policy

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — With Mitt Romney set to retire from the U.S. Senate, Washington might be without one in all its harshest conservative critics of Donald Trump when the president retakes the White House in the brand new yr.

At a final news conference Friday in Salt Lake City, the outgoing senator reflected on his two-decade political profession, which included the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, a term as governor of Massachusetts and several other clashes with Trump loyalists in Congress.

In what can have been his final swipe at Trump, Romney reiterated his concerns concerning the recent president's character and his “relaxed relationship with the truth.” He said he hopes his own legacy might be that he stayed true to his values.

Romney, 77, decided to not run for re-election this yr after representing Utah within the Senate since 2019. He said he has reached the top of his profession as an elected official and needs to concentrate on bringing more young people into politics after he leaves office in January.

Romney, once the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, watched his brand of moderate conservatism morph from establishment to outlier as Trump swept the party.

“I'm just a small part of what we used to call the mainstream Republicans, if you will,” Romney told reporters Friday. “The stream has become a little smaller. It's more like the Main Creek Republicans. At some point it will be under the sand and we will have to dig it out.”

He became the voice of Congress's centrist core, leading negotiations on the bipartisan $550 billion infrastructure bill – one in all the Biden administration's crowning achievements – and a significant COVID-19 relief package.

Political observers fear his departure could create a vacuum of strong centrist voices that may keep bipartisanship alive at a time of accelerating polarization in Washington.

Under Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress, bipartisanship could well be dormant, Romney said. But he doesn't think moderates should hand over hope that the GOP could reverse its rightward shift.

“There's kind of a divide between Republican voters and Republican politics that could provide an opportunity for some kind of realignment,” he said, noting that the party now includes many working-class voters but tends to oppose the minimum wage Raises and pro-union policies.

Romney's successor within the Senate might be Republican U.S. Rep. John Curtis, who has developed a fame for pushing back against party leaders like Trump who falsely claim that climate change is a hoax. Eyes might be on Curtis and other moderate Republicans who could break with the party within the votes to substantiate Trump's Cabinet picks.

In 2020, Romney became the primary senator in U.S. history to vote to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial. He was the one Republican in Congress to vote to convict Trump in each impeachment trials. Trump was acquitted by the Senate each times.

Earlier this yr, Romney pledged to not vote for Trump but declined to affix another senior Republicans in supporting Democrat Kamala Harris, saying he desired to preserve his future ability to assist transform the Republican Party .

Critics of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly referred to by the acronym DEI, are increasingly using Boycotts And Prohibitions To Fight against their useIt is usually argued that this anti-DEI backlash is motivated by race-neutral concerns – for instance, that DEI practices are irrelevant to job performance or too political.

But our current researchpublished within the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, suggests that conservative criticism of DEI often boils all the way down to one thing: anti-black racism.

As psychology ResearchersWe wanted to know why people reply to DEI the best way they do. That's why we recruited greater than 1,000 people to take part in three studies.

For each study, we measured participants’ conservatism on a seven-point scale starting from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. Single-point measures like this are is usually utilized by researchers.

We also measured participants’ racism against blacks by Symbolic Racism Scalea well-validated and commonly used measure of anti-Black racism. Research suggests that as overt racism has develop into less acceptable, people are likely to direct their racism toward symbols of racial equality, comparable to DEI. This meant that the Symbolic Racism scale was an excellent measure of anti-Black racism for our purposes.

How we worked

In the primary study, we asked participants to read a job posting from either an organization that values ​​DEI or an organization that values ​​teamwork and good skilled relationships. Participants then rated their interest within the job and the way fair they thought the corporate was. In later studies, in addition they indicated how well they thought they might fit into the corporate.

We found that participants who scored higher on our conservatism measure were significantly less serious about pursuing employment at the corporate that promoted DEI and viewed it as less fair than the corporate that promoted teamwork.

We then included symbolic racism in our statistical model. After that, our measure of conservatism was not capable of predict workplace interest or perceived fairness within the pro-DEI organization.

In other words, symbolic racism accounted for the effect of conservatism on outcomes within the DEI condition. This suggests that conservative participants' responses to DEI aren’t independent of symbolic racism.

We expanded on these findings in our subsequent studies. In the second study, participants were randomly assigned to read descriptions of comparable firms that support DEI or teamwork. In addition, half of the participants were told why the organization supports either DEI or teamwork, while the opposite half weren’t.

We found that participants who scored higher on conservatism were less serious about applying to the pro-DEI company and perceived it as less fair, no matter whether DEI—or teamwork—was clearly tied to job-related criteria.

We estimated statistical models just like those in the primary study. And we again found that negative views of the DEI company disappeared once we included symbolic racism in our statistical model. Thus, negative reactions to the pro-DEI organization looked as if it would reflect racism-related moderately than work-related concerns.

In the third study, participants read job advertisements for an organization that promotes DEI, teamwork, or family values. The company that promotes family values ​​was described as an organization that wishes to preserve traditional values.

We found that participants who were more committed to conservatism were more serious about applying to that company because they felt it was fairer and fit higher within the scenario where family-friendly values ​​were represented. The opposite was true for the corporate that was more committed to DEI.

When we included symbolic racism in our models, we found that positive views of the family-friendly company remained significant, but negative views of the DEI-advocating company disappeared. This suggests that resistance to DEI is rooted in anti-Black racism moderately than political concerns.

Why it will be important

Given the Tense political environmentOrganizations must grapple with criticism of DEI programs. To successfully reply to that criticism, you should grapple with the underlying motive—which our research shows is usually anti-Black racism.

What happens next?

As a part of the recruitment process Pursue And Organizations Ask applicants about their views on DEI or what they’ve done to put it on the market. In our study, we included requests for similar statements.

However, nobody has yet tested whether people's responses to those statements actually predict performance related to DEI. That's what our team wants to research next—whether an individual's expressed views on DEI can predict work outcomes like effective collaboration on diverse teams.

The Research Brief is a summary of interesting scientific papers.

Polarization is each essential to and a threat to a functioning democracy.

Too little disagreement between residents and politicians is unlikely to steer to productive political debate that leads to higher policies and laws. Too much disunity – especially when hostile and isolated groups come together in camps – can result in violence and destroy democracy.

To use a quote from one other time and context, polarization is “like the bubble in a spirit level.” If the bubble drifts too far to at least one side, something is improper.

On June 3, 2024, conservative Supreme Court justices will Samuel Alito and John Roberts in conversation Documentary filmmaker and liberal activist Lauren Windsor, who secretly recorded them, expressed very different views on where the polarization bubble sits in America today.

Although Windsor does a lot of the talking in her conversation with Alito, the justice agrees along with her description of polarization as a win-lose phenomenon. Alito says polarization is “very dangerous” because “there are differences of opinion on fundamental issues where there really is no compromise.”

Alito's conservative views should not surprising, but his openness about polarization is notable. There is not any talk of judges like referees calling balls and strikesas Chief Justice John Roberts put it in his Senate confirmation hearing in 2005.

Instead, Alito appears to be a justice who’s free to precise his views on the nation's ideological divide and who, in echoing Windsor's words, appears willing to make use of his position to “restore our country to a state of piety.”

Roberts takes a distinct stance on polarization in these recordings. The Chief Justice offers a more optimistic view of today's politics by pointing to other periods of major conflict in U.S. history, including the Civil War, the New Deal and the Vietnam War. He asks Windsor for examples of a “non-tumultuous time.” For him, the present state of affairs is “nothing new.”

The two justices' differing views could also be reflected each of their respective understandings of the Supreme Court's role in American life and within the resulting decisions by which they played a key role.

Anxious or optimistic

Of course, the conservative Alito is just not the just one to explain the polarization in such disturbing terms. Many left agree with him. They fear for the long run of American democracy, especially if Donald Trump wins the presidency again in November 2024.

For Alito, “one side or the other will win.” The probability of compromise is unlikely and, he says, perhaps undesirable. Here, too, many on the left agree.

In Roberts' more positive response to the filmmaker, he disagrees along with her statement that “polarization is so extreme that it may be irreparable.” For him, “extreme polarization is just like the Civil War… [and] during Vietnam [when] People were killed.”

Is the Vietnam War era an appropriate comparison to today?

Certainly, in some areas there is bigger polarization today than within the late Nineteen Sixties and early Seventies. For example, consider Group vote in Congress.

In the late Nineteen Sixties and early Seventies, it was not unusual for members of each parties to hitch forces to pass necessary laws. Clean Air And Clean Water works are only two examples. When President Richard Nixon vetoed In the latter case, in 1972, Congress overwhelmingly overrode Nixon's veto just hours later, with bipartisan support just weeks before an election that Nixon would win by a landslide.

But I don't think Roberts was focused on how easy it’s to pass recent laws. When he uses the word “killed” within the above quote in reference to the Vietnam era, political violence appears to be at the middle of his thoughts.

And here Roberts is undoubtedly right.

Assassinations, police violence

The Nineteen Sixties and Seventies were marked by political violence. The most blatant manifestations were political assassinations. Leaders akin to President John F. KennedyBlack Nationalist Malcolm XCivil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy – to call just a number of – were all murdered within the prime of their lives.

John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy were 46 and 42 years old respectively. King and Malcolm X were just 39. In 1972 there was an assassination attempt ended George Wallace's presidential campaignthe 52-year-old governor of Alabama who supports racial segregation.

There was also political violence on the streets. Mass arrests and police brutality defined the scenes from Chicago in the course of the Democratic Party Convention there in 1968. But that was only a one-time event.

In her 2022 book “America in flames”, historian Elizabeth Hinton defines what was called “urban riots” as “political rebellions”. She details that “between May 1968 and December 1972, 1,949 individual uprisings took place in approximately 960 segregated black communities across the United States. … During those four years, nearly 40,000 people were arrested, more than 10,000 were injured, and at least 220 people were killed.”

In his 2016 book “Days of Wrath,” journalist Bryan Burrough examines the widespread domestic bombings of the Seventies. While the fatalities were few, he writes, “during an 18-month period between 1971 and 1972, the FBI reported more than 2,500 bombings on American soil, nearly five a day.”

A rough but enduring democracy

Although politics within the United States today is characterised by deep polarization and bitter division, it is just not characterised by widespread and sustained political violence.

One event stands out as a counterexample. The attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a An unprecedented attack on the country’s democracyNever before had supporters of the defeated candidate threatened to overturn the election result by violently storming the Capitol to stop the confirmation of the election winner.

But while the events of January 6, 2021 shook the core of US democracy, the members of this mob didn’t escape Prosecution and punishment.. And after all, Trump was impeached for his efforts the 2020 election.

In the jiffy of the recorded conversation, Roberts looked as if it would intend to make clear to his listener that America has experienced difficult times before. America's democracy has been tested by division and discord, but has ultimately emerged stronger.

Roberts says we must always expect this now too.

The openness of democracy, as American history has shown again and again, often results in chaotic politics. Roberts' view of the state of America today is definitely more sanguine than Alito's.

But as a political scientist who historical evaluation in his workI consider Roberts's comparison of current U.S. politics to the politics of the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies is apt. At a time when so many have expressed deep concern concerning the threat of polarization, this comparison is a vital reminder of each the tough nature and the enduring power of American democracy.

Cleo Watson, former deputy chief of staff to Boris Johnson, was punished involved within the infamous “PartyGate” scandal, which involved gatherings in government buildings while the UK was under a pandemic lockdown. The scandal ultimately led to Johnson resigning as Prime Minister.

She is the writer of Decolletea cheeky recent novel set against the backdrop of up to date conservative British politics. Cleavage depicts an embattled Tory party limping towards a seemingly inevitable electoral defeat. The timing of the discharge is interesting for those hoping that current British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will win the upcoming July 4 election.

At a time when the Conservatives are desperately trying distance themselves Watson's novel lifts the veil on her party's status for scandal and depravity. She is the newest in an extended line of conservative figures to write down popular novels, often set against an explicitly political backdrop.

At the start of her book, the fictional former Prime Minister Lord Percy Cross reads from his own raunchy recent historical novel entitled The Loin King.

It begins with a Tudor king breaking free from “the tangled limbs of big-breasted stable girls” to debate political matters: the war with Spain, the approaching beheading of his ex-lover, a plague that has broken out in Parliament. When his Lord Chamberlain observes that the plague was brought on by vermin, the king quips, “The rats or the members?”

In an interview, Percy says that The Loin King relies on his time as Prime Minister: “The atmosphere in Downing Street was very much like that of a Tudor court to me.” He then adds: “By putting everyone in corsets and ruffs, I distorted the character of anyone who might sue me for libel.”

By setting his cheeky political escapades in a special time period, Percy is, if anything, remarkably cautious—more cautious perhaps than many other politicians who’ve turned to fiction writing, including his creator.

Cleavage, in addition to its predecessor Whips (2023) is ready in Westminster against the backdrop of the Tory Party crisis: a setting that closely reflects Watson's previous skilled life.

Both novels also feature scandalous sexual adventures, starting from two candidates from the Conservative and Labour parties vying for a similar seat having a secret affair after meeting on a dating app, to the Prime Minister secretly watching powerlifting porn, to the Foreign Secretary answering committee questions with a vibrating love egg inside her body.

The vermin listed below are causing great distress to the members.

British politicians and popular literature

The tradition of British politicians writing popular (and sometimes scandalous) novels might be traced back to the 18th century. Matthew Lewis is healthier known today for his 1796 Gothic novel The Monk – a dark and shocking tale of sexual obsession, murder, witchcraft and the sale of 1’s soul to the devil – than for his six-year tenure as Member for Hindon.

Conversely, the novels of some very well-known politicians have now almost been forgotten. Barely veiled political allegorical novels akin to the novel by former Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli Vivian Gray (1826) and Winston Churchill’s Savrola (1900) are mere footnotes of their biographies.

It was only within the twentieth century that scandal and conservative politics really began to merge in popular literature. Perhaps probably the most famous example is prolific writer Jeffrey Archer – former deputy leader of the Conservative Party, current member of the House of Lords and the scene of various scandals (including the one which landed him in prison for perjury). His books have sold over 300 million copies worldwide.

However, he isn’t the one example. Boris Johnson published a widely panned book mentioned in 2004 Seventy-two virginsa few hapless, disheveled-haired MP who succeeds in thwarting a terrorist group's plan to attack the US President during a visit to Westminster.

Remarkably, it was published just months before Johnson was sacked from the Shadow Cabinet for lying to the general public about an extramarital affair.

Former Tory MP Louise Mensch can also be often called Louise Bagshawe and has written 15 novels with glamorous titles, akin to Large poppies (1997), Venus Envy (1998) and You know the evil (2003). These books should not set within the political world, but are daring chick lit stories with Women she describes as “feminist heroines who make it on their own.”

Meanwhile, former party leader Iain Duncan Smith published a political thriller, The Devil's Melodyin October 2003. In the identical week lost a vote of no confidence in his leadership. This had nothing to do with the publication of his book, but judging by the poor reviews, it probably didn't help.

And although current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has yet to write down a piece of fiction – although polls currently suggest he could have time to accomplish that after July 4 – he made headlines last yr by saying his favourite writer was Jilly Cooper, the writer of crime series akin to Riders (1985), Rivals (1988) and Polo (1991).

Cooper's notorious protagonist Rupert Campbell-Black is a staunch Tory who served as Minister for Sport for several years – although he originally only entered politics because he was having an affair with a politician's wife.

The political bonkbuster

The clearest precursors to Cleo Watson – within the genre we call “political bonkbusters” – are the works of former Tory MP Edwina Currie.

A parliamentary matter (1994) revolves around newly elected Tory MP Elaine Stalker, who begins an affair together with her Whip. It later seems that it’s a barely fictionalized version of Currie's own affair with then-future Prime Minister John Major, when he was her whip (from 1984 to 1988).

At the start of the book, Elaine's future lover introduces her to the world of Westminster, telling her that there are “three occupational hazards for MPs: the three A's”: arrogance, alcoholism and adultery. He advises her: “As long as you succumb to just one of these risks, you will survive.”

On the surface, the Conservative Party repeatedly campaigns on common sense and family values: the “fundamentals” of John Majors Unfortunate “Back to Basics” Election campaign in 1993. But the Tory politicians in these books rarely represent these values, although they’re portrayed as characters written by Tory politicians.

In “A Parliamentary Affair,” Elaine muses after starting her affair:

How strange that she, who entered Parliament with such strong views on the importance of traditional marriage and family, should find herself on this position […] Perhaps these principles were merely codes of conduct that could possibly be modified and discarded at will.

Answer

Both Currie and Watson were ousted from their positions of power in Tory governmentsWatson resigned during an influence struggle within the chaos of Johnson's term as Prime Minister. Currie was forced to resign as Health Minister because Salmonella in eggs crisis (a moment so infamous that she is known as “the egg woman” in Watson's Whips).

So while each could have a vested interest in painting a vision of the Conservative Party that isn’t necessarily flattering, it could possibly be argued that Currie and Watson's books also offer another vision of the party that meets the needs of girls, ethnic minorities and the LGBTQ+ community – amidst the arrogance, alcoholism and adultery.

By and enormous, these political scandals reflect how much the Tory party is tormented by scandal – and yet it may neither keep its hands off them nor stop talking about them, even when it damages the party's status.