Primary or not to Primary that is the Question

Primary or not to Primary that is the Question

Earlier this week, New York State announced that it was cancelling the presidential primary that was re-scheduled for June of this year in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic effecting the entire globe (and the forgone conclusion that Joe Biden will be the Democratic presidential Nominee by virtue of all other candidates dropping out).  To which, Toni Kennedy, one of the Town of Potsdam’s Councilpersons and an unabashed progressive, posted to Facebook the following picture with this opening on Monday (27 April 2020):

“Please do NOT blame progressives when Biden loses to Trump. I’ve tried to be diplomatic about this ever since Sanders dropped but not giving New Yorkers a chance to send progressive delegates to the convention is a disservice to democracy and the democratic platform.

You can’t deny us a seat at the table, then blame us for not unifying. You can’t not make any progressive concessions or do anything to bring progressives to your side, then blame us when we sit home.

Granted, I’m not saying I will sit home. But many progressives will and there is no logic in blaming them when you’ve cut them out of the process.”

  

Link to the post and comments here:  https://www.facebook.com/100000156093334/posts/3494885353859967/

I have many scruples with Mrs. Kennedy in regards to her politics at the national level[i] and there are several things we work very closely on locally.[ii]  But neither of those are why I am writing this post.  I have a beef with primaries, and this is a particularly poignant example to pick on.

Let me just offer that primaries are not elections, and by this I mean they don’t result in the decision of who will assume an office.  They determine candidates for a particular party to run for an election.  So why again should all tax payers pay for a private organization to determine who are their nominees for running for office?  What I’m getting at here is that it’s my belief that for too long, and for what’s becoming of increasingly questionable value, we’ve subsidized primaries for the major parties without much thought.  I offer this because the outcry here is about an exceptionally partisan, exceptionally internal debate within one political camp, and I think that’s precisely why we shouldn’t have a primary paid for by the public at large.  Feel free to have this debate on your own time using your own dollars, but save us all the expense of it to settle scores and bury hatchets.

Now, as for my aforementioned point about utility of primaries, I am pointing to some excellent writing by Fareed Zakaria, discussing illiberal democracy and its rise abroad and at home.  The following links start with his 1997 essay in Foreign Affairs, followed by his book where he expands on the topic (and speaks specifically to the topic of primaries), and concluding with a blog post from 2016.  I believe his case is more than compelling, that we are losing more and more of our liberal constitutionalism as we have made sacrosanct democracy, specifically pure democracy, which populism (left and right) has taken full advantage of to our serious detriment.  And as a further abject lesson in this, one should reflect on the land reform program and methods used by the Gracchi in the Roman Republic.  Yes, the entrenched conservative elites hold much of the blame, but so do those breaking the pots in the forum.  There were, and are, other ways than to continue the path of the destruction of constitutionalism through increased populism to resolve political impasses; I encourage us to take them.  First among these would be to seriously evaluate primaries and their true utility, especially given how many other ways we can now register input at much less expense without subsidizing a party system that’s been begging for change since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~lebelp/FZakariaIlliberalDemocracy1997.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/Future-Freedom-Illiberal-Democracy-Revised/dp/0393331520/ref=nodl_

https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2016/12/30/illiberal-democracy-in-america

To that end, I encourage us to consider forcing parties to fund their own primaries, full stop.  I can give you many reasons this is a good thing, and among them would be the much more deliberate discussion that is needed about how candidates are chosen given the seriously flawed track record that the current process has resulted in since at least the 1970s.  In any event, for now, I see this as a good move on the part of the state, not just in terms of cost and in terms of public health, but in terms of putting primaries into their proper place, not required nor necessarily worthy of tax dollar support.

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[i] Among them her support for Medicare for All, the above described indignation at the fact that a non-registered Democrat lost the party contest for the nomination of that party for president, and her unflinching support for said same Democratic Socialist and his left wing populism.

[ii] Among them our mutual work on local climate change adaption and mitigation as well as efforts to adequately support local government programs and initiatives that serve the greater good in Potsdam.

Cancelling Should be the Last Resort – Make it So!

I’ll be succinct, the word “cancel” grates on me.[i]  I have heard it over and over again in the last several weeks.  This event is “cancelled”, that graduation is “cancelled”, and on and on.  In the face of the current pandemic, this is somewhat inevitable that some things will have to be “cancelled”.  But without question, “cancelling” should be the last resort right now.

This is because “cancel” means a lot of things and none of them are hopeful.  “Cancel” means that there isn’t an alternative, it is just not going to happen.  “Cancel” means that we quit, we give up, we just can’t envision another way to go.  “Cancel” means we are so afraid and frozen that we give up.  “Cancel” is final, there is no turning back, there will be no more planning or effort made to resuscitate the activity or action or anything else.  It’s done, it’s over, start your mourning process now: “cancelled”.

Such was the way I felt when I received this message via email on 13 March from the USGBC.

While many of us were in the midst of many decisions about the response to the then impending crisis we are now in, the USGBC wiped the entire calendar clean.[ii]  As I articulated in an email to the USGBC leadership, “this seems too far reaching, too early.”  This message basically said, “we surrender”, before the battle was even being fought.  I wasn’t and am not happy about this, but also about a large number of other “cancelations” that have occurred in recent weeks.  It just seems that they all just took too quick a turn, an unwarranted run and hide approach, without candid deliberation and any sense of resilience, resolve, or thought about the psychological and sociological impacts of “cancelling” life as we knew and know it.

Now in writing this, please know that I am NOT saying we ought to be putting our heads in the sand and acting like there isn’t a global, national, and local pandemic happening.  Quite the opposite.  As I wrote some three days after this email,[iii] we needed to curtail any non-essential in-person contact in the near term.  So what I am advocating here isn’t a flippant, ignorant, “go about the business” message.  No, what I am trying to say is that there are numerous things that can be done besides “cancel”, and every one of them should be considered well ahead of “cancel”.

So what are those alternatives?  Well, let us list the ways. You could:

• Modify the event such that any of those that do need to physically be present are protected but allow for the event to continue;
• Reschedule the event to a later date some weeks or months hence, especially if there is particular reasons that it should be in person regardless;
• Move the event, if it makes sense and is respectful of all those involved, to an online format;[iv]
• Consider smaller, distributed or otherwise reduced events or activities that may include all of the above or other approaches;
• Seek out a partnership with an event later in the year to enhance and improve through what your event was trying to do;
• Suspend decision/delay on the action or event until more clarity can be found with the intent of returning to it or otherwise addressing it once more clarity is present;
• And many more.

Any of the above are better than “cancel”.  Will there come a time to “cancel” things?  Absolutely.  As I said, however, that needs to be THE LAST RESORT.

Look, in times of crisis, we have many things happening at once, some good and some bad.  As articulated well by our Bishop James Hazelwood, our reaction to those crises has a large impact on the outcome of said events.[v]  He states to the Pastors of the New England Synod of the ELCA:

“In the midst of any challenging situation, there is a mathematical equation to which I always refer:

Event	=	Outcome
Response

The “Event” can be anything, for example, from a budget shortfall.... to a family dynamic.... to a virus.  These are real events.  The “Response” refers to the response of the person, organization, or organism.  If you recall your 8th grade math class, the bottom factor, the denominator, has significant influence on the outcome. We may not be able to change the event, but we can have an impact through our response.  All this is to say, that you as leaders have an important role in this or any destabilizing event:  If you are calm, wise and thoughtful, that will impact how an event plays out in your congregation.  Therefore, in this time of the coronavirus, I encourage you to balance the need for thoughtful decisions around worship practices and congregational gatherings, with the need for calm and less reactive responses.”[vi]

While directed to religious leaders, this sentiment and formulation applies to all of us.  What I would add to this is that in times of crisis, what is really important to consider, is the hope vs. fear dynamic.  “Cancelling” is demonstrative of either prudence or fear.  Putting forth an alternative is demonstrative of prudence AND hope.  Yes, there is the inevitable less than perfect nature of an online worship service or a classroom through Zoom, but it isn’t quitting.  When the world is anything but normal, doing what you can to keep things as safely-normal as possible brings hope.

Among the many things I do, is I help to schedule, along with a colleague of mine at SUNY Potsdam, the North Country Green Drinks events.[vii]  We held our last session on 12 March, where we indicated that people should take precautions but to join as they were able.  For the upcoming sessions, however (the next one is scheduled for 9 April), I sent out a revised invitation moving/transforming it into a virtual happy hour via a link that I sent to all of the normal participants.  Karen Bage, whom I have worked with professionally on several projects related to complete streets and active transportation, nearly immediately replied by email with the following:  “THANK YOU!!  For keeping this alive during this challenging time” (emphasis hers).  This is a perfect example of what I am getting at here.  Yes, we are stressed, we are struggling to deal with changes big and small, and we feel overwhelmed.  “Cancelling” these social events would have been the easy answer.  But, I, for one, need to have space to gather with those that are also going through similar struggles and I need some things in my life not to be “cancelled”.  We all need hope, we need purpose, and we all need each other.  So I’ll grab a mug and pop a brewsky and log-into the session on Thursday with some sense of joy that we can still gather, even if it will be an unruly, surreal, virtual affair.

Similarly, I have to applaud Clarkson University’s hesitance to hit the “cancel” button as we have proceeded through these last few weeks.  Yes, it has drug out decisions over weeks as we carefully consider and weigh the approaches, but we did not immediately announce that we will be having a “virtual commencement” or that commencement was “cancelled”.  Rather we have taken a rather pragmatic and carefully cautious approach.  As of Wednesday night a survey had been sent to all of the various groups effected in order to poll them to see which way we should go, now that it appears that having an in person commencement on 16 May 20 is less likely.  As of this writing, I am uncertain of the poll results, but among the choices were several options and none of them were to “cancel” commencement.  Given the nature of this momentous event in a young person’s life, I was so glad to see that we are being judicious and wise in avoiding the easy impulse to “cancel” in the face of uncertainty, fear, and challenge.  Simply put it is the harder right over the easier wrong.

So to conclude, let’s not cancel everything.  Yes, be prudent and safe.  Be frank and honest about the real consequences and the real devastation that is happening and will happen.  But, also demonstrate resolve, be courageous enough to not quit.  Avoid “cancel” at all costs.  Find a way, a safe, appropriate way to carry on; “stay calm and carry on” the saying goes.  And if you do have to go to “cancel” do it only when you have to and do it in a way that really is caring, concerning and instilling hope no matter what.  I have hope.  There will be a world after this pandemic, this is not the end or even the worst, even as it is deadly serious.  We can do this and we can win the battle, we just have to be willing to not give into the fear, and not “cancel” without our best fight first.

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[i] As does the idea of “cancel culture”, but that is for another time.

[ii] And further forbade planning for anything at the community level for the balance of the year.

[iii] See my previous blog entry:  http://backusec.blogspot.com/2020/03/resilience-in-age-of-covid-19.html

[iv] And by the way, Zoom isn’t the only online platform or even the best; you may want to consider several others.

[v] https://www.jameshazelwood.net/blog/2020/3/9/coronavirus-letter

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] More on Green Drinks here:  http://www.greendrinks.org/