Super Bowl Ads

The Super Bowl has always been known for excess. Be it the huge amounts of pre-game hype or the massive prices for commercials during the game, the Super Bowl is one of the flashiest events of the year. Part of the hype this year was the anticipation of two political ads that aired during the game: one from President Trump, one from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. A striking thing about them was their similarity in some respects.

One common vein was their break from the otherwise rancorous debate surrounding the 2020 election. Trump’s ad focused on the story of Alice Johnson, a nonviolent drug offender sentenced to life in prison, whose sentence was eventually commuted by Trump after the intervention of socialite Kim Kardashian. The ad, featuring white text on a black background interspersed with images of Johnson reunited with her family, was a departure from the standard Trump playbook, which calls for being loud, boisterous, and spontaneous.  Bloomberg’s 60-second spot told the story of George Kemp, a 20-year-old football player from Houston who was killed in a shooting in 2013. The ad was somber but hopeful. It was narrated by Kemp’s mother, who has advocated for gun restrictions since his death and praises Bloomberg’s record on gun control. Neither candidate was willing to air a divisive attack ad on America’s biggest sporting stage, but both were willing to air sensitive, emotional political issues in a stirring way.

The second similarity between these two ads was what was left unsaid. Trump’s touted his record on criminal justice reform, but needs more context. Trump did sign the bipartisan FIRST STEP Act in December of 2018. The law eased mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines for nonviolent drug offenses, weakened the “three strikes and you’re out” rule, expanded credit for good time, and implemented some lesser justice-system reforms. Johnson wasn’t actually a beneficiary of the act, because her sentence was commuted by the president the previous summer. Furthermore, critics rightly said that clemency should not occur because of celebrity intervention but rather through comprehensive policy.

Bloomberg’s ad focused on gun violence affecting children, but would have been better had it described the fuller magnitude of the gun problem. A person viewing the ad, with its images of Kemp as a young child in oversized football pads and of mourning after the Sandy Hook school shooting, might believe he was killed as a child, obscuring the fact that he was shot at the age of 20. Here lies the tragedy in the shooting statistic Bloomberg cited: While 2,900 0- to 19-year-olds are killed each year due to gun violence, that number is 1,500 for 0- to 17-year-olds, and it doesn’t really tell the story of the thousands of deaths, uncovered in the news, that occur--like Kemp’s shooting death--between teenagers after altercations. Bloomberg should be lauded for bringing these stories into the limelight, but should focus more on the scourge that is everyday gun violence.

Finally, both ads made a pitch to black voters. Trump’s messaging has evolved from 2016 to highlight accomplishments for the black community during his administration, rather than just asking: “what do you have to lose?” While Trump cannot claim sole credit (no administration could) for record-low black unemployment rates or for criminal justice reform (however preliminary), his pitch is intended to show progress for the black community. His argument in this respect in 2020 will certainly be based on the claim that the Democratic Party has always taken the black vote for granted without delivering material improvements in their lives. Whether Trump succeeds in winning over much of the black vote remains to be seen, but it should be remembered that he won a greater share of it than both Mitt Romney and John McCain (although this can also be attributed to low black turnout).

Bloomberg’s ad had a broader audience, since it included memories of school shootings which caused universal outrage. In focusing on Kemp’s story, however, it was targeting the scourge of shootings committed by young men against each other. According to the Giffords Law Center, the roughly 12,000 fatal shootings, and 80,000 non-fatal shootings, that largely comprise interpersonal gun violence often include teenagers of color shooting one another. Bloomberg’s ad did make a pitch to minority communities, in an acknowledgement that the constant gun violence this nation faces is not primarily in the tragic mass shootings which always draw headlines, but rather in the thousands of individual tragedies which go largely unreported every day. If Bloomberg wants to win the Democratic nomination, he must sway anyone he can to his side, and stressing this issue to the black community may be the place to start.

The Problem with the Early Primaries

Performing well in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary is vital to a presidential hopeful’s eventual success. Given that these states are the first in the primary cycle, candidates are forced to appeal to their voters. If a candidate struggles to gain support in Iowa and New Hampshire, it is seen as a sign that his or her campaign is doomed, that he or she has no hope of winning the nomination. Given these states’ importance, one would think they should be great representations of the demographics of the United States. After all, if the Democratic Party wants to find a candidate who can appeal to the masses, it would make sense to “test the waters” in states that accurately represent the voters which the nominee will have to sway in November. Iowa and New Hampshire don’t fit this bill. Both are incredibly white states, which causes candidates to appeal more to white voters, leaving the voices of minority voters left behind in the process.

In terms of demographics, New Hampshire and Iowa have the third and fifth highest percentages of white Americans, with 95 and 92.9 percent of the population respectively. Due to this, the concerns of minority voters in these states are essentially left behind, as candidates are forced to appeal to audiences in which at least nine out of ten people are white. If a candidate were to focus on issues that deeply affect people of color, such as unfair conviction rates for nonviolent drug offenders, his or her message would likely fall flat, given that these issues do not personally affect the majority of the audience. Not only is it morally wrong to put candidates in such a position, but it is a terrible way of choosing a candidate who will best appeal to the national electorate. If the Democrats want to win in battleground states with a more diverse population (such as North Carolina, which is only 68.5 percent white, or Florida, 75 percent white), they should force candidates to seriously address the needs of minority voters early in the primaries. Under the current format, only the candidates who successfully appealed to the incredibly white populations of Iowa and New Hampshire (whether they actually finished first there or not) can survive, and those who might have performed better in more diverse states later in the calendar are, in effect, dropped. 

To fix this issue, the Democrats could simply combine the current first four states--Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina--into one day. With this new schedule, candidates would have to appeal to a much more diverse audience. Nevada and South Carolina are both 66.2 percent white, and their greater diversity would force candidates to focus more on issues that affect minority voters. In addition, this would make the first primary much more geographically representative, since there would be one in each region on the same day: Midwest, Northeast, South, and West all having importance in helping to determine the nominee. It would not be unprecedented to have multiple states simultaneously: On Super Tuesday, which is March 3 this year, fourteen states will vote on the same day. That’s early as well, but under the current schedule, good performances in Iowa and New Hampshire tend to signal to Super Tuesday voters that a candidate actually has a shot at winning the nomination and is electable. If all of the first four states were to vote on the same day, the opinions of minority voters would probably have much greater influence in that next round of voting.

If the Democrats are serious about winning elections, they must rally more support from non-white voters. As evidence from 2016 shows, when minority voters don’t show up strongly enough at the polls (white voters turned out at 65.3 percent, black voters at 59.6 percent, and Hispanic voters at 47.6 percent), Republicans have a much greater chance of winning. This seems especially true for the coming election, in which President Trump’s base consists overwhelmingly of white voters. While it is too late to change the 2020 primary schedule, a future change to incorporate the voices of minority voters at an earlier stage could benefit the Democratic Party. By forcing candidates to consider the issues which especially affect minority voters, rather than requiring them to appeal to states which are over 92 percent white, the Democrats could successfully maneuver campaigns into a focus on the broad range of issues affecting voters as a whole, not simply those affecting mostly white Americans in Iowa and New Hampshire. For a party that needs racially diverse support to win presidential elections, it makes sense to more strongly prioritize minority voters’ concerns at the start of the primary cycle. 

Lee Carter and the Future of Democrats

On November 5, an electoral blue wave swept Virginia. The Democrats won both the House of Delegates and the state Senate, marking the first time in 20 years that they have controlled the lower house. This gives the Democratic Party full control of the state government, since the governor is Democrat Ralph Northam. 

While the result indicates that Virginia is becoming an increasingly blue state, it also carries serious policy implications. Republicans have blocked most major Democratic-led legislation in Virginia, including repeal of the “right-to-work” law, gun safety regulations, and raising the state’s minimum wage. For example, after the Virginia Beach shooting in May that claimed the lives of twelve people, Northam called a special legislative session to deal with gun violence. Republicans refused to address the issue and adjourned the session after 90 minutes, failing to consider a single bill. Under a Democratic majority, significant changes may be seen on that front and on other issues.

I found the campaign of Lee Carter, a Marine veteran and a self-proclaimed member of the Democratic Socialists of America, especially interesting. In 2017, Carter was elected to represent Virginia’s 50th House district, which had been represented by Republicans since 1982. After serving one term he was up for re-election, running against Republican challenger Ian Lovejoy, a city councilman. Carter faced numerous attack ads from conservatives and a website dedicated to attacking his character by calling him a “deadbeat.” But his reputation held strong on the left wing of the Democratic Party. He amassed a Twitter following of more than 53,000, and Senator Bernie Sanders traveled to Virginia to campaign for him on the night before the election. The attention paid off at the polls, as Carter won with 53.3 percent of the vote. 

Carter’s campaign demonstrated what it will take for Democrats to win in toss-up states that have been substantially affected by neoliberal policies and globalization. Despite being a vocal socialist, he focused on “kitchen table” issues and was able to show his character to working-class voters. He vocally supported policies such as ensuring universal health care coverage in Virginia, raising teacher pay, investing in renewable energy and ending fracking, and helping workers by repealing the right-to-work law that makes unionization harder and by raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Despite being well to the left of the common window of policy discourse in America in some respects, Carter quickly became a political sensation, both in his district and online. His campaign, along with many in Virginia, showed the political world that it is not necessary for politicians to “run to the center” to win in battleground districts. As Carter tweeted: “Some of the strongest pro-worker voices in the VA House are my colleagues that flipped red seats in Prince William [County] in 2017. And we all won re-election … And I still hear centrists saying ‘you can't stand up for your values too much if you want to win swing seats.’ C’mon, y’all.” 

I think Lee Carter is entirely correct. Democrats should not be scared to show their true values. Working-class Americans are able to recognize when someone is fighting for them, and are increasingly rejecting the politicians of the past who sold out to corporate interests for campaign donations. I believe that Hillary Clinton couldn’t convince voters she would genuinely fight for them because she largely ignored the working class in the Rust Belt. Politicians such as Carter are demonstrating that even though they advocate certain policies deemed “radical” by mainstream media, the working class will support those who speak to the issues of its communities.

Looking toward 2020 and facing President Trump, Democrats should not be scared to stay true to their beliefs and advocate for the working class. Rather than conceding ground on issues such as universal health care and raising the minimum wage, they have the opportunity to win back the working class and regain their identity. For a party that currently struggles to sell its case to voters and relies too much on identity politics, staying true to liberal policies will signal to working-class Americans that the Democrats are on their side. When billionaires have a lower effective tax rate than teachers and mechanics (if we consider the taxes at all three levels of government, including payroll and sales taxes) and Trump’s tax cut has given so much to the wealthy, the Democratic Party has a great opportunity to win back the Rust Belt and other working communities. If the Democrats want to beat Trump in 2020, they must first look toward crucial states they lost in 2016 such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio. If the party can gain the trust of these industrial, working-class states, it will have a great shot at taking back the White House. 

I Have Called You Friends

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame hosted its 20th annual Fall Conference on November 7-9. The purpose of this forum is to delve into the full range of the Catholic and Christian intellectual traditions and thereby provide a means of engagement with wider communities in discussions of ethics, culture, and policy. Past topics have included Beauty, Justice, Poverty, the “Culture of Life,” Modernity, and Freedom. The theme this year was “I Have Called You Friends.” Conference speakers surveyed friendship from Aristotelian concepts of it to current descriptive ones; the subject was examined across a myriad of disciplines, including philosophy, the arts, the sciences, and theology. Learned scholars from across the United States and Europe came to opine on permanent questions: What is the meaning and value of friendship, and what does it reveal in light of Christian and Catholic teaching? What are the ancient, modern, social, political, and spiritual truths about it? 

Over the three days, there were multiple groups of one, two, and three lecturers, with a chairperson/facilitator and question-and-answer periods. The keynote speakers were Stanley Hauerwas of Duke Divinity School, the Most Rev. Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, and Whit Stillman, writer, director, and filmmaker of “Metropolitan,” “Barcelona,” “The Last Days of Disco,” and “Love & Friendship.” Each keynote speaker contributed a distinctive perspective on the intellectual ecosystem of friendship.

Just as a sampling, the colloquium sessions ranged from When I was in Prison You Visited Me: Incarceration, Ministry, and The Abolition of Friendship, to Beauty Beheld in Common and Friendship, to Building Social Capital, to “If You Love Those Who Love You”: The Problem of Preference. The Beauty Beheld in Common and Friendship colloquium had two erudite scholars and art historians, one from Paris and the other from Rome, Jennifer Donnelly and Elizabeth Lev. Donnelly’s topic was “Moldy Relics and Modern Art: Mass, Museum, and Friendship with Objects,” and Lev’s was “The Art of Friendship: The Sacred Conversation.” As a Hamilton ‘19 graduate in Art History and Classical Studies, I found their presentations on how art, architecture, and objects can cultivate and inspire dialogue, model friendship, and provoke a spiritual response both noteworthy and moving. These talks were followed by a lively question-and-answer period.

The conversations and exchanges were enhanced by the size of the roster and the audience: more than 100 speakers and more than 1,000 attendees. Past and present speakers at the annual conference have included such intellectual lights as Alasdair MacIntyre, Sir Roger Scruton, John Finnis, Mary Ann Glendon, Charles Taylor, James Heckman, the aforementioned Jennifer Donnelly and Elizabeth Lev, John Waters, Monsignor Timothy Verdon, Rémi Brague, Giulio De Ligio, Pia de Solenni, David Bentley Hart, Etsuro Sotoo, Gilbert Meilaender, and Jean Bethke Elshtain.

Each contributor fulfilled the Ethics and Culture center conference’s purpose: to reinforce the habit of intellectual and philosophical inquiry; to define, ask, clarify, and add to the discussion of the question: What is humanity’s ideal road map in the modern world? The annual conference, as I see it, has sought to broaden the Christian and Catholic moral anthology and thereby recognize the power of the individual, of institutions, and of art and other human products to inform and mold the culture--not to the current zeitgeist, but toward more coherent ways of thinking and being. 

The Christian canon, as conference participants attested, could be an antidote to moral failure and societal chaos. The moral imagination was shown as relevant to such discussions, with examples including Aristotle, Plato, Vergil, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Dante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Waugh, Chesterton, Weil, Yeats, Jane Austen, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Jean Vanier, and T. S. Eliot. They spoke to us across space and time.

The Fall Conference offered those who attended it a conversation about what is possible, about the values lost and longed for in humanity, and a respite from political rows and scorched-earth rhetoric. It was a courageous venture intending to influence minds and change hearts--by fostering dialogue and asking: What do the common good and friendship look like on campuses, in broader communities, in the United States and the world? Perhaps venues such as this conference can serve as a conduit, link, or passage “between those who believe in values realizable in time on earth, and those who believe in values realized out of time ...” (Eliot). A resounding “amen” to that labor is owed.

Sienese artist Giovanni di Paolo painted “Paradise” in tempera and gold in 1445. A copy of the artwork was on the cover of the Fall Conference program. The original artwork can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Bloomberg and the Democratic Primary

Earlier this month, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg filed paperwork to officially join the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. While his candidacy (as of this writing) is by no means certain since he has not officially confirmed that he is running, the step of filing has garnered enough attention to boost his chances of being nominated to run against President Trump. Some, however, aren’t taking it seriously, largely because Bloomberg declared in March of this year that he would not seek the nomination, and only filed the paperwork the day after Trump said: “There is nobody I'd rather run against than ‘Little Michael.’ ” (Others feel that perhaps it was more a response to Trump’s earlier comment that Bloomberg "doesn't have the magic" to win the election.)

Realistically, the filing of paperwork only means he’s keeping his options open. Given how relatively late we are in the election cycle, especially considering that in the last 43 years, the latest any eventual nominee entered the race was August, Bloomberg’s campaign would have to be incredibly swift and efficient in order to establish enough of a presence to make the debate stage, let alone actually have a chance at winning the nomination. His candidacy would, however, shake up the Democratic primary in a couple of ways. 

The first one is fundraising, the main concern after actually winning enough votes. It is certainly less of an issue for Bloomberg than for other candidates, since his net worth is $53 billion and he has already pledged $500 million to unseat Trump regardless of who the nominee is, $175 million more than the Trump campaign spent in 2016. His ability to spend huge amounts in the primaries too could complicate things for his competitors. Then, of course, there are the differences in his positions. Bloomberg has stated his belief that the nominee must be able to defeat Trump. Given that he has disparaged Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax as socialism and that Joe Biden, who is closer to him on such issues, continues to have difficulty with fundraising, a Bloomberg candidacy may be viable if it’s launched now. Bloomberg, Biden, and perhaps Pete Buttigieg are theoretically aiming to be the centrist alternative to the more liberal candidates. Most of the support for a Bloomberg campaign will most likely emerge from people who now favor Biden and Buttigieg. If moderates are more capable than progressives in beating Trump, such a split among more moderate voters could give Warren just enough of an advantage to win the nomination--and then potentially lose to Trump. If Bloomberg’s purpose in running is to ensure that the candidate most capable of taking down Trump will get the nomination, then the general election might truly be over before it begins.

Against Fossil Fuel Divestment

The noticeable increase in Climate Change awareness this semester has led to a number of policy proposals from students, faculty, and staff. One of these, divesting the Hamilton endowment from fossil fuels, seems particularly popular among students. Proponents of divestment, however, play down divestment’s cost to our institution and overestimate its environmental benefit.

First, to understand the issue as it relates to Hamilton: About 3 percent of its roughly $1 billion endowment is invested in the fossil fuels industry. Ending our investments in fossil fuels -- “divesting” -- will undeniably harm the college’s financial situation. In fulfilling its fiduciary obligations, the college’s Investment Office aims to maximize the risk-adjusted returns of its portfolio in order to provide a consistent stream of income to fund operations. Our endowment’s assets will always be allocated in ways and amounts that the Investment Committee deems to deliver this best possible return. Since an investment in fossil fuels is, in its professional judgment, a part of the best possible allocation which the endowment can achieve, exiting from these investments would, by definition, reduce the endowment’s financial performance and thus the money available to the college. Here lies a perfectly rational decision for Hamilton to make: Do we divest from fossil fuels and cut funding to a college program, or not?  

This raises a necessary question and my second point: Does divestment meaningfully reduce climate change? Short answer: No. Long answer: Divestment is supposed to work by increasingly denying fossil fuel companies access to capital markets, from which those firms may need to raise cash for various projects. In the short run, a low share price (resulting from fewer investors being interested in a firm, and thus a lesser demand for its shares) will not reduce a firm’s ability to do business. In the long run, a sustained low share price may make funding more expensive for it. By looking at historical precedent, however, we can see that this long-term pressure is unlikely to occur. A 1998 economic study of the divestment movement that targeted apartheid-era South Africa found there was only a minute discernible effect on South African companies’ ability to do business even when many universities and businesses divested from such companies. Divestment campaigns will create opportunities for other investors to enter the market cheaply, thus maintaining fossil fuel companies’ access to the capital markets. Since fossil fuels are still crucial to the functioning of our world (and will be for a long time), it is highly unlikely that these firms will be cut off from the capital markets. Divestment would be emotionally gratifying to some students, but would not bring about the environmental change they are advocating.

Our endowment will naturally divest from fossil fuels over time as they fade in economic importance to the world, but rushing this process would only harm our college. A weaker endowment return would jeopardize Hamilton’s ability to offer as much opportunity as it has been able to offer its students. Would students choose divestment, or maintaining or increasing current levels of financial aid? How about divestment or increased resources at the counseling center? The college is not “contributing to the environment’s demise in search of short-sighted profit,” as Eric Stenzel ‘23 writes in The Monitor‘s November 13 issue, but ensuring that the blessings of the Hamilton experience will be shared by generations of students to come, a decidedly long-term outlook. Many students don’t see the complex balancing of priorities the administration must undertake, but they would feel the pain of our college’s having fewer resources if it divested.

Divestment proponents should refocus their efforts and attempt to work with the administration to achieve their goals. Instead of vilifying Investment Committee chair Bob Delaney ‘79, Mr. Stenzel and others should understand the complex balancing act he leads for the college. Not caving to a request from a segment of the student body shows that Mr. Delaney is concerned with long-term priorities for generations of future Hamilton students, some of them not even born yet. Might I suggest, then, that divestment proponents push for other actions, with low costs and which will meaningfully effect change? The college could, for example, use some proceeds from the endowment to erect more solar panels on campus. While even this might cause short-term pain by diverting those resources from another project, it would benefit Hamilton in the long run by reducing its energy costs as well as carbon emissions -- clearly more effective than divestment.

In sum, divestment is merely a moral action which fails to effectively address climate change, delivering nothing but the short-term emotional gratification that is so rewarding to many of us. To the administration, then: Stay the course. Do not cave to calls for an ineffective solution which would reduce the college’s ability to provide the life-changing opportunities it has offered so many.