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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.