A Few Square Feet of Common Ground

 Fred and I disagree on almost everything “substantive” about American politics*, especially in 2016. But we do agree on ten things:  Here’s the list:

1. Nate Silver is a political scientist, and a social engineer, given that during election #3 he categorically failed to predict Trump (538’s prediction was in the margin of error, according to their statistics or data crunch).
2. Anthony Weiner is a man’s man within the male-dominated political world of scandals, no matter how many scandals people postulate Hillary Clinton is embroiled in.
3. Neither the 2016 presidential election nor any early election is tantamount to fascism, let alone the Nazi empire or the Third Reich.
4. Men, and women, and all genders, who act like men, are self-serving egotists who will hopefully begin having their own public scandals while in public service, thereby achieving parity of all sexes.**
5. Former NY Representative from Queens Anthony Weiner should get a Ph.D. but not teach ethics or the politics of scandals, let alone practice the latter, unless it is an extension course on the politics of the need for more men in childcare and parenting.*** (Alec Baldwin’s interview deserved an A of sorts for his interview of Weiner)
6. All the views above reflect our freedom of expression (First Amendment).
7. Academic freedom is a subset of First Amendment freedom of expression.
8. The pen is mightier than the sword, even if it takes a few years for the youth to read enough (or for middle-aged rednecks to read enough) to get incited.
9. Bullies like Trump make great social-movement mobilizers.
10. Barack Obama’s transgender passports also unleashed a world of opposition.  Yay for my civil-rights causes.

* within bounded rationality — two-pole ethic — right in representational democracy, the operative word is representational. (“Bounded rationality” is one of my current favorite social-ethics terms.)

** but more likely to be fixers (like Shonda Rhimes’s protagonist in Scandal)

*** Bodies in Revolt, Gender, Disability and the Workplace

Note: This message is sponsored, in part, by Fred Schwarz/Fred O’Brien (and no, I am not a bigamist but we reside in a bi-bounded rationality informal institution)