Always, the Optics Come First
Terry H. Schwadron
Nov. 16, 2023
Among its intractable dictates and constant war, the world surely feels a mess. But then our own politics seem lost among harsh words — even threats for open fighting — and actions that seem to do much less than what they purport.
Lesson of the week was that optics may matter more than substance.
Maybe that explains why we need protest marches — regardless of point of view — to highlight what should be clear about the excess of wars, including the Israel-Palestinian conflict, from spilling over into hate crimes against individual Jews and Muslims in this country, on American campuses, in U.S. streets. None of the protests will bring about an end to anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, but just maybe someone might hear a new point of view.
For President Joe Biden, the very fact of a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in San Francisco seemed more important a statement than specific agreements to work on slowing fentanyl coming from China to the U.S. or incremental progress on military-to-military communications.
In the Congress, there was more attention on individuals surreptitiously elbowing each other or threatening public cage matches in hearing rooms than there was on solving the issues of the day. It took Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to step in to remind one would-be combatant, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., from attacking Teamsters President Sean O’Brien over an apparent personal hostility. No one knows the substance of the hearing, just about the near fight.
Guess Mullin missed the public relations lecture this week.
The Mike Johnson Two-Step
Under its new Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., the House voted 336–95 Tuesday to send its strangely bifurcated budget continuation package to the Senate, which seemed a welcome move towards forestalling a shutdown of the federal government just before the holidays.
Yet, the bill passed only because Democrats gave it overwhelming support — portending the 87–11 vote in the Senate overnight to send the bill to the White House.
But exactly why it was necessary to pass two bills rather than one to continue government at the same spending levels was never made clear — other than some Republicans object to a single “omnibus” bill. The Republican hardliners whom Johnson had hoped to appease got nothing out of the deal, an ire they made clear, and the losers for the moment are the majority of congress members and senators who want funds to aid military, humanitarian, and weapons manufacture for Israel and Ukraine — money that was not included in the two bills passed.
Whatever the public relations value of having two bills to do the same as a single bill, it hardly seems worth the seat and tears shed to this point. We’ll be back here in 40 or 50 days with the same spending questions.
And it remains a mystery why Johnson thinks he will escape losing the speaker’s spot for doing exactly what his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, did by turning to Democratic votes to pass his two-step notion of a budget continuation.
Court Decides on Good PR
This week we saw the Supreme Court, under pressure, adopt a code of ethics. But it did so with language that is less demanding than that for other federal judges and with lots of latitude for individual justices to each decide what constitutes a violation requiring, say, recusal on a case.
There is no enforcer or no process to assure adherence.
Once again, the only conclusions must be that we are too stupid to notice that this adoption of a code in name only is window dressing.
The justices who wrote this code must have understood that the court’s reputation was being eroded by stories about its members being in the pocket of various rich friends who paid for vacations and substantial gifts — and then part of groups who bring cases before the very same justices.
But apparently, the justices didn’t think it necessary to do much more than a public relations move to address it.
Sweeping Away ‘Vermin’
In the presidential race, we heard Republican Donald Trump rail anew about judges who dare to follow court rules and prosecutors who would challenge him. Trump has gone all out to say that he basically believes that the courts exist to pursue political foes, and he vows, if elected, to use all his powers to lean on the Justice Department and the courts to do just that.
But he went further, to identify anyone on the political Left as “vermin” that need elimination, immediately drawing parallels to Adolph Hitler using the same expression in his rise to the top of German governing.
Trump’s view of public relations aside, so much for democracy and any oath to uphold a constitution — if elected. However, he is getting what he wants: attention.
One would hope in this time of heightened concern over personal attacks of all sorts that Trump would suffer some political loss by calling people “vermin.” but there is no evidence of it. Indeed, Trump referring to the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, drew applause at a recent rally.
The question should be to every Republican rival or loyalist whether they support such ideas.
The Show Will Go On
We did see one surprise turnabout. The school board in Sherman, Texas, voted to overrule its own administrators and restore a cast that included a trans actor in a lead role of the local high school presentation of “Oklahoma!” District administrators had ruled that birth gender somehow should dictate casting in the high school play. But community response swayed the board to change its mind.
As The New York Times wrote, the board’s vote came after students and outraged parents began organizing. The district’s administrators, seeking a compromise, offered to recast the students in a version of the musical meant for middle schoolers or younger that omitted solos and included roles as cattle and birds. Students balked.
Lesson learned even in Texas.
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