​I’m going to do something unusual now: I’m going to defend a Republican. Not on policy, mind you, but because of the personal nature of one of Trump’s recent attacks, in this case targeting Heidi Cruz for her history of depression.  
 
The gendered nature of this election cycle has not escaped anyone, from the obvious point that the leading Democratic contender is a woman, to Trump’s notoriety for sexist remarks on the campaign trail. Most recently, he tweeted to his opponent Ted Cruz regarding Cruz’s bout of depression approximately ten years ago.
 
Despite ongoing (and increasing) attention to mental health issues, along with discussion of the remarkable prevalence of mental illness (approximately 1 in 5), there remains persistent stigma attached to these diseases. Part of the reason is that it is difficult for those on the outside to understand. Though scientists are developing better diagnostic criteria, there is not an easy blood test, not everyone is responsive to medication, the symptoms are not as visibly physical (relative to, example, bleeding or breaking bones), and powering through the symptoms of depression is not nearly as easy a feat as one might believe. Celebrities’ “coming out” about their own struggles (or more sadly, their suicides) arguably promotes more open conversation about these challenges, and in turn facilitates people viewing it as more acceptable to seek out help. Patrick Kennedy and Tipper Gore notwithstanding, however, we see little firsthand discussion of this in the political sphere, making the Cruz case noteworthy.
 
Heidi Cruz said, “When I came out of Washington and the White House, I didn't feel that there was really a glass ceiling in the administration ... and Texas was very different,” with the “traditional culture” and social environment less hospitable and perpetuating her feelings of depression. She was reportedly found in 2005 by an Austin police officer, appearing to be a danger to herself. Her transparency on the matter is noteworthy. A Cruz advisor responded to the Trump attack by saying, “About a decade ago, when Mrs. Cruz returned from D.C. to Texas and faced a significant professional transition, she experienced a brief bout of depression. Like millions of Americans, she came through that struggle with prayer, Christian counseling, and the love and support of her husband and family.”
 
Apart from the question of whether candidates’ spouses should be fair game for attacks, in particular of such a personal nature, there is the fact that it frames the issue of depression as something to which one must “confess” and can be “accused of,” rather than a medical condition for which she appropriately sought treatment. Such a characterization of depression only further reinforces people’s sense of shame, reticence about symptoms, reluctance to reach out for help, which can be dangerous and even fatal depending on the severity of the condition.
 
There are many grounds on which to criticize the political extremism of Ted Cruz or even Heidi’s political influence in his campaigns. However, reinforcing the closeting of depression by attacking Heidi on these grounds is a major (and dangerous) setback in the treatment of mental health conditions. 

In 2008, I had the privilege of working on the presidential campaign staff in the oh-so-scenic terrain that is Winston Salem, NC, which at least at the time smelled exactly as it sounds like it would. Turning out the majority minority housing projects and over impoverished areas, I spoke with individuals who well into their thirties, forties, even fifties, had never voted, let alone had campaign workers on their doorsteps. After all, the perk of having such a well-resourced campaign is being able to touch the less reliable voters who would reliably be allies, and turn them out to the polls. By a margin of only approximately 25,000 votes, Obama won the state. 

In the 2012 campaign, I spent the home stretch in State College, Pennsylvania, a region notoriously low in turnout due to electoral institutions that systematically depress turnout (e.g., no early voting, excuse required for absentee voting). While the courts had put a stop on the photo ID  law, confusion was rampant, with signs throughout the region claiming that voters had to present photo ID (their response to challenges was that they were "preparing voters for the next election") and voters not being clear on the fact that while poll workers were entitled to request photo ID, they were not entitled to require it. Some erroneously walked away from their polling places due to photo ID confusion. Others, seeing long lines due to the absence of early voting and the like, opted out of the extensive wait time. Such conditions should be anomalous, but sadly are not.

Florida 2000 notwithstanding, the chances of one's own vote determining the election outcome is indeed infinitesimal. That said, with many reasonably narrow election outcomes we can see easily how shifts in the laws can powerfully impact the likelihood of one being able to vote (and certainly of being likely to vote), with constraints on voting rights disproportionately hurting the poor and minorities, demographic groups that typically vote Democratic. 

A number of tactics -- from felon disenfranchisement to constraining early voting to photo ID laws -- have been employed across the country to supposedly crack down on voter fraud, though in effect disenfranchising voters unlikely to be in the Republican camp. Only Maine and Vermont allow prisoners to retain their voting rights while incarcerated, with other states demonstrating a range of constraints. 19 states now require that one present photo ID in order to vote, with an additional 14 states requiring non-photo ID. Obtaining a photo ID is not costless. I, for one, do not have a driver's license. Obtaining my California state ID came with a fee, which if required to vote could constitute a poll tax. This does not even account for the time needed to obtain that ID during business hours, or the forms of other identification needed to obtain a state ID or driver's license (e.g., passport or birth certificate).

North Carolina is the latest controversy with respect to voting rights, with the implementation of a photo ID requirement and 218,000 registered voters, disproportionately African American, lacking the necessary government identification in order to cast their votes.  Such an effect is particularly stark when considering an investigation into voter fraud revealing only 31 credible instances out of one billion votes cast, calling into question the validity of the justifications for this legislation. 

The Nation detailed this recent struggle of a North Carolina voter: " In September 2012, Douglas’s niece, Clara Quick, took her to the DMV in Laurinburg, North Carolina, to get a state photo ID. Douglas was told she needed a copy of her birth certificate to get an ID. So they traveled across the state line to Dillon, South Carolina, where Douglas was born, to find her birth certificate. But the government office there said she needed a photo ID to get a birth certificate, and Douglas was caught in a seemingly unresolvable catch-22...  Her niece called the South Carolina’s Vital Records office, paid $17 for an expedited birth certificate, but still couldn’t get one. Instead, she was told to find her aunt’s marriage certificate, which was in Bennettsville, South Carolina. After getting that, they made a second trip to the North Carolina DMV, but were once again told Douglas couldn’t get a photo ID because she didn’t have a birth certificate.  They were so frustrated that they gave up trying for a time. In the fall of 2013, after North Carolina passed the voter ID law, they made a third trip to the DMV. An employee told Quick to get a census report to confirm her aunt’s identify, which she purchased for $69. Quick brought her aunt’s census report, marriage certificate, Social Security card, and utility bill during a fourth trip to the DMV in September 2014 and was finally able to get her the photo ID needed to vote." There is little ambiguity as to the motive, and the effect, of such laws being in place.

The Supreme Court's holding on the Voting Rights Act paved the way toward greater constraints on voting rights in southern states with histories of discriminatory practices. Moreover, the xenophobia by which some of the current primary debates (ahem...Trump) could aptly be characterized only further perpetuates the racial tensions underlying these voting constraints. Indeed, North Carolina's photo ID law (along with cuts to same-day registration and early voting, which can have the effect of producing long Election Day wait times and in turn suppressing turnout) was passed oh-so-subtly a mere month after the Supreme Court's VRA decision. Consider this statistic: in recent elections in North Carolina, African Americans were twice as likely as whites to utilize same-day registration, early voting, and vote out of their precinct. 

Rather than simply seeking to outperform their opponents, coalitions have turned increasingly to such suppressive tactics to limit the pool of eligible voters in ways that disadvantage minorities and the poor, thus being both anti-Democratic and undemocratic. In addition to calling attention to the pervasive racism that still remains in much of our nation, it highlights the striking impact of Supreme Court holdings on key civil rights (and other) issues. Clinton has begun to make the Court a central issue in her campaign as she addresses voters about the dangers of the extremism and racism promoted -- or at least motivated -- by Trump. We won't have long to wait to see whether the Senate is responsive to public support hearings for Garland, the prospective replacement for the late Justice Scalia and a game-changer with respect to Supreme Court politics and the preservation of basic voting rights for the American electorate. 

​Many commentators and scholars have called attention to the importance of filling the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia given the lack of precedent for Senate inaction on the Court within a certain time frame. On principle, President Obama is still the president and thus is entitled to nominate justices to the Supreme Court, as he did with his nomination of Judge Garland, and the nominee should be entitled to confirmation hearings.  
 
There are also pragmatic concerns. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for a case regarding religious accommodations to the contraceptive mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Justice Anthony Kennedy typically serves as the swing vote siding more often than not with the conservative wing of the Court. In oral arguments, Kennedy appeared sympathetic to the substantial burdens of those working to opt out of contraception coverage in health plans under the ACA, though he posed questions in both directions of the issue. If Kennedy votes with the liberal wing of the Court, Scalia’s death will not be consequential for the case, but if Kennedy aligns with conservatives, we will have a 4-4 split. In the event that the Supreme Court is indeed evenly split, as appears fairly likely the case, lower court rulings rejecting the Christian organizations’ challenges would stand.
 
Kennedy’s record on reproductive rights is mixed. He voted with the majority in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade but nevertheless allowed states to impose a number of constraints on abortion access provided that such laws do not pose an “undue burden.”  However, he also authored the majority opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. And in 2014, he authored a concurrence in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which the Supreme Court held 5-4 that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) allows a for-profit company to deny employees contraceptive coverage given the religious objections of the company owners. So which Anthony Kennedy will we see in the resolution of this case? Time will tell… 

In  a recent visit to the emergency room (side note: one of its "frequent flyers" is a wanna-be singer, dabbling in opera it sounded like), it was brought to my attention that while most of the hospital was in-network, the particular division of doctors to which I needed access was not. It was a Saturday night. The insurance company was closed. And the dreaded phrase came up regarding transfer to another in-network hospital when it became clear that a hospital admission would be necessary: "insurance preauthorization required."

It turns out, despite the fact that peoples' propensity to get sick is not exclusive to insurance company business hours, insurance preauthorization often is required for the transfer to another hospital facility, or for certain procedures to take place. This can result in unnecessary delays in obtaining needed care, or being transferred to less reputable facilities that do not carry certain restrictions. 

The Department of Health and Human Services defines insurance preauthorization as follows: "A decision by your health insurer or plan that a health care service, treatment plan, prescription drug or durable medical equipment is medically necessary. Sometimes called prior authorization, prior approval or precertification. Your health insurance or plan may require preauthorization for certain services before you receive them, except in an emergency. Preauthorization isn’t a promise your health insurance or plan will cover the cost." Such requirements can in some cases lead to extensive persuasion by doctors to insurance companies (that is, those who are not medical professionals but on the business end of the deal) that certain procedures, tests, transfers, are medically necessary. Issues of preauthorizations absorbed in 2006 an average of 1.1 hours per week from primary care providers, 13.1 hours per week of primary care nursing staffs, and 5.6 hours per week of primary care clerical staff. While insurance companies are barred from imposing prior authorization rules in the context of emergency care, some issues regarding interfacility transfers still apply, and should it become clear that a battery of tests must be ordered in the near future, a patient nervous about an impending diagnosis and treatment may have a barrage of insurance inquiries awaiting them first. 

The fact is, this is just one of many ways in which we have nominally worked to expand health care insurance coverage while simultaneously making it profoundly difficult for people to actually utilize those benefits. Whether it is a large deductible that one must meet before benefits kick in, a large out-of-pocket maximum such that expenses can continue to aggregate, or a large coinsurance that can lead one to such conditions as asking their doctor to run fewer or less expensive tests, we often find ourselves crafting policies that perhaps work well enough for those wealthy enough to afford the out-of-pocket costs or poor enough to obtain government-sponsored insurance and credits, but with the middle class continuing to get squeezed. The matter of insurance preauthorization is in fact an equalizing force in that it is not about dollar amounts but rather red tape, navigating a complex system that is all the more challenging when medically compromised and potentially from a vulnerable population. And while parity laws are meant to ensure that medical and behavioral health are treated equally with respect to benefits, such laws are notoriously poorly enforced, with "medical necessity" looked upon with greater scrutiny in the behavioral health context, adding an additional barrier to a category of care already inaccessible to far too many Americans.   

There is little question who benefits from this bureaucratic maze: doctors and patients alike are frustrated if not maddened by the system, and insurance companies themselves are the lone stakeholders gaining from the system. In an election season filled already with so many surprises, one certainty is that health care will remain prominent on the agenda -- whether expanding but building more incrementally on the Affordable Care Act, moving to single-payer, or rolling back the ACA -- and one hope is that with this continued discussion, there should be greater emphasis on allowing questions of "medical necessity" and the timeliness with which those medical procedures be carried out be determined by those holding the medical credentials. 

 One takeaway from the last few election cycles is that the Republican Party has not done an effective job of reaching out to women voters, particularly salient given that they currently make up just over half the population and are more likely than men to turn out to vote. We can point to a number of explanations for this difficulty in reaching out to such a key demographic group, from pro-life stances that in some cases go as far as opposing family planning services and access to preventive care, and the politicization of more basic policies such as equal pay for equal work, largely supported by the Democrats and opposed by Republicans. From "binders full of women" to adding Palin to McCain's ticket in hopes that women's solidarity would trump policy preferences, the Republicans have made a number of moves that have not served them well. 

The so-called "war on women" is particularly salient this year given that the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee is Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump has not been known for his sensitive comments toward women, quite notably in his battles with Fox News' Megyn Kelly, who may or may not have had "blood coming out of her wherever." Indeed, Huffington has even catalogued hard-to-believe things that Trump has said about women, from marginalizing the importance of sexual assault in the military, referring to breastfeeding as "disgusting," to characterizing women as a "manipulative" sex, to speaking often to the importance of looks in politics and entertainment. Trump's latest attack on Cruz's wife only adds not only to the GOP's struggle to garner the support of women, but also to the animosity between the two main remaining Republican presidential candidates. 

Trump's charge: his wife Melania (a retired model) is more attractive than Heidi Cruz (depicted unflatteringly), with the caption, "The images are worth a thousand words." This was in conjunction with allegations that Cruz had cheated on his wife. Admittedly, it is not uncommon for the families of presidential and vice presidential candidates to be "vetted" as well as the candidates themselves. 1992 saw numerous GOP attacks leveraged at Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore, characterizing them as "radical feminists" with women not actually wanting to be liberated from their home/kitchen. Tipper Gore was challenged for her campaign against violent and sexually explicit lyrics on record albums. The Palin family came under extensive scrutiny as well in the 2008 election cycle, showing that it is not solely a partisan matter. 

Trump's comments may not be surprising to those who have followed him closely, and his transparency in the way of discussing the importance of image over substance (resulting in a 70% unfavorable rating of Trump among women, with even a 39% unfavorable rating among Republican women). They also allow Cruz an opportunity to defend women, because while women do vote more Democratic (52 vs. 36% according to a 2015 Pew study), Republicans cannot win the election without some women on their side. Cruz retorted that spouses and children should be off bounds with respect to partisan attacks. What remains to be seen is to what extent he will stick with that language moving forward. Will we see a resurgence of Bill Clinton's extramarital affair(s)? Will we see other personal attacks? Is it only personal when it is personal to them? 

While Trump's comments certainly underscore his continued assaults on women (and many others), for example, his characterization of Hillary Clinton as "very shrill," it would be hard to construe Cruz's defense as much more than defending his wife. Cruz, after all, has opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and opposes the provision of plan B. And while abortion is only one of many issues of gender (in)equality at play, Cruz has also expressed that equal pay for equal work is already law, and voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act. That Cruz defended his wife as beautiful and a wonderful wife and mother should not be mistaken for a position in favor of women more generally. Whether Cruz stands by his charge that the families of candidates should be off grounds for personal attacks remains to be seen. 

If there's anything that you take away from reading my blog, I hope that the importance of persisting underinsurance in America is one of them. Chelsea Clinton recently spoke out about this, raising the possibility that Hillary Clinton might use the tool of executive order to help curb healthcare costs for those who are unable to afford to use their health care, specifically working to reduce out-of-pocket maximums: "And, kind of figuring out whether she could do that through executive action, or she would need to do that through tax credits working with Congress. She thinks either of those will help slove the challenge of kind of the crushing costs that still exist for too many people, who even are part of the Affordable Care Act and buying insurance." This was consistent with Clinton's health reform plan in the 1990s, though that we know to have been unsuccessful.  

This raises an important question: What is the best way for a president to achieve this end consistent with the party platform and campaign goals (not to mention many public preferences)? There are a number of options. One is to work with Congress to push for amendments to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in ways that reduce healthcare costs. The challenge here is that both chambers of Congress are controlled by the Republican Party. It is unlikely that the partisan control of the House of Representatives will change with the November elections. The Democrats have a chance at reclaiming the Senate, but it's a toss-up -- the Democrats may take the Senate, but it may only see a leftward lean in the Senate median with a de facto need for supermajoritarian support in order to pass legislation of any significance. And amendments to the Affordable Care Act would absolutely fit the bill. The result is that there will be a political environment not ripe for major policy change, with potentially only incremental progress to be expected given tendencies toward obstructionism. In fact, partisan voting extends even to non-political but also to procedural votes. In short, Congress isn't likely to move much unless the Democrats take the Senate, and even then there will be marked potential for opposition obstruction. 

Another option is to work with states to incentivize improving upon the federal plan. For example, we find marked variation in air and water quality standards in the states, with California standards being particularly higher. We might envision states opting into add-on plans that cap out-of-pocket maximums and deductibles, two of the plan costs that constitute massive barriers to individuals being able to use the plans by which they nominally are covered. 

Which then brings us to changing health policy by way of executive order, which are legally binding orders given by the President of the United States. The challenge is that the public's view of executive orders tend to low, as Reeves and Rogowski (2015) show. They find that support for the use of executive orders tracks the public's evaluation of the president and the their beliefs in the rule of law (e.g., ensuring civil rights, civil liberties, mechanisms of accountability, etc.). 

So there is a real risk in pursuing policy through this means. When the president works with Congress to achieve progress toward healthcare progress, in the face of obstruction, it becomes relatively easy to point to Congress (in particular, congressional Republicans) as the culprit in precluding movement from the status quo. We are seeing this in the context of the current battle to fill the Supreme Court vacancy held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. That said, it is easy also for Republicans to say, "You elected Clinton, and what has she accomplished? Vote for us in 2020 and we'll let you decide how you spend your money." But amid a polarized setting, pursuing policy change by way of executive order may be smart, but it would have to work given that there would, in that case, be only one person to blame, using a tool not revered by the American public on principal (a trend that is consistent over time, though with public support for unilateral action higher in those contexts in which Congress fails to act). How Clinton continues this discussion with respect to executive orders (in this context and others) will give us valuable information as to how we can expect her to work with Congress and to what extent she will work toward a stronger presidency, albeit toward responsiveness to public needs by way of unilateral action. 

​Auden’s “Funeral Blues” characterization of funeral perhaps most aptly describes the sense of loss that one feels upon the passing of a loved one: “He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.” While Auden shows us the devastation of funeral mourning, he does not there address the grappling with the permanence of that person’s passing, the transition to addressing the person forever in the past tense. That was something that hit home markedly at the memorial concert for a friend who tragically died in January at the young age of 30. We heard two hours of people delivering hauntingly beautiful performances of Amy’s music because she couldn’t. There was so much love, so much loss in that room, but so much finality about her never to return to the stage with that “extra dose of awesome,” guitar in hand and mic stand in front of her petite figure as she sang her songs of love and loss. Her music lives on now only through recordings and others’ renditions, which beautiful though they are, still echo her absence, her missingness. And none of us quite know how to grapple with accepting that loss. 

Unabashedly opportunistic though it is, the tragic attacks in Brussels gives Clinton an opportunity for her foreign policy experience to shine, showing herself the most competent candidate from among both fields to navigate the complexities of this international attack and helping nations to coalesce toward a solution. This is not a traditional "women's issue," which is to Clinton's advantage in a sense because she cannot be marginalized as caring primarily about such issues as women's rights and social programs (areas in which she also shines politically), but also national defense and security, which are issues in which the Republican Party tends to dominate more and which have been more "owned" by the Republican Party. 

Accounts of unfavorables on both sides of the political aisle have been documented, and part of the dissatisfaction that the Democratic voters have had with Clinton is her more moderate approaches to policymaking. In truth, her policies vary only marginally from those of Sanders, but she has the more pragmatic and admittedly less "sexy" approaches to these political problems -- wear and tear in the Senate and other offices have given her realistic expectations -- which Sanders supporters have ben keen to characterize as being less progressive.

There are a few realities with which they must both contend and one that only Clinton must  contend. First, making radical changes at the national level may founder, leaving the Democratic Party highly vulnerable in taking the fall in the 2018 midterm elections. But that would be an unlikely scenario to arise because it is contingent upon even getting to the implementation stage. Which brings us to the second problem. Having a likely still divided government  scenario (the Democrats will assuredly move the Senate median to the left, but not necessarily enough to gain control) requires some measure of compromise and conciliation which is hampered by designation as a self-described socialist, and by the stubborn promotion of positions too far to the left and too uncompromising to garner needed moderate Republicans' support. 

The Clinton-specific challenge is that of being a woman operating in a man's world, and thus needing to appear stronger, tougher, more in command, and let's face it, deal with slanders that our culture rightly abhors in the racial context and yet somehow accepts in the analogous cases where gender is concerned. Such is consistent with years of American history, with African Americans gaining suffrage far earlier than did women of any color. And concessions to emotion by women immediately confirm biases that women "may not have what it takes" to be the leader of the free world. There is no question that if Nancy Pelosi cried publicly as much a did John Boehner, we would not have heard the end of it. Boehner got a free pass, except for his name of course. 

Part of what we are seeing in Hillary is her effort to play this man's game, but until we change the gender dynamics of the United States, it will be a necessary evil, and a necessary condition for winning elected office not to mention prevailing in bargaining conditions upon electoral success. In a wonderful "West Wing" episode titled "Let Bartlett Be Bartlett," in which the main players choose to set loose the progressive Jed Bartlett with whom they had all fallen in love in the primary campaign. Hopefully one day we will be able to "Let Hillary be Hillary," but as long as she and her staff know well, you have to play the rules of the game in order to get in the door and begin to win the real fights. In the meantime, I hope that the Democratic voters have the patience to let her show her true colors as a bona fide progressive and champion of rights as Madame President. We just need to elect her first. 

In the interest of full disclosure, my (strong) personal preference is for Hillary Clinton to be the next President of the United States (#ImWIthHer). But even absent this personal preference, at this point in the campaign there are innumerable reasons for Sanders to concede to Clinton in the race to the White House and not merely in the individual states in which she outshines him (sometimes very modestly as in Missouri, other places much more dominantly such as in Virginia). 

Whether or not you like superdelegates (definition: an unelected delegate free to support any candidate for the presidential nomination at the party's national convention), they change the delegate math in a way that makes the nomination virtually unattainable for Sanders. While one needs 2,382 of the 4,763 delegates in order to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton currently has 1,119 to Sanders' 813. But among superdelegates, Clinton currently has 467 to Sanders' 27, making the delegate gap much larger. To be clear, this is not a case in which the superdelegates are going against the preferences of the rest of the delegate population. Clinton leads in both subgroups. But the superdelegate differential reinforces the upward climb that Sanders would face, an upward climb that is moving steadily from challenging to futile. 

And yet he still has ample support, and there are arguments of representation in American politics that can be made in support of his continuing to represent those preferences (which admittedly from a policy standpoint differ only minimally from the preferences of Clinton, who emphasizes experience and pragmatism in implementation of a similar core agenda). There are also cases in which candidates can serve important roles to put on the agenda issue items that mainstream candidates will not, but maybe should at least think more critically about, or promote some dialogue in the media and among the voters themselves. Kucinich's campaign in 2004 serves as a salient recent example. And despite apparent determination to take the nomination battle to the convention, we have seen some rhetoric from Sanders that echoes the inclination to put issues on the agenda, to force discussion of issues, as opposed to battling for those ideas to be put into practice. 

The problem is, when treating the race as hotly contested (and it is being hotly contested in a number of states, though keep in mind that New York has not yet voted), Sanders is -- as does any candidate -- making a number of attacks on Clinton. It has been argued that his becoming an "attack dog" is the only winning strategy he would have left in order to succeed. And that is certainly his right given that she is his opponent. But given the high probability that she will indeed win the nomination, battles on the nuances of policy and personal attacks leveraged among Democrats become ammunition come the general election. Sanders is in effect writing attack ads for the Republicans or shortening the amount of time they need to do on opposition research. And that isn't for the good of the Democratic Party. (Indeed, it has not gone unnoticed that some are attracted to both Sanders and Trump given their anti-establishment rhetoric, in addition to going after Hillary on the issues on which the GOP will be focusing going into the November general election). What it shows is that, like any human and particularly like any politician, he has self-interest and is acting on it, even to the detriment of the policies that he so vigorously defends. 

Sanders has come much farther than many (even he) thought possible, and it was going to be a difficult road no matter what (not aided by his being a self-proclaimed Socialist, which is a label unlikely to play well among Blue Dog Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans feeling that their party's candidates are out of step... also not aided by his failure to garner support among key Democratic constituencies such as the African American community, or the fact that he does not hail from a key state). He should feel proud of what he has accomplished, both in delegate counts and in promoting discussion of a progressive vision of what America can and should be. But that is where is should end, lest he help facilitate a change in presidential partisan control and in turn the (potentially far) rightward direction of American social, economic, and foreign policy.

We all know the phrase. It isn't easy being green. Kermit was a wise frog. But maybe it's not so hard after all. Don't lose hope, Kermit (and other similarly-woed frogs of the world).

When we talk about the environment, we often create for ourselves a dichotomy between economics and environmental protection. And there is some merit in that. We impose oil taxes to increase the cleanliness (such as it is) and to incentivize reduced consumption. Green alternatives for products can be more expensive. Not everyone can afford a Prius as opposed to an older, less fuel-efficient model.

But there is also so much opportunity for job creation and innovation when we fully commit ourselves to environmental protection in ways that go beyond images of polar bears in melting ice or taking the bus instead of driving (if your city of residence has such infrastructure in place). And even as other nations have outpaced us on health care and education and certain technologies, Americans pride themselves on their innovation, tenacity, finding pathbreaking alternatives to the status quo.

There are few policies as ripe for innovation as environmental policy. From wind and solar technologies to finding new sources of alternative energy that we have not even yet considered, there are innumerable opportunities for those with scientific skills and craftsmanship to think outside the box, or better yet, beyond the box. Finding affordable ways to manufacture products sustainably provides other such opportunities to bring new ideas and visions to the table, some of which may well fail, but some of which may allow us some meaningful breakthroughs so that we can collectively work to leave the planet better than how we found it (or at least not considerably worse).

There inevitably are costs of compliance with environmental regulations, and some small businesses may feel the pinch. But if possible, it would behoove us all, especially amid the policy rhetoric of the coming months of the presidential election to set aside the false dichotomy of economic security versus environmental protection. Without a planet with breathable air and drinkable water, the economic impacts may begin to pale in comparison. With economic investment in hiring smart people to develop ways to limit our environmental impact, we can have both. The ball is in our court.