Page 4A East Oregonian Friday, January 12, 2018 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 Tip of the hat, kick in the pants ■ As we prepare for the beginning of the Legislature, we tip our hat to one priority that Gov. Kate Brown hopes to accomplish during the short session. That priority is affordable housing. Her proposal to allow the state to temporarily waive fees and education requirements — in favor of on the job training experience — for construction professionals to obtain supervisory licenses makes sense. We especially appreciate the idea of instituting low-cost Business Oregon loans that would allow subcontractors to work on affordable buildings in rural Oregon. ■ Yet we can’t help but offer a kick in the pants to her initial plans for tackling PERS this sessions, which look like nothing more than kicking that clunky can farther down the road. As we have reported, the state is facing an unfunded liability of about $25 billion. Yet Brown’s proposal is to create a fund to encourage public employers to save money for their employees’ retirement costs. For doing so, the state would contribute about 25 cents for every dollar saved. Yet, it’s unclear what effect this would have on the unfunded liability, and once again doesn’t decrease the amount that taxpayers are contributing to the retirement plans of public employees (which caused this whole mess in the first place.) We need serious reforms and a real plan. Every year we don’t get them, the problem gets worse. ■ We give a tip of the hat to Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s plan for a reorganization of the Department of Interior, which is much too Washington-centric for a department that deals almost exclusively with Western lands. We haven’t been pleased with much of Zinke’s actions as Interior secretary, not least of which was incorrectly rigging his fishing rod when headed out for his “regular guy” photo op. His more impactful mistakes include a shockingly destructive and almost universally unwanted offshore drilling plan, and File photo EO Media Group Gov. Kate Brown his recommendation to reduce the size of national monuments across the West goes against a century of tradition. His gigantic increase in admission fees for national parks seems similarly foolish. But we think his plan for reorganization is smart, and can help reduce the anger behind rural Westerners and the federal bureaucracy that owns much of the land that surrounds them. According to national reporting, Zinke plans to shift tens of thousands of workers to new locations in the west. The department has 70,000 employees nationwide. This is a bipartisan issue — many Western Republicans and Democrats favor moving the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to the region, perhaps to Denver or Albuquerque where many Interior folks are already. While the devil is always in the details, we believe getting more Interior employees out of the Beltway into the country to which they serve is a crucial step toward improving outcomes. OTHER VIEWS Trump’s threat to democracy T YOUR VIEWS Sen. Ron Wyden is in the pocket of Big Sugar Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is in the pocket of the nation’s beet and cane sugar cartels. Wyden continually votes to maintain the U.S. sugar program. Why? It is really quite simple: Sen. Wyden received well over $72,000 in political donations from the sugar cartels since coming to Washington in 1981. Thanks to Sen. Wyden and others, the U.S. sugar program continues. The sugar program is a Soviet-style command and control scheme that restricts planting and imports. This inflates the price of sugar in the United States to almost double the world price. So, when you go to the store to buy a snack cake or anything sweetened, you pay more. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the program means Americans pay $3.5 billion every year in increased grocery costs, which breaks down to upwards of $50 per family. In Sen. Wyden’s 36 years in office, he repeatedly voted against sugar reform, costing each Oregon family an additional $1,800 for groceries. You have to ask yourself, is my senator really fighting to make life better, or is he just another politician in it for the campaign contributions? It’s time for Senator Wyden to step up and end this costly government giveaway to the cartels. The Independent Bakers’ Association is an international trade association that fights to protect the interests of mostly family- owned wholesale bakers and allied trades. Nicholas A. Pyle, president Independent Bakers’ Association Washington, D.C. Measure 101 just another tax from Legislature that spends Tax, tax, tax — our Democratic controlled state legislature recently voted to push another tax on the people of Oregon. This insidious tax measure is disguised as an assessment by the drafters of this measure. But calling this tax an assessment is like putting lipstick on a pig, hoping to fool the Oregon voters into thinking their eating beef. It is a tax on you, the taxpayer — a tax on our health care insurance, state health care organizations, school medical insurance, college student insurance, small business, nonprofits and our hospitals. But, of course, it exempts big corporations, unions and insurance companies and, of course, the state Legislature from this tax. It is a tax on our health care system for you and me, exempting the elite. Make no mistake, the costs incurred by business will be passed on to you. The sneaky Democrats moved the election to January when everybody is still recovering from the holidays, hoping for a low voter turnout. Tell these Democrat politicians “no” and take back our health care system. It’s too bad they couldn’t use that gas tax they passed to subsidize the alcohol producers, or the bike tax, or maybe the vehicle registration tax to prop up Medicaid for illegals. I’ve been waiting for the Democrat-controlled legislature to start taxing toilet paper — that’s about the only thing they haven’t tried putting a tax on. Chuck Chase Baker City Quick takes Donald Trump’s disgraceful comments prove that he does not even know what makes America great — @RonWyden Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. wo political scientists the intelligence community, the specializing in how news media, the opposition party democracies decay and die and Congress. But to his great have compiled four warning signs frustration, American institutions to determine if a political leader is a have mostly passed the stress test dangerous authoritarian: with flying colors. 1. The leader shows only a weak “President Trump followed commitment to democratic rules. the electoral authoritarian script 2. He or she denies the legitimacy Nicholas during his first year,” Levitsky and of opponents. 3. He or she tolerates Kristof Ziblatt conclude. “He made efforts violence. 4. He or she shows some to capture the referees, sideline the Comment willingness to curb civil liberties or key players who might halt him, the media. and tilt the playing field. But the “A politician who meets even one of president has talked more than he has acted, these criteria is cause for concern,” Steven and his most notorious threats have not Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both professors been realized. … Little actual backsliding at Harvard, write in their important new occurred in 2017.” book, “How Democracies Die,” which will That seems right to me: The system be released next week. worked. “With the exception of Richard Nixon, And yet. no major-party presidential candidate met For all my confidence that our even one of these four criteria over the last institutions will trump Trump, the chipping century,” they say, which sounds reassuring. away at the integrity of our institutions and Unfortunately, they have one update: norms does worry me. Levitsky and Ziblatt “Donald Trump met them all.” warn of the unraveling of democratic norms We tend to assume that the threat to — norms such as treating the other side as democracies comes from coups or violent rivals rather than as enemies, condemning revolutions, but the authors say that in violence and bigotry, and so on. This modern times, democracies are more likely unraveling was underway long before to wither at the hands of insiders who gain Trump (Newt Gingrich nudged it along in power initially through elections. That’s the 1990s), but Trump accelerated it. It matters when Trump denounces the what happened, to one degree or another, in “deep state Justice Department,” calls Russia, the Philippines, Turkey, Venezuela, Ecuador, Hungary, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Hillary Clinton a “criminal” and urges “jail” Ukraine, Poland and Peru. for Huma Abedin, denounces journalists as Venezuela was a relatively prosperous the “enemy of the American people” and democracy, for example, when the populist promises to pay the legal fees of supporters demagogue Hugo Chávez tapped the who “beat the crap” out of protesters. With frustrations of ordinary citizens to be such bombast, Trump is beating the crap out elected president in 1998. of American norms. A survey that year found that the I asked the authors how we citizens Venezuela public overwhelmingly can most effectively resist an authoritarian believed that “democracy is always the president. The answer, they said, is not for best form of government,” with only Trump opponents to demonize the other one-quarter saying that authoritarianism is side or to adopt scorched-earth tactics, for sometimes preferable. Yet against their will, this can result in “a death spiral in which Venezuelans slid into autocracy. rule-breaking becomes pandemic.” It’s “This is how democracies now die,” also not terribly effective, as we’ve seen in Levitsky and Ziblatt write. “Democratic Venezuela. backsliding today begins at the ballot box.” Rather, they suggested protesting Likewise, the authors say, no more than vigorously — but above all, in defense of 2 percent of Germans or Italians joined rights and institutions, not just against the the Nazi or Fascist parties before they ruler. They emphasized that it’s critical to gained power, and early on there doesn’t build coalitions, even if that means making seem to have been clear majority support painful compromises, so that protests are for authoritarianism in either Germany or very broadly based. Italy. But both Hitler and Mussolini were “If these actions are limited to blue-state shrewd demagogues who benefited from progressives, the risk of failure and/or the blindness of political insiders who deeper polarization is very high,” Levitsky accommodated them. told me in an interview. “Extraordinary Let me say right here that I don’t for a measures are sometimes necessary to moment think the United States will follow defend democracy, but they should rest on the path of Venezuela, Germany or Italy. extraordinary coalitions — coalitions that Yes, I do see in Trump these authoritarian include business leaders, religious leaders tendencies — plus a troubling fondness and crucially, as many conservatives and for other authoritarians, like Vladimir Republicans as possible.” Putin in Russia and Rodrigo Duterte in ■ Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and the Philippines — but I’m confident our cherry farm in Yamhill. Kristof, a columnist institutions are stronger than Trump. for The New York Times since 2001, writes It’s true that he has tried to undermine op-ed columns that appear twice a week. institutions and referees of our political He won the Pulitzer Prize two times, in system: judges, the Justice Department, 1990 and 2006. law enforcement agencies like the FBI, The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.