1. Words and policies

There is often a distinction made between words and policy.

1. Words have impact on the political climate – they can erode norms by shifting political discourse
2. Words can have as much (or more) impact on real events and people than policy

Legitimate fear guidelines

• Trump removed “legitimate fear guidelines” (grounds on which one could gain asylum in the US if one was legitimately in fear of one’s life if one went back), but nobody noticed because of his words → words can be distracting

1. When you say a politician is bad, who do you mean the politician is bad for?

Trump, for example, might be supported by American billionaires; Trump’s foreign policy has massive implications for people around the world.

Left-wing people in Pakistan might vote for Trump because Trump has ended many US interventions – for example a controversial and legally dubious drone strike.

But some countries (e.g. Taiwan) would support Trump even though they disagree with Trump’s general philosophy, because he supports them militarily.

3. You cannot ascertain blame or praise for all political actions, clearly.

Two examples with Trump:

• Vaccine – Trump gets some credit (despite blatant mismanagement of the pandemic) even though he doesn’t deserve it.

• Trump on the economy – Trump has limited power over the economy (minus the tax break bill) and is attributed blame (or praise) for it anyway.

(there are lots more examples)

The important thing to think about is the comparative.

Brief note on presidential power

1960s – Kennedy massively expanded the power of the Presidency by creating a large number of agencies.

Executive orders are a way to adjust the nuts and bolts of policy.

Congress has two important powers that should be noted:

• “power of the purse”
  • Congress has control over how money is spent
• “declaration of war”
  • This power was explicitly gained after the War Powers Resolution
  • What does it mean to declare war?
  • e.g. was the assassination of Bin Laden an act of war; are drone strikes?; or do you need boots on the ground

4. Agents vs structures

Actors are not unitary actors → e.g. “China did X” – who? For example the Chinese Communist Party

This is not just the case in politics, but also political movements – for example when talking about Black Lives Matter, which people being spoken about? Possible groups include

• The leaders in Washington
• The leaders in Minneapolis
• The white liberals
• Working-class black people

Sometimes it is helpful to think of individual actions and at other times it is helpful to think systemically.

For instance, looking at the storming of the Capitol building – should the specific individuals who stormed the Capitol building be blamed or the institutions?

• Systemic thinking:
  • resolving structural problems is the best way to solve individual problems
  • It may be desirable to avoid assigning blame: easier to get resolution when justice is not adversarial (e.g. truth and reconciliation commission)
  • Helps to identify the pervasiveness of the problem – e.g. saying man X is sexist implies that there are other men who aren’t
  • Considers people as potentials than just present realities (so constructive justice rather than retributive)
  • Helps to identify the salience of command and control structures in society (suggested reading: Hannah Arendt – Eichman in Jerusalem & Origins of Totalitarianism)
  • Division of sympathy. At an unnamed academic institution X they run one COVID test per student per week – so more than the entirety of South Africa – if you step just outside of the building you have to show the papers displaying your negative test to result to the security guards at the entrance, even though it seems ridiculous. Should you blame them? They’re mostly doing their jobs and trying to not get in trouble with their superiors, so it seems unfair to blame them. This is similarly well illustrated when considering encounters with employees claiming they cannot do (or must do) some action X because it is “company policy,” where if you complain they will quickly forward you to their manager.
• Individual thinking:
  • most institutions of justice align with this
  • hard to be specific in blame-taking (who is responsible – easy to argue over this) when looking at systems (causality is hard to establish)
  • undermines the notion of individual responsibility