The Age of Denial has come to Philadelphia's public life

Dec. 04, 2020

Call it the New Trickle Downward. While the sore-loser-in-principal stokes in his hardcore followers a denial of reality the likes of which nosotros haven't seen before—Trump didn't lose the ballot; a cabal including long-expressionless Hugo Chavez, George Soros and Republican election workers stole it from him!—the really concerning thing is the permission such behavior gives to local officials to follow a similar script.

Facts are malleable; instead of solving public bug, elected officials are taking note of Trump's diabolical example. Don't similar the public policy challenge that confronts you lot? Just deny that it exists and solve instead for a trouble that you lot invent—and you as well can wait like y'all're being constructive!

Denial, it turns out, works in politics—at least for a while. That's the theme of Showtime's documentary series The Reagans, which drives home the caste to which Ronald Reagan changed the form of the state in the 1980s, when, not coincidentally, the pop song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" climbed the charts. In that location's much in common between Reagan and Trump, the physician points out, including the "Make America Great Over again" slogan. Reagan was a far more likable character, only both, when faced with inconvenient facts, just ignored them, and replaced the difficult work of competent governing with expert ol' fashioned spin.

Lately, the Age of Denial has come to Philly'south public life. Exhibit i was the electronic mail sent out by Councilwoman Helen Gym just earlier Thanksgiving. "This calendar week is the Committee hearing on my Black Workers Thing Economic Recovery Parcel," she wrote, explaining that the purpose would be to "ensure that hospitality workers displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic can render to their jobs equally the industry reopens…Our legislative package will ensure that hospitality workers, who have held their jobs for years, won't be discriminated against in the rehiring procedure and provide a means for the manufacture to rehire the most experienced and dedicated employees kickoff."

Whether you're an elected official, TV ballast or newspaper columnist, the harder thing is to move across spin, to reject expediency, to put your hands in the center of the huddle and do the piece of work of repairing the breach. At other times in our history, that was but called citizenship.

At start chroma, zip incorrect with that, right? Who's not on board with enforcing anti-discrimination laws? But consider the context. But days before, the Mayor had shut down indoor dining, amidst a slew of other regulations. (Including the ludicrous stipulation that simply families of the aforementioned household tin can dine together outdoors.) No one was reopening, which means no ane was rehiring, which means Councilwoman Gym was solving for a problem that didn't yet exist.

Not only that, Gym was ignoring the existent issue: The existential crisis faced by the restaurant industry, which overwhelmingly employs working-class folks. Nationally, restaurants contain a $650 billion manufacture that accounts for something like 4 pct of the nation's Gross domestic product, but they have famously small margins, with 90 percent of revenue going to employees, suppliers and rent. One written report terminal summer predicted that 85 percent of non-chain restaurants were staring at extinction by year's cease.

A local public official who values practical trouble-solving over the politics of denial would at the very to the lowest degree entrance hall Congress for the passage of the bipartisan RESTAURANTS Act, co-sponsored by Bucks County'due south Brian Fitzpatrick, which would provide a lifeline for many restaurants to make information technology until we get to widespread vaccine distribution—when the rehiring Gym is concerned about tin can take place. But Gym could be doing more than that, too; on her personal Twitter page, at that place'south her motto, after all: Not waiting.

So why stop at waiting for Congress to act? If Gym really cared about restaurant workers, she'd lead a charge amongst elected officials and stakeholders to bail out local restaurants, which would require the blocking and tackling of political coalition building. Instead, as restaurateur Avram Hornik outlined in a well-reasoned Inquirer op-ed, after the latest circular of shutdown orders, he and his colleagues were left to wonder whose side the city was on.

Gym suggesting that the real danger posed to eating place workers is discrimination skillful by restaurateurs is not just a nod to Trump-like us and them division, it likewise serves to distract from the truthful problem.

Gym's deprival, withal, pales in comparison to the Mayor's. On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Inquirer published a terrific piece by Christian Hetrick and Joe DiStefano that laid blank something we've long harped on at The Denizen: Compared to peer cities, nosotros lag far backside in terms of job growth and, not coincidentally, making it easy to do business hither.

The data is incontrovertible. Fully 76 percent of all jobs created locally since 2009 accept paid on average $35,000 or less and our median household income of $39,759 not only ranks 23rd of the superlative 25 cities—barely besting Memphis and Detroit—only is trending downward.

That didn't forbid this mind-numbing quote of denial from the Kenney administration from making its way into the Inquirer story: "We do non agree with the exclamation that Philadelphia isn't a favorable place for business," said Lauren Cox, a spokesperson for Mayor Jim Kenney. "Philadelphia had been on a celebrated job-creation streak prior to the pandemic, with more jobs in the city than at any point since 1990, which is proof that businesses can and do succeed and thrive here."

"You have to empathize, which means I don't take to concur with any of your sentiments, but I do have to sympathise enough to understand why you call up the way you practice," said MSNBC ballast Ali Velshi this week. "The idea that you lot can only hang effectually with people who share your political views is stupid."

Hetrick and DiStefano gently correct Cox, pointing out that "the city'due south almanac job growth in the decade after the Smashing Recession, however, was slower than the national boilerplate and 23 major cities."

Merely doesn't this spin—akin to Trump-like gaslighting—deserve a far stronger rebuke? I don't know Lauren Cox, and I feel for spokespeople who get trotted out to deny facts that hover in plain sight, but we've got to assume that she and those who hide backside her proper noun know full well the game they're playing. This is where media—equally information technology has done with Trump—needs to borrow from those kids in Parkland, Florida a few years ago and explicitly say: We call BS.

Just we've got to do more than phone call out deprival; we've also got to enquire, peculiarly of this Mayor, who hasn't demonstrated whatsoever intellectual curiosity that would lend itself to new policy solutions: What's the plan, dude?

The Bedchamber of Commerce, after all, is out with its Recharge & Recover plan, which the Mayor endorsed in a press conference, simply doesn't own. (Different other Mayors, such every bit Chicago's Lori Lightfoot.) This week, Kenney appear a few meek efforts: allowing restaurants when calculating their use and occupancy tax to exclude the square footage that is closed due to the indoor dining ban; permitting businesses to revise their annual income estimates; delaying the due engagement of a $250 trash services payment, and the creation of a new tax payment plan option for businesses. These steps, taken together, are more Whack-a-Mole than strategic vision.

Philadelphia faces a daunting list of simultaneous crises. There's Covid; a cratering economy; a murder epidemic; raw nerve tensions between police and customs; the oncoming ramifications of automation and AI, and, oh yep, climate modify. Do you get the sense that anyone in local government is working on confronting any of them in a proactive way? Or does Cox's response tell you lot that the longest lame duck mayoral term in history is doubling downward on denial? That Jim Kenney is essentially a passenger in his own mayoralty?

But it's not just elected officials who practice the art of denial. In the aftermath of the election, endless thought leaders and pundits have opted for the warmth of their ideological cocoon rather than practice what the moment calls for in each of u.s.: A renewed sense of wide-eyed introspection, and a marvel about those who may have a different manner of seeing the earth. In the New York Times, Wajahat Ali wrote a provocative op-ed, proclaiming "I give up" when asked to reach out to and empathise with Trump voters.

In the Inquirer, the normally-clearheaded Helen Ubiñas seemed to give into the same temptation, writing that, since Trump's election, "I talked and listened and wrote virtually trying to reason with more than Trump supporters than was good for you or productive." Ubiñas' piece is more open-minded than Ali's, but both speak to a close-mindedness we hear often on the Left. Trump got 73 million votes—how can so many people be and then incorrect! And then racist! So…stupid?!?

Well, it'south a big country out there, with a helluva lot of opinions. Accept you lot ever persuaded someone to your betoken of view by telling them straight off how stupid or racist or lamentable they are?

The data is incontrovertible. Fully 76 percentage of all jobs created locally since 2009 have paid on average $35,000 or less and our median household income of $39,759 not only ranks 23rd of the acme 25 cities—barely besting Memphis and Detroit—merely is trending downward.

According to the American National Election Written report, 13 percent of Trump voters in 2022 had voted for Obama twice. If you lot're not curious nearly what went into that switch, and then y'all're more than invested in believing you're right than in being part of the solution. (Continue in mind the likelihood that, for a swath of white working class voters, voting against Hilary Clinton was an human action of rationality, given her husband'due south encompass of global costless trade. By the fourth dimension she ran, in other words, the Clintons had had 25 years to retrain workers victimized past necessary but disruptive trade deals like NAFTA, something they only paid lip service to.)

At our virtual Ideas We Should Steal Festival (join u.s.a.!) concluding week, we spoke with MSNBC anchor (and Denizen board member) Ali Velshi. Equally function of his Velshi Across America series, he spent much of the election talking to actual voters in battleground states, and it gave him a firsthand glimpse into the style forwards.

"One matter we should all be doing is reading Arlie Russell Hothschild's volume, Strangers In Their Ain State," he said. "She went and lived in the Louisiana Bayou, very conservative, Blitz Limbaugh listeners. And her big lesson was she had to turn her personal alarms off because they went off every two seconds while these people were talking…You have to larn how to actively listen. Yous accept to sympathise, which means I don't take to agree with any of your sentiments, merely I do have to empathize enough to understand why you think the style you do. The idea that y'all can only hang around with people who share your political views is stupid."

Amen, brother. It's easy to pretend bug don't be, or to cast blame when they become too big to deny, or to just simply not engage. Whether yous're an elected official, Television set anchor or newspaper columnist, the harder thing is to movement beyond spin, to reject expediency, to put your hands in the middle of the huddle and exercise the work of repairing the alienation. At other times in our history, that was only called citizenship.

Header photograph by Jared Piper / Philadelphia Urban center Council

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/age-of-denial-philly-style/

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