GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, August 6, 2019

[0:00:07 Speaker 0] live from the University of Texas at Austin, the liberal Arts Development Studio and the Department of Government. Present introduction to American government with your professors,

[0:00:17 Speaker 1] Darren Shaw and Eric McDaniel. How do you, Professor Shaw

[0:00:26 Speaker 0] and impressive McDaniel. Welcome to in the news for American and Texas government.

[0:00:30 Speaker 1] Right. So we are in the fourth in the news segment, so welcome. Um, just want to make one announcement before we get into the substance today. And that is that the exam will be Wednesday at seven o’clock central daylight time. So it doesn’t matter if you’re in Beijing or, um, you know, Nairobi or San Francisco seven o’clock central, daylight time Wednesday. That’s the second exam, right? The second of your three midterm exams. So just make sure based on the same page here. Ah, pretty hot. Probably not gonna go long today. We only gonna We’re only gonna cover two topics. We’re going talk about the trade war with China first, and then we are going to discuss, um, mass shootings this weekend. That occurred? No paso and in Dayton. Um, we do want to emphasize those of you who, you know, view those events is traumatic. And I’m sure there are those of you who do. Ah, and you think you might be sensitive to a conversation about mass shootings or gun control and the Second Amendment? We want to make sure, you know, we are gonna have that conversation today. We’re certainly not going to be explicit. We’re not going to review, you know, the circumstances of the shootings. But we are going to talk about gun policy is a matter of public policy, an American government class. So be a sensitive is we can but those Do you think that might be something that you’re not prepared to handle? I’d say, Just watch the trade war segment supposed to be trigger on trade war to, um, if you’re sensitive to tariffs, you might want a big off of that one also. But then you can write your in the news response on the trade war and not deal with the mass shootings in the gun control segment. Right? So let’s start with the trade war with China. Just some particulars on this, in case you’re out there going like there’s a trade war going out with china. Um, let me just give you a couple of factoids here. You all probably aware the fact that when Donald Trump was campaigning for president 2016 he reintroduced this issue of trade and tariffs into the conversation. It had not really been, ah, part of the national political conversation since it least the early 19 nineties, when there was a discussion around the North American Free Trade Agreement known as NAFTA. On that, that was something that had a little bit of juice in the 1992 campaign. Ross Perot, the late Ross Perot, Texas Dallas billionaire who died a couple weeks ago, ran as a independent as an independent candidate for president 1992. And he was very skeptical about some of these free trade agreements. This was, however, generally speaking in American politics. The Republicans have been kind of the free trade party. The Democrats have been sort of split on it. There’s some free trade Democrats, but a lot of Democrats since the Democratic Party represents blue collar workers, a lot of farmers union members, the Democrats have been a little more skeptical about these agreements in the broad scope of American economic history than the Republicans will trump. Turn that on its head in 2016 and argued that the deals that we have were bad deals, they were deals that hurt the American workers. And this was part of, you know, one of the tools that he used to crack into. The Democrats hold on Blue Call or especially blue collar white workers in 2016 so he has followed through on his pledge is to re negotiate trade agreements and to slap tariffs on countries that restrict American exports into their countries as well. So China has been a particular kind of boogeyman for the president. About a week ago, Um, Trump did the following. So let me. I want to make sure that I get exactly what he was doing correctly. Let’s see, he slapped a 10% tariff on $200 billion of Chinese exports, right? So that’s a particular now. What does that mean in your kind of nominal terms? That’s a tax hike of about 2000.1% of the entire U. S. GDP, or about 0.15% of Chinese GDP. Solar, Bridget’s it acts essentially, is attacks, and those comparison points I just give you kind of get at the magnitude of it, so it’s certainly not inconsequential. It’s also not debilitating. These aren’t enormous in terms of the entire US economy or the Chinese economy in response, and this has kind of come up in the last day or so. China let its currency drop by about 2%. Is it allowed the value of its currency to drop for comparison purposes, The British pound has dropped about 9% since May, when it became clear that the Brits hadn’t figured out how to do Brexit how to leave the European Union. Right? So it’s it’s It’s a modest number. Both numbers are kind of modest. Both the tariff and in their response, however, markets in the United States really tanked yesterday. They lost more value than what we’re pressed him again was like the most value the markets have lost in like 15 years, I believe, certainly since the 4009 crash. So what are we to make of this? Well, just a couple of observations. It’s pretty clear that Trump really is, as he’s, I think, referred to himself a tariff man. He really does believe that, you know, tariffs are an important part of trade policy. Um, you know, a lot of people were hoping he kind of do do in the Chinese circumstance we did for NAFTA, which is basically tear up the agreement. Kind of re negotiated deal looks a lot like the original deal and declare victory. This is kind of what we like you to do in American politics. Um, but it’s pretty clear now that, um, you know, he is committed to this trade policy. Um, and I think the other thing you say so that’s on the American side, on the Chinese side, I think it’s pretty clear that China’s indicated that they’re not going to act as the Mexican or Canadian governments did. And that is to kind of come back to the negotiating table. They take a little bit of a hard line. And in addition to allowing their currency, Teoh to really react Kuebler piquillo break. They’ve also has a word I just really shouldn’t try to say in August, um, they’ve also increased the tariffs and the limitations on imports, so that would be, uh, exports from the United States. In the agricultural industry, that means farmers, So the farmers in the United States had a tough time the last 16 18 months or so, and this is gonna probably add to that. So with that, with that all transition the Professor McDaniel, because we’re talking about farmers earlier, and I know he’s got some thoughts on that

[0:06:54 Speaker 0] wave started over talking about trigger warnings run. That’s thes tariffs. It’s clear that for many farmers that they have basically faced the brunt of this. We talk about trade wars. There are casualties and the casualties in the U. S. And mainly been American farmers. The groups, specifically the president. Trump said he wanted to protect one of things that has happened. Congress has passed bills. The product, some subsidies to farmers do kind of helped them as thes trade wars loom. But it has become a major issue. You had problems with people trying to import goods. So, for instance, solar people doing with solar panels on their been a lot of problems with how this is affected really domestic products. So how Americans have been able to manufacture within within manufacturing in the U. S. Because they need certain raw goods now one, I think it’s also important to note that when we’re talking about the U. S. Economy and kind of the loss of manufacturing jobs on the part of Americans is one the reasons why many American May infection jobs took office. If you think post World War Two Europe was decimated, and so one place where you know there was relatively untouched we have to remember Pearl Harbor is the U. S. Was not a Zohar MDA’s much that allowed them to keep producing and to supply things to Europe. And what many arguments is that? Basically other conscious now caught up in terms of the manufacturer, said they used to bring it from us. They could now make on their own. And so this is one of the reasons why another issue to deal with his automation on DSO. While we talk about the tariffs as being one of the problems a Z being the main problem is actually one of a number of problems that played a role in American and American manufacturing jobs, where refining the Americans with considered low skilled laborers were able to make a career out of it 30 40 years ago, are unable to do so now because those jobs are not as plentiful on there are a number of forces at play here, beyond the tariffs, but and again, in the middle of the tariffs of these trade thes trade deficits, it’s important to note that in doing so that there are casualties and we’re seeing it specifically with American farmers.

[0:09:01 Speaker 1] Okay, so I want to mention just a Ah, a couple of things is we bring this back to the context of the class and you are consistent efforts to try toe use the core ideas and concepts from the class and from the course to help you understand what’s going on today. One thing I’d point out is that if you look at the Constitution, there’s nothing in Article two, which describes the powers of the presidency that says the president shall manipulate or have control over tariffs. Ah, this is something that’s just sort of evolved over time. I mean, is it is it the case that Congress could step in and pass legislation that would, uh, directly define or set the tariff? Yeah, the Congress could do that, but the Congress has it. This isn’t one of those things that’s occurred recently. That is, since the second World War, where the president has taken control over a particular aspect of American economic policy. If you read a history of, say, the 18 nineties and particularly 18 96 election, the presidential election turned on questions of currency and questions of the tariff and William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley. You know where the candidates in that 18 96 election both argued repeatedly over the tariff, and neither the Republicans or Democrats had kind of a consistent party policy on what they were doing with exports and imports. But it was clear, even at that time, over 100 years ago, 115 years ago at this point that the president would kind of look to is the person who would set policy with respect to tariffs? You know, I wish I knew a little more about the history of that and when exactly that developed. But it’s one of those you know. The president, you know, doesn’t have a ton of well defined powers in Article two. But for some reason other. The tariff is always Pinsent has kind of fallen on the president. So, you know, maybe Trump knew this early on and decided that was a way to leverage his power. Ah, I don’t know. But it is. This isn’t something that’s occurred recently under the auspices of the Imperial President. This actually goes back a little ways. Unlike, you know, president going. I’ve talked about immigration, and whether it’s Obama or Trump not actually enforcing laws passed by Congress or interpreting them brought this. This actually goes back a little ways. So I just wanted to point that out. Um, you know, I think Professor McDaniel on both hinted this is gonna be an issue in 2020. Um, you know, has Trump negotiated better trade agreements? Like he said, the best trade agreements has has relatively robust American economy been undermined by these trade wars that have hurt specific sectors, sectors Trump needs if he’s going to win reelection and particularly is gonna win reelection via states like Iowa and Ohio and to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, They’re not as farm heaviest, some other states. But anyway, we just wanted to to make sure you all were aware of that. Um, you know, tariffs or something. We used to think I was being kind of, you know, 150 years ago, but not so much. Not so much so with that. Let’s move to our second topic of the day, and that is to talk about, um, mass shootings and gun laws, and I want to set the table again. Our responsibility to you guys is to try to bring some broader perspective, some context with which to evaluate these things that occur, unfortunately, on a weekly or monthly basis these days. And what I wanted to do towards that end is actually kind of kick off this conversation by talking about the Second Amendment. You hear a lot about that. When a mass shooting occurs, people immediately go to the issue of guns and guns in American society and the extent to which ah, the individual right to bear arms is one of the core principles. And so let’s let’s start as best we can buy it. Let’s make sure we’re all dealing with the same facts. So let’s actually read. The Second Amendment to the Constitution is this is in the Bill of Rights. It’s not in the text of the Constitution, uh, the text, the Constitution proper. It’s the Second Amendment. So it was ratified initially with the rest of the Constitution, and the court is as follows. The Second Amendment says a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state state capitalized. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That’s just editorial comment. That’s a clumsy sentence grammatically, and it has inspired all sorts of debate about what? What is meant there, right? A well regulated militia comma being necessary to the security of a free state comma, the right of the people to keep and bear arms common shall not be in friends. That that’s a that’s tough to impact, right? I mean, is that actually constitute a clear protection of the right to bear arms? So that Second Amendment now a couple of critical court cases. So you know, I mentioned, it’s it’s somewhat difficult to interpret phrase or, you know, amendment. So what is? The court said in a couple critical cases here, United States vs Cruikshank In 18 76 the Supreme Court ruled the following This is a quote. The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment means no more than it shall not be infringed by Congress and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government unquote. So that’s one interpretation in Crook Shank. Right, then you get a case. United States vs Miller in 1939. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment does not protect weapon type specific weapon tights on Here’s the quote. Um, not having a quote reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia. Right? So you get what the courts basically saying in the crook shank in the Miller case, is that the second amendments really about the state militia? And the question is the extent to which having a gun or no gun rights is critical to the establishment of state militia. That’s that’s the interpretation. In those cases, however, there’s another case. It’s very relevant here, and this is the Heller case. I think it’s 2010. Professor me. I think it’s 2010. In the Heller case, the Supreme Court for the first time rules that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep a gun for self defense, right? So this is the first time that the court rules that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to own a gun. All right, and then very quickly. Following the Heller case is McDonald vs Chicago 2010. And here the court clarifies that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment that’s the 14th Amendment, basically says all the restrictions and protections granted in the Constitution Visa Vee, citizens and the federal government. They also applied to the States. Right? So that’s when people talk about the 14. That’s a sleeper amendment. It’s really important, right? You all probably know this, But if you don’t let me make it very clear the protections in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, those air protections for individuals against the federal government. It’s not until the 14th Amendment that those rights of the individual are protected from infringement by the states as well. That’s why the 14th Amendment so important. It’s one thing to say the U. S government can’t take your guns can’t infringe upon speech, the 14 them says. Neither can the state governments, so that’s a really big deal. And So which again? The Heller case. It says the individuals you know in order to protect other rights are entitled to the right to bear to have a gun. And then in, um, in the McDonald case, it says in that protection extends to the states by virtue of the 14th Amendment. Okay, so that is kind of where we are in terms of jurisprudence. I’m not gonna get into a big, long discussion about, you know, militia versus, um, you know, guns. And that’s something that the court has grappled with for a long time. And the Heller case is the important, um, the governing precedent inducing case that the court is operating under now. So that’s kind of just to set the lay of the land, I realized that, you know, we’re not touching on video games and trump on Dwight supremacy and all this other stuff, you know, kind of around the edges here. But I did think this was a good opportunity to talk about, since the public policy debate we’re heading towards is again on guns. So with that, you know a lot more about gun policy and gun stats, and I do what you got for us.

[0:17:37 Speaker 0] So one of things that has been discussed quite a bit in the number of mass shootings. And so it’s important to stand what what is considered a mass shooting mass shooting is when four or more individuals were injured or killed. And right now we’re averaging about one mass shooting a day. Eso again one. Today there is a shooting in which four or more individuals are either injured or killed. Another thing that we know is that the stricter the gun laws in the state there is lower the rate of gun deaths. But one other thing that’s important pay attention to what we’re talking about gun deaths. Is that about half or slightly more than half of gun deaths or suicides? And so we have to be. You know, when we’re talking about gun deaths, we need to be a little bit more. Um uh would be very specific about Are we talking about suicides? Are we talking about homicides in this regard on? So that is really it’s important to understand the terminology that’s being used, kind of cleaning up some externalities, a lot of languages being thrown out there, but nobody’s being very clear about what’s going on here, making very clear about how redefining off these terms that are going forward now regard. Superstar mentioned The issue of video games has been a lot of rhetoric about violent video games. The courts have actually world on this and actually eso you know, a large number of psychologists look into this and say, You know, the correlation between violence and video games is about the same to the correlation between eating bananas and suicide. It’s it’s just it’s just not there on the courts themselves of actually ruled against the California law, which would have tried to regulate violent video games. Basic argument. There is no evidence that these video games are associated with violence, and so there are a lot of ah lot of arms being put forth. One is again deal. Those were mentally ill. The problem with this is one. You have to verify that someone until you know. But there’s also the issue of due process. But then, also, if we’re talking about what we just of those who mentally ill, that means you’re constantly policing individuals to see if they’re mentally ill or not. And so there may actually to a greater intrusion in your life off another? No, some say, to put forward law that banned. And if you’re committed of domestic violence, you cannot have weapons because there’s women are or because of domestic violence are five times more likely be killed or their abuse of abuse owns owns a gun. And there are a lot of things going on in terms of controlling the side of the magazines, things like that. But most of this is being done at the state level, and so we know that certain states have been more adamant about gun control than other states, while some states have tried to put stricter laws on some states of losing their laws. And there’s been kind of been this argument of what’s the best way to reduce the number of guns or to increase the number of people we think are good People have guns, But also it is important to note is that many people talk about these states that air much more open in terms of their gun policy that many of the states actually have laws. In order to have a gun permit, you need to have training and go to a firing range. Some states require no training at all. And so what we have is a patchwork of laws regarding regarding gun rights on regarding gun laws in terms up who was allowed to have a gun. What type of gun you can have a type of magazine you can have, uh, and even a bigger issue the federal government faces is that in terms of its cattle, cataloguing of of gun ownership is that it’s not digitised. It’s actually printed out copy. And so you can easily look up. You know who owns what types of guns, things like that. And so there are a lot of things going on. People talk about the power of the n r. A. But really, what’s going on is again. There seems to be a lot of agreement on certain activities, but we’re getting a bit of they’re seven gatekeepers. And so right now, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is actually catching a lot of heat because he’s seen as someone who is stymied gun control laws. And so it’s gonna be interesting to see what happens, considering that he’s also going up for re election and it could be someone someone of a type of a tight race on, Given the power that he is a mass within the Senate, it’ll be interesting to what degree, But this actually hangs with him. But the fact that we’ve had these two shootings within really 13 hours of each other again is a, uh has really been a huge cause cause for alarm. And while we’ve talked about it, it’s not really sure what to do it again. But I want to make clear. And it’s pressure shot kind of point out of the discussion of militias before we say that a gun is a weapon, it’s a tool. It is used for something. Okay, if you’re hunter, use it. Use it to hunt. Uh, you think the number of individuals just go on to more rural parts of Texas? You can go about, you know, when I would come here in the Elgon and you’ll see, you know, people are using their guns to protect the property from wild hawks. Eso my firearm law, for instance, has to, you know, protective problem. Wild hogs. They tear everything up. Uh, you know, whether or poisonous snakes things like that. And so they are tools. They are tools that are useful. But the question becomes all right. Well, how prolific should this tool be and who should gain access to this tool? And if we just automatically to get some weapon of mass destruction as opposed, actually seeing it as a tool first, I think in many cases, in many ways we lose. We lose sight of what’s going on, and we can take very strong arguments that may not that may actually be more harmful than helpful. Now, this is not saying, you know, that I’m not making a statement what should be done, but really try to break a lot of things down and kind of sanitized. You are going to get rid to try to move away from right or wrong to more. Okay, what actually is going on? What are the terms that are being used? And if we’re gonna have a discussion about this, how can we have a discussion about this in such a way that one we are aware of individuals rights and so we are able to on better and improve society.

[0:23:46 Speaker 1] Okay, just a couple points. I’d like to raise in closing against Try toe, you know, bring some of the ideas for class and help you guys toe. Make sense of this debate is a and sort of the attending questions involving public policy. First is there are First Amendment issues surrounding this. And when I say First Amendment issues, one of the first things that the Democrats said Beto O Rourke, you know, set it on. The Sunday morning show I was watching was that President Trump’s tweets and that similar rhetoric from others, but in particular President are incendiary and to blame for creating the climate that we have right now that fosters these sorts of mass shootings. Um, and I think whether or not you agree with that or not, um, even if you agree with it, it raises interesting questions about First Amendment rights. Free speech. If someone has speech that you consider it contributes to a climate like this, are you prepared to regulate that speech? And if so, how are you gonna do that? Very interesting question, right? I mean, it varies. Of course, if I were to give you guys five different examples, say one. Well, here is a you know, Congress person who tweeted something about, you know, immigration is, ah, illegal immigration. We need to crack down on it. Well, that’s at one end of the spectrum. You say, Well, that creates a contributes to a noxious environment. You can agree or disagree on that, but it runs the gamut all the way to some of these manifestos posted by these white supremacist groups. We might all say that well, these air absolutely offensive, and you ought not to be given any kind of dissemination. But are we prepared to ban them? And even if you were prepared to do that, could you do that right? There are it. And I’m not big on slippery slope arguments, but it’s an interesting question about who’s going to judge the efficacy of speech if if we intend to sort of monitor that in light of the climate that we think is being created right now, I’m not, Professor began Honorable were posing questions. We’re not offering prescriptive solutions at all, but I want you guys to think about that right. I mean, is there speech that you consider so noxious and potentially deadly or dangerous? Do you feel that way? And If so, would you be prepared to restrict, you know, First Amendment rights in order to achieve some sort of better societal goal? Second point wonder raises that towards that end, actually, it’s not towards it. In a another issue here is mental health, and there are, in public policy terms, something called red flag laws that are getting a lot of attention. Now. You guys will probably hear that in the next few days or so. A red flag laws, essentially, when someone has demonstrated that they are a threat to themselves or to others that there ought to be tools to take away. You know, the president is the tools that they could use to enact mass murder to inflict harm upon themselves or others. They’re called red flag laws. They’re getting a lot of attention. The question there is largely involving due process. What procedures need to be in place in order to implement a red flag law? Is it just, you know, do you need multiple episodes? Do you need something just officially filed with the police? Or is it you know, a couple conversations and a neighbor rats you out and you know that’s the basis upon which somebody seeks. Ah, injunction that would deny you of your right to, you know, a pistol or something like that, Right? Red flag laws, interesting questions involving At what point is someone demonstrated a threat to themselves and to others. And what’s her to do? Process protections, Do we have? Okay. And then I would just also like to say, there’s a ah, macro question here. Are we going to get changes in gun laws in let you know we didn’t after Sandy Hook we didn’t after Columbine is, you know, the combined effect of the combined weight of the El Paso in Dayton shootings enough to push legislation across the line. I’m skeptical about that. And you know, those some of you out there probably think, Well, the gun lobby, the N R. A. Is responsible time. I think, you know, special interest groups contribute to these sorts of policy impasses. No question about that. I think that the trickier thing right now is that we’re basically in a presidential election cycle right now, which means Republicans and Democrats they couldn’t do this in 2017 or 2018 when you didn’t have a presidential election looming in the background. How are they going to come together in 2019 and 2020? And I’m dubious about that. So, you know, if I just want to kind of get all those points in their right First Amendment issues involved in this the red flag laws and the attendant issues involving due process protections and then little way by way of kind of bad predictions, it will probably be proven wrong. I’m skeptical about the prospects for legislation the next cycle. So with that, we good all right, Good luck on your test, Aziz said. That’s coming up Wednesday, seven central daylight time, and I think we go one more in the news segment we’re going to inflict upon you next week, so stay cool and we’ll see you guys soon