Politics and Such

Thomas Graham, Jr. and David Bernell   The level and quality of military support for Ukraine from NATO countries continues to increase. In just the last few weeks, there have been announcements that the United States will be providing new types of equipment to Ukraine, most notably the M1 Abrams tank, as well as Bradley and Stryker fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, and the Patriot missile defense system. Germany will send its own tanks, the Leopard 2, along with armored fighting vehicles. It also announced that it would provide approval to Poland and other countries that want to send Ukraine their own German-supplied Leopard 2 tanks. For Germany this is an historic change of policy. In addition, the British will be providing tanks and armored personnel carriers, as NATO countries also provide the training to use these systems. This even includes sending Ukrainian soldiers to Oklahoma to learn how to effectively use the Patriot missile (which George Will coined as the...

David Bernell   Politics isn't a spectator sport, and you're in the game whether you like it or not, and regardless of whether you want to be in it.    People tune out politics all the time. That's understandable. People get turned off by politics. That's not surprising. When things work -- the Social Security check arrives, the garbage gets picked up -- people tend not to focus on politics. That sounds about right.    People say politics doesn't concern them. That, however, is flat out wrong.    Politics sets the contours and rules for how our lives operate, and it affects things big and small. Whether we have elections or dictatorships, market economies or command economies, Jim Crow laws or the Civil Rights Act. It impacts the local schools, what they teach, how much money they have. Politics impacts the availability of electricity and how much it costs, the existence and the condition of city streets and highways, the functioning of stock m...

David Bernell Some things benefit from greater awareness and attention. Combating racial inequality, fighting cancer. And some things get worse if people don't pay enough attention. The looming question and threat in American politics right now is if enough people will take action to protect American democracy against the still-rising anti-democratic, authoritarian turn of the Republican party, which may very well take and preserve the power of a well-organized minority at the expense of others.  Sometimes, however, the goal is to get to the point in which people don't need to care about a topic, because the problem is solved or the issue is settled.  Several years ago when I was out of town for a few days with one of my kids, my wife decided to change some things around the house: move furniture around, get a couple new things, put up some bookshelves. I came back to a very different looking place. During the process of making the changes, which my wife did with a friend, my ...

David Bernell   The Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. the EPA said that the Clean Power Plan established under the Obama Administration exceeded the authority of the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions from existing power plants. It did not take away the authority of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but it placed constraints so that regulations can only cover individual power plants, not the entire electric power sector as a whole.   The Clean Power Plan never went into effect. In 2016 the Supreme Court put a stay on the rule until the courts could sort out the question of the EPA's legal authority. The issue became moot because the Trump Administration scrapped the Clean Power Plan in favor of its own rule on CO2 emissions from power plants: the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Plan. But the West Virginia case continued to work its way through the courts. Then the day before Trump left office, the DC Circuit Court invalidated ACE. What this meant is that the i...

David Bernell     Russia’s war in Ukraine gets worse by the day, by the hour. If nobody stops him, Vladimir Putin will seek to utterly destroy Ukraine and its people in his effort to take the country. And he will take as long as he needs to get the job done.   A stronger response is needed. The United States, NATO, and the EU should not put themselves in a position where they are willing to fight only as far as the last Ukrainian.   The part of me that studies and teaches international relations, that appreciates the “Realist” thinking in foreign policy which counsels caution and restraint unless vital national interests are threatened, that calls for the avoidance of morality as a basis for action – that part of me says not to call for rash actions. The part of me that sees the horror of Ukrainian suffering, the depravity of Putin, and the inspiring example of President Zelensky – that part of me says it’s past time to act with greater str...

David Bernell   Russia’s war in Ukraine represents a major threat to global order and security. That’s the message people in the West are reading and hearing (with a few minor, but loud, exceptions). It’s what the world heard from President Biden in his speech on February 24. It’s the conventional wisdom.   Is such thinking too alarmist? Does it overstate the case? Perhaps the worst that will happen is that this ends with Ukraine. Maybe Putin has bitten off more than he can chew and swallow. Maybe a Ukrainian insurgency will be too much to handle, while NATO, the West, the United States, and all countries in the world who oppose the Russian invasion can get by on the cheap: economic sanctions that hurt some parts of Russia, but don’t go too far because they might create costs for the very countries implementing and supporting the sanctions.   On the other hand, maybe the conventional wisdom is correct. There is a throughline line that can be drawn from Putin’s wor...