Today is another big day in the 2016 election. The good people of Florida, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio cast their votes for the winner of The Bachelor Season 20…I mean president of the United States.

Wait what? Aren’t they pretty much the same thing?

Last night Bachelor Ben Higgins proposed to the love of his life, Lauren B. and sent runner-up JoJo packing, only for her to find out she gets to date 25 more people as ABC’s next Bachelorette.

Meanwhile, America is on a similar journey, but rather than looking for love, we are looking for leadership.

America is The Bachelor. We began our journey with about the same amount of candidates as the Bachelor began with contestants (25). After each episode, errr primary/caucus, we see more drama than the one before.

The Bachelor is all about ratings. And this primary seems to be the same. The contestants always says the most outrageous things on The Bachelor. Just. Like. Donald. (And actually now, pretty much all of them. Marco Rubio talking crap about Donald’s hands? Pretty outrageous.) The ones that are the most outrageous usually stick around for a long time, and immensely boost ratings. Just. Like. Donald. Case in point:

Olivia: Amanda being a single mom is just like an episode of Teen Mom. Ben deserves better than that.

Donald: I can shoot people on 5th Avenue and still win the presidency.

Yet the Bachelor KEEPS GIVING the villain the rose just like America keeps giving Donald the vote.

Still not convinced the presidential primary and The Bachelor are the EXACT SAME THING?

1. The villain

Donald Trump. (Or in this season, Olivia.) There is always at least one girl or guy on the show that is painted as the villain. The other contestants hate him/her and try to convince America (I mean the Bachelor) why they shouldn’t vote for her. I mean give her a rose. Whatever, you get what I’m saying. Just like all of our candidates have hated on Donald Trump, consistently warning the people of America of the dire consequences of a Donald Trump presidency, The Bachelor contestants always warn the Bachelor of the one who is not here for the right reasons. DONALD TRUMP IS NOT HERE FOR THE RIGHT REASONS, BEN. I MEAN AMERICA.

Also, sometimes the villain wins. Vienna won Bachelor Jake’s heart. Courtney won Bachelor Ben F’s heart. (Both have broken up.) Donald seems to be winning America’s heart.

2. The nobody, AKA the Jim Gilmore

There’s always someone on the Bachelor who sticks around for way too long and America never even learns their name. I’m not entirely convinced the Bachelor even knows their names sometimes. Ben’s season had Jennifer. Chris Soules’ season had Samantha. America had Jim Gilmore.

3. The underdog everyone loves but knows isn’t going to win

The nice guy. The girl next door. The one everyone wants to receive the final rose but knows there’s no chance. The Caila. Ben’s second runner-up, Caila was so sweet and loved (she even had a shot at The Bachelorette for a little bit before Chris Harrison ripped it away and gave it instead to JoJo.)

The Marco Rubio. He’s the guy the party elites seem to want to receive the final rose, but it’s Just. Not. Happening. America (aka the Bachelor) will keep you around for awhile, because we like the idea of you, but you won’t win our hearts, unfortunately.

4. The wait, haven’t we seen you before contestant

Bachelor Nation likes to fall in love with a contestant and keep giving them chances to find love. One lucky contestant gets to be the Bachelorette after failing to get the rose on The Bachelor. Sometimes, contestants show up for multiple seasons. We had Nick Viall on Kaitlyn and Andi’s season (getting second place in BOTH). We had Becca and Amber both show up on Chris’ season and again for Ben. We had Brad Womack be the Bachelor not once…but TWICE (and still end up single).

And then we have Hillary Clinton. Clinton had an unsuccessful bid for president in 2008 and she’s already been in the White House once before, as First Lady. Much like two-time Brad Womack needed to GIVE IT UP, I can say the same for Hillary.

5. The one that gets a TV show (or writes a book)

After being on The Bachelor, there are a ton of opportunities for fame to follow. Allie Fedotowsky went on to become a TV host and have a famous blog. Ashley I. from Chris’ season is now blogging for Cosmopolitan. Mike Huckabee had a failed run in 2008 and got a Fox News show out of it. Emily Maynard just wrote a book about being on the Bachelorette. Andi Dorfman has a book coming out. Ben Carson wrote a book. Mike Huckabee wrote a book. Hillary Clinton wrote a book. They’ll all write books. The opportunities are endless!

6. The Funny But Always Drunk One

On the first night, it seems there’s always at least one contestant that takes a little too much advantage of the free drinks Bachelor staff gives away that first night. Ben’s season had the one girl that basically fell over at the first rose ceremony (can’t remember her name). Ben’s season also had Jordan who got drunk all the time only to try to come back a few weeks later. Kaitlyn’s season had that drunk guy on the first night (can’t remember his name either but he went skinny dipping).

America had Lindsey Graham. He had the best one liners, but man did the guy like to drink. I liked it, but America decided he might not be the marrying kind (he is also single), and sent him packing.

7. The one that has a compelling story, is a little crazy, and we love to hate

This contestant is usually the one who’s a little crazy but we still love them. Ben’s season’s love-to-hate was Jubilee. She was a veteran who had a tough time opening up. She got a little crazy toward Ben, but we forgave her. She offered a lot of complexity and brought a deeper side to the show, but ultimately, Ben knew she wouldn’t be the right pick.

In the Race to the White House Season 2016, we have Bernie Sanders. Let’s be real, he’s definitely a little crazy (known for his bold, loud, yell-rants) but he still has something very loveable about him. I’d never give him the final rose, but he’s definitely brought a different side to this election and brought a lot of issues to the table.

8. The one America wants to want because they’re there for the right reasons but it’s just not their time

A lot of times this is a single parent, like Amanda on Ben’s season. America (and Ben) loved her, really wanted it to work for her but just couldn’t make it work. Oh and family is the most talked about in regards to this contestant. In the 2016 election, we have Jeb Bush. At the beginning, it seemed like he’d be a top contender, but ultimately America couldn’t stop talking about his family and decided it wasn’t his time.

9. The one who really surprises you

I loved JoJo this season right from the beginning, but I did NOT see her making it to the final two at first. She slowly got more air time and more time with the Bachelor and the more time she got, the more of a front-runner she became. In Chris Soules’ season, there was Whitney. She seemed like a viable contestant the whole time, but I did not expect her to take home the final rose (and the big ring).

For me this would have to be Ted Cruz. I hate that I am comparing JoJo to Ted Cruz because JoJo was my favorite and Ted Cruz is...not. (But they are both from Texas.) In all reality though, it makes sense. Just like I did not expect JoJo to become a real contender, I did not expect Ted Cruz to be the only one really giving Trump a run for his money.

10. The one that just makes sense

A lot of times there are a few contestants that are just the whole package, smart, nice, funny, pretty, etc. Both of the Laurens fit this bill in Ben’s season. Cute, sweet, funny, gorgeous blondes. One was a kindergarten teacher. They just make sense to be the final pick, as they seem to be “the whole package.”

In America’s case, this candidate is John Kasich. He has experience as both a governor and a congressman, hails as a conservative from Ohio, and would be backed by the establishment. In Lauren B’s case, this got her the final rose. We have yet to see if there is a way John Kasich can make his case to earn America’s final rose.

Well there you have it folks. Not only is a reality television star a front-runner in the 2016 presidential primary, the presidential primary is basically a reality television show.

We made it through to the final rose in the Bachelor.

Now we wait and see — who will win America’s heart and take home the final rose?

Is it the 2016 election or another season of The Bachelor? was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

He looks bizarre, he makes offensive comments about many of the people he expects will vote for him. He has no experience in politics, no grounding in international law or diplomacy. He’s a property magnate and TV star and he’s sounding more like Hitler every day. What the hell is going on?

If you Google “Why is Donald Trump so popular” you’ll find theories about the fearless authenticity of his offensiveness, and his simple, repetitive message and even his celebrity status. All these things are true.

But what’s even more important than that what and the how of Donald Trump is his dream to make America great again.

As a marketer I spend a lot of time thinking about branding. A successful brand is an attractive, comforting experience. Iconic brands skip over the finer details of what they do and march relentlessly forwards towards the dream. They tell you what they believe, and they make you feel great about joining them.

In his TED talk, Start With The Why, Simon Sinek puts forward the idea that rather than dwelling on the details, great leaders and brands attract people by selling their why. They sell a dream of a better world that their business or leadership ambitions just happen to align with.

Under a ‘why’ you can attract anyone who believes in your dream. You can sell or provide whatever you like, as long as it lives the dream. Apple’s mission is to challenge the way we think technology should work. It’s a message that has allowed them to extend their range from rainbow-coloured computers to music and phones and TVs and watches that sell in their millions, all the while maintaining a consistent brand image. Their competitors’ messages might use ‘facts’ to ‘prove’ their products are better, but Apple trumps them all. How? Because they inspire their customers to live better lives by buying from Apple.

As Sinek says:

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

“What you do proves what you believe.”

There are solid biological theories as to why we believe in dreams not details. Our decisions are made by the oldest, pre-linguistic part of our brain, the limbic system, also known as the emotional nervous system. It deals with feelings, including trust and loyalty. It’s your gut, your instinct, and it makes your decisions, no matter how rational you think you are.

Sinek, speaking in 2013, also cites Martin Luther King, who rallied many thousands of people, a great proportion of whom were not directly affected by racial inequality, by bringing them a dream. He shifted the focus from the details and practicalities of combatting racial inequality to wanting to live in a better world. And who doesn’t want that?

Which brings me back to the Trump. Here’s his Super Tuesday speech (caps my own emphasis):

“This has been an amazing evening. Already, we’ve WON five major states and it looks like we could WIN six or seven or eight or nine.

“It’s really been — it’s really been GREAT.

“I want to congratulation Ted on the WINNING of Texas. He worked hard on he — I know how hard he worked actually, and so I congratulate Ted Cruz on that WIN. That was an excellent WIN.

“We’re going to make America GREAT again, folks. We’re going to make it GREAT again.

“And, you know, I watched Hillary’s speech and she’s talking about wages have been POOR and everything’s POOR and everything’s doing BADLY, but we’re going to make it — she’s been there for so long. I mean, if she hasn’t straightened it out by now, she’s not going to straighten it out in the next four years. It’s just going to become WORSE and WORSE. She wants to make America WHOLE again and I’m trying to figure out what is that all about. Make America GREAT again is going to be much better than making America WHOLE again.”

It’s a skilful choice of words. Anything that refers to himself and the Republican Party is about winning. He even describes his own loss as Cruz’s ‘win’. But when he talks about Clinton, he repeats ‘poor’ and ‘badly’, and uses the word ‘whole’ to imply a lack of meaning in her campaign. His words are positive, hers negative. His dream is to make America great again, hers (says Trump) is to confuse people with details and keep on making it worse.

In constructing a campaign purely around a dream, and aiming his message squarely at the people worst affected by the great recession, Trump—a rich and ostensibly successful man—makes himself a very attractive candidate for the presidency indeed.

He’s not a politician. He couldn’t hold his own in a room full of world leaders. He knows even less than me about the Middle East. He has said so many downright offensive, racist, sexist things over the course of the campaign that his comments no longer even shock. But that’s all details, and details are apparently for losers.

Donald Trump isn’t just a celebrity, he’s a brand, and he gets away with offensive outbursts and contradictory behaviour because his dream allows him — no, necessitates him — to say and do whatever it takes to make America great again. The more he offends, the more consistently he follows and reinforces his message.

Am I saying American voters are too stoopid to see they’re being hoodwinked by a professional marketer? I don’t think so. Given the way our brains work and how we are motivated, we could simply be looking at the logical conclusion of a democratic system. Democracy is effectively a popularity contest. Eventually, politics gets sidelined completely and the winner turns out to be the best salesperson with the funniest hair.

Ultimately, presidents have always won on their leadership skills, not the details of their policies or ideas. We’ve just never had a candidate with no knowledge or interest in politics so brazenly put himself forward before. He might just prove once and for all that it’s never what you do, it’s only ever why you do it that really counts.

Branding, brain science, and the explicable popularity of Donald Trump was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Nearly eight years ago, lawmakers in Iowa successfully streamlined the elections process in the state to help save taxpayer dollars, increase voter turnout, and reduce confusion at the ballot box. The legislation that was adopted at the time moved school board elections to every other year as opposed to every year and created important limitations on the frequency of special elections that sought voters approval for bond issues or new gaming initiatives. It was a common sense, bipartisan effort and represented an initial step away from an increasingly antiquated elections calendar.

Last week, the Iowa House sought to build on that progress by approving a bill that would create a common date for school and municipal elections. Currently, voters in Iowa head to the polls in September of odd numbered years to select school board members and then again two months later in November to choose mayors and members of the city council. That approach needlessly requires county auditors to manage and finance two separate elections in a relatively short period of time. But even worse, it establishes a voting process that virtually guarantees low turnout.

Take Dallas County as an example. Of the more than 46,000 registered voters in the community, only 7.19% actually voted in the school board elections this past fall. The city elections weren’t much better as only 9.59% of registered voters made it to the polls. Results across the state paint a similar picture.

Unfortunately, the current low turnout levels mean critical decisions at the local level are being made by elected officials who are only earning a fraction of the community’s support. That is a real problem as school boards determine how to allocate funds within their respective districts and develop programs to ensure strong student achievement. Local control in our school districts is a difficult if not impossible proposition without some greater degree of community engagement.

A unified Election Day where city and school board candidates are both turning out their supporters will increase these participation rates. We should make every effort to involve more voices in the political process even if there are challenges involved in doing so. And to be clear there will be issues that need to be addressed.

For example, municipal and school districts do not always match up and ballots will need to reflect those variances. In other words, voters from some areas will need to choose from a particular slate of candidates while their counterparts in other neighborhoods will select from a slightly different one. Others, myself included, have the opportunity of voting only in school board elections but not city elections since we reside outside a municipal area. That will need to be taken into account as well. But those challenges can be addressed through smart planning and technology.

Cerro Gordo County and the Cerro Gordo County Auditor Ken Kline in particular won national recognition for their development of the Precinct Atlas electronic poll book system. Kline and others in the county recognized the reality of elections administration in the 21st Century. Today, the process is simply too complex for anyone, even experts, to administer an election without some type of accessible, user-friendly resource.

Precinct Atlas uses laptop computers to walk precinct officials through every step of the voting process and tailor those instructions to the unique circumstances of each individual voter. If someone is listed as an inactive voter, the system shows the poll worker exactly what to do. If an individual received an absentee ballot but lost it, the system shows the poll worker how to provide a provisional ballot. Electronic poll books can absolutely use a voter’s address, even when same day registration is involved, to help a poll worker provide every voter with the right ballot with the right slate of municipal and school candidates.

Unfortunately, there are some who have an interest in maintaining low turnout elections. More voters means more competition and more unpredictability, which presents a risky set of circumstances for incumbents across the state. It’s ironic we celebrate competition virtually everywhere except politics where there are still far too many local, state, and federal elections where the outcome of the race is never in doubt. Sometimes that is achieved through a reapportionment process that creates overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic districts. In other instances, it’s achieved by working to reduce voter participation, as is the case here. Either way, we should not have to accept low turnout because of possible administrative hurdles or the desire for new school board members to have two months of preparation before taking office rather than only one. This is a matter of balancing priorities and the need for more community involvement should take precedence.

Next up is the Iowa Senate and hopefully they can keep this bill moving forward.

A Smarter Elections Calendar was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the course of the presidential campaign, there have been two ongoing narratives about the role the establishment should be playing in selecting the party’s respective nominees. On the Republican side, for months and months, observers have argued that the party, its donor base, and its leadership in Washington and beyond should combat Donald Trump’s growing influence among primary voters and coalesce around a more viable, mainstream candidate.

On the Democratic side, the dynamic is virtually the reverse. Many activists and commentators have been arguing that party leaders are interfering too much in the nominating process in a concerted effort to bolster Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president and diminish Senator Bernie Sanders’ prospects of winning the nomination.

In both cases, the influence of the two political parties and the political establishment that supposedly guides their actions is being dramatically, almost comically, overstated. On the one hand, the party and the establishment are regularly criticized for incompetence whether that means poor candidate recruitment, poor communications and messaging, poor data resources, poor strategy, poor fundraising, or just plain poor leadership. Yet, on the other hand, there is a belief being expressed somewhat regularly that the party and the establishment only need to snap their fingers and wink and their preferred candidate will be delivered the presidential nomination. Both can’t be true at the same time.

Back in 2005 and 2006, I worked on Chet Culver’s gubernatorial campaign. During the primary, it was unmistakably clear that the party establishment was opposed to our candidate. After all, Attorney General Tom Miller, Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald, virtually every legislator including the leadership of both the Iowa House and Iowa Senate and most of organized labor in the state save for a few unions endorsed Mike Blouin, Culver’s chief opponent.

However, in retrospect, it is hard to pinpoint what that broad establishment support actually delivered to Blouin’s operation. The endorsements of legislators and other elected officials did not, at least in my estimation, influence the decisions of rank and file primary voters or provide any meaningful organizational advantage. Ultimately, the two campaigns were responsible for putting together a winning operation on their own and engage voters using volunteers they recruited, dollars they raised, and messages they developed.

The average legislator or party committee does not have the time to get involved in a primary battle, the capabilities to influence that election, and perhaps most importantly the incentive to be involved and risk alienating some percentage of its activist base.

The same dynamics are true in this year’s presidential campaigns. Even if the Democratic Party as an institution prefers Hillary Clinton, I’m left to ask what specifically they could do to help her win the nomination above and beyond what the Clinton Campaign is already doing itself. Some have argued that too few debates were scheduled and often at odd hours, providing Clinton with additional cover from her opponents. Yet, the debates represented some of Clinton’s strongest moments in the campaign. These types of venues certainly play to her strengths far more than the typical retail politics that dominate the timeframe leading into the initial nominating contests. The structure of the debate process arguably harmed Clinton as much as the other candidates in the field.

Some have contended that the role of superdelegates subverts the influence of actual primary voters and caucus attendees. True enough, but it’s not as if superdelegates were instituted for the first time this cycle with the design of benefitting one candidate over another. In reality, this part of the nominating process was first established more than 30 years ago and it seems a stretch to argue that party leaders today were duplicitous simply because they maintained these rules for the 2016 cycle. Granted the DNC chairwoman’s explanation of superdelegates was dreadful but with the prominence of the issue eight year ago no one should be surprised it is a factor in the 2016 campaign.

On the Republican side, Trump has been the frontrunner or among the leading candidates for months now. If the party or the establishment had the inclination or the ability to prevent his march to the nomination, it seems that would have happened before now. With the Koch brothers now officially staying out of the primary and FOX News reportedly finished with promoting Marco Rubio, there doesn’t seem to be a lot that elected officials, the party apparatus or anyone else can do to slow Trump’s momentum.

All the usual caveats apply. Trump and Clinton could still lose the nominations. Any presidential campaign is incredibly dynamic and this one in particular has been possibly the most unpredictable in at least 40 years when an unknown Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination and Ronald Reagan nearly unseated his party’s own incumbent president. Regardless of what takes place in the next several weeks, the party and the broader establishment within each party will have a minor if not irrelevant role.

Forget the Political Parties. They’re Irrelevant was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Next Tuesday could make or break some of the remaining presidential campaigns and leave us with just a handful.

The race for cash from the Super Tuesday states looks very different from the race for delegates, though.

Four candidates have won at least one of the dozen states with March 1 primaries or caucuses, measured by donations to their campaigns of greater than $200. Mouse over each state on the interactive map below to see the top two fundraisers there and how much they raised, and click on a candidate name below the map to see who would have won each state without that candidate in the race.

[To see the featured infographic, click here.]

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, clearly, raked in the most cash from these states as of Jan. 31, a total of $22.4 million out of an overall fundraising haul of $100 million from donors giving her more than $200. She also leads her opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders in most polls; Sanders bested her only in his home state of Vermont in terms of money. To be fair, though, Sanders receives the bulk of his money from contributors giving less than $200, for whom the public disclosure of name and address is not required; those donors can’t be included in an analysis like this.

All together, presidential candidates raised $86.5 million from Super Tuesday states since the race began last year, data show. After Clinton, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) raised the most from this swath of the country, bringing in $19.4 million in itemized contributions.

If it seems like someone’s missing from the map, that’s because he is. Real estate mogul Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner currently steamrolling his divided opponents in the race for GOP delegates, raised relatively little for his campaign because he’s largely loaning it the money himself. In the race for cash, he doesn’t place first or second in any Super Tuesday states, having raised just $611,659 from them all. Current polling from the five biggest states shows him winning all but one of them. (Recent polling data wasn’t available for all Super Tuesday states.) By contrast, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) isn’t in the top two spots among the Republicans in either polling or fundraising in any of the states with voting next week, even though the perceived wisdom is that he has the backing of the monied GOP establishment.

Instead, it’s retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson who takes the most states in the GOP field as measured by fundraising. From the states of Alabama, Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming, he’s raised about $870,000. Not that Carson should take too much comfort there: His rival, Cruz, raised $14.7 million just from his home state of Texas, the one state in which he claims first place as a fundraiser.

If Carson weren’t in the picture, Cruz would pick up three more states: Alabama, Wyoming and North Dakota. Notably absent from that list, though, are Georgia, Tennessee and Arkansas, crucibles of the deeply religious South that Cruz saw as his ticket to the nomination.

Of course, some of the candidates who place in the top two in the money race in those states have already departed the campaign trail. Arkansas has given quite a bit to Clinton, its former first lady, but also was generous to Mike Huckabee, its former governor. In Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush takes second place behind Clinton.

While the numbers may provide some clues to the reach of each candidate’s support, their linkage to results at the end of the night Tuesday could be tenuous at best. If the money race was ever an indicator of how a candidate could perform in a state’s primary, in this cycle, Trump’s performance — as well as underperformances by Carson and Bush, among others — has blown up that thinking.

Senior Researcher Doug Weber contributed to this report.

Originally published at www.opensecrets.org on February 25, 2016.

Candidates go head-to-head in Super Tuesday money race was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Vanessa Burrows, Ph.D., guest contributor

With Super Tuesday less than a week away, it seems that the entire United States is fixated on this presidential primary season. This was the precise objective of the southern Democrats who first engineered Super Tuesday in 1988 — with so many states (11 this year) holding their primaries on the same day, candidates would not be able to cater their message to pander to local constituents, thus leaning a little more to the right in Texas, and a little more to the left in New York. Rather, candidates would have to hit a pitch that spoke to all Americans — northern and southern, urban and rural, parochial and cosmopolitan.

On first blush, it would seem that by balancing countervailing interests, Super Tuesday is an ingenious check against the potential for subverting democracy that increases with the size and diversity of a republic. But, does Super Tuesday’s national test truly strive towards a purer form of democratic participation, or does it undermine it by subverting local factions?

Striking a balance of powers between regional factions

Even before the US Constitution was ratified there were widespread fears that rival local interests would tear the country apart. In The Federalist Papers, no. 10, James Madison assured Americans that rather than a liability, the large size and diversity of the young United States would be an asset as it would serve to neutralize factious interests. Through vigorous civic participation, all regions of the country could make their interests heard on the national stage, while at the same time no one group could overwhelm minority interests. In many ways, Super Tuesday seems to be the modern fulfillment of Madison’s democratic dream.

By 1835, when French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville published his observations of Democracy in America, contentious partisan elections had become deeply embedded in the democratic process. Tocqueville was wary of both an overly centralized state that impinged on civil liberties (“democratic despotism”), as well as the “tyranny of the majority”, in which minority opinion was obliterated by an all-powerful majority that encouraged ideological conformity and stifled democratic debate. Tocqueville celebrated the American antidote to the “tyranny of the majority” — the autonomous development of local societies that represented diverse civil interests. In these groups, citizens could voice their opinions, participate in open debate, and align themselves toward common goals. In Tocqueville’s view, democracy is fundamentally rooted in local citizen participation.

But how can or should these local groups best impact the democratic process at the national level? Would Tocqueville view Super Tuesday’s national test as a subversion of democratic will, or as an opportunity for marginalized localities to wield greater influence in national politics?

A test for democratic elections

We might look to modern theorists for help in responding to this question. Yale University political scientist Robert A. Dahl offers a metric for assessing the effectiveness of democracies. In Democracy and Its Critics , he argues that the central goal of a democracy is to equally value each of its citizens’ interests. This is achieved by creating political institutions and procedures that promote effective, equal, and inclusive participation, allowing citizens control over the political agenda, and extending “enlightened understanding” to honor their interests through civil liberties such as the freedoms of speech and assembly.

According to Dahl’s criteria, an election is only truly democratic if it is free, fair, and competitive, as well as informed by uncensored channels of information that facilitate independent decision-making. The current controversies in the United States regarding state voter registration laws, gerrymandering, and campaign finance contributions, as well as the theatrical nature of the media’s attention to the election, indicate that despite Super Tuesday’s aims to rise above parochial politics and appeal to a national electorate, it is still “poly-archical” rather than democratic.

Regional rivalries undermine national unity

In assessing the shortcomings of American democracy, it is useful to incorporate a non-Western perspective on the obstacles that impede democracy. In particular, the difficulty of developing democratic systems in post-colonial Africa offers a useful comparison, given the United States’ history of apartheid and its former colonial status.

In Citizen and Subject, Columbia University’s Mahmood Mamdani argues that under colonial rule in Uganda and South Africa, different systems of government were imposed on rural and urban areas so that urban Africans were recognized as citizens but rural residents were treated as subjects. This fostered a deep divide that national independence has not been able to transcend. Mamdani contends that the ongoing disconnect between modernized urban areas and traditional rural ones pits these regions against one another, discourages national unity, and ultimately stands in the way of creating a coherent democracy.

Exploiting regional rivalries for political rent

While the experience of post-colonial liberation in Africa differs greatly from that of the United States, it nevertheless offers historical lessons that may shed light on impediments to democratic participation in the US. In particular, the urban/rural disconnect that Mamdani describes has its analog in the United State. Not only is there a divide between cities and small towns — what former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin liked to call “Main Street vs. Wall Street” — but also between different regions: the east and west coasts and the Midwest, the north and the south, Texas and everywhere else. In some cases, these divisions are jocular and in others deeply antagonistic. But this regional pride is often assimilated into US citizens’ identities.

We recently saw this erupt in the presidential primaries when Republican candidate Ted Cruz chided his rival Donald Trump for having “New York values”. The implication being that New York values are not shared by most Americans — or that they are not American values, at all. This suggests that regional factions are indeed a formidable obstacle to democracy in America and that a primary system that minimizes local interests in favor of a national stage may indeed be a necessary solution to balance them. Whether or not Super Tuesday 2016 will achieve this noble end remains to be seen.

Vanessa Burrows, Ph.D. is an historian of public health and civil rights, and the associate producer for the forthcoming documentary film, Power to Heal: Using Medicare to Desegregate U.S. Hospitals. She is a freelancer at Macat — a platform that curates and explains the world’s greatest ideas in a way that helps you think smarter.

Super Tuesday: Tocqueville’s democratic dream… or nightmare? was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Late last week, Patty Judge, Iowa’s former Secretary of Agriculture and Lt. Governor, indicated that she was considering a run for U.S. Senate challenging incumbent Republican Chuck Grassley. Grassley, as everyone knows, has served in elected office for 57 consecutive years and if you’re keeping track that means he came into his first elected office the same year as Alaska and Hawaii were formally admitted into the United States, Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba, and the film Ben Hur was released into theaters. Although the field of possible candidates on the Democratic side of the aisle is somewhat crowded at the moment, Judge’s possible entry is a welcome sign for the party as it seeks a credible voice to challenge Senator Grassley, who in addition to being in office since the television show Bonanza first appeared has made obstructionism his core governing philosophy.

The race is admittedly uphill. Having run and won 17 elections, Grassley is almost certainly the most successful politician in the state’s history. He is currently the fourth most senior member of the U.S. Senate. He is chair of the Judiciary Committee, where you get the added perk of not having to work every fourth year. Without a law degree, I was not aware of that clause of the Constitution but Grassley assures us that it’s there. He also maintains a significant fundraising advantage having reported more than $4.3 million cash on hand at the end of 2015.

I had the pleasure of working for Patty Judge throughout 2006 and several months in 2009 and 2010. Based on that experience, I can say that she is a thoughtful public servant, an incredibly hard and reliable worker, trustworthy, and eminently capable. She no doubt understands and appreciates the challenges inherent in a race against Chuck Grassley but is savvy enough to run a well-financed, smart campaign that puts the incumbent through his paces. She can challenge Grassley in areas that have traditionally been his strengths, namely his ability to authentically connect with Iowa’s rural communities.

Again, no one is arguing that Grassley enters this race as anything but a prohibitive favorite. In addition to combating Grassley’s strong favorability ratings, Judge will also need to collect 2,104 signatures and meet a minimum threshold in ten counties and do so in less than three weeks. That’s not an easy proposition. Without the caucuses, I question whether other candidates like Ray Zirkelbach or Bob Krause would even have the infrastructure in place to gather that number of signatures. Moreover, Judge will need to raise millions of dollars and unlike her previous state races she will have to do so within the contribution limits placed on federal candidates.

Regardless of all those factors, Patty Judge represents a significant upgrade in our congressional delegation and I hope she throws her hat in the ring. If nothing else, she will shine a bright light on Grassley’s childish conduct of blind obstructionism and reckless partisanship.

Patty Judge Tests the U.S. Senate Waters was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we head into the general election many more of us will start speaking our minds. If you think think the rhetoric of the politically minded is dominating your feed, just wait till your bubble shares a nearly singular opinion. Post primary season filter bubbles will normalize. We will rest comforted in knowing that we’re shouting along with friendlies. We will know our enemies and we’ll have the social tools to root them out. We’ll alienate that dissenting uncle at family dinner. He’ll go out for a smoke, engage in a screaming match or won’t show at all. You’ll unfriend, mute or block those harboring enemy opinions. The world will be at peace again. Until it’s not.

Personally, I am inclined to be angry at those who would support Donald Trump. They look to me to be angry at everyone that is not them, so why not react angrily at them? Today Trump supporters seem to be a Country away. On Wednesday they will likely show up on my wall, in my feed and possibly at dinner. We will polarize as we always do and some in the middle will surprise us with which pole repels them more.

I am preparing myself for this reality and this is how. In trying to listen to the other side I have only come to one tactic that works:

Hear what the other side is saying, but listen to why they are saying it.

In the current election cycle this empathy technique leads to a conclusion that we will be fighting each other to satisfy the same need at our core: Safety.

Maslow placed Personal security, Financial security, Health and well-being, and Safety net against accidents/illness and their adverse impacts all under the ‘safety’ slice of his primal pyramid. Look at the movements that have fueled Bernie Sanders’ AND Donald Trump’s campaigns and you will find politicians playing on these insecurities in an attempt to divide us.

Economic Insecurity

Economic insecurity is a core driver of both sides. The proposed solutions happen to be at odds with the ideals of the other pole, but this only happens because they are created by POLiticians. The right can leverage financial insecurity to make the movement about immigration. The left can leverage financial insecurity to make the movement about equal opportunity. While many of the politician’s end game occurs when they reach office, the general population does not achieve their end game until they too are financially secure.

Personal Safety

Personal safety is even easier to polarize. Guns make us more safe VS guns make us less safe. The rational amongst both sides polarize for the same reason: fear for their lives. In 21st century America there is no reason why personal safety for one side is mutually exclusive with personal safety of the other. While the solution that would satisfy both sides is one that results in personal safety, the next 6 months will try to convince us that what we are ultimately seeking is guns or no guns.

Health and Wellbeing has been polarized in the same way over the last four years. To the point where our national healthcare plan has been named after our President. While the President is proud of this and I would be too…it is f&*%ing ridiculous.

So I’m making a pledge to myself to try to listen to the other side out of my own selfish motivations. I am not disillusioned that this behavior is altruistic. I’m listening to the other side because I don’t want to spend the next six months and potentially 4 years angry. It will be better for my own health and wellbeing. I also believe the answer to satisfying these needs of safety lies somewhere in the middle. I don’t want to stop talking to the folks with a slightly different idea of how we get there, all because we were forced into a binary decision on election day.

When someone in your circle shows up on the other side don’t be surprised if it feels like the world’s gone mad. It has and it will for the next six months. The road back to sanity starts with listening to why the world has gone mad.

On Super Tuesday We Polarize. was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A little over a week ago, Republicans cast their ballots for president in the first-in-the-south primary, and the results of last Saturday’s primary have fundamentally changed the race for President. Trump’s victory in South Carolina cemented his status as a national frontrunner. Although Marco Rubio had a stronger than expected showing in the state and Ted Cruz remained competitive, Trump has the best chance of becoming the Republican nominee. Barring a major shift in support, it seems likely that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will face off in November.

After a strong performance in Iowa and a win in New Hampshire, many Republicans were unsure if the New York businessman would appeal to Southern voters. As Trump has voiced strong support of Planned Parenthood, same sex couples and abortion rights, some believed that conservative voters would be wary of his newfound embrace of faith and convictions. Any notion that held that Trump would not be competitive in the South has now been immediately dismissed, for the real estate magnate has exceeded already high expectations. Before and immediately after his win in the Palmetto State, Trump has begun to amass support across the South, especially in the Deep South. Combined with his strong support with ‘moderate’ voters, Trump is in an enviable position to end the nomination fight quickly and decisively in March.

While there has been much ado about ‘must-win’ states for each candidate, never has there been a must win state yet this cycle quite like Texas. After Ted Cruz’s third consecutive third place finish, he needs a strong performance in the SEC primary states in order to restart his struggling campaign. By setting expectations high in the first in the south contest after the Iowa Caucuses, Cruz underperformed due to a failure to respond adequately to sustained attacks on him by both Trump and Rubio. Although Southern states were expected to be Senator Cruz’s firewall in the SEC Primary, Trump has now taken the lead in many of these states; however, of most concern to the Cruz campaign, Senator Rubio is also projected to finish far more strongly in the South than was forecasted before the South Carolina Primary. Although certainly competing for survival in the South and especially his home state, barring a strong performance on Tuesday, his rationale for staying in the race may be called into question.

Marco Rubio’s second place showing in South Carolina after a dismal debate performance in New Hampshire has demonstrated that he is the candidate that is now Trump’s main opposition for the Republican nomination. After besting Cruz in two states where he was expected to perform (according to the Rubio’s camp), Senator Rubio is now the candidate with the best chance of defeating Donald Trump by inheriting supporters of other candidates who drop out. By coalescing support of former rivals and the party base, Rubio may be the only candidate currently running with the ability to mass the support necessary in order to stop Donald Trump from winning the nomination outright. That was the general consensus of the Establishment Republicans prior to Governor Christie’s endorsement of Donald Trump on Friday.

As the Republican field has been reduced to five contenders, only three of these candidates have any conceivable path forward. Both fans of Rubio and Trump have confidence in their candidate’s respective chances in contests moving forward, the race continues to muddle as Ted Cruz tries to regain his footing in the race.

A little over a week ago, Republicans cast their ballots for president in the first-in-the-south… was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Back in 1996, my hometown paper, the Des Moines Register, held an Academy Award contest asking readers to predict the winners in the six major categories — Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. As a sophomore in high school, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I ended up being one of only two people in the entire state who accurately selected all six winners. Although I wish I could say there was some level of expertise involved at the time, the reality is that I won because the Academy violated one of its longstanding rules.

The trend is typically referred to as “it’s their time” or awarding someone less for their individual performance that year than as a career capstone or lifetime achievement. It’s why Henry Fonda won for On Golden Pond, Paul Newman for The Color of Money, Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman or Martin Scorsese for The Departed. All four without question deserved Oscars, but not for these particular contributions.

That year, most observers thought Lauren Bacall would win for Best Supporting Actress. With the ceremony falling 50 years after her performance alongside Humphrey Bogart in the The Big Sleep, there seemed to be quite a bit of nostalgia behind the desire to recognize Bacall even though she was nominated for the truly atrocious The Mirror Has Two Faces. Defying predictions, Juliette Binoche won for The English Patient. For whatever reason, I was one of only a handful of people who predicted Binoche would win, maybe because I was naive enough to think the best performance would always be awarded.

We are seeing a bit of that trend in this year’s award ceremony as well. With four prior nominations, virtually everyone is predicting Leonardo DiCaprio will win Best Actor this year for his performance in The Revenant. To be clear, no one, myself included, is arguing that it’s a bad performance necessarily. Only that he would be unlikely to win for this movie without the 20-year history of respected but unrecognized work factoring into the underlying narrative. Of course, going with the “it’s his turn” standard makes it a bit easier for the voting members of the Academy. It is nearly impossible to compare DiCaprio’s virtually silent performance to Michael Fassbender’s mastery of the rapid, complicated dialogue of Steve Jobs. On the other hand, by overlooking Fassbender this year, the Academy will almost certainly need to give him a makeup call down the road.

The other longstanding reality of the Academy Awards is that the ceremony does not recognize the best movies, performances, and contributions of the year. It recognizes the best movies, performances, and contributions of a certain type. Animated, action, and comedic films, and especially films that challenge conventions, are rarely given serious consideration to win the top prize. Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction, The King’s Speech beat The Social Network, Chicago beat Gangs of New York, and Chariots of Fire beat Raiders of the Lost Ark.

However, the trend extends even further. In 2008, the Bourne Ultimatum failed to win nominations in any major category even though it was one of the best action films ever produced and addressed many of the emerging national security issues of that moment. In the following year, maybe the two best films of the year of the year were WALL-E and the Dark Knight. Neither was even nominated and the outcry led the Academy to expand the number of Best Picture nominees from five to a maximum of ten. Through that decision, these types of films may now get nominated but it’s hard to believe they will come out on top. Maybe Mad Max will prove me wrong this year, but I doubt it.

This is a long way of saying the awards are far from perfect, but any celebration of movies is one I’ll welcome. Here are my predictions for who will win and who should win this year.

Best Picture

Will win: The Revenant

Should win: Spotlight

Best Director

Will win: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant

Should win: George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Actor

Will win: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

Should win: Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs

Best Actress

Will win: Brie Larson, Room

Should win: Brie Larson, Room

Best Supporting Actor

Will win: Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Should win: Tom Hardy, The Revenant

Best Supporting Actress

Will win: Alicia Vikrander, The Danish Girl

Should win: Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight

Bonus! Best Cinematography

Forget my earlier criticism of the “it’s their turn” philosophy. Please give this to Roger Deakins who has never won despite 12 previous nominations. He’s the best in the business. But it looks like he will lose to Emmauel Lubezki who filmed The Revenant.

Academy Award Gripes and Predictions was originally published in Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everything on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.