RETRACTED IN PART: Does the President Share Any Responsibility for Bad Behavior?

I retract the discussion below as marked. It is fake news. The girl who accused others of bullying her made her accusations up. The WaPo grossly erred by prematurely reporting this story. A follow-on story describing the real story is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/virginia-sixth-grader-now-says-she-falsely-accused-classmates-of-cutting-her-hair/2019/09/30/ad0cbd92-e390-11e9-a331-2df12d56a80b_story.html

The original WaPo article is now marked: (UPDATE: Virginia sixth-grader now says she falsely accused classmates of cutting her hair)

The damage from the mistake will be real and long-lasting. Millions of people will use this gross error by the WaPo to attack the press and its credibility. They will also use it to downplay evidence of bigotry, arguing the professional press is just propaganda, democratic talking points and the enemy of the people. In my opinion, such extreme beliefs are clearly false and highly socially damaging. Unfortunately, given the raw tribalism, hate and distrust that dominate politics, those minds cannot be changed any time soon, maybe ever.

I do not retract the portion of this discussion that focuses the broader idea on the influence of a president on society and social behavior. This story does not affect the underlying facts or logic.

RETRACTED

The Washington Post reports that white school children attacked a black 12 year old sixth-grade student:

“Fairfax County police are investigating an alleged attack on a sixth-grade girl by three boys Monday at the private Christian school they attend in Springfield, Va.
The 12-year-old girl, who is African American, told police that three white sixth-grade classmates held her down, covered her mouth, called her insulting names and used scissors to cut several of her dreadlocks from her head during recess in the playground at Immanuel Christian School.

‘I was about to go down the slide, and the three boys came up and surrounded me,’ the girl said in an interview Thursday afternoon. ‘They were saying my hair was nappy and I was ugly and I shouldn’t have been born.’”

.... She also said the boys had been bullying her at school and taking her lunch for weeks. According to Allen [the girl’s aunt], her niece was afraid to tell teachers about the incident because she feared retaliation from the boys and also didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.

“I felt hurt and angry, but I also felt compassion for them because something must have happened to them and that’s why they bully,” the girl said.

WaPo also commented that Vice President Pence’s wife, Karen Pence, teaches art part-time at the school in grades 1-5. The school is investigating the incidents, claiming it has a “zero tolerance policy” for bullying and abuse.

NOT RETRACTED

Any presidential responsibility?

Some research indicated that school bullying increased in areas of Virginia that voted for the president. Fairfax County did not vote for him. Some other research indicated that school bullying increased after the president announced his candidacy for president.

Is it rational and fair to think that the president bears some degree of responsibility for bad behavior in schools and elsewhere in society? His public rhetoric can be harsh, insulting and racially divisive. People pick up on that and some act on it. One man was arrested for planning to murder journalists at the Boston Globe after being inspired by Trump repeatedly attacking the press as the enemy of the people. Can one reasonably think that the president is, say, 50% responsible at least for the increased level of bad behaviors that arguably are tied to him, his rhetoric and his behaviors? If, instead of being divisive and polarizing, the president had turned out to be a unifier and aggressively anti-racist, would the level of bad behavior before taking power have decreased?

Self-Regulation in America

A long-time personal acquaintance has been complaining for decades that self-regulation doesn't work. Instead, it is mostly a cover for companies, congress, special interests and professions such as doctors and lawyers to protect themselves and profits from transparency, accountability and liability. The Washington Post describes an interesting example in an article today of how self-regulation can work.

WaPo describes how Uber protects itself from liability by have an investigating unit of employees look into bad experiences that passengers sometimes have with some Uber drivers. The top priority for company investigators is to protect the company first. Passenger safety is a secondary concern. WaPo writes:

“Uber has a three-strikes system, investigators said, but executives have made exceptions to keep drivers on the road. For instance, a New York-area driver allegedly made three separate sexual advances on riders, said an investigator assigned to the case. After an executive overruled the investigator, the driver was allowed to continue working until a fourth incident, when a rider claimed he raped her.

The agents are forbidden by Uber from routing allegations to police or from advising victims to seek legal counsel or make their own police reports, even when they get confessions of felonies, said Lilli Flores, a former investigator in Phoenix — a guideline corroborated in interviews with investigators, alleged victims and plaintiffs’ attorneys.”

The top priority is to protect Uber from liability. Even if Uber kicks a driver out because felonies were committed, the company does not report driver’s crimes to local police, other ride-share companies or background check firms. In other words, an Uber driver who commits felonies against customers can just go to work for Lyft and continue to commit felonies.

Uber does this for obvious reasons -- liability avoidance and profit maximization. Uber insists its drivers are not employees but are independent contractors. Therefore the company isn’t liable for illegal actions by bad drivers. Uber isn't alone in using independent contractors as a liability shield tactic. As discussed here before, Amazon claims that its drivers are independent contractors to avoid liability for driving accidents.

California recently passed a law that consider drivers for companies including Uber and Lyft to be employees, not independent contractors, thus opening the companies up to liability for employee bad acts, taxes, employee benefits and fuel and vehicle insurance costs. Not surprisingly, gig economy companies that had rejected employees over independent contractors are fighting the California law tooth and claw.

In essence, what companies that reject employees in favor of independent contractors does is privatize profit, while socializing cost as much as possible. These companies assert that they are doing their best for society. For example, Uber denies that the top priority of its own investigations unit is to protect the company first. Instead, Uber claims its top priority is to protect customers. However, the rationale is nonsense because it is irrational. WaPo writes:

“At the end of the day, we’re not the judge and jury to determine whether a crime has occurred,” said Tracey Breeden, Uber’s global head of women’s safety. “We’re here to gather information, make a business decision. We’re not law enforcement.”

Is that rationale convincing? It does not explain how a simple referral of criminal actions to police to a company by its customers amounts to being a judge, jury, law enforcement or anything of the sort. Reporting crime amounts to a responsible, moral corporate citizen reporting to police, nothing more.

On the other hand, irresponsible, immoral corporate citizens help hide criminal acts to protect their profit and shift corporate liability to society. Arguably, one consider self-regulation as trickle up for profit and trickle down for liability.

Is that a reasonable, fair analysis of how the profit and liability game is played under self-regulation rules and morals?

Right-wing media launch unhinged attacks on Greta Thunberg

Right-wing media figures -- many of whom deny the evidence of human-caused climate change -- have been making deranged attacks on Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg in recent weeks and after she addressed the United Nations.

On Monday, Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles attacked Thunberg on the Fox News program The Story with Martha MacCallum as a “mentally ill Swedish child who is being exploited by her parents.” The segment was widely covered by news outlets after the other guest, Christopher Hahn, immediately shamed Knowles for his “despicable” comment. Although the Fox show’s anchor failed to object to Knowles’ attack as it happened, the network later apologized to Thunberg for his “disgraceful” comment. 

Fox also told The Hollywood Reporter that it likely won’t book Knowles as a guest on its shows again, but many other conservatives have made unhinged attacks on Thunberg in recent weeks as well. Some conservatives have advocated using violence against her; others have likened her to Nazi leaders and propaganda; and more, like Knowles, have denied her agency by smearing her as “mentally ill” and/or controlled by others. Notably, shortly after Knowles used his Fox News appearance to attack Thunberg, Fox host Laura Ingraham broadcast a segment that compared the climate activist to an evil character from the horror film Children of the Corn. 

Here are some of right-wing media figures’ worst attacks:

https://www.mediamatters.org/dinesh-dsouza/right-wing-media-launch-unhinged-attacks-greta-thunberg

The Rationale for Impeachment

Democrats have decided to open an impeachment inquiry based on revelations about the president allegedly trying to extort Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden. They cite the clarity of the case and point to public confusion over existing evidence of possible impeachable actions by the president. The New York Times describes the rationale:

“The sudden embrace of an impeachment inquiry by previously reluctant House Democrats — most notably Speaker Nancy Pelosi — is attributable to one fundamental fact: They believe the new accusations against Mr. Trump are simple and serious enough to be grasped by a public overwhelmed by the constant din of complex charges and countercharges that has become the norm in today’s Washington.”

Public confusion and political blowback from that confusion was what held the democrats back. The confusion is a direct result of the power of dark free speech[1] to confuse, polarize and mislead whole societies.

The impeachment process

If enough lawmakers in the House vote to say that a president committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” the president will be impeached and possibly removed from office if enough Senators agree.

The term “high crimes and misdemeanors” originated in British common law. It constituted offenses that Parliament cited in removing crown officials. In essence, it is an abuse of power by a high-level public official and not necessarily a violation of any criminal law.

No president has been impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. Nixon resigned before he could be impeached. The House impeached Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998, but the Senate acquitted both. They went on to complete their time in office. The House impeaches by  a majority vote, but the Senate must convict by a two-thirds vote supermajority.

Although the constitution states that the Senate must hold a trial after the House impeaches, there is no enforcement mechanism. Mitch mcConnell could simply do nothing and the process would die. On the other hand, since the Senate can set the rules for an impeachment trial, they could rig the process to be minimally damaging to the president by limiting what evidence could be considered. It is also important to understand that, even if the Senate did convene a trial, the Republican majority could vote to simply dismiss the case without considering any of the evidence. Regardless of Senate rules or actions, the possibility of 66 Senators voting to impeach the president is nil. That assessment is based on the intense hate and distrust the two parties have for each other.

The important point is that impeachment is a political process more than a legal one. In legal proceedings, most or all relevant evidence and fairly well-defined laws are important. In impeachment, tribe loyalty can negate the evidence and the ill-defined impeachable offenses, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, helps make it easy to simply ignore evidence that the tribe in power in the Senate does not want to consider.

Polarization

In the Federalist Papers in 1788, Alexander Hamilton asserted that the inherently political nature of impeachment proceedings would polarize the country. An impeachment prosecution “will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”

Thus, despite how polarized Americans are now, it is possible that it could get worse. Given the fact that the Senate will not convict, maximum polarization might be avoided.

Footnote:
1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), and (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism. (my label, my definition)