[MUSIC]
My name is Steven Miller and
I'm the Communications Manager
of Waubonsee Community College.
We had this podcast so that people can
learn more about the employees, students,
partners and programs of Waubonsee.
Rich Keifer is a professor of political
science and history here at Waubonsee.
He and I sat down and talked about
political science as a discipline,
what it is, what it's like to study it,
and what's involved in politics today and
a bit about impeachment.
We hope you enjoy the conversation.
[MUSIC]
Today we're sitting down
talking to Rich Kiefer.
He's a Professor of Political Science and
History here at
Waubonsee Community College.
And political things is always
an interesting topic and
probably particularly so now with
the recent political events that we're
probably all familiar with in the news.
Rich, why don't you introduce yourself and
tell us a little about yourself and
your history here at the college.
>> Thank you Steven.
So again my name is Rich Kiefer.
My title here is Professor of
Political Science and History.
I've been the college's full
time political science professor
since 2000 I came on.
Almost every semester I've been here
there's always been something exciting to
talk about in the political field.
So my first semester here was
the Gore Bush 2000 election and
kind of the fiasco that unfolded
in Florida and the recount, and
that just happened to coincide
with my first semester.
So that was kind of an exciting time
to be teaching political science.
Almost every semester I teach I
tell my students that, you know,
try to be aware of what's going on around
you because there's always something
interesting going on.
I think especially in this day and age,
we have some very extraordinary events
taking place that don’t normally occur.
You know, sometimes we have some
comparisons in the past we can kind of
reference but everything that's happening
is unique in its own, own way, so
I've been teaching them political
science in history for a long time.
Prior to that I worked at another
college for a number of years,
taught part-time at a few places.
I love my discipline.
I taught just about every
history course we offer here.
Any given semester I teach several
sections of intro to American government
and we tend to have students from all
sorts of different backgrounds and majors,
so that to me is kind of an exciting
way to look at the material.
And then I teach a few upper level
political science offerings.
So this semester Spring of 2020 I have
comparative politics which we look at
how other governments are set up and
then I also have state and
local government which is how the state
government piece kind of interacts with
the federal government and their role.
>> Sure, sure, so a very,
very broad variety of things.
Interesting, you mentioned
you started here in 2000.
After you had Bush Gore in that election,
then I guess the next year you had 9/11
and just the ongoing sequence of events.
>> It really is and a lot of these
things kinda flow from each other.
You look at who won in 2000 eventually
became president really affects
the direction foreign policy might take.
You look at the direction
the country pivoted after 9/11 and
events that followed were directly related
to that, we're still in Afghanistan.
It's the nation's longest
continuous conflict.
It's going on almost as 21st year there.
So yeah, that affected indirectly.
That's how we end up getting involved
in Iraq the first time in 2003 with
the invasion.
So yeah, I mean,
there's always something going on.
>> Sure.
>> And obviously every two years there's
a new election cycle,
whether state government or
midterm elections, presidential.
>> So we're going to probably talk about
a lot of a variety of things here today.
But let's start with the with the big
thing, this is we're recording
this in early February and so
whenever anybody listens to this,
the fact is that an impeachment
proceeding has just ended.
So talk about that.
I'm particularly interested in kind of
how that impacts your discussions and
your classrooms.
So however you want to get there broad,
but how does the impeachment
proceedings this historic thing that has
happened what just three times I guess?
>> Against the presidency?
Yes.
>> Yes.
So.
>> So
typically this topic comes up in my class.
It's part of my curriculum
anyway any given semester.
And when we look at like federalism and
checks on power and how the executive
branch and legislative branches interact,
those are things we talk about
in my classes every semester.
And you're correct with
presidential impeachments,
there's only been three that
have actually played out now.
You know a lot of our students that I
have in my day classes face to face or
you know, 18 to 24 years old so the
Clinton impeachment may be fresh in our
minds, but it was you're looking
at 1998 and 99 it plays out.
So you're looking at 21 years.
When you talk about that as a point of
reference, they know who Clinton is but
a lot of times they think of him
as that's Hillary's husband.
You realize that they don't have
a first hand reference point with that.
You go before that and
you get to go to 1868 with Johnson and
then that becomes this historical
reference in the book.
So this semester I noticed a lot of my
students started to ask more questions
about it and even people asking blatantly,
do you think the current
president get impeached cuz
you heard discussions of this.
>> Sure.
>> I just listened right before this this
interview, I was listening
to the president give
kind of a briefing in the White House
where he basically explained how he
thought this whole thing was a hoax and
that it was a horrible travesty.
He actually,
I'm kinda paraphrasing him, but
he said they were out
to get me from day one.
And there were people in the Democratic
party in opposition to him that would like
to see him stumble and be removed from
office but as far as an actual process,
it never went anywhere until last Fall.
Really after September is when
this really kicked in quickly.
I always in class explain the process,
what's the role of the House what's
the role of the Senate,
what's the repercussions of found guilty?
And we talk about things like what could
be a potential impeachable offense and
how do we define high crimes and
misdemeanors?
But last Fall, we started having
people ask almost daily, well,
what's going on and what is this?
So almost every day we were spending
some time on current events
just touching base with well,
this is where the status is.
In last fall, they actually moved to
the point of an inquiry and then they did
a vote for a formal inquiry and then they
eventually did a formal impeachment vote.
So when we left at the break,
it was literally at the finals week,
they impeached the president, and that's
another aspect of this process that you
have to explain to people
who won't really follow it.
That when you're saying impeachment it's
a process but there's different steps.
So when you say someone being impeached,
a lot of people go immediately to
they're gonna be removed from office and
you have to explain.
No, when you've been impeached you
formally been charged by the House
with an article of impeachment.
And then you have this trial that
takes place in the Senate and
trials kind of different definition
over there in the Senate, but
ultimately they have to convict them.
And the only penalty that
the constitution affords for
impeachment conviction is
removed from office and
in the past the other guideline,
the caveat they put on that is
you're banned from pursuing
future government office.
So last semester,
this actually played out.
And I know, I think we talked a little bit
maybe before the start of the term and
we said well this'll play out,
the trial's going to play out in February.
And we were wondering how
that's gonna affect things.
>> Sure.
>> Well it's wrapped up.
Here we are two weeks into the term and
it's been resolved.
>> Sure.
>> So it's all of that the historic and
this will be something that
your future students for
years to come will be talking about.
This is gonna be a topic of your
discussions going forward and
its connection to other things and
what does impeachment look like going
forward and all these kinds of things.
So do you find your students today.
More than just curious as students.
Or is it an investment, are they asking
questions in class more than just
to stay current in the news or to
understand the larger historical context?
>> This particular, we're in the midst
of a 2020 presidential election,
House is up, a third of the Senate.
Regardless, every time we're in this
mix and we saw in the midterms of 2018,
I think, another spike in
kind of student interests.
So students are more engaged.
They're thinking the process.
>> Sure.
>> They know an election is coming up.
They're wondering who
the candidates are gonna be.
They hear this stuff.
Some of them, I think, are still a little
tentative, to kinda express their
own political views in class overtly,
but you can tell they are following it.
I told them it's okay to look at
this through a political lens.
So I mean, I say in class, if you're
a supporter of President Trump, or,
a critic of his, you probably view
this process very differently.
And you see this play out in the media,
whether it's friendly media towards him or
more hostile.
These are all themes that
we tie into the course.
So I think it's it becomes real to them.
>> Sure.
>> And a lot of ways this is almost
too soon to kind of digest what
the ramifications might be.
>> I'm not a political science person.
I'm more of a media guy.
>> Sure.
>> And so I too have listened to this and
anybody coming to my office knows that
I'm gonna have the news in my office,
cuz I'm consuming this
just as an observer.
And I have a daughter who's in AP US
history class in high school right now.
And so she's studying this
kind of stuff at that level.
And so we talk about this and it's just
interesting to see and hear people's take
on it and then understand the lens
through which they're viewing it.
And understand that it's
okay to have that lens.
I've already said, you tell the students
it's okay to view this through that lens.
As long as we understand
that everybody has a lens-
>> [CROSSTALK]
>> Sure.
>> And this, first thing we talk about,
the Clinton impeachment is similar too.
>> Sure.
>> There was a little bit of
a break with the ranks but
ultimately when the Senate voted on that,
that didn't break party lines.
>> Sure, yeah.
>> And I remember first hand that if
you were a supporter of Clinton and
his popularity ratings were
actually fairly high at the time of
his impeachment over 60% I believe.
And a lot of Democrats felt this wasn't
justified, a lot of Republicans felt, hey,
this conduct is unacceptable.
And really any misconduct should be
a potential impeachable offense, and
it's funny.
You're seeing a lot of both
sides did this in the trial.
You had the President's
attorneys running clips
of Democrats in the past
talking from 21 years ago.
You had the Democrats running clips of
Republican senators, how they talk.
And even the participants that are here
now looked at those circumstances very
differently.
This is gonna be decided for a long time,
I heard a lot of people say hey,
have we lowered the bar for impeachment?
So we're gonna have more of these coming.
And this was the same argument in 1998,
1999.
This was when they talked about, a lot of,
in retrospect people
review this differently.
But with Nixon, now with Nixon
the process had started in the House,
the full House never got to vote on the
articles of impeachment and he resigned.
And most people acknowledge that
the writing was on the wall,
the Republican Party started
to break with him and
it looked like the numbers were there.
And so
he resigns before it went any further.
Some people say maybe he should
have stayed and fought for it.
Clinton, I think the same reason he never
contemplated leaving was because his
approval rates were high and he knew-
>> And the numbers weren't there.
>> They weren't gonna get the 67 votes.
Well, this is what happened in 1868,
there were people saying,
we're 80 plus years into a new government.
They've been talk about
impeachment before, but
it never made it to this point for
a president.
And they said, we've just lowered the bar.
We're going to have impeachment we're
gonna have this hostile legislature that's
gonna run out a President they don't like,
and it hasn't happened yet.
But I think you can make
a case in every instance,
maybe without Nixon is an outlier.
Politics definitely played a role in-
>> Sure.
>> The whole process so-
>> Yeah, okay, so
with that in that that part of
the conversation in context,
what is this thing we call political
science, and what is it, what is it not?
And what is the importance and
value of it, cuz you mentioned-
>> Sure.
>> We have these elections
every two years.
We're coming up on a local elections
here in the next few weeks.
So these things happen
pretty consistently.
>> Sure.
>> So what is the importance of a person,
young person,
old person being studying this as a
discipline or just being interested in it?
>> Sure, well both those,
we'll take both those in the classroom,
just general interest and
then the serious political scientist.
But political science is a discipline,
essentially what we try to do, and
this is my take on it.
Essentially what we try to do is use the
scientific method to explain phenomena,
and the phenomena we study is political
behavior, political outcomes.
And again this is more my personal
opinion on this, my view,
I think political science does really
a strong job of explaining past phenomena.
We can go back and look at past events and
try to dissect them and
come up with theories that might
explain that behavior, the outcomes.
It doesn't always automatically
translate to a predictive model though.
So we could try to explain the 96
election, or the 84 election,
maybe the 16 election, but it doesn't
always guarantee that we're gonna have
a model that explains 2020 or 2024.
So I think there's some value there.
It also, and this is what I try to stress
in class, everybody can have political
viewpoints and opinions but what you wanna
try to do is develop informed opinions and
kind of fact based and methodological
explanations for what's going on.
So you can say I like this candidate or
that candidate, but
if you want to look at phenomena, why does
this party surge here or decline here?
You wanna delve a little bit deeper.
I remember when I was even a student in my
graduate program, there's discussion of
what's the difference between political
punditry, what you see a lot of on TV and
the media and actual hard political
science, which is research based and
progression models and
it's kind of math heavy in some instances.
Earlier you mentioned that you watch a lot
of, from a media perspective you're always
watching this, well,
it depends what media you have on, right?
So if you watch this, we talked earlier
about impeachment, if you have this on and
you're watching for instance, MSNBC,
you're getting a very different
take on these events with the guests that
they have, and the anchors and their lens.
If you flip over to Fox, the guests they
have on and what they're focusing on and
their examples and what they hone in on.
It's almost like two different things.
And if you're only getting your
information from one of those sources,
I don't think you're doing yourself
a service in general because
you're not getting the whole perspective
where people are coming from.
>> And, if I may just jump in here.
>> Sure.
>> That's not a judgement of one or
the other.
>> No.
>> It's just a reality.
There are these lenses
that we talked about.
>> Sure.
>> Everybody has a lens, a filter, and so
to be well informed, it's important.
It seems important to understand
the lenses and filters and
look through both of them or
[INAUDIBLE] for them.
>> I would agree with that.
And I tried it on the first day of class,
I tried to tell my students,
yes, we talk about politics.
And I think some of them come,
you ask about what the discipline
political sciences.
They come in and I think a lot of
them aren't quite sure what that is,
what does it mean?
What are we gonna do?
Maybe we're gonna talk about government,
I try to explain what we're gonna do.
And, and I always point out, look, I have
political viewpoints and beliefs and
views, but that's not really
what this class is about.
I'm not here to tell you how
to think about these things.
I'd like you to develop
your own opinions on it.
And one of the ways you do it
is develop informed opinions.
As far as like subject matter, in short
American government class which we teach
every semester, the nuts and bolts of it
really stay the same from term to term.
We do a historical background,
we talk about philosophical approach
to what democracy means and
methodology for governments.
But then we move to the American example,
so we'll cut through to early American
history, what leads to independence, and
then what type of governments were
considered for a national government.
So we talk about the Articles
of Confederation and
eventually our goals to get
around with the Constitution.
>> Sure.
>> So that's part of the first
third of the course.
Second third,
we talk about the political process,
which is Always going on around us.
Elections, roles of parties,
political thought, role of the media.
Specific elections, like the electoral
college, versus the popular vote.
And then the last part we look
at is the institutions, which,
most people think they're
more familiar with.
But how has the office of
the presidency changed over time?
What was the intent of Congress?
How has that changed?
Evolution of the courts, the bureaucracy.
To me, that 16 week session,
we tend to go over this, flies by.
>> I guess they don't have enough time.
>> No,
there's three big things we look at.
And I never get tired of teaching it,
because each semester,
we have real world examples
that have changed.
We have new ones to look at.
>> Sure.
>> Other classes that I might teach,
we have very specific focuses.
So international relations, we're looking
primarily how nation states interact,
the international system, and then
case studies of international affairs.
>> Sure, sure.
>> So
that's a little more straightforward.
People go I think I get
what we're gonna do there.
>> Yep.
>> But people come in and
say the American government,
I think sometimes they think we're
just gonna have a Constitution test.
I'm like well no, that's not
the only thing we're gonna look at.
>> Sure, interesting.
Yeah, who is it that said
all politics are local?
So talk us through from the big
events we've talked about.
The impeachment, and elections, national
elections to the impact on state, and
then even down to local elections,
because these things happen all the time.
>> Probably the immediate, I think the
ripple effect, and we're kind of seeing
this already is, and I think this may be
shaped how people voted in the Senate.
And maybe even the House,
depending on party lines, is if they think
they're in a vulnerable district or not.
So you're hearing a lot of talk about did
a Senate votes, whether it's Democrat or
Republican, was it shaped by how it might
play with their voter base back home?
To be honest,
most senators are kind of unsafe.
Safe districts,
their states are pretty safe.
There's a few in play.
If you follow the news,
they made a lot of noise about Doug Jones,
the Democrat down in Alabama.
And they said, well, he may be,
it's a conservative area.
Will he maybe support Trump?
Well, he ended up not doing it.
Susan Collins up in Maine,
she's considered vulnerable.
She's a Republican.
And maybe they thought she may
be buck with her party, and
maybe go with the Democratic.
And she ultimately didn't.
>> Sure.
>> But you do see that out [INAUDIBLE].
We don't know, because, and one of the
things I like about this is come November,
we will see was it a factor?
And I think you're gonna see ads,
and their voting, and
all of this will come up.
House is a little different.
Out of the 435 House races, again, you
could argue about 400 of them are safe.
Republican or
Democratic majority districts.
But you do have about 40 that
might be considered in play, and
that's enough to tip which party
is gonna be in the majority.
>> Sure.
>> So I've already seen some ads locally
targeting how people may vote it on
the impeachment vote.
>> Sure.
>> In the House, so yeah,
it's gonna be an issue-
>> Yeah.
>> In Novemeber.
>> Yeah.
>> And I think certainly nationally,
it will be a backdrop.
We've never had a president run for
a second term, run for
reelection while under
the cloud of impeachment.
Clinton was in his second term,
and because of term limits,
he was already kind of
labeled a lame duck.
And in the case of Johnson, he didn't
receive either party's nomination.
So in 1868, he wasn't gonna be running for
reelection.
>> Right.
>> But it is unique.
>> Yep, yeah.
And it's gonna be interesting.
And then so if I can overlay
that with another question-
>> Sure.
>> Seems to be connected.
You're talking about
representative things.
So this is Census year.
>> Sure.
>> There's a lot of talk in different
places about the Census, and
the impact that that has.
Because it can impact the number of seats
in the House of Representatives
that a particular jurisdiction get.
So talk about the role of Census in this.
>> Well, that's an excellent question,
because the Census only
comes up every ten years.
In the Constitution says
the Census will be conducted.
And you're exactly right,
that the immediate ripple effect is
it determines your congressional
value of the states.
How many members you get for your state.
And it's all based on population.
The other ripple effect is that determines
your state's value in the electoral
college for the president.
So that's directly linked as well.
Illinois, we've had
a lot of people leaving.
We're one of the states,
in fact, by most estimates,
we've lost the most people
again this last year.
>> Yeah.
>> As compared to 50s.
Now, keep in mind,
we are one of the top five,
top six states in terms of
population to begin with.
But when people leave like that, the last
several Censuses that have taken place,
we've actually lost
congressional districts.
So we're predicting, regardless of
the outcome of this 2020 Census,
we may lose anywhere from one to two
congressional districts, which is huge.
So one, it affects your representation
in the House and the federal government.
And also,
you have to end up redistricting.
So someone's gonna get squeezed out-
>> Sure.
>> At the state level.
It also affects reapportionment
of federal dollars.
So when you lose Individuals,
it's gonna affect the amount of money that
flows back from the federal government.
>> And those dollars, or
you just expanded on that point.
Those dollars are used for, and
I'm asking the question here, roads?
>> It could be any number of things.
They always talk about
reapportionment dollars.
So it could be a program through
the Department of Education.
It could be through the Department
of Transportation bill,
it could be any form of infrastructure.
Well, if you look at some states that
have a military base or something,
if you talk about changing it or closing.
If you have more representation
in the House, you can say, hey,
don't do it in our state.
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> When you look at leadership positions
and committee assignments,
the larger your kind of state caucus is,
the more likely is you might get into one
of those positions besides seniority.
So yeah,
it's gonna have a profound effect.
It's been over 100 years, but
we've kept that number 435,
every 10 years those 435 house
districts get reallocated.
If Illinois loses one or two, that also
means another state is gonna pick it up.
And it's changed things.
So Texas is growing at
one of the fastest clips.
Florida has grown over the last few years.
Colorado's in growth mode.
New York and
California are both very large states, but
California's actually been losing
population a little bit, so we'll see.
But it's having a ripple
effect very much so
on state influence in
the federal government.
>> So the lesson here is be counted
when we're coming upon Census day and
April 1st.
>> And that's a big deal.
You've probably seen some ads where
they're trying to get Census volunteers,
and local communities have
actually put interest.
Because it also affects, the ripple effect
on population is at the state level,
it might affect state of
apportionment dollars.
So if you think your village or
town has grown, your municipality, that
also affects how state allocates funds.
And you also can, I guess, look at how
many people are left in the state,
how they get burdened with taxes.
Are there less people that are gonna have
to pay more in taxes to provide whatever
the services are?
But Illinois is very much concerned
about counting everybody.
And there is this concern about how
the Census questions are worded.
And how do you count homeless people?
Or how do you count people who might
be here illegally, or nonresidents?
And do you get an accurate count?
And who's in each household?
And we don't know the answer to that yet.
But there's some concern that some people
deliberately not wanna be counted in this,
for some reason.
>> Sure.
So part of what's in the political
conversation these days
is the topic of election meddling.
We heard about this a lot.
Russian involvement, or
the ability to interfere with elections.
And a lot of this is driven by
social media, and media in general.
Social media in particular,
there's a lot of issues with
Facebook about a year or so ago.
So in your experience, and your education,
you're interacting with students and
teaching.
What should people know about this
idea of elections being influenced
by the media broadly, or
social media, more specifically?
>> It's an excellent question.
So one, media has always played a role
in trying to shaping public opinion,
and getting out voters, and
informing voters, or misinforming voters.
So that's not a new phenomenon.
I mean, you go back to print media,
and biases,
and Editorial boards who they
might endorse, and all this.
It's kind of funny when I
talk in contemporary classes
about the impact of newspapers
in the past or who they endorse.
It's amusing to me because a lot of
students aren't getting their information
from newspapers.
And they don't realize that at one
point they were this powerhouse
of political endorsement.
So you do wonder about the impact of that
cuz newspapers still do endorsements,
but I think to lesser effect.
More recently, you're right social
media seems to be creeping in.
And I think that speaks to the point
of where students get information from.
And you're right, advertisements come in,
the social media platforms,
whether it's easy to go to Facebook or
whatever.
But there's a bias there, and
they're using it to make money.
It's not a public service,
they're making money off this.
And they actually are tracking your for
other reasons to target you for
other marketing.
But if the information is false
out there or if it's deliberately
manipulated by bots, or someone pretending
to be a person and they're not.
And it repeats falsehoods in a convincing
way, it has real ramifications.
And it's hard to figure out how much
of a ramification there is on this.
I'm more concerned more recently, and
you're probably familiar with the term,
deep fake.
>> Yeah.
>> Where you have videos now that, it
doesn't take a high level of software or
expensive effort to do this, and
you make it look like someone's actually.
It's their words, their video, it's been
manipulated to say different things or
show different things.
And I'm very concerned that
it makes people not believe
legitimate news when it comes out as well.
And it doesn't help that you have people
criticizing legitimate news as fake or
inaccurate.
I was at a conference, what was it,
about two years ago, and
it was in New York City.
And one of the questions was
about the role of the media,
and fake news was kinda
the backdrop of it.
And I asked the question of, how do we
point students in the right directions so
they know what legitimate news is?
And I usually try to have
a conversation about that in my class.
I say,
you're familiar with the term fake news?
What does that really mean?
And it's more than just someone saying,
I disagree with this so it's labeled fake.
You talk about what's
the opposition of fake news?
What's the opposite?
And legitimate news would be sourced,
it's not just opinion based.
And you like to think
that it's fact based.
Now, we can argue over some of
the information you're using,
but you like to have a starting point.
And I think it's harder and harder for
people to realize this stuff.
So even when something's presented
as legitimate, it's easy for
people to go, no,
that couldn't possibly be.
That's been manipulated,
that's not a real video.
And a lot of people's own biases
shape how they view the news.
>> Sure, sure, sure, sure.
>> They kind of cherry pick what
they like, and that's not good.
And I tell all my students to
try to broaden their horizons,
even if it's just for a semester.
Try to look what the other, if you
consider yourself liberal or conservative,
try to look what the other side's
putting out there, just so
you understand where they're
getting information.
Cuz time and again, you hear people
just getting in a tunnel and
they get basically classified in a bubble.
And all it does is you get a news cycle
that just reaffirms your world view.
And I think once you're in that,
it's really hard to break it.
And I think it starts to connect people
in ways that we weren't connected before.
So you may think, I just have this view,
a conspiracy theory, whatever.
But suddenly, your hooked up with a whole
group of other people that go, yeah,
this is happening.
And it gives some legitimacy to this,
where it probably shouldn't.
And then you're with the community,
now that you feel like
everybody thinks this way.
And that may not be the case either.
If I could also just say
this about the media.
>> Absolutely.
>> I tell people,
you're in a different
different time frame,
you get information that's
much more instantaneous.
So literally when you were
watching impeachment hearings,
you had a president that was
able to tweaks in real time.
>> In real time.
>> And in effect, it was almost surreal.
At one point during hearings,
the Democratic chairmen are actually
referencing Tweets that
are coming out in real time to a witness
that the President is tweeting about.
You've never had this before.
>> That was a fascinating moment.
>> It's happening in real
time as the trial's going on.
The President's tweeting
aspects of it in real time.
For most of history,
this is this is unheard of.
We had 24 hour news channels during
Clinton's administration, and
they covered it, but
it was very different.
You didn't have that social media input.
With Nixon,
you basically had several major networks,
and when they showed those hearings
is during the daytime, by the way.
If you had the TV on,
you're stuck watching it.
It shaped your view.
If you looked at an editorial, the way
they worded it, you were stuck with it.
Today, very different.
You have all sorts of different
outlets you can go to.
You can look at the BBC, and
see how they're covering it.
It's, to me,
a completely different world view on this.
>> Yeah,
it used to be the case that pamphlets or
broadsheets were developed
to advance a political idea.
>> [LAUGH] Yeah.
>> And so
it is not unlike what we have today,
it just goes fast now.
I mean, you would have to-
>> It goes faster, and
you can reach a much broader
audience almost instantaneously.
And it can be a great
opportunity to move information.
It can be a great challenge for
governments if they're trying to
contain information or censor.
I mean, you see this work both ways.
Opposition leaders, whether it's in Iran
or even Russia, that they're able to
connect and get information out,
which years ago wouldn't even be feasible.
But I do think that the downside is if you
have the wrong information going out, or
false information, or misleading.
And again, don't kid yourself,
there's been misleading information in
pamphlets and other things for years too.
So this is just kinda the newest,
latest, iteration of that.
>> It just happens so
fast now, as you said,
in real time, and
goes around the world instantly.
>> [LAUGH] The State of the Union
was on Tuesday night, and
even that night you started
seeing social media jump on it.
And you had a couple of images
that a lot of people jumped on.
So whether it was the perceived snub of
a handshake between Trump and Pelosi,
the Speaker of the House, or
later on when Pelosi is ripping up
the speech, that went viral instantly.
So you got people commenting on it,
retweeting it, sharing it.
And it happens so
rapidly it takes on a life of its own.
There's parodies,
all sorts of stuff that goes-
>> Yeah, the ability to make memes and
things.
>> Yeah, yes.
>> And just blow it around the world.
So you mentioned earlier,
a lot lot of your students in classes
today are 18 to 24 years old.
They don't remember the Clinton
impeachment, they're living history now.
And they will be telling their children,
or their future students,
or wherever life takes them,
they will be talking about their
experience in college now in your classes.
What would you tell students today?
Maybe those students who are in
AP US history or political
science classes in high schools, what
would you tell them about politics today?
These these young people who
are not old enough to vote yet.
They may not be able to
vote in this election.
What should they be thinking about and
paying attention to as they begin forming
their own political ideology and
entering this world of politics?
>> A couple ways you could approach that,
but a lot of people,
they're still establishing the world view,
they're doing this.
And always tell people,
whether you're aware of it or not,
you actually are living through history.
And I say, you don't have a choice.
This is the world you live in,
stuff's happening.
And you may not always understand
the historical context of it till
after the fact.
And I tell people all the time,
like Clinton impeachment,
people were living through that,
but you still have to go to work.
You still have to go to your classroom,
whatever.
You have other things going on,
raising your family.
And it's like any other point in history,
with World War II, Great Depression,
whatever, American Revolution, Civil War,
people live through these moments.
And I said, it's a lot of times it's not
till after the fact when you look back you
go.
And I tell people,
you're living through these moments now.
So Another phenomenon that's happened,
which doesn't typically happen
in presidential elections,
is where the winner of the electoral
vote loses the popular vote.
Doesn't happen very often.
>> It can happen, it has happened.
I tell people, if you've been alive for
certain amount of years,
it's happened a couple times in your life.
So 2016 and also 2000, but before that,
you got to go back to 1888 so
it doesn't happen very often, but
people living through that moment.
You view it a certain way, years from now
you look back and a lot of times you'll
be reading about a book, or somebody's
perspective of what was important.
And you just mentioned at
the start of this question about
how will people read about
it in the future and
how will you tell your children or
other students about it?
It's shaped through a different lens,
cuz now we can talk about, well,
here's the outcome.
And if all we look at was outcome of
an impeachment vote or election turnouts,
we simple here's what happened.
It doesn't really give you the nuanced
way of living through it single politics
are very divisive it was in kind of
an ugly period of political discourse.
But when you live through it,
you sometimes pick up on some of that.
>> Sure, given that we're
talked about a couple of times here
elections happen pretty frequently.
We've got local elections coming
up here in the next few weeks and
then of course the national
elections in November.
How can someone prepare themselves and
make sure that they're
informed to make a vote?
>> Well, my short answer would
be to take a class with me.
>> Right here.
>> Waubonsee Community college great.
>> I'm thinking about signing up myself.
>> That would be great.
We always have room for one more.
The reality is where students
get information from, and
I always tell them,
make your best effort to be informed.
But they're getting it mostly online, and
certainly there's more
reliable sources than others.
One source that comes to mind, and
a lot of it's kind of maybe I must
find your entertainment base.
But there are some ones that can help
people narrow down if they really are like
undecided.
One that comes to mind that I side with,
and
it's a website that will ask you questions
like social and economic issues.
And it'll tell you like this is,
some of it is not real sophisticated but
some of it goes, it will say this is the
candidate that's really most in line with
what you thinking.
That can be eye opening cuz people
sometimes gravitate towards people on
one or two issues, or they gravitate
maybe on charisma or whatever.
And they may not realize really what the
policy issues or their official stances so
that's kinda useful.
I tell people to obviously look at
candidate websites to see really
what they are, almost all the candidates
that are running have election sites.
And they have policy positions, will
say there's their platform on all these
different things and you should look
at it because you don't always know.
I think it's a lot to ask people to watch
all these debates, but there's debates and
the fall will be maybe the major
candidates will debate.
But that can be insightful,
especially if you're undecided.
I kind of suspect a lot of
people watch those debates
with their candidates mind and
for their person to do well.
>> Waiting for confirmation.
>> But
there are other sources like I tell people
if you wanna look at polling data I think
real clear politics is a good starting
point cuz it's kind of clearing house.
They don't tend to so their own polls,
they consolidate polls that
other groups have done.
>> Sure
>> And I think if you can see some trends
sometimes that is useful if there is clear
winners, I do point out to people that
when you see national polls,
that's not how we pick the president.
It's really going to be
51 separate elections,
the 50 states and DC and
that's what you got to look at and
you don't have to win all those
states to become president.
And I think it can provide some
insight there as well, but
I always tell people try to expand
the information that is given to you.
So step outside your comfort zone and
I think that helps people sometimes
with trying to gain information.
>> Or would tell someone to walk in to
get involved in the political process,
maybe not to study political science but
more than voting.
What would you recommend somebody
do to get involved in the process?
>> There's so many opportunities and
especially in an election year like this,
every candidates looking for
good volunteers and
I tell people find an issue or
a candidate that you believe in.
Whatever your persuasion is,
and get involved,
it's the best education because
you see how things happen.
Every campaign is dependent
heavily on volunteers and
if you have any type of talent or aptitude
for that you will move up in a campaign.
A lot of people end up on
staff start off as volunteers,
a lot of people who end
up with paid positions.
You worked on a campaign
where your candidate won and
then maybe there's an opportunity.
>> When you get involved, you start to
realize these people who are in office,
whether it's governor, mayor, you know,
congress person, senator, president.
You realize, they're people, you know,
they came from somewhere and why not you?
Cuz at some point someone is gonna
have to step up, whether it’s you or
someone else,
future generations have to come in.
And in otherwise representative democracy
doesn't work, I could just tell you.
Thanks for having me today,
I enjoyed the conversation.
I think we're living in amazing times and
I'm excited to see what comes next.
>> Sure, very great
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