“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago, and a racist today.” – Thomas Sowell

Race Politics: Will It Doom the Democrats in November? 

He’s a racist.

That’s what many of my friends think about Trump. His 2016 campaign rhetoric about illegal immigrants and his promise to build the wall ignited a conflagration of animosity towards him. Subsequent comments, some purposefully misconstrued by the press, added fuel. It’s still raging.

In their thinking, Trump won the electoral vote (“He didn’t win the election,” they tell me) by appealing to the crudest prejudices of some 35 million deplorable Americans.

They see Trump’s comment that there were “very fine people on both sides” about the protest in Charlottesville as support for white supremacists. They see ICE’s protocol of separating children from their parents at the border (a protocol that had been in place during the Obama administration) as a racist tactic against Hispanics.

After the killing of George Floyd on May 25, support for BLM surged all across the country. For a few days, it looked like it might be a unifying moment, bringing Republicans and Democrats together in a common cause. But when some of the protests turned violent, the gap reasserted itself, with conservatives condemning the rioting and progressives supporting it.

Democratic politicians justified the violence (“Where is it written that protests should be non-violent?” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asked.) And the largely Democratic media did so, too. (CNN’s Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon likened the rioters to American revolutionaries. “This is how this country was started,” Lemon said.)

Then, as the coalition of BLM and Antifa leaders gained access to the media, the message shifted from outrage over an individual case of police brutality to an organized campaign against policing itself. The slogan was “Black Lives Matter.” And though nobody could agree on what exactly that meant, Democratic tacticians seized on it as a rallying call to unite their core supporters and win over others in the November elections. Before long, everyone on the left side of the aisle was taking a knee and denouncing the US as a systemically racist country.

That played well for a while, bolstering Biden’s ratings in the polls. Early in the summer, his lead over Trump reached a seemingly insurmountable 10 points (51 to 41). If the protests continued but the rioting and looting did not, Democratic support of BLM might have sealed Biden’s victory. But the violence spread and even escalated during the summer, and that began to worry many centrist voters. Still, the Democrats and mainstream media must have felt forced to excuse and even defend the violence, because by then it was clear that it was coming from the left.

NYT writer Nikole Hannah-Jones told CBS that “destroying property which can be replaced is not violence.” And books such as How to Be an Antiracist, White Fragility, and In Defense of Looting shifted the narrative even further: Either you supported BLM and its Socialist/Marxist solutions or you were racist.

In June and July, the violence continued, with the destruction of private property exceeding the $700 million in damages that LA had suffered after the Rodney King riots and reaching nearly $2 billion. “There has been no precedent [in US history] for… such a massive property loss from rioting in more than one state,” Tom Johansmeyer, head of Property Claim Services (PCS), said in a recent interview.

But property damage was only part of it. During August and September, the riots continued with assaults and shootings of civilians on both sides and armed attacks on police. At the same time, crime rates in those same cities were escalating.

* In Minneapolis during the first two weeks of July, there were 43 shootings, about triple the number during the same period in 2019.

* In Atlanta, there were 66 shootings (106 victims) between June and July, an increase of 265% from the previous year, while murders increased by 240% with 17.

* New York City saw 239 shootings (318 victims) in June, a 130% increase, plus a 118% rise in robberies and a 30% rise in murders.

* In Chicago, police reported 31 murders in just 6 days (July 6 to July 12), a 417% increase from the previous year. In that same time frame, there were 93 shootings, 127% more than in 2019. And the city saw 24 deaths and 61 injuries due to gun violence in what was later called the most violent weekend of the year.

* In Philadelphia, there was a 25% increase in murders, with 224 as of July 15. Philadelphia PD also reported a 55% increase in shootings and a 31% increase in shooting victims.

All the way back in May, David Shor, then an analyst for the liberal think tank Civis Analytics, posted a tweet citing research by political scientist Omar Wasow on the riots following MLK’s assassination which showed how Democratic support for the violence had worked against them in the 1968 election.

In June, Biden’s lead over Trump had been 10 points (51 to 41). By mid-July, it had narrowed to 8 (48 to 40), and it narrowed again in August. As the spread narrowed, it began to dawn on the Democrats that Wasow had been correct: Their tacit and sometimes explicit support of the violence was hurting them.

So, heeding the polls, Biden and many of the Democratic governors, senators, and even local politicians began to condemn the violence. But by condemning it, they were forced to acknowledge it. And that only made it more obvious to voters, Democrats and Republicans alike, that the social fabric of the country was being torn apart. This was going to be a critical election.

At this point, Biden’s lead had dropped again, to 6.5. And we found ourselves in a rhetorical battle between Democrats and Republicans with two issues: Trump’s handling of the Corona Crisis and the Democrats’ handling of the violence and crime.

Sensing an opportunity, Trump positioned himself as the law-and-order president and portrayed Biden as soft and Harris as radicalized.

The Democrats fired back by characterizing Trump’s law-and-order initiatives as racist, and continued to charge him with bungling the response to the pandemic.

The corona-bungling narrative was strong when the death counts were soaring, but it weakened every time the counts went down. Trump continued to downplay the danger while predicting a vaccine before the end of the year.

The presidential race is now a contest between fear of the pandemic and fear of escalating violence. The recent spike in COVID-19 cases in states such as Florida and Georgia were good for Biden and company in June and July, and they are (no doubt) hoping for a spike just before the November election to recapture the story’s impact. The Republicans, on the other hand, are (no doubt) hoping the violence will continue.

So what will happen?

The core contingencies on both sides aren’t going to change their votes. The election will be determined by the swing states and the undecided voters. My theory: It all depends on which of the two principal narratives scares them the most.

The Democrats need a dramatic COVID-19 scare in the next six weeks, but I don’t think a spike in cases will do it. People understand the risks better than they did months ago. To boost the pandemic to the top of undecided voters’ fear gauge, the Democrats need a surge in fatalities. And given the current numbers, that doesn’t seem likely.

Perhaps sensing this, the Democrat strategists have just this last weekend begun to talk about healthcare, arguing that Trump’s plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act will be assured with the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett.

But Trump is already countering that by promising (and even officially declaring) that he will force insurance companies to accept preexisting conditions.

The fear of losing health care coverage was a motivating one in the 2018 mid-term elections, but it seems unlikely that it is going to sway undecided voters now. I also doubt that Trump’s Supreme Court appointment or the story of his tax returns are going to have a significant effect. (I’ll tell you why in a future blog.)

I could be wrong about all of the above. But if I’m right, the Democrats may be left with the one issue that motivated so many of them in the beginning: racism. Is Trump racist? Is America racist? Do Black lives matter? Do all lives matter?

This is not the issue I’d want to run on if I were Biden. The justified outrage over George Floyd’s killing that was so strong at the beginning of the summer has ebbed amid the continuing violence, with damage and death on both sides of the racial divide.

Moderate and undecided voters may be tired of all the turmoil and tired, too, of all the talk of institutional racism, intersectionality, and white privilege.

These are not moderate viewpoints. And I don’t think they are likely to appeal to the majority of undecided voters. American culture, which had been gradually polarizing since the Reagan years, has been all but shattered in these last few months, inflamed by the algorithms of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.

A particular concern for Democrats today is the Hispanic vote.

From David Leonhardt in The New York Times:

“Ross Douthat, a Times columnist, argues that Trump’s relative strength among Hispanic Americans is a sign that Democrats are misreading the politics of race. Liberals often draw a bright line between whites and people of color (as the acronym BIPOC – for Black, Indigenous and people of color – suggests). But this binary breakdown doesn’t reflect reality, Ross argues.

“For starters, about 53% of Latinos identify as white, Andrea González-Ramírez of Medium notes. Others do not but are conservative – on abortion, taxes, Cuba, or other issues. In some states, Hispanic men appear to be especially open to supporting Trump, Stephanie Valencia of Equis Research, a polling firm, told my colleague Ian Prasad Philbrick.

“A recent Times poll of four battleground states captured some of these dynamics. Most Hispanic voters said Biden had not done enough to condemn rioting, said he supported cutting police funding (which is not true), and said they themselves opposed police funding cuts. For that matter, most Black voters also opposed such funding cuts.

“It’s a reminder that well-educated progressive activists and writers – of all races – are well to the left of most Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters on major issues. These groups in fact, are among the more moderate parts of the Democratic coalition in important respects. If Democrats don’t grapple with this reality they risk losing some of those voters.”

So the question I keep posing to my Democrat friends is: Could you be making the same mistake you made in 2016?

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“There is an inverse relationship between the value of advice given and what people are usually willing to spend for it.” – Michael Masterson

Why It’s a Bad Idea to Ask a Someone You Don’t Know for Advice… and How to Do It Anyway 

Time: Forty years ago

Place: Queens College campus, CUNY

Main Characters: Harriet Zinnes, college professor and accomplished poet, and me

Background: I had taken several classes from her. She was a great teacher. And a really good poet. I adored her, and she seemed to have adopted me as a favorite student.

Action: I’m walking with her, from the class I’d just taken back to her office, basking in the glow of being sort-of friends with a real poet. She is telling me about her new collection, to be published by New Directions Press.

Cut To: Her office

Action: We sit down. She opens a small stack of mail. One piece is a thick manilla envelope. She opens it and withdraws a typewritten manuscript. I can see that it is poetry. She flips through it, then unfolds the cover letter and reads that. She frowns.

“Bad news?” I ask.

“No.” Shaking her head, she puts the manuscript and cover letter back in the envelope and tosses it into a box that is almost full of similar looking packages. “It’s just amazing.”

I lift my eyebrows.

“I mean. What do these people think? I don’t know them. They don’t know me. But they assume that I should be honored to read their poetry in my spare time.”

She looks at me.

“Listen, Mark. I’m happy to read the poetry of my students. That’s my job. But I need every minute of my spare time to work on my own poetry. I get these requests all the time. I’d have to spend hours every week trying to keep up with them. Don’t they realize they are imposing on me?”

That conversation stuck with me. On the one hand, I was thrilled that this person I adulated would condescend to confide in me. On the other hand, her comments seemed mean-spirited.

Years later, I came to understand why Professor Zinnes felt the way she did. It wasn’t that she was uncharitable. Nor did she think her status as a poet put her above amateurs. And I believe she understood as well as I did that such requests were a kind of compliment. I’d bet that after her first collection was published and the first few requests dribbled in, she was happy and excited to respond to them.

But as she gained notoriety and those early few requests became a steady stream, it was impossible to respond to them all. And what was once a great ego boost turned into a source of frustration.

That’s pretty much what happened to me when I was writing Early to Rise (ETR) 20 years ago. At the beginning, I would occasionally get letters from subscribers asking for my views on this or that or my advice for their specific situations. I was so flattered to be asked. I answered every one – some at great length.

As ETR grew, I could answer only some of the letters that came in. To the rest I sent short notes saying that I would get back to them later. When that became impossible, I had my assistant send personalized messages saying that I’d try to answer by way of an upcoming essay in ETR. (Which I was usually able to do.) Eventually, when the circulation reached nearly a million subscribers, my publisher had to take over with a form letter.

But I can still remember the early days of frustration, when each new request put me on edge. Not because I wasn’t still grateful to have earned the trust of a subscriber, but because I was irrationally angry about the fact that the demands on my time had become so great.

These days, my essays are published in syndication, so I am rarely overwhelmed with personal letters. But often, I get one that I’m not really sure how to respond to.

This happened recently when I received an email from someone named – well, let’s call him David Smith.

David writes:

Dear Mr. Ford:

I hope this email finds you well. My partner and I would like to meet you for an hour or two when you are in town next. We have problems with our business (a contsruction company). I know you have the experience we need, so we are asking for your advise.

If you may, let me know your decision about this via email as soon as possible.

Thank you, and it is a pleasure to salute you.

David Smith

* My first thought: Who is David Smith? Did I once meet him? Or does he know me by reputation? In any case, why does he assume I recognize his name? Why doesn’t he tell me who he is?

* My second thought: Alas, here’s someone else that believes that asking a stranger for an hour or two of his time is like asking for a light. How can he think that way?

* Third question: It’s not that hard to spell-check an email. Does he not know how to do it? And if he does, why didn’t he take the time?

* Fourth question: Does he think the preemptory “thank you” is fair compensation for the work he is asking me to do?

* Fifth question: Did some networking guru encourage him to “build his contact list” this way?

What to do?

Should I write and explain to David that when it comes to giving personal advice, I normally charge for it? Should I let him know that my base fee starts at a million dollars? (No. That would be mean.)

I’m always happy to share my opinions when I’ve had a few drinks. Should I suggest that he should root me out at a conference cocktail hour? (But if I did that, I’d have to also warn him that free advice is almost always worth exactly what you pay for it.)

Should I write a short note, explaining that I’m on vacation and don’t have the time? (But that’s not the real reason.)

Or should I write a brief essay that perhaps he’ll read, explaining why it’s a bad idea to ask a stranger for favors?

A Simple Strategy That Has a Fair Chance of Working 

If you have a question about just about anything, start with Google. You’ll get dozens of answers from all sorts of interesting perspectives that you can consider.

If that doesn’t appeal to you – if you want the answer to come from a particular person that you’ve read or read about (e.g., a published writer, business leader, or public figure) – recognize that your motivation is not to get your question answered but to form a connection that will be valuable to you.

If you are able to do that, you should be able to take the next mental step: Recognize that the relationship you are seeking is an unbalanced one. It’s beneficial for you, but it’s a cost for the other person.

Picture this: The person with whom you want to connect has just finished making a speech to 600 people. He/she has left the auditorium and is now standing in the lobby, surrounded by 20 or 30 people, all of whom are asking questions. Is that a good time to ask yours? And if you asked a question, do you think that could possibly be the beginning of the connection you are going for?

You can see the problem. Yes?

But there is a question you could ask that might actually accomplish your mission.

I’ve been in the speaker’s position many times. And I always take the time to answer questions. But of the hundreds of questions I’ve answered, there is only one I can remember that made me think: “Who is this person? I’d like to know more about him/her.”

The question was: “Can I get you a glass of water or a cup of coffee?”

In an upcoming essay, I’ll talk about the next step in forming a relationship with someone you admire.

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