Recent polls show that many Americans distrust the federal government — a viewpoint that is especially common among conservatives. To many conservatives, the poll results mean that the broader public is coming around to their viewpoint — and giving them political momentum.
The Pew Research Center poll puts overall trust in Washington and the federal government at 22 percent. Break it down to Republicans only, and the number drops to 12 percent.
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It’s the activist approach to government by the Obama White House and the Democratic-controlled Congress that stirs up the current level of conservative animosity.
And that’s helping to energize Republicans looking to make big gains in this year’s midterm elections.
Conservatives rejoicing at the widespread distrust of government should remember that if they take back the House, or the Senate or even the White House, then they will be the government. And in the absence of a stronger economy and lower unemployment, the public will hate them too. There’s a strong chance that Republicans will ride the wind of public discontent to electoral victory, and be promptly be confronted with an electorate that wants to kick them out too.
Yesterday during a speech at DePaul University, RNC chairman Michael Steele was surprising candid about GOP efforts to reach African-American voters:
Steele was asked Tuesday night during a speech to roughly 200 students at DePaul University why African-Americans should vote for GOP candidates.
“You really don’t have a reason, to be honest,” Steele responded, as was first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. “We haven’t done a very good job of giving you one.”
That’s about right. The GOP has mostly positioned itself as the party of white grievance, and by definition, that means a certain amount of indifference (or even hostility) towards the priorities of black voters, as well as a willingness to exploit white grievance for electoral gain. Indeed, Steele wasn’t shy about admitting the extent to which the Republican Party has relied on white grievance to propel its electoral success:
“We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans,” Steele said. “This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties. Their parties walk away from them.
“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”
It’s incredibly rare to see a prominent Republican admit this much, but it’s true. From the 1960s until quite recently, the GOP relied on subtle — and not so subtle — racial appeals to win elections. Reagan was a master of this technique. In his narrative, the Voting Rights Act was “humiliating to the South,” Federal aid recipients were “welfare queens,” unemployed men collecting benefits were “strapping young bucks,” and criminals were vicious “predators.” This isn’t explicitly racial, of course, but considering the targets — poor, urban-dwelling Americans — it’s clear what color he was referring to.
In any case, Michael Steele deserves credit for owning up to the GOP’s legacy of playing on white racial fears. Now let’s see if he can convince his fellow-travelers to do the same.
After having a chat with Alyssa about how I can improve the blog, I’ve decided to start posting about my culinary exploits, which are usually revealed on Twitter. Unlike the food monstrosities I blog about, these are either good for you, or not terrible for you (to say nothing of the benefit that comes with actually preparing your own food). This week’s entry is something I made for breakfast a few weeks ago using leftover berries and a healthy amount of sugar:
The recipe comes from Joy the Baker, with a few alterations:
Ingredients
1 pound frozen mixed berries 1 pound of frozen blackberries and a 1/2 pound (ish) of fresh strawberries
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 6 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Directions
1. In a medium skillet, cook berries, lemon juice, 4 tablespoons sugar, and 1/4 cup water over medium until slightly thickened, 11 to 13 minutes. Berries may still look watery. Don’t worry, they’ll cook down when you add the dumplings.
2. Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 2 tablespoons sugar; add melted butter and buttermilk, and stir until a moist dough forms. Dividing evenly, spoon 6 dollops of dough over fruit. Combine cinnamon and 1 teaspoon sugar, and sprinkle over dough.
3. Cover pan tightly with foil, and cook over medium-low until dumplings are set and tops are dry to the touch, about 15 minutes. Serve warm.
Trust me when I say that these are absolutely delicious, and a great way to start a Sunday morning.
Or at least, that’s Greg Morabito suggests in his brief look at the chain’s offerings. I recommend checking out the pictures — and the calorie counts — to get a good sense of everything wrong with American dining. If you’re wondering why it’s necessary for the FDA to regulate sodium content, this is why. In the absence of any countervailing pressure, chains and food manufacturers will continue to load their products with dangerously high amounts of salt and preservatives. Or put another way, there is no reason to have the 1594 calories and 2,920 milligrams of sodium contained in Claim Jumper’s “Widow Maker” burger (pictured above). It’s ridiculous.
The Tea Party phenomenon does not yet comfortably fit in either party. The Tea Partiers could even split the Republican vote should they so choose. Overall though, I would say the movement represents an opportunity for Republicans but is not yet firmly opposed to the Democrats.
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New entrants into politics upset the political balance. When such new entrants appear it is very important that a political party does not write them off. The Tea Party phenomenon has drawn a phalanx of derision from the intellectual and government elite. This is so even though it seems to reflect a reverence for the Constitution, has been incredibly peaceful in contrast with left-wing rallies, and has leant energy to elections across the country. The media has gone out of its way to demonize the Tea Parties. Jon Stewart, a bellwether of elite, liberal thinking endlessly lampoons them. The Congressional Black Caucus has lied about them.
But there they are. Thousands upon thousands of people largely concerned with balanced budgets and the reach of the federal government.
This is demonstrably false, and makes me think that Vecchione didn’t do any actual research before penning this ode to the Tea Party. Pace Vecchione, here is what we know about the Tea Party movement: according to the recent New York Times/CBS survey, 54 percent of self-identified Tea Partiers belong to the Republican Party. 36 percent identify themselves as independents, but since 73 percent describe themselves as somewhat or very conservative, it is fair to say that they are right-leaning independents. Indeed, given the Tea Party’s demographics and categorical hostility to liberals and Democrats, it is absurd for Vecchione to describe the movement as not fitting “comfortably” in either party.
Beyond that, the Tea Party movement Vecchione praises seems to exist only in his imagination. Given that Tea Partiers have brandished assault weapons at presidential events, and regularly threaten lawmakers with violence, it’s a little obtuse to describe the movement as “incredibly peaceful.” And that’s to say nothing of last month’s insane health care protest, where Tea Partiers spewed racial and homophobic slurs at Democratic legislators (last I checked, when multiple people corroborate a single incident, it’s probably true).
Robert Eisinger’s Atlantic piece on federal spending is erroneous on two important counts. First:
Republicans cannot now decide if they should be weary or gleeful. On one hand, the Obama administration and the current Democratic majority is their worst philosophical nightmare. Government’s role is expanding and deficits are rising. Financial reform is around the corner, and there is talk of, gasp, increased environmental regulation. We already hear how limited government conservatives respond to this agenda; they have labeled it socialist, or in more polite circles, European. [Emphasis mine]
And second:
Democratic realists must now acknowledge that there are limits to the role of government. With health care passed, mounting deficits stemming from entitlement programs, and two wars (in Afghanistan and in Iraq), both the Democrats and the Republicans know that there is no money tree, and future governmental initiatives are more likely to be wishes and dreams than realities funded by the next congress. [Emphasis mine]
These two facts are pretty integral to the piece as a whole, but they run completely counter to observed reality. Rhetoric notwithstanding, there is little in the last thirty years of political history to suggest that Republicans are actually concerned with deficits. From Reagan onwards, the GOP has been the party of deficits; cutting taxes and raising spending with little regards to the nation’s long-term fiscal health. Insofar that “fiscal conservatism” means anything, it has little to do with deficit reduction and everything to do with turning the federal government into a generous benefactor for the wealthy and privileged.
As for the second point, our current deficits are not the product of entitlement spending. This isn’t a hard fact to grasp, but it seems to elude most of the professional commentariat (or at least those that can’t be bothered to use Google). To return to the point I made yesterday, our current deficits are due largely to the Bush-era tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the recession. Sorting out entitlement spending is necessary in the long-term (and to that end, health care reform will play an important part), but entitlement spending isn’t driving the year-to-year deficit. Again, as much as I would like to see the United States but on stable fiscal footing, I’m worried that deficit reduction will become an opportunity for conservatives (and their allies) to slash programs and benefits for the poor and middle-class, while enriching themselves.
The tech press certainly isn’t skeptical enough in its coverage of Apple. They aren’t the Apple of 15 or so years ago, barely clinging on to life. They are a dominant player in the music business, and their mobile technology continues to grow at an amazing rate in a depressed economy. They aren’t two guys in a garage or even the boutique computer company they used to be. Apple coverage should be more skeptical. For every amazingly great product they produce (and I speak firsthand as the owner of a Macbook and an iPhone pleased with my purchases), there are products that suffer from performance bloat (iTunes) and products that are just out and out flops like AppleTV (I own one too, and while I like it, it’s clearly been a failure). You need to hear about Apple’s miscues too, in order to give context to its home runs. [Emphasis mine]
I think a lot of the backlash against Apple from some corners of the tech world comes from a sense of betrayal. Tech writers and tinkerers kept Apple alive in the early 1990s, and those same people feel that the company has abandoned them with its recent hardware and software design choices. But, as Willis points out, Apple isn’t the fledgling company it was two decades ago. Since 2007, Apple has sold more than 50 million iPhones and 35 million iPod Touch for a grand total of 85 million iPhone OS devices, a number that will grow as the iPad becomes popular and the iPhone moves to other carriers. Apple has moved over three billion applications in its App Store, and in 2009, Apple was responsible for more than 99.4 percent of mobile app sales. And just recently Apple became the third largest U.S. company in market capitalization, hovering at $215 billion, and sitting comfortably behind Exxon Mobile and Microsoft.
By any reasonable standard, Apple is a behemoth, and it’s about time the tech press began to treat it like one. What does that mean? For one, it means growing up about the company. Tech writers should be less willing to accept Apple’s claims, and more willing to criticize the glaring flaws that are present in Apple products. In the mobile world, Apple is quickly becoming the new Microsoft, and it would benefit us all if tech writers and tech fans (like myself) could approach Apple and Steve Jobs with the same skepticism they readily dispense towards Microsoft.
When the KFC Double-Down debuted last week, I quipped to a friend that it was the single most unhealthy sandwich ever devised. My friend, who tends toward the pedantic, responded with a quick “But it only has 540 calories!” Which is true. Compared to other fast food sandwiches (see: Hardee’s Monster Thickburger), the Double Down is a caloric lightweight. But upon closer examination, it’s clear that the sandwich is horrible for other reasons, most notably, its 1,380 mg of sodium (more than half of an adult’s daily intake). Indeed, when it comes to the trainwreck that is the American diet, one particularly underreported story regards the obscene amount of sodium used in food processing. So much so, that the current average daily intake for sodium is around 3,500 or 150 percent the federally recommended maximum.
Seemingly taking a cue from the Obama administration’s recent anti-obesity efforts, the FDA is planning a massive effort to reduce the amount of sodium in the American diet:
Officials have not determined the salt limits. In a complicated undertaking, the FDA would analyze the salt in spaghetti sauces, breads and thousands of other products that make up the $600 billion food and beverage market, sources said. Working with food manufacturers, the government would set limits for salt in these categories, designed to gradually ratchet down sodium consumption. The changes would be calibrated so that consumers barely notice the modification.
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Currently, manufacturers can use as much salt as they like in products because under federal standards, it falls into the category deemed “generally recognized as safe.” Foodmakers are merely required to report the amount on nutrition labels.
But for the past 30 years, health officials have grown increasingly alarmed as salt intake has increased with the explosion in processed foods and restaurant meals. Most adults consume about twice the government’s daily recommended limit, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For those folks uneasy about this attempt to reengineer the American diet, it’s useful to think of this as similar in kind to efforts to reduce the amount of saturated fat — and later trans fats — in processed foods. Of course, that invites an obvious rejoinder; if Americans want to eat lower sodium foods, they’ll purchase lower sodium foods. And while that’s true to an extent, it is also the case that nearly every processed food on the market contains an outrageous amount of sodium. Far more than is necessary for preserving or flavoring. What’s more, massive sodium intake is a strong contributor to hyper-tension and its assorted complications. If the food industry is going to continue to load their products with dangerous amounts of sodium, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for the federal government to act in response.
Of course, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem if more Americans prepared their own meals. Speaking as someone who does a fair amount of cooking, the amount of salt added to a single meal for multiple people pales in comparison to the salt present in a single meal for a single person. But cooking is time consuming, and time is a luxury for the millions of Americans who spend their days working low-wage, low-benefit jobs. Processed food, for all of its drawbacks, meets the needs of those Americans and the least we can do is ensure that it isn’t too horrible.
efforts, the 
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