Im-Politic: The Surprisingly Muddled Politics of School Reopening

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Bill De Blasio, CCP Virus, Chicago, coronavirus, COVID 19, education, Im-Politic, Jim Kenney, Larry Hogan, Lori Lightfoot, Maryland, Montgomery County, New York City, Philadelphia, reopening, schools, teachers, teachers unions, Wuhan virus

Mid-summer sure is shaping up as a bad period for The Narrative being pushed by many politicians in this pandemic and election year, and that seems predominant in those Mainstream Media news organizations still retaining enormous influence over how Americans perceive, think, and even act.

Just a few days ago, as reported on RealityChek, a Gallup poll cast doubt on whether even African Americans regard America’s police forces are systemically racist. More recently, considerable evidence has appeared – and in real life, not polls – challenging the belief that the nation’s school reopening debate pits the Trump administration and other Republicans and conservatives and their insistence that in-classroom instruction resume this fall with no regard whatever for the health of students, administrators, versus Democrats, liberals, and teachers themselves who refuse to expose anyone involved in education to a deadly disease.

Think what you will of the substance of this reopening debate and what types of school year starts strike the best balance between providing students with urgently needed education and other benefits of physical schooling on the one hand, and safeguarding their health on the other. It’s still pretty stunning to learn that in numerous American cities and other jurisdictions, the teachers and their unions – long a key Democratic Party constituency and funder – have been up in arms against the reopening plans of Never Trumper leaders that feature various mixes of virtual and in-school instruction.

Let’s start with my beloved native New York City, whose mayor, Bill de Blasio, is one of America’s most far-Left politicians (albeit one with a unique ability to antagonize folks on the Left). At the end of last month, de Blasio unveiled a reopening plan incorporating a weekly “blended approach” of in-class and virtual learning for “a vast majority of kids.” De Blasio also said that implementing the plan required that the city’s daily positive CCP Virus test rate stayed below three percent – and justified his approach by noting that it had lately been steady at one percent

The reaction of the city’s educators? Protests that included teachers (and some parents) carrying coffins and a guillotine.

Chicago is another big city with a high-profile progressive Democratic mayor – Lori Lightfoot. Unlike de Blasio, she hasn’t alienated many of her fellow progressives. But in the view of her city’s teachers, she has also committed the sin of proposing a school reopening plan entailing “a hybrid schedule combining two days of in-person instruction and three days or remote learning for kindergarten through sophomore year students….” Moreover, Chicago parents with kids in the public schools can opt for full virtual learning under the plan, which isn’t yet official policy. The school system says that it’s prepared for the return of physical classes with “large PPE investments, [a] pod system that should help with contact tracing and that it will have temperature checks at school.” Yet Chicago teachers are marching in protest, too, with the union pushing for an all virtual reopening.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney has a lower national profile than de Blasio or Lightfoot, and lately a more mixed claim as a progressive champion, including among progressives. (See here and here for evidence.) But he’s clearly a liberal Democrat.

His city’s school Superintendent also proposed a blended-type plan that “would have sent most children back to school in person two days a week and contained a 100% virtual option for families who wanted it.” The response of Philadelphia teachers (and also some parents)? “Don’t force one teacher or student into classrooms until you can guarantee our safety.” And the backlash was strong enough to force the school system into revision mode.

You say you aren’t confused enough? Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan has recently muddied the narrative still further.  I know – he’s a Republican. But he’s worked hard to position himself as an anti-Trump Republican and possibility for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024. So it would be logical to expect Hogan to fall in with the hard core opponents of in-class reopenings. Yet yesterday, Hogan slapped down as “overly broad” a (liberal Democratic) Maryland county’s order to bar, at least through October 1, not only public schools from offering any in-person education, but private schools as well.

It’s entirely possible that the confused politics of school reopenings may complicate efforts to arrive at a reasonable working consensus on this vital issue.  But in these hyperpartisan times, a better outcome might be in store.  The willingness of various politicians to depart from the battle lines widely supposed to exist might become a badly needed force for pragmatism – and especially for the flexible, case-by-case solutions that will undoubtedly often be needed.      

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Im-Politic: A Cracked Mainstream Media Window on Reality

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American Revolution, Black Lives Matter, Chicago, China, Colonials, crime, election 2020, Elise Viebeck, George Washington University, history wars, human rights, Im-Politic, J. William Fulbright, James Madison, James Monroe, Jerry Brewer, journalism, Lauren Lumpkin, law and order, law enforcement, Lori Lightfoot, Los Angeles Lakers, mail-in ballots, Mainstream Media, Matt Zapotosky, Out of My Window, Robert Costa, sports journalism, Trump, voter fraud, voting by mail, Washington Post, Winston Churchill, wokeness

When I was very little, one of my favorite books was a new volume from the Little Golden Books series called Out of My Window. It came out when I was a toddler, and although my mother wasn’t an education Tiger Mom determined to teach me to read before kindergarten or first grade, it became clear to Adult Me (and maybe Teenage Me?) that she did use it to build up my vocabulary.

Author Alice Low’s plot was pretty straightforward. She described a typical day for a young girl not much older than Toddler Me looking out the window of her house and ticking off everything visible from that perch: a tree, the house across the street, a dog, a parked car, a neighbor walking by – even an airplane flying overhead. You get the idea. And along the way, while being read to, small children were supposed to start associating images with the relevant spoken word they heard. It was probably a great reading aid, too, once my formal education began.

I start off with this brief nostalgia trip because the Washington Post print edition that arrives at my home every morning is supposed to be a one of my windows out on the world. And today’s paper – as is often the case – is worth reviewing because it’s such a vivid reminder of how cracked, and in fact, distorted the pane of glass provided by this Mainstream Media mainstay so often is.

I still start off each day with the Sports section, truncated and, frankly, depressing, as it is. And on the front page what did I see but columnist Jerry Brewer – who’s overall a pretty sensible type – reporting that

“After George Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody, the Los Angeles Lakers [U.S. pro basketball team] made a declaration that speaks for how most players in sports — especially those in predominantly black leagues — feel: “If YOU ain’t wit US, WE ain’t wit Y’ALL!”

Nothing from him, or apparently from the Lakers, elaborating on what “wit US” means. Are the players (and coaches? and management?) telling me and other basketball fans that I need to support the full agendas of Black Lives Matter movements? Police defunding efforts? Defacing or unlawful pulldowns of all supposedly offensive statues? Moreover, what about issues that it seems no one asssociated with the Lakers is “wit”? Like the massive oppression of human rights by China, a market that’s been immensely profitable for the entire franchise.

And finally, what do the Lakers mean when they say “WE ain’t wit Y’ALL”? Will fans need to pass a political litmus test before they’re permitted to attend games once post-CCP Virus normality returns? For the time being, do the Lakers want to prevent anyone “who ain’t wit THEM ALL” from watching or listening to their games once they’re broadcast? Are they to be forbidden to purchase Laker gear? So many questions. And never even asked, much less answered, by Brewer. Maybe tomorrow?

Next I turn to the main news section.  Today’s lede story is headlined “Trump stirs fear he won’t accept an election loss.” The President’s recent statements to this effect are undeniably newsworthy. But did the article, by supposedly straight news reporters Elise Viebeck and Robert Costa tell a straight story? Grounds for skepticism include their decision to award the first color quote to a long-time Clinton-ite think tanker, to write of Mr. Trump “seizing” on “the shift to absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic” – as if this development raised no legitimate questions about voter fraud – and to turn somersaults trying to avoid flatly acknowledging that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore did indeed challenge the decisive Florida results in the 2000 election, not to mention their failure to note that all manner of Democrats and many other Americans have spent the better part of the last three years trying (and failing) to prove that the President’s own election was illegitimate because of interference from Russia with which the Trump campaign colluded.

Nor did tendentious front-page reporting end there. Post headline writers also told me that the President is “framing” his recently announced law enforcement operations in major cities as a “crime-fighting tactic.” And although headlines sometimes don’t perform swimmingly in capturing the essence of what reporters are trying to convey, this wasn’t one of those times, as reporter Matt Zapotosky began his story with “President Trump announced Wednesday that he is sending more federal law enforcement agents into Chicago and Albuquerque, casting the effort as one meant to help fight crime while delivering a speech that appeared designed to score political points against Democratic leaders and burnish his law-and-order image.”

In other words, according to Zapotosky (and his editors, it must always be noted), we live in a world where politicians who claim that the dispatch of federal agents to areas where crimes are unmistakably being committed, and whose own political leaders (e.g., Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot) have – after a burst of posturing –  declared that they welcome a federal presence, bear the burden of proof that these actions actually are intended to fight these crimes. Even if you’re a Trump hater, you’ve got to admit that this is downright Orwellian.

Sometime, however, the front page coverage is downright incoherent. Thus the headline for the companion piece to Zapotosky’s proclaimed “Right’s Depictions of push for ‘law and order’ boost Trump – for now.” But do you know how much evidence the article contained for this declaration? Try “none.” Maybe that’s why the header on the “break” portion of the article (the part that continues on an inside page) was “Trump’s effort to ‘dominate’ cities risks bipartisan backlash.” Is everyone clear on that?

For the longest time, this native New Yorker ignored the Post‘s Metro section – because for many years after moving to the D.C. area, I clung to the hope of returning home, and saw no point in following local news. But since I’ve come to terms with my geographic exile, I’m now a Metro regular reader, and this morning was especially struck by the Post‘s report of the latest developments in George Washington University’s ongoing debate as to whether the school should drop “Colonials” as its mascot and erase the term from the numerous buildings on campus using the name.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, some of the anti-Colonials sentiment stems from the fact that the many of the American colonists held the racist views regarding black slaves and native Americans all too common (and even prevalent) among whites during the late 18^th century. But although reporter Lauren Lumpkin amply described this reasoning in the third paragraph of the article, nowhere was it mentioned that “Colonials” is also how the American colonists who decided to rebel against British authority have long been routinely described – especially in accounts of the American Revolution before independence was declared. After all, during those years, there literally was no United States of America. Indeed, if you Google “colonial forces” and “American Revolution,” you come up with more than 61,000 entries.

So although, as just mentioned, many and even most of the colonists held offensive views on race, there’s no evidence that the name “Colonials” has been intended to honor or even normalize those attitudes.

I’d like to close on the optimistic note that Lumpkin (and her editors) did bother to note that “The histories of” the men whose names some members of the George Washington community also want to expunge from the university’s physical footprint “are complex.” These include former U.S. Presidents James Madison and James Monroe, 20^th century Arkanas Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright, and Winston Churchill (who I trust I don’t have to describe).

I just wish that Lumpkin’s efforts to provide perspective were a little less threadbare than noting that Fulbright “championed international exchange and education” (ignoring his early and influential opposition to the Vietnam War) and that Churchill “helped steer his country through World War II” – if only because it’s all too possible that many of George Washington University’s and other name-changers don’t know their full stories.

I won’t include here any criticism of the Post‘s editorials or opinion columnists here because opinion-ating is the job of these offerings, they make no bones about it, and no thinking reader could possibly view them as transmitters of straight news. (I mentioned sports columnist Brewer just because I’m so sick and tired of the politicization of sports in general lately, and because I really do read it first – so it makes a special impression on me. If you believe that’s not very sound analytially, you could be right.)

But the paper’s hard news coverage needs to provide a much less varnished picture for its readers. In the meantime, I’ll be grateful that I haven’t yet seen any sign that a Woke version of Out of My Window has come out. Yet.

Im-Politic: Gun Sense Urgently Needed in Chicago

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Chicago, crime, gun control, gun violence, guns, Illinois, Im-Politic, Lori Lightfoot, Ted Cruz

That was some Twitter exchange Monday between Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and new Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot! Not only was it scorching (especially on Lightfoot’s part), but it was crucially important for clarifying a major problem with how Americans have been debating the issue of gun violence and what to do about it.

The problem concerns how to classify the kind of gun violence that has plagued low-income neighborhoods in big cities like Chicago for so long, and therefore how best to reduce it, and here’s why Cruz emerges as a clear winner.

Right after a Labor Day weekend in the Windy City that saw 41 shootings that resulted in seven deaths, Cruz took to social media to tweet

“Gun control doesn’t work. Look at Chicago. Disarming law-abiding citizens isn’t the answer. Stopping violent criminals—prosecuting & getting them off the street—BEFORE they commit more violent crimes is the most effective way to reduce murder rates. Let’s protect our citizens.”

Lightfoot was incensed. Her response:

“60% of illegal firearms recovered in Chicago come from outside IL—mostly from states dominated by coward Republicans like you who refuse to enact commonsense gun legislation. Keep our name out of your mouth.”

And she backed up her claim with a graphic.  (See this post for both tweets.)

But here‘s what Lightfoot overlooked: Let’s grant her apparent assumption that the share of these out-of-state guns that have been seized in the city roughly matches their share of Chicago’s total illegal gun supply. Let’s also grant her apparent assumption that better gun laws could actually reduce this supply meaningfully. Even so, it would still be a humongous stretch to conclude that Chicago would become significantly more peaceful.

Just look at these numbers: Chicago’s 2.71 million population came to just over 21 percent of the Illinois total as of last year. But according to the latest (2016) figures, Chicago’s homicide rate of 27.7 per 100,000 residents was 355 percent higher than Illinois’ homicide rate of 7.8 percent per 100,000 residents.

Even more striking: In 2016, 997 murders took place in Illinois that year. Of those, more than 76 percent (762) occurred in Chicago. That is, the number of murders in the city was nearly four times greater than what you’d expect if such violent crimes happened uniformly throughout the state. If out-of-state guns were the main problem, you’d expect their effects to be spread much more evenly, if not perfectly evenly.

What the Lightfoot-Cruz debate boils down to is the former’s claim that Chicago’s main gun violence-related problem has relatively little to do with Chicago, and the latter’s claim that something about Chicago matters critically – including in terms of attracting the out-of-state guns responsible for such an outsized share of Illinois murders. The data not only clearly vindicate Cruz. They powerfully remind that the term “gun violence” nowadays is too often used in America to describe a wide variety of behaviors, and that many of them aren’t remotely likely to be solved solely or mainly with tighter gun laws.