We rethink the week with Val Endress, professor of political communications, Rhode Island College; Dean Spiliotis, Civic Scholar and Presidential Scholar at Southern New Hampshire University; and newly minted Ph.D. Matt Nelsen, who studies race, ethnicity, youth political engagement, and social movements.
We discuss Pres. Trump’s self-serving use of his presidential office to promote his own personal economic interests, such as making policy announcements in the lounge of his golf resorts in front of his (non-masked) millionaire cronies.
We wonder whether even Pres. Trump believes in half of what he says – such as his announcement of an Executive Order imposing his own coronavirus relief package without waiting for Congress to negotiate lawful legislation. Perhaps Trump himself knows that the executive branch has no constitutional authority to enact legislation or to appropriate taxpayer money. Maybe he’s just taking another photo op, so he can look “strong” for his base voters.
And what of the substance of Trump’s ideas? Who will benefit from a cut in payroll taxes? To benefit, one has to be working, to be on an employer’s payroll. So all the millions of Americans who are unemployed won’t benefit at all from a cut in payroll taxes. And even if one is working, ordinary working people won’t save much money (and they’ll have to wait 9 months to get it, whereas they need the money now).
We also discussed Joe Biden’s upcoming announcement of his choice to run for VP. The racial aspect of that choice is complicated. For example, Kamala Harris is African-American but she has had a tenuous relationship with a lot of African-Americans and, during the primaries, struggled to win their support. In contrast, Elizabeth Warren, who is white, gained endorsements and support from a lot of women of color and activists.
Biden’s choice must take into account his running mate’s ability to help him win votes from the demographic groups and the geographic locations that he will need to get elected. And, importantly, he must consider how well his VP will perform as a partner in governing, how she will work with him in the White House to develop, pass, and implement policy.
The public debate of the possible candidates continues to be marred by sexist stereotypes about women candidates – their purported flaws as a candidate, a focus upon inappropriate traits that are never targeted at male candidates, and even women candidates’ perceived inability to do the job because of some alleged weakness in the female sex.
This same politics of resentment and fear is applied by the old guard to everything that isn’t white and male – not just in politics. For example, the number of women CEOs has not increased substantially since the 1950s. And when women are hired as executives, it is during economically vulnerable times – so the women can be easily replaced relatively soon.
We also discussed the complicated question of whether to re-open schools and force students and teachers to attend in-person, despite the risk of COVID-19. And we analyzed Trump’s gutting of the US Postal Service in order to suppress Democratic turnout in November’s election.
