Category Archives: Op-Eds

Op-Eds

A Pizza Problem: Why Those Third Party Polls Don’t Pan Out

Leave a comment

RGBStock.com Vote Pencil

According to a recent survey conducted by NBC News and GenForward, 71% of millennials believe America needs a third political party. That sentiment varies with race, sex, and current party affiliation, but  holds strong majorities in every demographic.

There’s nothing particularly new here. In every presidential election, pluralities or majorities say they’re “willing to vote for” or “interested in seeing” a third party candidate. In between, pluralities or majorities proclaim the “need” for a third party.

That excites third party activists like me (I’m a long-time Libertarian). But in election after election, the actual voting returns Republicans and Democrats to Congress and  the White House.

Why? For part of the answer, consider pizza toppings.

According to a 2011 Point of Sale survey by Brian Roemmele, pepperoni accounts for 36% of topping orders. That leaves 64% as a “different topping” market which could presumably out-sell pepperoni.

But there’s a problem: Customers don’t agree on what that different topping should be.  14% order sausage, 11% prefer mushrooms, 8% just want cheese. Tomatoes, peppers, and anchovies account for 2% each. 64% of customers want something other than pepperoni on their pizzas. But they don’t want the SAME something.

 

Think of the Republicans and Democrats as the pepperoni of politics — and consider the fact that in politics, when a bunch of people put in their various orders (that is, vote in an election), only the pizza with the most popular topping actually gets made. Everyone else goes hungry.

Many, maybe most, Americans want a third political party. But some of them want it to be a party of the left and some of the right, while still others want a centrist party or are obsessed with different sides of single issues (like abortion or guns or drugs).

Plurality or majority support for a generic third party in principle is not the same thing as plurality or majority support for a specific third party in the voting booth.

In practice, most voters who say they want a third party end up voting Republican or Democrat, or just not voting. Why?

Perhaps they can’t find a third party they agree with any more than they agree with the Democrats or Republicans.

Or maybe they find a third party they like, but  fear-mongering supporters of the “lesser evil” variety of pepperoni convince them that their preferred party can’t win and that the “greater evil” pepperoni type absolutely must be defeated.

Or, as too often happens, the pepperoni lobby makes it difficult or impossible for the restaurant to even put anchovies on the menu. Er, that is, major party  legislators pass “ballot access” laws to exclude the option of voting for third party candidates.

Is it impossible for third party candidates to win elections? No. They often do at the local level and occasionally for state legislature or Congress. But it’s a tough row to hoe.

For a new party to consistently get into the winner’s circle, voters are going to have to coalesce around something more specific than “something else.” Hopefully, that something else will be freedom.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Happy Holidays. Yes, All of Them.

Leave a comment
Happy Christmas, painted by Johansen Viggo
Happy Christmas, painted by Johansen Viggo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s “War on Christmas” time again. In a November 30 speech in St. Charles, Missouri, US president Donald Trump mounted a stage festooned with Christmas trees to kick off the annual Airing of the Fake Grievance:

“[Y]ou go to the department stores and you see ‘Happy New Years,’ and you see red, and you see snow, and you see all these things. You don’t see ‘Merry Christmas’ anymore. With Trump as your President, we are going to be celebrating Merry Christmas again …”

When I was younger, the Annual Grievance was that Christmas had become too commercialized and that stores were starting to “celebrate” it far too early in their sales campaigns. These days, it’s that Americans don’t focus exclusively on one, and only one, December holiday.

I haven’t personally noticed any dearth of Christmas cheer this year or in recent years. I’m seeing Christmas observances all over the place, in both Christian (Nativity scenes, “Reason for the Season” church signs, etc.) and secular or semi-secular (Santa Claus, silver bells, what have you) form. Perhaps Trump doesn’t get out into fly-over country often enough.

That said, it’s worth noting that December is indeed a month of holidays, not all of them Christian. According to HolidaysCalendar.com:

Sunni Muslims celebrated Maulidur Rasul, the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed, on December 1. Shia Muslims celebrate it on December 6.

Buddhists celebrate the enlightenment of Siddhartha Gautama — Bodhi Day — on December 8.

From December 13-20, Jews celebrate Hanukkah, commemorating the liberation of Jerusalem from foreign occupation in 165 BC.

December 21 marks the Winter Solstice and the beginning of the ancient pagan festival of Yule.

Kwanzaa, a celebration of African culture, commences on December 26 and runs through New Year’s Day.

On December 23, Seinfeld fans will celebrate their 21st Festivus. Others may put up feasts and ceremonies for National Mutt Day (December 2), Wear Brown Shoes Day (December 4), Ugly Sweater Day (December 19) or perhaps something a little more serious like World AIDS Day (December 1) or Bill of Rights Day (December 15).

And yes, of course there are all kinds of Christian holidays — Advent Sundays, the feast days of Saints, etc. — leading up to Christmas (December 25 for some Christians, January 7 for others).

Like it or not (personally, I like it a lot), America IS a multi-religious and multi-cultural country with holidays galore. So what if you don’t celebrate them all? Why not just congratulate those who do?

Shut yer griping, Trump. Merry Christmas AND Happy Holidays!

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

And Now, A Prairie Home Sexual Harassment Complaint

2 Comments
Garrison Keillor
Garrison Keillor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

America is in the middle of an agonizing reappraisal of sexual conduct. What constitutes sexual harassment or assault? Where is the line that separates acceptable, or merely rude, actions from unacceptable, and possibly criminal or civilly actionable, behavior?

If you feel like this process has been dragging on for a year, you’re not alone. But as I write this, it’s actually been less than two months since the New York Times brought movie magnate Harvey Weinstein low with its story on his decades of sexual misbehavior and cover-ups.

Weinstein was the first domino to fall, but far from the last. Numerous entertainers, journalists and politicians now find themselves beleaguered by, or even  at career’s end based on, allegations that might, even if true, once have brought a wink, a nudge, and maybe an insincere verbal reprimand.

It’s impossible to know in advance how far any social sea change will go, or how far it should go. But this one may have just seen its first bit of backlash — literally.

Garrison Keillor is an unparalleled icon of state media as entertainment. Foremost among his accomplishments is creating Minnesota Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion and hosting it (with breaks) for 40 years.

On November 29, MPR announced that it had fired Keillor and severed all contractual relationships with him over allegations of “inappropriate behavior” with a co-worker.

Keillor might, like so many others, have donned a hair shirt and beat his chest while screaming public apologies for a few days before conspicuously entering rehab. As a liberal of his age (75), he’d probably have been quickly forgiven by his admiring public, who would award him a  moral golf handicap for being from way back when.

Instead, he shrugged off the firing (“I’m just fine. I had a good long run and am grateful for it and for everything else.”) and politely explained himself without pillorying himself:

“I put my hand on a woman’s bare back. I meant to pat her back after she told me about her unhappiness and her shirt was open and my hand went up it about six inches. She recoiled. I apologized. I sent her an email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it. We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called.”

The explanation has the ring of truth to it. As he himself points out, he’s well-known for being physically stand-offish and describes himself as being on the autism spectrum (of which aversion to physical touch is often a feature). Groping a colleague isn’t just out of radio character for Keillor. It’s out of character, period. If he’s not lying, there’s no sexual harassment here.

If Keillor’s travail, and how he’s handling it, marks the point in time where we pause to reconsider the content of our suddenly evolving set of standards instead of plunging headlong into a new Salem witch hunt, he will indeed have brought us good news from Lake Wobegon.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY