concept of foreseeability in law school, but it’s not hard in politics. If it might look bad in the headlines, don’t do it.

As Democrats move toward 2020, there’s already talk of who might run, who’s going to be the lead singer.  We find having a song a more important consideration for the time being. Democrats need a message for 2018 and 2020 that attracts white working class voters who deserted them in 2016, while still appealing to the Obama coalition of young voters and people of color. In fact, the party’s most difficult task may lie in keeping the messaging effort from becoming a zero sum game pitting working class whites against black and brown voters so critical to the success Democrats have had.

The irony of this circumstance lies in the fact the last two, two-term Democratic Presidents, both immensely talented politicians, pulled off exactly this trick.  Bill Clinton (he was “Bubba” at one time, you might recall) and Barack Obama won election with strong support from both groups.  It can be done. It’s mainly a matter of working at it.  Over the coming months, we’ll have plenty to say about that work.   

Your thoughts?

The Russians are Here!

When we think of the 1960s in which we grew up, aside from the details of our own lives, we think most often of the civil rights movement and the struggle for racial justice that so defined that decade -- not unexpected for three black men from the American South. Others, coming from a different place, might focus on anti-war protests, the counter culture, or the beginnings of the feminist movement. We are confident, however, that every American who lived through that era recalls the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. "The Russians are coming" had a real, fearful meaning.

Russia v. U.S. We thought of the Soviet Union as "Russia." Fifteen countries made up the Soviet Union before it broke up in 1991, but we ignored Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Georgia, and 11 others. Only Russia, the biggest one, mattered. The United States maintained a massive conventional military force, deployed thousands of nuclear missiles, built fall-out shelters, and set up a huge intelligence operation mainly aimed at protecting the country against aggressive acts by "Russia." America devoted a huge portion of its GDP to defending its interests against "Russian" adventurism. In October 1962, a young President even took the world to the brink of nuclear destruction because of the threat posed by "Russian" missiles in Cuba.

This history makes all the more interesting the relatively mild reaction in the United States to reports that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election by hacking into computers of Democrats, then releasing their embarrassing e-mails with the purpose of helping elect Republican Donald Trump. Whatever the differences between the old Soviet Union and current day Russia, until now, a fundamental tenant of American policy, and of our cultural understanding of the world, has been that the United States and Russia have different interests. Right now, the U.S. and Russia differ mightily over the Syrian conflict. Despite business deals and cooperation on the international space station, the two countries have non-aligned world agendas and the societies vary greatly. By and large, Americans haven’t cared much for Russia during most of our lives.

While some members of Congress call for investigations in to this matter, we don’t hear an outcry. One poll showed only about a third of Americans believe the hacking influenced the election. This story hasn’t consumed the mainstream media, talk radio, or social media. Many other controversies went more viral than this one. We dare say the 1992 "nannygate" scandal resulting from Bill Clinton’s intention to nominate corporate lawyer Zoe Baird as Attorney General generated a hotter firestorm than has the possibility Russia interfered in a basic aspect of American democracy. We don’t suggest nobody cares. Speeches have been made and statements released. But, the measured response raises questions we think deserve thought.

Admittedly, the public doesn’t have the full story. The government hasn’t released details of the intelligence showing Russia tried to tip the electoral scales. Much of what we know comes from anonymous sources. We also recognize no one can show that Russian interference determined the outcome. But, as we’ve written, we subscribe to the theory that many little things caused the 2016 result, and this could have been one of them. We emphasize, however, whether the interference changed the outcome isn’t the point. The fact remains that the U.S. intelligence community has determined that a foreign power, one traditionally hostile to American interests, interfered in our electoral process and the country isn’t up in arms about it.

The President’s reserved reaction fits with his "No Drama Obama" persona. He’s said he didn’t talk more about this before the election so as not to look like he was putting his thumb on the scale. He says now that in deciding how much to reveal about what we know and how we know it, he must weigh the effectiveness of a U.S. response against the right of the American people to know the details of something that affects their security and way of life. These considerations, at least facially legitimate, seem to have prevented venom from spewing out of the Obama White House.

Not so Noble We think, however, the muted American reaction stems from other, less noble motives. Dispirited Democrats, mindful of being cast as sore losers and seekers of scape goats, have decided to leave this to their Senators and Representatives to investigate "in due course" while they focus on other things, like picking a new Democratic National Committee Chair and figuring out a winning strategy for future elections. Republicans, giddy with the prospect of controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, want to do nothing that delegitimizes Trump’s victory. Republicans have warmed to Trump, but only because he won, giving them the opportunity for the legislative and executive mischief they’ve so craved the last eight years. No matter how much they hate the Russians, and many of them do, they’re taking Trump’s lead on this.

Trump’s coziness with Russia and its leader, former KGB officer Vladimir Putin, has been well documented and we need not repeat it here. What further evidence do we need than the selection of a Secretary of State who received the Russian Order of Friendship award? Trump’s followers – his true believers – probably agree with him on the merits about the Russians – they’re not our number one enemy and we ought to forge closer ties with them. Traditional Republicans, like Mitt Romney, who don’t buy that at all, kept relatively quiet on this. They don’t want to endanger Trump’s presidency, and their own access to power, by riling up the country about Russian hacking and interference into our election. Self-interest Trumps everything else.

John F. Kennedy, in his 1961 inaugural address, warned that the danger of riding the back of a tiger lies in the possibility of ending up inside. The United States for years applied that axiom to Russian bears. Maybe we still should.

Outrage, anyone?

Attitudes, Behaviors and the 2016 Election

Some time ago, we believed race would diminish as an issue in American life.  We saw the progress made since our 50s childhoods and our coming of age in the 60s.  We read the late 70s/early 80s work of authors like William J. Wilson who wrote of the “declining significance” of race. With the 2008 election of Barack Obama, we reveled in the bright promise of a color blind, post racial nation.

Today, arguably we live in a better world than the one into which the three of us arrived between 1945 and 1951.  But, things we see every day tell us we’ve come to a dark chapter in the book and that discomfort, perhaps even terror, fills the pages ahead.  The complex issues like policing and criminal justice, a frightening electoral outcome, and the stark partisan divide in the country portend, in Martin Luther King’s words, difficult days ahead.

During our formative years, open hostility often characterized interpersonal interactions between whites and blacks.  Whites considered blacks inferior and viewed them with disdain, disgust, and derision. Blacks saw whites as hateful and viewed them with fear, mistrust, and suspicion.

White insults sometimes provoked fierce black reaction.  One of us, for example, acknowledges threatening to physically assault a white college classmate who spouted the ‘N’ word in discussing  a prolific black athlete.  This response, whatever ethical and moral qualms one might express about it now, generated a sense of empowerment.

We also saw another black response to whites – a transactional approach that sought tangible economic or professional benefits.  Blacks acknowledged white people didn’t accept or like them, but whites had things these blacks wanted – jobs, professional training, mentoring – things that made slurs, insults, and put downs bearable.  The notion that “we don’t care about your attitude, it’s your behavior we’re concerned with” summed up this way of dealing with white people. The advantages of doing business with the devil outweighed the discomforts.   

We used this method from time to time.  One of us tolerated a broadcasting mentor who made jokes about the radio station’s “Resident Negro” and the incongruity of designating oneself as “black when you’re really just brown.”  Another of us, in order not to jeopardize a summer job, bit his tongue when confronted with vile characterizations of black women’s private parts.  These insults stung, but we calculated the value gained outweighed the hurt.

We learned recently how much the world has changed, while staying so much the same. Racial hostility rears its head every day in America and blacks and whites still often view each other with the derision, fear, and mistrust we saw as young men.  But, racial insult may now command a very different response.

One of our ministers shared with us an unprompted essay by his 17-year old daughter. This young, bi-racial woman (Asian father/ white mother) wrote of her heartbreak at how verbal assaults on blacks at her school must cause “unimaginable” pain for her black classmates and their families.  That such things occur in America in 2016 surprises us not at all. The difference in her response and both the assertive and transactional approaches we sometimes employed fascinates us.

This young woman, raised in the bosom of a multi-ethnic church, spoke poignantly of how she hoped her God would “reveal the hurt” blacks and other people of color experience when whites say insensitive, hurtful things about “people I love so much and consider my family.”  In her missive, we see how different a world she not only craves but believes she has a right to inhabit.  Her desire that her classmates understand the hurt their words can cause showed us an unwillingness to accept an America in which racial insensitivity represents the norm.

Still, we understand how negatively people might view her response.  Some wail about the evils of “political correctness.”  “Get over it” and “stop being so sensitive” they will say.  Others may respond with admonitions that she “grow up.”  She’s only in for disappointment, they’d contend, if she expects real change in the attitudes of white classmates. Didn’t in 1957 we wonder when such things would stop in schools?

Our young friend’s essay causes us to ask tough questions.  What is the proper response to racial insensitivity?  The aggressive and transactional approaches we used back in the day?  Her heartfelt, spiritual call to our better angels?  Something in between? Were our approaches more “realistic?”  Did we pander? In confronting racism with aggression were we any different than our oppressors?  Did we miss opportunities to teach lessons about the evil of racial animus?

America overcame some aspects of racial discrimination. The laws changed. Blacks can eat in whatever restaurant or sleep in whatever hotel they can afford.  Blacks regularly get jobs they never could before. Some white people will even vote for a black man for President of the United States. So, yes, white behavior changed.

Our young friend’s essay demonstrated, however, that racial animus remains strong in America. Many white attitudes have not changed.  At the most serious level, law enforcement officers still mistreat and kill young black men.  Black people still get shot for being black, even in church.  At a different level – not unimportant, just different – blacks still endure slurs, whites still presume blacks unfit for jobs with no evidence other than skin tone, and high school students still sling racial insults at classmates.

Our young friend’s sincere, spiritual wishes notwithstanding, we fear the hurts she sees her friends of color enduring will sting more often, not less in the next few years.  The outcome of the election enabled at least some of the forces of evil.  Despite calls that our new leader more forcefully denounce the bad acts carried out in his name, no powerful admonition has been forthcoming.  The sincerity of one young woman’s plea compels us to ask how long we must wait. 

            

                     

Elections and Airplane Crashes

            A few years ago, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a wonderful book called Outliers: The Story of Success.  He offered intriguing theories about life and achievement, including the notion that real competence in any endeavor requires doing that endeavor for 10,000 hours. Leaving aside the fact a few social scientists scoffed at Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule because, they contended, he offered insufficient empirical data in support of it, we’ve found the 10,000 hour idea, and others he advances, compelling.  One of those offers a path for analyzing the election, his way of looking at airplane crashes.

Gladwell devoted most of his attention to cultural factors, like inadequate cockpit communication born out of the reluctance of co-pilots from some cultures to challenge captains about things they saw going wrong because to do so would have been to question authority in a way their societies don’t permit.  Gladwell, however, also made a point some others make about air crashes – that many result from the cascading effect of little things going wrong that add up to a major catastrophe. In most instances, removal of any one of these “little things” from the equation would have averted the crash.  As we think about Gladwell’s view of air crashes, the more parallels we see with the election.

Little Things The issue of race figures prominently in most analyses we’ve seen of the election.  Pundits point out Donald Trump’s support among white working class voters, add in his offensive rhetoric about ethnic groups, and the instant analysis says Trump won because of a white backlash against immigrants, Muslims, the first black president, etc. More left-leaning analysts saw Trump’s appeal to white voters in general, and Hillary Clinton’s weakness among them, and concluded that out-and-out white racism decided the election.

Then, there is the matter of Clinton’s complicity in her own defeat.  People supporting this theory look at both the technical/strategic and the personal.  At a technical/strategic level, they point to her campaign’s failure to see—until it was too late – Trump’s surge in the upper Midwest and her selection of Tim Kaine as a running mate instead of a Hispanic, like Housing Secretary Julian Castro, who might have produced a larger Hispanic vote for the Democrats.  These analysts, in effect, argue that Clinton could have denied Trump the White House just by running a better railroad.  On the personal front, others take her to task for the flaws that created some of her heaviest political baggage, such as her penchant for privacy and secrecy that likely led to installation of the private e-mail server. Another variation of this argument focuses on ill-advised decisions Clinton (and her husband) made before the campaign – giving the Wall Street speeches, how the Clinton Foundation operated, filling her circle with corporate and social elites instead of cultivating more relationships with working class people.

Happenings Then, of course, some things just happened, beginning with FBI Director James Comey’s meddling in the election in the name of keeping a promise to Congress.  Nothing required Comey to make that promise in the first place and nothing compelled him to speak on either of the two occasions he did during the last days of the campaign --- October 28 when he dropped his first bombshell letter and the Sunday before the election when he tried to clean up the mess with an exculpatory letter. The damage was done.

We could go on with the list of theories about why Trump won and Clinton lost, but we’ve made the point. Any of these things, if changed just a little, could have altered the outcome of the election.  In that sense, the 2016 election resembles the air crashes Gladwell describes in Outliers.  No one will ever explain the result by reference to just one thing or one set of things. The outcome just shows how complex and nuanced a world we inhabit.

Lessons What do we learn from looking at the election through this disaster prism?   Three lessons, we suggest.  First, be careful about drawing broad simplistic conclusions.  As journalist Mark Shields reminded us last week, many of the rural and small town areas in Michigan and Wisconsin that Trump carried so solidly went for Barak Obama in 2008 and 2012.  That should give us pause about automatically casting the inhabitants of those areas as bigoted, narrow-minded racists promoting mass backlash. Without absolving them from complicity in Trump’s nastiness, we can acknowledge that maybe they mostly seek a magic bullet that will expunge the effects of the things that make them feel left out of the new economic and cultural order.  Obama promised “change” too. Maybe that message, not the color of the messenger, rings truest with them.

Second, campaigns matter.  Trump ran a terrible campaign as measured by traditional standards of the craft. But, it didn’t matter, given his celebrity status. Clinton, on the other hand, supposedly the superior technical politician, made critical mistakes.  The three of us are avid sports fans and we know what will get any football or basketball team beat, no matter the difference in talent – turnovers.  Hillary turned the ball over plenty in this campaign and it eventually caught up with her.

Finally, in campaigns as in air crashes, some things happen that no pilot can control. If the tail section breaks off no amount of pilot skill can save the plane. That’s probably the best analogy for the Comey letters.  Sometimes things just happen.

A zillion ways exist to look at this election. For progressives like us, it was a disaster of the first order. But trying to assign one simple explanation makes it all the more likely something like this will occur in the future. We need to know all the possible causes, no matter how small.                                       

The Struggles of Charlie Strong: Is the Handwriting on the Wall for the Texas Football Coach?

Even as the Presidential election gets stranger, we’ve kept some attention on college football.  Two-thirds through the season many fans are turning their attention to (1) the playoffs and (2) the coaching carousel. A few schools (e.g. LSU, Purdue) have already fired coaches and will finish the season with interims.  Other heads sit on the chopping block and we expect pink slips right after Thanksgiving – which brings us back to where we started this blog, the plight of Texas coach Charlie Strong.

We wrote in August that Strong who, like all three of us, hails from Arkansas, faced a year in which he had to win eight or nine games to survive.  He won’t win nine, at least not in the regular season, since the Longhorns are 4-4.  Winning out will produce an 8-4 regular season.

A few weeks ago, after a frustrating loss to a mediocre Kansas State team, some media types and fans had Strong already gone.  Firing coaches during the season, however, isn’t Texas’s style (it’s never happened). If Strong’s going to get the axe, it will likely fall after the November 25 finale against TCU.

Being lawyers, we like to construct analytical frameworks through which to examine situations like this. Our Strong framework includes three dimensions – pure football, the outsized Texas expectations, and race.  There are football-based reasons to fire Strong or to keep him.  Most elite college football programs have expectations that obscure reality in evaluating coaches and Texas fits the pattern.  Finally, no matter what happens to Strong, race will arise in the discussion of his departure or his continued tenure at Texas.

Just Football Make no mistake, Charlie Strong can coach football. He proved that as defensive coordinator for two national championship teams at Florida, with spots on the Lou Holtz and Urban Meyer coaching trees, and through bowl victories and double digit win seasons as head coach at Louisville. Moving to Austin didn’t make him forget how to coach.

Still, his Texas tenure baffles even his strongest (yes, we said that) supporters. Unranked California and Kansas State torched the Texas defense. Even in a much needed win over then eighth-ranked Baylor, Texas yielded over 600 yards of offense. Watching missed tackle after missed tackle infuriates ardent Texas fans (as one of us is).

As coaches tend to, Strong attributes many of his team’s problems to youth.  He has a point. Texas plays precious few seniors because it has so few good ones, a testament to what Strong found when he arrived in 2014.  The team’s inability to win away from Austin (0-4, including a loss to rival Oklahoma on a neutral field) no doubt reflects immaturity. If Strong plans to win out and survive, his team must grow up on November 5 and win at Texas Tech. 

Texas has corrected what ailed it during Strong’s first two seasons – an anemic offense.  The Longhorns average ten points more per game this year than last because of freshman quarterback Shane Buechele, an improving offensive line, a deep, talented receiving corps, and the superb running of tailback D’Onta Foreman. Most of those pieces, and much of the defense, return.  Strong himself freely says that whoever coaches Texas in 2017 will have a ten win team.

So, just in football terms, Strong’s 15-18 record in two and two-thirds seasons might deserve dismissal based on the numbers and the eye test.  Much of what Texas fans have seen has been ugly, really ugly.  We won’t sugar coat that.  Still, Strong has a young, talented team poised for future success.  Building football teams resembles baking cakes.  They aren’t ready until they’re ready.  Ample evidence exists that Texas could come out of the oven very tasty next season.  Maybe the cook who whipped up the batter ought to get a chance to put on the icing and enjoy a piece.

Texas Expectations Much has been said and written about the Texas expectations and how the school and its fans see the program. ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit called Texas a “cesspool” in which to coach because of the demands of the fan base.  Former Texas  athletic director DeLoss Dodds famously remarked that it was foolish to talk about Texas keeping up with the Joneses in facilities, fund raising, and other measures of success. “We are the Joneses,” Dodds declared.

At many schools Strong wouldn’t be in trouble with the record he has after two and two-thirds seasons. Many would follow the four year rule that a coach    should at least have the opportunity to get his first recruiting class through. At Texas, however, the powers that be have to decide whether to succumb to the pressure or give Strong time to finish baking the cake, regardless of the hungry, impatient crowd clamoring at the table.

The Matter of Color Our earlier blog asked whether Texas would hire another black coach if it fires Strong.  While his fate on the Forty Acres remains uncertain, it has become clear Strong won’t have a black successor.  That doesn’t necessarily result from racial animus on the part of the Texas hierarchy. Nearly everyone agrees Texas will first go after University of Houston coach Tom Herman, a former Texas graduate assistant and Urban Meyer disciple who has turned the Cougars into a national player despite not being in a Power 5 conference.  Herman, on the surface, appears the ideal man for Texas and the fact he’s not black is just the way it is.

Even if Texas wanted to replace Strong with a black coach, it would have a difficult time doing so. Texas won’t hire a FCS coach or an assistant who hasn’t been a successful head coach. Texas can’t and won’t try luring Kevin Sumlin from Texas A & M, its estranged in-state rival.  David Shaw isn’t leaving Stanford for Texas. Vanderbilt’s Derek Mason might find himself on the hot seat there. James Franklin hasn’t had the sustained success at Penn State he’d need to justify Texas trying to hire him now.  Dino Babers just got to Syracuse.

We no doubt missed a coaching prospect or two, but the point remains.  A microscopic supply of black coaches exists for a place like Texas.  The reasons begin with institutional racism and the good ol’ boy system that dictates who gets hired for the coordinator positions that lead to head coaching jobs.  That’s such a big topic we’ll have to take it up another time.

Your thoughts?