What Linsanity Reveals About Our Nation

Jeremy Lin came out of nowhere to turn the New York Knicks' season around, but the conversation about his unlikely rise to fame has often included a racial component. (Photo: AP/Kathy Knomicek)

(Disclaimer: I know this space is typically reserved for matters of serious report, like politics and, well, more politics. Rest assured I’ll return to politics soon enough. And for my faithful readers who know nothing of sports save the ins and outs of the presidential horserace or the ups and downs of congressional polling statistics, bear with me because you’re going to learn something very important about the character of our nation that politicians are unlikely to share with you.)

Linsanity has overtaken almost everyone I’ve spoken with during the past week.

In the incredible case you’ve escaped it, Linsanity refers to the global obsession–or craze–with Jeremy Lin, the professional basketball player whose play for the erstwhile forlorn New York Knicks has set everyone atwitter with his out-of-nowhere story. He was the star of his state-champion high school team in Palo Alto, California, but wasn’t highly recruited to play college ball. Instead of accepting a walk-on role, he enrolled at Harvard, a school better known for brains than brawn. He excelled in the classroom and on the court, but after graduation was overlooked by NBA scouts.

Surprisingly, to me, I’m no exception to the Linsanity madness. I love college basketball, but generally yawn when it comes to the professional game. But I’ll admit that I’ve succumbed and can’t get enough of the guy. Or his amazing story.

Unfortunately, all this celebrity carries a racial edge to it, which is the part that fascinates me most.

Brightening Economy Is Good for Nation, Bad for GOP Presidential Hopefuls

Regardless of who wins the GOP nomination, the Republican candidate will rely on either the economy stopping its current positive trend or turning to social issues that have lost traction among the American public. (Photo: AP/Paul Sancya)

For a Republican candidate (pick any; for the sake of this argument it doesn’t really matter) to win the White House this fall, one of two things must happen, and neither of them are good for the GOP or the nation.

First, the prime conservative argument against re-electing President Barack Obama is that he’s responsible for the lack of jobs and high unemployment. For conservatives to make that argument stick, though, they’ll have to bet against prosperity.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) previewed the conservative argument in a critique of the White House budget proposals. “The president offered a collection of rehashes, gimmicks, and tax increases that will make our economy worse,” Boehner said.

But as of late, the economy seems to be turning around, not getting worse. Indeed, that argument hit a snag last week, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the January unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent, down from 8.5 percent in December and 9.1 percent back in August.

The January figure continues a trend of good news. The December figure was surprisingly revised upward to 203,000 new jobs from the previously reported 200,000, and November’s figure was revised upward to 157,000 from 100,000. Altogether, it’s a promising sign that things are beginning to look up. Or, as The New York Times reported, “the recovery seems finally to be reaching American workers.”

If—and it’s a huge “if”—the job creation pace continues as it has in recent months, then the economic argument against President Obama loses its luster. Regardless, few economists predict the unemployment rate will return to the double-digit figure of late 2009, and many are crossing their fingers that it might fall a few tenths of a percentage lower. That’s good news for the nation, but not so cheery for a Republican presidential nominee.

That brings us to the second line of attack the forthcoming GOP nominee is likely to fall back on to win. For lack of a better name, let’s call it a return to divisive culture wars. This gambit is an attempt to rally hard-right conservative voters by attacking immigrants, gay and transgender Americans, and women’s health rights.

Once again, the conservative approach is drilling into a dry well.

Americans Are in Denial About Inequality

Occupy Wall Street protestors march in New York City near Zuccotti Park in October, 2011. Occupy Wall Street began as a movement to expose the growing class stratification in America. (Photo: AP/Craig Ruttle)

In an odd, roundabout way, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has given Americans an opportunity to witness what so many of us have steadfastly refused to acknowledge: Yes, America, we are a class-stratified society.

Of course, the former Massachusetts governor didn’t mean to do this. He probably laments having told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien last week that he wasn’t worried about the poor because they have a safety net to support them. Nor is he losing sleep over the plight of the wealthy. If, as I suspect, he meant exactly what he said, he leaves little doubt with his attempt to clarify. “I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90 to 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling,” he explained.

So he believes that the overwhelming majority of Americans are in that great, nebulous economic cloud called the middle class (or “middle income,” in his words). It’s an easy mistake—most Americans would agree with him, believing the middle class is larger than it really is.

These days Americans seem more class-confused than class-conscious.

How Gov. Brewer Actually Helped President Obama

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer points her finger in the face of President Barack Obama during an intense conversation on January 25, 2012, at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

With a waggle of her right index finger last Wednesday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer erased the question of whether black voters will be enthusiastic about going to the polls in support of President Barack Obama. Now, you can count on it.

Gov. Brewer almost guaranteed that large numbers of black voters will turn out on Election Day because they will march to the polls, still angry about Brewer’s one-finger salute of the commander-in-chief. Nothing motivates voters like anger. So I envision their collective disgust to register in a wave of ballots, striking back at what so many perceive as the ultimate disrespect of the nation’s first black president.

This isn’t a bold prediction. Rather, it’s more of a reasonable assessment of what I’m hearing and reading about the durability of the anger over the now-infamous tarmac photo.

Demographics Could Reshape Politics

By 2050 the United States will have no racial majority and the uneven racial and ethnic population growth of the future could very well reshape the course of presidential politics for generations to come. (Photo: AP/ Charles Krupa)

To keep myself interested while waiting for the GOP to complete its circular firing squad, I’ve begun to look down the road to the campaigns to come. No, I’m not talking about the November general election. Rather, I’m fascinated by what it will take to be president in the decades to come, when the United States will be a much-changed nation from what it is today.

I’m not alone in envisioning such progressive, future-forward politics. Stefan Hankin, president of Lincoln Park Strategies, a Washington-based public opinion research firm that advises progressive organizations and Democratic politicians, told me recently that “[t]he future for progressive policies is not about 2012 or the next election in two years. It’s about growing the future and seeing where the path leads us.”

The path that Hankin referred to is the fact that within the next 40 years, possibly sooner, the nation will no longer have a majority white population. In a study that his firm released late last year, Hankin noted that the U.S. population will grow by 19 percent over the next two decades, but such growth will not be spread evenly over all racial groups. Whites will increase almost 4 percent, which pales in comparison to the 63 percent growth rates of Latinos, 55 percent growth of Asians, and the 27 percent increase in the number of blacks. By 2050 the Census Bureau estimates that white Americans will be a statistical minority in the nation, with no racial group comprising more than 50 percent of the population.

To be sure, demography isn’t destiny. But the uneven racial and ethnic population growth of the future could very well reshape the course of presidential politics for generations to come.

Facts Just Don’t Matter to Some People

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich asks his staff, "what's next" during a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

Years ago when I started my professional life as a newspaper journalist, I believed sincerely that when people consumed a daily diet of facts along with their morning coffee, they were inclined to make better civic-minded decisions. Now some three decades later, I’m no longer a reporter covering a beat, and I suspect that my youth may have been misspent.

Writing this week in The Wall Street Journal, columnist Carl Bialik noted that voters “have strong opinions about policy issues shaping the presidential campaign, from immigration to Social Security.” But for many of them, their understanding of the facts supporting their views “can be tenuous.” He pointed to studies that repeatedly demonstrate that Americans vastly overestimate the percentage of citizens in the country who are foreign-born by a factor of more than two. Worse, they overestimate the percentage of those who are living here in the shadows as undocumented residents by a factor of six or seven. If those voters have bad facts, it’s nearly impossible for them to reach rational and reasonable conclusions about immigration policies.

Even if these voters have the right facts, however, it may not make a difference. Political scientists John Sides of George Washington University and Jack Citrin of the University of California at Berkeley found just that to be the case. In a paper presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago, the two scholars tested whether giving the public accurate information changed their attitudes toward immigration policies. Sadly it did not. “On average, then, providing correct information does not change attitudes toward immigration,” they wrote.

Making the Case for Diversity in Education

Vernestine Strickland, an eighth-grade teacher at Gwynn Park Middle School, in Clinton, Md., talks with Ashlei Gray, left, and Simone Hoggs about classroom schoolwork. (AP Photo/Matt Houston)

If anyone doubts the impact of having a progressive president in the White House, then consider the Education and Justice Departments’ joint guidance last week that corrects the Bush administration’s misreading of a set of Supreme Court decisions on the use of race to achieve diversity in the nation’s public schools.

Reversing a pair of 2008 “Dear Colleague” letters sent by Bush officials in the Education Department, the Obama administration told college administrators and kindergarten-through-12th-grade school officials that using race wasn’t forbidden by the high court. Indeed, as Education and Justice Department officials argue, there may be instances when taking race into account is not only permissible but also the wise thing to do.

Dumbing it Down on Fox News

Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith, background right, conducts an interview during his "Studio B" program, in New York, Tuesday, May 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Can watching Fox News actually make you dumber than if you didn’t watch any news at all? Sure, some of us believe this, but until now there’s been nothing other than anecdotal evidence and Sarah Palin to support our arguments. Now we’ve got facts that make the case with an empirical flourish.

Researchers with Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll asked 612 New Jersey residents a variety of questions to test their awareness and knowledge of current events that dominated the news between October 17 and October 23. The poll’s shocking conclusion was that people who described themselves as heavy Fox News viewers tended to be “even less informed than those who say they don’t watch any news at all.”

Did We Really Expect the Super Committee to Succeed?

Members of the super committee meet on September 13. Ultimately, they failed to agree on a plan for $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction before the committee's Thanksgiving Day deadline. (Photo: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

I have little doubt that most Americans woke up the morning after the congressional super committee admitted defeat and, as I did, yawned.

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, formed in August after the debt-ceiling standoff, surrendered Monday, offering a terse statement that declared its failure. “[W]e have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline,” the statement said.

Big surprise. All the preceding weekend, members of the committee—six Democrats and six Republicans selected from the House and Senate—took to the chat shows to cast the impending failure on the other party. Democrats slammed Republicans for refusing to raise taxes on billionaires and millionaires; Republicans implausibly countered that Democrats refused to cut spending.

For the most part, though, I suspect the debt-reduction debate is an abstraction to average, work-a-day folks—whether they have a job or not. Most Americans simply want an economy that is growing in ways that give them good employment opportunities and a chance to become more prosperous. Anyone paying attention to the debate in Washington, however, probably sees the bickering on Capitol Hill as business as usual in the game of politics. And, like me, they yawn.

Bargaining and Basketball

Los Angeles Lakers's Derek Fisher, president of the NBA players' association, speaks during a news conference and union executive director Billy Hunter, left, looks on, Tuesda, November 8, 2011, in New York. (Photo: AP/Frank Franklin II)

About this time in the never-ending cycle of professional sports, fans shift their athletic affection from baseball diamonds to basketball courts. It’s something akin to a circadian rhythm—as red and yellow leaves blanket the lawn and winter chills the night like a well-shaken martini, those of us who love sports get our thrills from the exploits of one-name wonders: Kobe, LeBron, and Melo.

But this year is different. There are no orange (fall’s favorite color) balls bouncing from coast to coast. Instead, a leaguewide lockout has shuttered NBA arenas, putting an end to the games for the moment and, perhaps, for the remainder of this season. Thus far, six weeks have passed since the season was supposed to have started and there’s little optimism that the players and owners will settle their differences to salvage what’s left of the season, which typically stretches 82 regular season games over the November-to-April calendar, followed by two months of playoffs.