GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, July 20, 2016

In the news.

Welcome to IN THE News for American and Texas Politics. My name is Professor

Eric McDaniel. Today, I’m joined by Dr. Joshua Blank, who is the manager of polling

and research for the Texas Politics Project here at the University of Texas. Dr. Blank, welcome.

Thank you for having me. So today we actually have quite a bit to talk about. So

in regards to funding for certain epidemics, regards to Zika as well as OB

opiate crisis, then we have, of course, the 2016 campaign.

But do we want to wrap up the discussion of kind of really, really recurring subject of the past few weeks, and that is

police community relations specifically with the events. Baton Rouge this Sunday.

But let’s start out what I want to start off with discussion of Zika funding.

And this has been one of the big issues going on as to how to handle Zika.

And well, we thought there was a plan, but the plan kind of fell through. We have a clip explaining

that the bill to address the Zika crisis has fallen apart in the Senate. Democrats

objected to the measure largely because it restricted funding to Planned Parenthood. But Republicans

insist the bill included plenty of effectively allocated funding. The president had requested nearly

twice as much money. Congress had just two more weeks to reach a deal on Zika funding

before lawmakers leave for a summer recess. So as we see, this is kind of a

crisis in which the parties really can’t seem to agree on certain things.

Problem problems like, well, we’re willing to fund it of this amount, but in order to fund it, we’re going to take

away certain resources. Specifically, the issue of Planned Parenthood is seen as kind of a dealbreaker.

There actually have been some studies. It’s like, well, to what degree with this lack of funding actually affects some

of the outlying territories, such as Puerto Rico, where Puerto Rico, we expect to be in actually a hot hotbed

for this. And you’re seeing a lot of cases being developed in Puerto Rico to say

really the Republican plan may not be as harmful as it looks. However,

people many people oppose this really because for symbolic reasons, expect some more cuts to Planned Parenthood

and from a political perspective. I mean, this is the sort of event I think that just makes people hate Congress.

Right? I mean, this isn’t something where you say, well, you know, everybody should be on board here for Republicans.

They’re protecting, you know, unborn children and newly born children are the most vulnerable among us

and for Democrats. And we’re going to put money into a public health campaign. I mean, it’s sort of the sort

of thing where it seems like a slam dunk and then it’s another failure. And this is kind of why

congressional approval floats around 10 percent, because it’s sort of these sorts of incidents where there’s

no reason for it not to happen. Yeah. And this is really important issues that you

think, OK, this should be done. This is very simple. Everybody should agree upon this, but they find a

way to disagree. Now, it’s almost as if they seek out a way to disagree. Yes. Yeah.

It was like, OK, how can we how can we find a way just to not make this work? Now,

one of things and one we want to talk about as to what degree should people actually be worried about

about Zika specifically from coming from mosquitoes. So we show this

map from the CDC. The CDC actually did some research. And the areas that are highlighted

are the areas where we expect where the mosquitoes who carry Zika are most likely to be found.

And so whereas before was argued that, you know, Zika, it spread all the way up to the north east. It’s

really going to be castrating the south. So California Texas is going to get hard

hit hard. Arizona, parts of Mexico, Florida. But it can travel up

to Maryland and places like that. So as far as being a nationwide

threat, the CDC, the CDC doesn’t believe that it can be certain pocketed areas.

Some people argue that, you know, it’ll be good as far as Minnesota. You know, the Canadians will be protected.

No one wants could just Trudeau sick. But really, really, we’re finding

the pockets in the south. And again, once you get to kind of middle of California, northern California,

you don’t see that happen because those mosquitoes don’t don’t exist in that habitat. So

we’re finding that the threat may not be as large as we assumed in the continental US.

However, the U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico, which already has own problems in terms of its economy,

the promise may be severely worse. Now, while we can’t mention a failure in regards

to funding for Zika, we have seen some success in regards to funding for opiate

treatments. And so we have a clip discussing that. It’s been months of debate

and delays. But today, Congress finally agreed on a bill to deal with the nation’s growing opioid

crisis. channelize George Collie’s in Washington explains what the legislation includes and

why some worry that’s still not going to be enough. Legislation to combat the nation’s opioid

and heroin epidemic is heading to the president’s desk. It expands prevention and education efforts, boost availability

for lifesaving overdose medicine, provides more treatment options for addicts and strengthens prescription drug monitoring

programs. Just changing the attitude. You know, this is the first time that the United States Congress has really gone on record

saying addiction is a disease. This is really important that the federal government is

saying this is a priority. Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Rob Portman from Ohio, represent

two of the areas hardest hit by the crisis. A United Nations report finds heroin use in the U.S.

is at a 20 year high. The most updated statistics are from 2014, and they show about

twenty eight thousand opioid and heroin related deaths nationwide with fourteen hundred.

In Florida, lawmakers are concerned because there is no funding attached to this bill. The president

asked for more than $1 billion. Congress is considering appropriating about half that. And we need

to do more, obviously, to continue to fight to make sure that it’s fully funded. And I’m going to be doing that

and continue to do that. But this is going to make a big difference, I think, in this this epidemic. Congress will address

the funding issue in the fall. The president is likely to sign the bill. So

here’s an important thing. As I said, there is no funding, as we know,

for a lot of bills. One is passing the bill and the second is paying to actually carry

that out. And so the appropriations bills are another thing and this is the thing that frustrates

people about Congress is there are so many veto points. And so even though the bill’s been passed,

there’s no funding for it’s was basically parents giving you the cars. Give me the keys of the car. But

the gas tank is on empty. I got the keys of the car, but can’t go anywhere. And

so this is one of the fears about this is that, yes, it’s been passed, but

will receive proper funding. And again, as you know, Dr. Blank pointed

out there, one of the reasons why people dislike Congress is because there’s so many ways to kind of impede something

from happening. But there is one important point to make from this is that we’re seeing

a change in terms of how drugs are being framed. And so you’re seeing a lot people talk about

the end of the war on drugs, the idea of talking about addiction, not being a criminal issue, but

as a health issue. And this is important because it changes drastically how we

treat these things. So late in the semester, we’ll talk about policy specific policy images.

We’ll talk about how policy images impact the tools that are used

when drugs are used, when drugs are seen as a criminal issue, it’s in the hands of the Department of Justice, which

is going to be criminalizing putting people in jail. Whereas when it’s a health issue, Health and Human Services

more about treatment. And I think what you can see here is this is part of a broader discussion from

a couple of different points. Right. I mean, one is the fact that, you know, and you look at a,

you know, a less serious drug than heroin. Marijuana is legal in many states now.

You know, let’s say attitudes even in Texas are basically pro some sort of decriminalization

of a sort of lesser drugs like marijuana. At the same time, this sort of over criminalization of drugs

like heroin, crack cocaine has led to sort of what a lot of people are looking at as kind

of the justice system crisis with minority groups being overly imprisoned

over basically where minor drug offenses is a lot of elements. I think going to this overarching change

towards how people feel about drugs. Yeah. And again, this is one of the one of the cross that

Harlequin has to bear because we talk about these very hard drug laws, specifically regards to crack

cocaine. There was, you know, part of us doing the Bush presidentbut part was also continued

during the Clinton presidency as well. And she made some very harsh statements. And so

she was an active combat and or part of the administration was an act of compassion in the war

on drugs and where we where black people argue the war on drugs has actually been more of a civil war, which

is harm the public a great deal, specifically minority communities.

And as Hillary Clinton tries to reach out to these communities, mobilize communities, these communities, she has to reckon with

the fact that she’s made some decisions which has harmed these communities and made some very strong statements

which are seen as inflammatory towards towards these communities. However, with with that said,

it is important to note this change we’re seeing and we’ll talk later on in the semester about

policy. The way we define a policy, the way we define a problem dictates the policy.

And so whereas in the past, drug addiction was was defined as a criminal issue

by defining it as a medical issue. We’re going to see drastic changes in the policies put

forward. And this moves from the criminal criminal sights on public

health side, which means we expect to see more money put into treatment. Now, again,

to what degree this is going to happen for all drug, all drugs are really clear.

But we do know in the case of heroin, we are seeing more and more work in regards to treatment as opposed to punishment. And

that’s something I guess I’m kind of interested in seeing how looking. Looking forward to I mean, and not looking partisan. An excited

but looking ahead is, you know, if we’re gonna talk a little bit more about

police violence or violence against police, you know, a little bit further in. But, you know, if this sort of

activity continues, at what point might this sort of idea of, you know, pump funding,

public safety and police potentially come into conflict with basically treatment? Right. If it is

one or the other is the way you can approach this, at some point they might actually butt heads.

Because usually there’s not money for everything. So it’s another thing to look forward to is not in an excited way.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the competing firms are are extremely important to pay attention to policymaking,

not continue with this idea of competing frames. We move to the 2016 election

and we have some news. We have a new player in the 2016 election, and

that is Donald Trump’s V.P. pick. And the vise presidential selection

was gov is Governor Mike Pence of Indiana. So many may wonder who is Mike Pence?

Well, I’m here to tell you. So he is the current governor of Indiana. And he served as a member

of House Representatives from 2003 to 2013. And so. He

understands how Washington works. Now, one of the things about Pence, it’s extremely important is that he’s a social conservative.

So termit a little bit of problem winning over social conservatives, white evangelicals with him.

Many of his statements were expressed in regards to LGBT issues.

We’re seen as not being nationally socially conservative. And Mike Pence became famous

nationally because of his religious freedom bill and in Indiana, which allowed businesses

to basically deny services to individuals because it conflicted with their religious views, specifically

from having to serve food and get at same sex marriages. Things

of that nature. However, he caught a great deal of hell for this. So the NC

double actually threatened to move tournaments out of Indiana. You. The NFL

threatened to remove a Super Bowl from from Indiana. So this could take a lot of bottom business.

We’re gonna move out of Indiana over this. He didn’t change it. Make it make it a mistake.

You know, you can’t do this to discriminate based upon sexual orientation.

But again, he did game a great deal of attention because of that and because he signed it. Any

kind of backtracking, which we may not be happy about, but that’s where you get a great deal of notoriety.

But in this in this, he has good relations with Paul Ryan as well as the big donors. One

of the things that we talked about last week with the Trump campaign is, you know, they need the money.

Hillary Clinton is a very strong fundraising arm and action. She’s she’s

going to outspend Donald Trump quite a bit. And so he he can help bring

in the money. All right. So he can he can make it rain. But finally, one thing

people are pointing out is that he’s facing a competitive reelection bid. So things haven’t gone for him as well

as he would have liked in the state of Indiana. The Democrats have found somebody from southern Indiana

who refers himself as a gun toting, bottle, Bible thumping southern Indiana Democrat

who they think can basically match up with Pence on a lot of issues

in terms of really social issues such as gun control as well as as well as religious freedom,

but may have a different economic message, the people the state of Indiana may be open to. And so because of this,

it may be maybe a good time for Pence to step out. And so many

people saw him as as really the most likely choice. People saw him as a

as a viable presidential candidate. So, you know, this is Mike Pence.

So it’s pretty good, pretty good introduction. And I mean, the main I mean, you’ve touched on a couple of the points of why why does

any why does any presidential candidate pick anybody? Right. And I mean, I think some of that is filling in for

weaknesses. Right. And yes, his cachet with social conservatives. His

relationship with House Republicans, with the other legislative arm, Donald Trump’s relationship is strained

to say he had to take it lightly. You know, and also, you know, he’s from he’s from

Indiana, which is an important state, you know, in the presidential like Senate Republicans have had been pretty successful with. But

Democrats think that they actually have a good chances here. I mean, did buy from a famous sponsor of Democratic political

family is basically they’re going to probably run for Senate there. It sounds like, you know, Democrats think this is a state

that they can win, which is part of the reason Pence was all very happy to jump ship. But at

the same time, why even having someone with those connections would actually be helpful for Trump. I mean, the next question is,

how is it received? I mean, so the timing of this is right before the convention and this is sort of pretty standard. I mean, one,

he’s going have a speaking slot. He had to eventually tell everybody who who the vise presidential pick is going to be.

But, you know, secondarily, the idea is you want to build momentum into the convention. And so the you

know, with Pence, you know, you’re bringing someone in with all these assets that Trump doesn’t have. But the thing

was and you know, there’s so many kind of look for us and some weird clips on this. There’s a bunch of weird clips, but they’re not

really condensed. But they’re rollout was widely panned as being pretty ham fisted.

You know, they went on and did their first Friday when Trump announced him, I think was on Friday

afternoon when he said he wasn’t gonna announce him on Friday because of the attacks. And niece then decide he was going to basically

do this rollout goes out and basically talks about himself for a while, as he’s want to do,

and then say, here’s Mike Pence. And it was like I was weird. And then they did this very, very strange

admitted that they disagreed on most things and said, yeah, that’s fine, which is not usually the way that,

you know, presidential tickets are constructed. Usually the ideas as they have reinforce each other’s message. And there’s

something consistent there, whereas their whole rollout was about how a lot of ways they don’t agree about things.

So that kind of leads in to the convention. Right, which is in Cleveland, Ohio this week.

And, you know, most of the media coverage of this, which strikes me as funny, the media coverage of this is basically

treats Trump completely as a conventional candidate. And they want to evaluate him as a conventional candidate because they don’t

know how else to do it. And so the idea was what’s he trying to accomplish and really trying to accomplish? Party unity.

He’s trying to introduce himself to a wider audience. He’s trying to

get positive media coverage, right. Because, you know, you control the convention, you control the content. In some

ways, you know, everybody is going to cover it. So you get four days of uninterrupted coverage and within two days of this so far.

Day one was somewhat of a disaster on these fronts. And they, too,

seems to have been a little bit better. So let’s go through that a little bit. So early on, you said

if you thinking about these goals, one of the first goals is party unity. Right. And getting a positive media

hat so early on during the day during his own convention, Trump called in

to Fox News. We have a clip of that. We talked about this before. Most of that is

education driven. Let’s let’s turn to the convention. The Ohio

governor, John Cusack, should be at the convention is not. Have you

spoken with them? Oh, how do you feel about that? Look. I beat

him very badly. I won 38 states.

I won the highest number of votes in the history of the Republican Party. Second

was very, very far away. I beat him very, very soundly.

And you have to understand, this was a contentious, some people say, the most contentious primary they’ve ever seen in either

party. If I were him and got beaten that badly, I probably wouldn’t show up either. He has

a problem, though. He signed a pledge. And from a standpoint of honor, I think it should

show up. I also think this if this were the Democratic convention, I think he should show

up because it’s good for Ohio. I wanted it to be here. And we had lots of choices.

I wanted it to be in Ohio. I recommended Ohio. And people fought

very hard. That would be in Ohio. It’s a tremendous economic development event. And you look at

the way it’s going so far, it’s very impressive. I wanted it to be here. The Republicans wanted

to be here. But honestly, even if this were for the Democrats, he should at least show up and say

hello and say, how are you doing? He got beaten very, very badly. He could have,

you know, left he should have left probably many weeks earlier than he did, but he just hung around.

Do you think he’s being a sore loser? Well, I don’t want to say that. But you know what?

It was a very contentious primary. He lost very, very badly. And maybe if I

were in his position, I wouldn’t show up either, says your call. You know, John Kasich is one of the last

to not, you know, candidates standing besides Trump at the end of the contest.

The you know, he’s the governor of Ohio. Right. You know, is important Republican

governor in an important swing state. And there is Trump basically, you know, basically calling him a loser

over and over again on Fox News, which is where, you know, most Republicans

are catching their news. And this is, again, if you think about the goals, are talking about party unity.

OK. Not a sweet success. So the other piece of this, too, is that what he ended up stepping

on was the convention coverage of that point was of the mother of one of the victims

in the Benghazi attack. And, you know, it was basically widely said that this was one of the most sort of emotional

and connecting pieces of day one. And he actually, you know, and again, he has a pretty big hand in programing,

the content, and he actually stepped over it. To kick a fellow Republican,

and so that was, you know, the first piece of day one was, you know, what are they doing?

The second piece of day one was Melania Trump giving her

a sort of big debut speech. She’s not someone who has been on the campaign trail or talking a lot.

And so this was her big her big, you know, introduction to people. The expectation was that she

was going to come out sans some of the rough edges of Trump down. You know,

basically show people, you know, that, you know, he’s actually he’s actually nice guy. And generally

the response was at first it was, well, that was an okay speech. I mean, there were no real personal anecdotes and everything, but she handled herself

well. But then quickly, this sort of storm came up about, boy, her speech

sounded a lot like Michelle Obama’s in 2008. And so we’ll let you judge that for yourself

with with this club. You have the same values like you work

hard for what you want in life, the values that you work hard for, what

you want in life, that your word is your bond, that you do what you say you’re gonna

do, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep

your promise that you treat people with

dignity and respect, that your treat people with respect. And

Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values

and pass them on to the next generation. And we need to pass those lessons

on to the many generations to follow, because we want

our children and all children in this nation to know that the only limit to

the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard

for them, because we want our children in this nation to know

that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams

and your willingness to work for them.

So, you know, just just to be clear, like this isn’t a big deal. I mean,

you know, in the rescue, this is like one of the kind of small things that is going to an anecdote.

But the way the framing around this is about sort of the you know, I think it’s

often described as reed thin structure of the Trump campaign, the fact

that they haven’t hired a lot of people, that they don’t have, you know, sort of. I mean, basically, because most most campaign

sort of consultants who’ve been asked about this are basically saying, yeah, it’s pretty basic to take any speech

and just turn it use turn it in or any sort of free plagiarism software to figure out,

you know, if you’ve made a mistake. And yeah, this is kind of basic and they kind of messed up now.

The thing was, is that, you know, earlier in the day in an interview with Matt Lauer,

Melania had said that she wrote it herself. And then at about 2:00 in the morning,

the Trump campaign released this statement, which I think is just it’s my favorite thing of the week.

So I think we have a slide of it. It basically says you can write her beautiful speech, Melania’s team of writers. So they’ve already contradicted

what she said earlier in the day, you know, took notes on her life’s inspirations

and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking.

I don’t like I I just don’t understand how a professional person can write this, because basically what you’re saying

is so in some instances, the writing of her team of writers reflected some of her own thinking, which implies

actually that most of what she says wasn’t her own thinking. Now, is that really what they’re saying?

No, but this just sort of tells you what kind of day they had on day one where, you know, the

story basically became about how incompetent Trump’s campaign team seems to be. So that was the day one

coverage they too, they got back on track a little bit. And by getting back on track, it’s mostly about,

you know, focusing on what unites Republicans above all else. And that is their distaste for Hillary Clinton.

And the most successful individual yesterday at doing that was probably

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. That clip, Clinton as an inept negotiator

of the worst nuclear arms deal in American history. Is she guilty or not guilty?

Next.

Next. Oh, believe me, we’re not done yet. The indictment

is hardly complete. Now, if you’ve

been watching this convention from start to finish, more or less, as some of us have

me, you know, this was like the most excited the crowd has gotten the whole time easily.

I mean, most of it has been really muted, kind of noticeably muted. And then, I mean, that’s kind of what you expect for time when these issues of unity

and sort of the fact is there’s a lot of delegates there who, you know, are not Trump supporters. Right.

And he hasn’t really done much to win them over. This was or this is a reminder of what most

of the Republican convention probably is is going to continue to be about, which

is, you know, we may not you know, we may not agree on much, but we agree about what we do, what we don’t like.

And that’s Hillary Clinton. Right. And then, you know, the other couple major speakers from last night,

Donald Trump Jr. spoke in primetime. And, you know, one of the you know, his speech was pretty

well-received, but it was also kind of notable because as a family member, usually states are out of the politics.

You tell a guy, you tell sort of those anecdotes about, you know, you’re about your your father, your husband or whomever,

and you try to soften the edges and help him with different groups of people. And he did a little bit of that. But

what he really did was actually lay out a lot of policy, you know, talked about insert school vouchers

and tax system. And then he also actually directly attacked Hillary Clinton, which is

pretty unusual for a family member to do, because usually, you know, family stays over here. The candidates

stay over here. They deal with each other. The families are off limits. But, you know, it’s going to be. But I mean, again,

Trump, his family, his campaign is not traditional as unexpected. And then the other major speaker than I was, Dr.

Ben Carson, also, Dr. Carson kind of gave the

most interesting comparison of the night. Let’s roll that clip. Now,

one of the things that I have learned about Hillary Clinton

is that one of her heroes, her mentors, was Saul

Alinsky.

And her senior thesis was about Saul Alinsky. This was someone

that she greatly admired and that affected all of her

philosophy subsequently. Now, interestingly enough, let me tell you something about Saul

Alinsky. He wrote a book called Rules for Radicals on the dedication

page. It acknowledges Lucifer, the original

radical who gained his own kingdom. Now, think about that. This

is a nation where our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, talks about certain

inalienable rights that come from our creator. So are we willing

to elect someone as president who has as their role model, somebody

who acknowledges Lucifer Craig?

So I’m in my thirties. I don’t really know who Saul Alinsky is besides like a boogey man that we attach

to like left-leaning politicians. What’s he talking about? Well, let me take the time to inform

you, please. So Saul Alinsky, as you will see from the slide, Saul

Alinsky was a Chicago based community activist,

can be organizer. And so give the Chicago connection. Hillary Clinton being from Chicago or is she from

New York now? We never know. She’s like Carmen Sandiego or Arkansas

or in Arkansas. She would never say big city.

She would if she had to. She would if she had to. But yeah, but he

basically provide a lot of tactics for influencing public policy and was really concerned about the poor.

And he was a lot about community organizing, but also disruptive tactics, things like that to try

to get people’s visions through. Now get Saul Alinsky. Imports quite

a few people. Are you making others like that? And so he was a big

leader when it comes to kind of these progressive movements, specifically in regards to the poor. And he was known as being

anti-establishment. Now, the quote that Dr. Carson is referring to is

the following quote, which we have a slide of. And this is actually at the very beginning of the book. If you read the

book, he actually starts off with a few quotes from one from a rabbi, one from another political

philosopher. He says, lest we forget, at least an over the shoulder announcement that to the very

first radical from all of our legends, mythology and history and who is to know where mythology

leaves off and history begins or which is which the first radical known a man

rebelled against this house, wanted to do so effectively that at least one his own kingdom,

Lucifer black people said this is kind of a tongue in cheek type thing

to kind of talk about how we often demonize people in

politics. And so that’s going to lose those not mentioned anywhere else. It’s like

really the first two pages. So if you read the first two pages, Lucifer and therefore the rest of it, there’s nearly

nothing else about community organizing, about how but how we demonize individuals, things like that.

Now, I’ve actually read Secretary Clinton’s thesis. She met with Saul Alinsky

once and she met with him once for her for a thesis. And

she said, you know, I agree on the on these few issues, but I disagree with his anti-establishment stance.

And she actually wrote in her in her memoirs that Saul Alinsky invited her to

bring her to work form. She’s like, no, I’m going to law school. And he said, you’re wasting your time. Obviously.

Obviously, yes. She’s become such a loser. So that’s what’s

going on, Saul. You know, I’m I’m not trying to defend Saul Alinsky or defend Hillary Clinton. It’s just one of things

about it is whenever you have a convention coming, the

fact checkers, basically machines explode because there’s so much

stuff lying like next week in which some of the Democratic National Convention. Oh, my God. The stuff is

going to come out of their mouths. You’ll really you’ll you’ll be shocked and amazed. And so

this is one of these things I like doing is doing the fact checking, because when you do the fact checking office and you realize,

oh, my God, these people are lying left and right or distorting things and agreeing to the same

thing next week. Oh, please don’t be surprised by that. But again,

we’ll talk more about it tomorrow about Hillary Clinton going to her campaign next week. But this is really

important to talk about how you see Ben Carson trying to frame Hillary Clinton

and specifically saying, you know, the idea that somebody, you know, Mitchard, Lucifer or tried

to put Lucifer in a positive, positive light, considering that this is, as he points out, you know,

a nation that was that as a religious founding or maybe a Christian founding

in God we trust Hacket, how can you support Lucifer again? Wolinsky

is known for being antagonistic. I think even Hillary Clinton says he antagonizes

everybody he meets. So he’s kind of he’s that guy.

I guess, you know, I can’t think of a great example that somebody who’s antagonize, but the purpose of antagonizing.

But he’s that guy. You know, I just you know, actually, if I follow up with one final point on the conventions, it’s kind of

you know, there is this idea that you watch these things and every year. I always think, boy, the way they speak,

it’s almost as if nothing happened. You know, three years ago or four years ago, everything

is really condensed into sort of the most recent time stretch. And it is sort of, you know, portrayed

you know, obviously times, you know, creates more understanding of what’s gone on. And it sort of feels like you

hear just stuff that if, you know, you’re a Democrat during the Republican convention, it makes your blood boil and vise versa

for Republicans in the Democratic convention. But if you remember, like it’s for the purpose of this, guys, is it’s this

isn’t about necessarily speaking to the other side. This is about speaking to

their group of Republicans in this case. We could give you a Democrat speaking to Democrats after a long primary

process and reminding them, hey, we agree about a lot of things. You know, I think Mitch

McConnell spoke earlier in the day yesterday. He made a really good case. You know, actually, it’s very you know, he got booed. Coming

up, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, you know, pass because he’s seen as being part of the establishment.

I think, among other things. But, you know, he came up, he made the case. Look, you know, here’s

Bill that the Republican Senate, the Republican House have passed. I know that everybody in this audience agrees with,

you know, Barack Obama has vetoed it. Donald Trump will sign it. And he went down the list. Look, it’s not

a it wasn’t, you know, a ringing endorsement of Donald Trump or, you know, I believe in his ideology or his

ideology is my ideology. We all agree. But it is making the case, look, we mostly agree with ourselves.

And it’s the same thing that the Democrats are going to see next week. Even if you were a die hard Bernie Sanders, where you’re going to come in,

you’re going to say, but most of what these people are saying, I agree with. And that’s what happens.

You know, a lot of people haven’t paying attention to this. They have been watching this go on for a year. And now they’re getting invited back into the

process and they’re being reminded. Oh, yeah, I’m a Republican. Ah. Oh, yeah. I’m a Democrat. And that’s a lot

of what is going on here. So, I mean, the fact checking is sort of this thing where it usually frustrates the other side

a lot. But the reality is they’re just speaking to people who agree with them anyway and reminding them about,

you know, sort of what they think yet again. The key theme here is, you know,

we may not agree on everything, but we can’t stand her. Right. And that’s basically what

can get it from a Democrat. I think the Democrats should be more like a we we agree on a lot of things. Plus, we can’t let Trump win.

And it’s it’s it’s going to be an ugly election no matter what. You have two candidates that people

just don’t like. So it’s like choosing between brussel

sprouts and cauliflower. Well, I like both. You would like. I do. OK.

It’s like choosing between an M and tech. All right. And so you’re left with.

Wow. Which one do I deal with? And so you’re like, woo, the

big city life of all of Lubbock.

Or the big city life of College Station. Woo! And so basically,

I guess you say, OK, which one has a strong cow smell? All right. And you know, you’re left with that.

But again, you left with really do it for two bad choices. Now, moving

on from from a convention, we want to talk about really, again, a recurring theme. And that

is really the community police relations, specifically black community police

relations. Now, last week, President Obama was we gave we know about

the events in Baton Rouge on Sunday. But before that, President Obama tried to

try to get the ball rolling in terms of trying to heal police community relations. We have a video

describing the conference he held at the White House inversed Group from all over the country,

including Black Lives Matter activists, city mayors and law enforcement officials. Chief

estimate and met some of them might not have agreed to meet otherwise. But when the president of the United

States invites you, you say yes. It’s been a hard we last week as he

was working through the emotions and effects of last week’s events around the country.

New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman got an interesting phone call Tuesday morning.

My executive assistant walked in and said, you either have a prank call or the press. United States

is on the phone. Chief Esserman was on a plane the next day heading to the White House, a

part of a small group of activists, community leaders, government and law enforcement officials

invited to a meeting with President Barack Obama about minority communities and police.

He sat down, he took off his jacket, he rolled up his sleeves. He talked for a little while. And then he said, I want to hear from each and every one

of you, and no one’s going home until we’ve talked this through. The meeting went on for more than four hours

Wednesday when it was chief estimate’s turned to talk. He discussed New Haven’s commitment to community

policing, how it has worked so far, and how there is still work to be done. If I want

people to feel the pride I’m wearing and having and wearing this uniform.

And I want them to hear me and see me. Then I need to hear them and see them when they express the pain they

feel. Looking at it during a press conference after the meeting, President Obama called it an excellent

conversation, but acknowledged none of these problems will be solved overnight. Not only

are there very real problems, but there are still deep

divisions about how to solve these problems. Chief Esserman agrees. But he says the conversation

did help him feel better about these issues as he returned to New Haven. We’ll see if it helps

America. So as you see President Obama try to get things

started in terms of conversation, given what happened last week with the Alton Sterling shooting, the Glenoak Steel

shooting and the events in Dallas. He tried get the ball rolling Thursday. He had a town

hall type meeting on ABC. I’m not sure how well it was. It was

reviewed. Basically, it was people asking the president questions. You

had our own lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick there. You are the son

of a ball in Sterling there. You also had

the parents of police officers or the police see from a walk. You actually gave him a very strong

speech, really pointing out. You know, which they pretty much organic. Look, I’m on I’m on my own

here. As he pointed out, as you point out, the really the bears difficulties he has

to deal with the community in the sense that there’s a level of mistrust. Would you said, you know, there’s a history behind

that, but also talking about the fact that the state legislature is not supportive in reducing

gun or reducing the amount of guns on the streets. And really the variety of problems

and I think in many ways, like with the dialog with the Dallas police chief said, look, we’re overtaxed or being

asked to do too much. And that, you know, this is this is about

our relationship with the community. We need more action on the part of policymakers

to do this. And again, with the Milwaukee police chief said, look, you’re gonna be out of here in six months.

But what I hope is what did you do during the six months that you’re here? And what do you plan on doing once

you leave? I think that’s a really important factor there. Yeah. I mean,

you know, just as speculatively, I wonder to what extent is Barack Obama looks beyond his presidency

to what he’s going to do and he’s still pretty young as far as present, you know, sort of people leaving the Oval Office are concerned.

And I mean, it seems like this is an area where, you know, he might continue. Right, this

kind of this kind of work, because it’s something where he seems to be. I mean, despite his critics, he’s actually seem

to be pretty strong at these sorts of communications across, you know, lines and different sort of groups of conflict,

you know, sort of focus, again, a little more on on Baton Rouge and in space. You know, in particular,

one of the things that that conference was responding to and that sort of evening town hall

was the shooting of Alton Sterling by police in Baton Rouge. The prior week. So

let’s see a little bit about that so far about the deadly confrontation between

two white police officers and a black man on the streets of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, started with

a nine one one call just after midnight on Tuesday. Fisher spoke to a did not

for half of that city, about a quarter of pie.

If you file a complaint account of he couldn’t be out there, cell phone video

shot by a bystander outside the Triple S Food Mart shows the struggle between the officers

and Alton Sterling. Witnesses say the officers first tried to use a stun gun against

the 37 year old. He’s then pinned against a car and wrestled to the ground.

Someone shouts, he’s got a gun with Sterling on his back. One officer

pulls his gun and aims it at Sterling’s chest. So this happened two

Wednesdays ago. I think that was followed by the shooting in Minnesota. philando Castile

on Thursday. The following Sunday was the shooting of police officers

in Dallas. I think it was a Friday, Friday. Friday was the shooting of police officers

in Dallas. And then Sunday was. And then this last Sunday was back in Baton Rouge with

the shooting of three police officers were shot and killed, and I think another three were injured. And we’ll

see a little bit about that. 8:40 a.m., a quiet Sunday morning in Baton

Rouge when officers spot a man dressed in black holding a rifle near

a convenience store.

We need to. Now we’re back. Responding officers locked in a gun battle.

Oh, we hold up and look around me. The windshield. Yeah. 8:48

with medics on the scene trying to get to the fallen officers. Officers engage the subject

at that particular time. And he ultimately died at the scene of

the ambush style attack leaves three officers dead, three others wounded. The shooter

later identified as 29 year old Gavin Long. So this is kind of a

traumatic event in band room, just as Baton Rouge is trying to heal from

the sterling shooting and then the protests that took place.

And again, Baton Rouge has received a bit of pushback in the sense that the police officers were

in SWAT gear while they were protesting, whereas post to the Dallas police who were marching

with the protesters. There seems to be much more of a of a standoffish relationship

between them. Even the police chief has said, look, you know, we’ve there’s we

believe there are credible attacks. So you thought the police, he was being heavy handed, but then this happens.

It was important to note is that Gavin Long is not from the Baton Rouge area.

So unlike the shooter in Dallas who is from the area, Gavin, along with Kansas City and

Kate came down to the area. This has been one of the major concerns about these. This was a major concern

in Ferguson that they’re having these peaceful protests that people were actually doing. The rioting were actually

from outside of the community. And so this has been one of the major tensions

of the people. The community are not able to control what’s going on and have controlled their

interactions because these outsiders are coming in. Again, this goes back to some of things we talked about from

controlling this scope of conflict that by allowing more people in. Well, what happens

is sometimes they can kind of take over what you want to do. And you’re seeing this happen with a lot of these

cases, specifically in this case in Baton Rouge or somebody from outside the community decided to

basically experiment civil conflict, complicated to inject himself into the conflict. And in many ways,

it’s changed the nature of this conversation. And so where you have the police

being more tense as well as the community. And I think this is and again,

talking about this idea of community relationship or trying to heal. You see this person kind of interject

this really at the wrong time as they were trying to go through the healing process. This happens. And a great

example of the healing process comes from one the officers who was killed, Montreuil Jackson,

who made the following statement on his on his Facebook page. Let’s roll that clip.

You know, there’s an emotional statement that I want to read to our viewers here in the United States, indeed, around

the world, the words of Montréal. Jackson, one of the police officers who was shot and

killed today in Baton Rouge, only 32 years old. He wrote these words on Facebook

on July 8th after the Alton Sterling shooting in Baton Rouge. And

he writes this I’m tired, physically and emotionally disappointed in

some family, friends and officers for some reckless comments. But, hey, what’s

in your heart is in your heart. I still love you all because hate takes too

much energy. But I definitely won’t be looking at you the same. Thank you to everyone

who has reached out to me or my wife. It was needed and much appreciated.

I swear to God, I love this city. But I wonder if this city loves me in uniform.

I get nasty, hateful looks and out of uniform. Some consider me a threat.

I experienced so much in my short life and these last three days have tested me

to the core. When people, you know, begin to question your integrity.

You realize they don’t really know you at all. Look at my actions. They speak

loud and clear. Finally, I personally want to send prayers out to everyone

directly affected by this tragedy. These are trying times. Please

don’t let hate infect your heart. This city must and will get better.

I’m working in these streets. So any protesters, officers, friends, family or

whoever. If you see me and need a hug or want to say a prayer, I

got you a really powerful message. And I think

it really, really touches on how complicated this all is. Like, you know, we were speaking

less like what we’re gonna talk about. You kind of said, I want to talk about Baton Rouge. I don’t know what I want to say. I think that’s about.

That’s right. Right. And I sort of, you know. Any or any sort of discussion of these sort of

the sum total, these events going on, whether it’s sort of police violence against minority communities or violence

against police officers. There’s a sort of, you know, the sort of two basic reactions.

One is really, really broad, which is sort of what you’re kind of seeing out of a lot of the campaigns as the

nature of politics. But to say, you know, it’s because everything’s going to hell, that’s sort of the one

reaction. The other reaction you see on television on is basically somebody saying something

for very particular reasons. And, you know, this is about topic X.

So this is because, you know, we don’t have good gun control laws or this is because we don’t have enough guns. And those people

are usually, you know, they have a they have a dog in this fight. They’re trying to advance their agenda.

And the reality is, is that this is just super, super complicated. Right. There’s a lot

of aspects they’re going into what is going on. In America right now, when you’re talking about

police and minority community relations and you could say it’s about, you know, the legacies of slavery,

you could say it’s about, you know, the criminal justice system, you could say it’s about,

you know, policing. You could say it’s about we can say it’s about moral values. You could say it’s about psychological

constructs like bias, you know, stereotyping or outgroup attitude. But the truth

is, it’s about all those things. Right. In some way or another. And that’s why it’s hard for people to kind of wrap

their mind around, get context for these things. One of the questions I think is interesting that sort of gets at

that’s sort of a dumb question, but it’s a good exercise as like how much of it right now,

like 1968. And I’ll let you can talk a little more about 1968.

But I mean, sort of the interesting thing about that question is the time of major racial upheaval. And

what’s the question is dumb because it’s not like 1968.

But it’s smart because it does bring into the for the fact that there are a lot of elements. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you think of the 68

multiple things we’re having in 68. So you have the assassinated assassination of King

of March and April 4th, 1968. Then you

have a presidential election. We have Nixon versus Humphrey

and Humphrey. Some of the assassination of Kennedy. Those are always a Bobby

Kennedy as well. And so you have so you have really someone. But then you also

have George Wallace running as well. And so you have really a lot of things going on. And George

Wallace has a very strong segregationist argument. Nixon is somewhat

kind of moderate on race issues where as Humphrey is very liberal on race issues. Humphrey was known as breaking

the filibuster in the Senate when some senators were trying to block the

Civil Rights Act. And so he was Johnson’s vise President Johnson, because

of the Vietnam War and some other controversy, society was going to run for reelection. So Humphrey Humphrey

runs. But again, you have the strong civil rights candidate, the somewhat moderate and then the anti-civil

rights candidate. WALLACE And you have all these things. You have a test. The

election is much like you have a test, the election. Now you’re coming off of riots in a number of cities.

The Watts riots were a few years before that. And so you’re really seeing a great deal of tension, even

though you’re seeing progress. You see the parts of the city for voting. So for 64 Civil Rights

Act, you see the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 65. You’re seeing are you seeing

progress? You’re seeing really the early introduction of blacks in the politics, specifically

in the South. And so you have a lot of these tensions going on. And,

you know, one of the things we can we can look to talking about this is this is we really see the early stages

of really the black power movement, the black nationalist movements where the the Black Panther Party

is off some sort of get more attention. And the Black Panther Party was formed

primarily around the idea of stopping police violence in black communities.

And it has been well, well articulated. And what you have

here is you have this group of people of of African-Americans in these

very cities with these urban areas, northern urban areas who are very frustrated. One

lack of jobs, too, especially the relation with the police, is that they feel that the police

are not there to protect and serve, but to control them. And this is one of the problems you have,

which we talked about last week in terms of things like stop and frisk things, things of that nature is that the police

are not there to protect and serve. They’re there to control. And so this became a

big thing where the police were seen as an invading force in their communities. Now,

with that said, things are much better and they weren’t sixty-eight

significantly better. I think President Obama tried to make that argument when he when he had his

town hall meetings like, yes, things are similar in terms of the tensions that are going on. But

things are so much better in the sense that, you know, you have

more black elected officials, blacks and more formally are better representative for more

better represent. Formerly, however, you still have that pushback. So if you think of really Giuliani’s

comments regarding Black Lives Matter, if you see some of the policy,

you see the same pushback you saw in 68 at the just they’re just instigators. They didn’t really have

any real, real arguments there. Does the same argument about King is like, no, he’s he’s just

causing trouble. And you see the same thing coming out of really with the RNC

rhetoric. I’m like, no, it’s a real problem here. They’re just they’re just troublemakers. You’re still seeing

that rhetoric. But the thing about it is much, much better

now. It’s not great, but it’s much better. And I think that’s what I think is important to note,

is that, you know, and as President Obama said, things aren’t going to heal overnight. These are deep

rooted problems. These are deep rooted animosities. And much like 68

things boiled over. And you saw, again, a number of rise, number

of clashes, hundreds of people dead over over that summer.

My hope is that this will not happen again this summer. But again, the tensions that are going on

within the US are kind of underlying things of that nature. Again, Donald Trump is making this

argument more were more divided than ever. President Obama’s making that argument. No, we’re not as divided as

it may seem. There are a lot of things that unites us. And again, it makes sense for Donald Trump to make his argument more

divided than ever, because he’s tried to argue that, look, Obama’s made things worse. I’m

going to make things better. Obama’s. Look, no, you know, things aren’t as bad as we seem.

Look, we’re going to get there. There is a life in the tunnel. You know, Hillary Clinton is,

you know, more willing to think of the Retik that she’s using is much more about how we’re going to work together,

much more so than Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders had a very us versus them time argument. You saw

the same thing going on with Trump. But hers is more like, okay, look, no, we’re going to try to work

together. What she is pointing out, certain individuals she’s more of we’re going to work together more much more

in line with Obama. But again, we’re running into these problems where in 68 we had

these very strong tensions. You’re seeing the same thing going on now. And this has been building for years. And you’re

seeing all of a sudden come up. You think about the same thing with the 92 election. So when Bill Clinton won

there, there’s a great deal of racial tension, specifically the Rodney King verdict, verdict and the.

And the L.A. riots shortly after that where you had President George

Herbert Walker Bush talking about law and order, even Bill Clinton. But law and order, but was somewhat sympathetic

to the concerns of those in the L.A. riots. And so, again,

this is not new at all. Sixty eight. Ninety two, twenty

sixteen. These are things that come about. And you could argue that, you know, elections

really make presidential elections because they last so long and it really can be divisive,

may bring a lot of these feelings up, up, but kind of bring them up

and can be divisive in many ways. Specifically with the hyperpartisanship that we’re seeing the day

and again, if you look at the rhetoric of the convention, it’s going to be pretty,

pretty bad for the Republicans. And then next week for the Democrats, it’s going to be just as bad, if not worse.

So expect the next two weeks to be a bit ugly.

Say, like relentless. Relentless. Yes. But I mean, those are

things. Forward to next week, we’ll talk about the wrap up, some of things from the Democratic National

from the Republican s convention. We should have a Democratic V.P. pick by next week, but we

will have a Democratic Friday by Friday and we’ll talk more about

that next week. Thank you all so much for joining us.

The government 310 in the News podcast is hosted by doctors Daron Shaw and Eric McDaniel

and is produced by the Liberal Arts t-s Development Studio and the Department of Government and the College

of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.