Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 29, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, June 29, 2017 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW Oregon needs its sunshine As a disappointing legislative HB 2101-A would not only give the public specific notice of bills session comes to a close, you can lament a lot of missed opportunities: that would increase government secrecy, it would set up a balanced, Tax reform didn’t get done. PERS nonpartisan reform never got committee to off the ground. The education budget “Journalists often update and simplify survived disastrous Oregon’s confusing — and rightly — thicket of more cuts but didn’t take the necessary than 550 existing complain about a records-law steps forward. A transportation lack of openness exemptions. package may have We think that legs, but time is improves the lives in government.” of every Oregonian. short to get it to the governor’s desk. Yet the first major — Shasta Kearns Moore, reforms to public The Democrats Oregon SPJ Sunshine Chair records law in the have control of state since 1973 has everything — stalled, while the aforementioned Senate, House and governorship exceptions allowing greater secrecy — but couldn’t get anything become ever more commonplace. of substance done, which is “Journalists often — and disappointing. A single-party state rightly — complain about a lack of is only as competent as that single openness in government,” Oregon party, we suppose. Society of Professional Journalists You can harp on the big things, sunshine chair Shasta Kearns Moore but sometimes it’s the small ones said. “Now is our chance to push the that illuminate the larger missteps. needle in a better direction.” One little bill that we continue The bill passed out of the House to harp upon has, like the grand bargains, also not found traction. It’s Rules Committee with a “do pass a simple one, but one we believe has with amendments” recommendation but remains stuck goes to the Joint a bipartisan ability to make Oregon Ways and Means Committee. government better and help make The bill would cost the state about Oregonians better informed. $200,000 a year, but the spending It is House Bill 2101-A, would boost trust in government colloquially known as the public and prevent what could be costly records law, which is geared around unintended consequences from informing Oregonians about their future legislation by ensuring government and the world around increased debate around a law that is them. the cornerstone of our democracy. It provides extra analysis and We know which party could get notice of bills that affect government it done, although we’ve learned not transparency. But it has not been to hold our breath when it comes to scheduled for a hearing by the Joint Oregon Democrats. Ways and Means Committee. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. OTHER VIEWS Georgia says more about Trump than House in ’18 T he Georgia 6th District “I think it’s a witch hunt results don’t tell us what — they’re not giving him a will happen in 2018. But chance,” one man in Marietta, they do tell us what is happening Georgia, told me. right now. So on Tuesday, if the GA06 vote was a referendum on the In a conversation two weeks president, the message from a before the GA06 election, a winning margin of voters in the Republican strategist involved district was probably this: Give in the fight mused on the Byron him a chance. possibility that all the money York “People are very optimistic spent, all the doors knocked, Comment about the Republican agenda,” all the phones called, all the the strategist said. “Now, has it accusations hurled — that it been smooth? You know the answer to might mean nothing when it comes to that. But they are cautiously optimistic the crucial question of who will win about the president’s agenda, and they control of the House of Representatives want to give him time.” in 2018. And that is where Trump likely “That’s the silliness of all this,” stands with supporters far beyond GA06. he said. “Assuming we win Georgia, But that is right now, and just right we will have won all of the special now. Next year, nothing is guaranteed. elections, and it means nothing — “Next year, the most important factor nothing — for next year.” will be what results we deliver,” said He was right. Special elections the strategist when I asked whether have been notoriously unreliable for Trump could build any support beyond predicting the results of elections more those who voted for him in 2016. “If his than a year away. That’s probably especially true in the current speeded-up administration leads the way in cutting middle class taxes and improving the news cycle. That doesn’t mean economy, absolutely he will.” Republican and Democratic strategists “People don’t care about Russia,” won’t try to take lessons from GA06 and he continued. “They care about things try to apply them to the future. But who knows what might happen by next week, that impact their life every day. Russia is not one of those. Those are partisan much less next year? Still, the election results do tell us issues. They stir up the base. But the something about this moment. “They Democratic base already hates the tell you that Trump’s supporters support president. They don’t need to be stirred Trump,” said the strategist. “So far, up any more.” all the available data is that Trump’s It’s not a bad formula for the supporters not only support him but are president. If Trump were to follow it, motivated.” he would manage the Russia affair, Indeed, talking to voters during a because it has to be managed. But door-knocking session with conservative he would spend his time working on activists in GA06 earlier this month delivering more jobs and higher wages revealed a sentiment shared by a lot of to Americans who voted for him and Trump supporters. “Give him a chance,” Americans who didn’t. On that, one they said over and over. They sense, prediction is pretty safe: If you improve correctly, that Democrats in Congress the lives of voters, you’ll do pretty well. have sought not just to oppose Trump ■ from Day One, but hope to actually Byron York is chief political remove him from office through the correspondent for The Washington Russia investigation. Examiner. OTHER VIEWS The muggle problem T his week we celebrate the 20th circle thrill. anniversary of the first Harry Which makes the thrill of Potter novel, and the beginning becoming a magical initiate in the — in Britain, at least; the first Potterverse remarkably similar to volume’s publication in America came the thrill of being chosen by the a little later — of a cultural juggernaut modern meritocracy, plucked from the that defined a generation’s experience ordinary ranks of life and ushered into with books. gothic halls and exclusive classrooms, It is a timely anniversary, since if where you will be sorted — though Ross you believe what you read on social Douthat not by a magic hat, admittedly — media the Potterverse has never according to your talents and your just Comment been more relevant. As Western deserts. politics has become more extreme I am stealing this magic-and- and a generation raised on Hogwarts more meritocracy parallel from the pseudonymous blogger Spotted Toad, who wrote a fine post politically engaged, the Potter novels have been embraced ever more fervently as political discussing how much the Potter novels and movies trade upon the powerful loyalty that allegories and moral manuals for our times. their readers feel, or feel that they should feel, As I write this The Telegraph of London toward their teachers and their schools. But has just informed its readers that a poll reveals that Jeremy Corbyn belongs in not just any school — not some suburban John Gryffindor while Theresa May should be Hughes-style high school or generic Podunk in Slytherin — respectively the bravest and U. No, it’s loyalty to a selective school, with most sinister of houses an antique pedigree but a on the Hogwarts campus. modern claim to excellence, Hillary Clinton has just an exclusive admissions given a speech praising the process but a pleasingly Potter novels for instilling multicultural student body. progressive values in the A school where everybody young. Meanwhile, the knows that they belong, social-media celebrations because they can do the of 20 years of Potter have necessary magic and temporarily crowded out ordinary Muggles can’t. the endless liberal memes Thus the Potterverse, comparing Trump and his as Toad writes, is about “the legitimacy of court to Voldemort and his authority that comes from Death Eater lackeys. schools” — Ivy League Writing for The Spectator schools, elite schools, U.S. recently, Lara Prendergast News & World Report top offered a good survey of the 100 schools. And because “contemporary proliferation of Potterpolitics, from anti- liberalism is the ideology of imperial Trump organizers invoking “Dumbledore’s Army” to J.K. Rowling’s Twitter interventions academia, funneled through media and nonprofits and governmental agencies but (“Voldemort was nowhere near as bad,” she responsible ultimately only to itself,” a story wrote of Trump’s proposed Muslim ban) about a wizarding academy is the perfect to Hermione Granger’s — sorry, Emma fantasy story for the liberal meritocracy to tell Watson’s — role as a roving ambassador for about itself. millennial feminism. Prendergast also offered a harsh assessment Especially because (unlike reality) it writes of the trend: “If you have ever wondered why the Muggles, the genuinely ordinary people, young people are often so childish in their out of its political clashes and good-versus- politics, why they want to divide the world evil conflicts. In the Potter novels the selective between tolerant progressives and wicked school is conterminous with wizarding reactionaries, it helps to understand” that they society as a whole (allowing for some elves think they’re living in a Potter novel. and goblins to do maintenance and keep the Admittedly, if you think that the world books), and thus the threats to that world’s really is divided between tolerant progressives liberal integrity all come from within the and wicked reactionaries, you won’t find this academy’s walls, from Slytherin House and its assessment all that damning. arrogant aristocrats, who must be constantly But I’m not sure that sort of Manichaean confronted in the halls and classrooms of the vision is actually the most important political beloved school itself. Voldemort, the dark teaching in the Potter novels. Because if you lord, has Muggle blood, but he isn’t trying take the Potterverse seriously as an allegory to rally an army of non-magic-wielders to for ours, the most noteworthy divide isn’t seize Hogwarts’ towers; he’s trying to remake between the good multicultural wizards meritocratic — er, magical — institutions and the bad racist ones. It’s between all the in his own dark image. And so the battle for wizards, good and bad, and everybody else — Harvard — er, Hogwarts — is the battle for the Muggles. the world. For the six readers who have never read Which is basically the premise of a great the Potter books but who have stuck with deal of youthful liberal activism these days the column thus far nonetheless: Muggles — that once the last remnants of Slytherin are non-magical folks, the billions of regular are eradicated from the leafy quads of Yale everyday human beings who live and work or Middlebury, once Draco Malfoy’s frat or in blissful ignorance that the wizarding world final club is closed and the last Death-Eater exists. The only exception comes when one sympathizers purged from the faculty, then the of them marries a wizard or has the genetic battle of ideas will have been finally and fully luck to give birth to a magic-capable child, in won. which case they get to watch their offspring But even if it were, beyond the walls of the ascend to one of the wizarding academies imperial academy all of our world’s Muggles while they experience its raptures and would still remain, with an agency and a revelations secondhand. power that they don’t have in the Potterverse. The proper treatment of Muggles, Because after all it was mostly Muggles, meanwhile, is the great controversy within not some dark conspiracy by the Slytherin sort the wizarding world, where the good guys of conservatives, who put Donald Trump in want them protected, left alone and sometimes power. studied, while the bad guys want to see them It is Muggles who keep turning to parties subjugated or enslaved (and all the Muggle- of the far left and farther right, Muggles born “mudbloods” purged from the wizarding who drift into radicalism and set off ranks). bombs. Mass migration, rising nationalism, All of this plays as an allegory for racism, Islamic terrorism, rural despair — many up to a point … but only up to a point, because disruptive forces in our era flow from global what’s notable is that nobody actually wants to Muggledom’s refusal to just be a tame and see the mass of Muggles (as opposed to their subsidized surplus population, culled for its occasional wizardish offspring) integrated into best and brightest, living only for the hope that the wizarding society. Indeed, according to the occasionally a gifted son or daughter might be rules of Rowling’s universe, that seems to be lifted up. impossible. You’re either born with magic or In the Potterverse, the meritocracy of magic you aren’t, and if you aren’t there’s really not allows the chosen to withdraw, to disappear any obvious place for you in Hogwarts or any behind a curtain into their academic world, other wizarding establishment. leaving Muggledom to its own devices. So even from the perspective of the In our universe, though, the meritocracy enlightened, progressive wizarding faction, of talent expects the chosen to actually go out then, Muggles are basically just a vast surplus and try to rule. On the evidence we have, they population that occasionally produces the new are not particularly good at it. And how to lead blood that wizarding needs to avoid becoming wisely in a society where most people did not just a society of snobbish old-money inbred go to Hogwarts is a lesson that J.K. Rowling’s Draco Malfoys. And if that were to change, lovely, lively, but ultimately childish novels do if any old Muggle could suddenly be trained not teach. in magic, the whole thrill of Harry Potter’s ■ acceptance at Hogwarts would lose its Ross Douthat joined The New York narrative frisson, its admission-to-the-inner- Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009. The Potter novels trade upon the powerful loyalty that their readers feel toward their teachers and their schools.
