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Tom Moran's False Equivalency

by: huntsu

Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 10:11:00 AM EDT

I like Tom Moran. I think he's a heck of a writer, and often has pretty good things to say. However, he has been infected by an insidious sickness running through the news media of false equivalency.

This is the disease that causes TV news shows to cover evolution by giving the scientists and young earthers equal time, thus creating the impression that both have valid points. Young earthers do not. It's the disease that allows major news magazines to give scientists and oil company shills the same weight when covering global climate change, thus slipping doubt into what is a close to scientific fact as we get.

In Moran's case, it is the pretense that both Democrats and Republicans are equally to blame for the dearth of African Americans and Latinos in the state legislature. In yesterdays column, Moran's infection oozed the puss of false equivalency all over the pages of the Star Ledger in an opinion piece called "New Jersey's parties both fall short on blacks, Latinos."

Republicans in New Jersey don't have a single African-American or Latino in the state Legislature. Their governor has none in his inner circle and he has removed the only African-American from the state Supreme Court.
On the whole, their record on minority representation is somewhere between bad and awful.

Not a bad beginning, pretty clear. A good description of the situation. Yet for some reason he then goes after the Democrats.

But let's not just pick on Republicans. Because the Democratic machines that control the slate of candidates are mostly controlled by white men who have a keen affinity for their own kind as well.
Take Camden. When the African-American senator representing Camden resigned last year, the South Jersey machine boss George Norcross knew just what to do: He put his brother, Donald, in the seat.

What Moran doesn't note is that this anonymous "African-American Senator" is Dana Redd, and the reason she resigned was to become Mayor of the state's second largest city. Not exactly a demotion for her. Oh, and the Democrats also selected Redd as Vice-Chair of the Democratic Party and a rep to the DNC for the past six years. How dare they treat an African-American so badly?

And it's not until much later that Moran notes that the two Assembly members who run with Norcross are African American and Latino. So now the three major races in the district are all represented, and -- not for nothing, here -- that district has more minorities than the entire GOP state delegation. Again, damn those Democrats!

But Moran tries to redeem himself after using false equivalence to damn the Democrats, noting that while his headline and article has so far slammed the crap out of them,

On the whole, Democrats are light years ahead of Republicans. One in three of their state legislators is black or Latino, and they can reasonably defend the Norcross and Ryan appointments.

But before he completely recovers from his disease, Moran has a relapse by allowing the Republicans to re-frame the debate. Here's the final quote of the piece.

"Both sides have to do better," says Republican Bill Palatucci, a confidante of the governor who is leading this fight over the map. "Since Gov. Kean left office, my party's record on diversity is nothing to write home about. I'm not saying we're 100 percent right. But neither are they."

And there you have the most exquisite diagram of the virus that causes false equivalence, plotted out and sitting there for all to see.

Republicans have exactly zero African-Americans in the State House or the Governor's cabinet. Democrats have more than 20 percent of their delegation as blacks -- far higher than the state's 14 percent African-American population -- and 10 percent of their delegation as Latinos -- far higher than the state's Latino voting population.

But Palatucci gets to say, "Our 0% is the same as their 90%. A pox on both their houses!"

And Moran let's it slide.

huntsu :: Tom Moran's False Equivalency

Tags: Tom Moran, race, redistricting, Ray Lesniak, featured, (All Tags)

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Tom Moran's False Equivalency | 13 comments

I think... (3.00 / 2)

you a missing a valid point. Doesn't the racial makeup up the sending district have an impact?

Yes, the dems have more diversity, but they also represent more diverse distrcits, doesn't that make sense?

Tom finds fault with white representation of places like Camdem, Paterson, and Elizabeth, where the population is overwhelmingly non-white, isn't that a valid criticism?

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 14:28:37 PM UTC

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The Dueces You Say! (0.00 / 0)

That said, I did not miss that point that redistricting is an issue in the representation of the races. It simply has nothing to do with what I was writing.

Were I to write a treatise on the entire issue of race representation in the state legislature, then a point could be made that I left out a fact or two.

But this is a criticism on one column and the need of the media to spend equal time bashing both sides of an issue when one is clearly in the wrong and the other simply has some flaws.

by: huntsu @ Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 15:07:06 PM UTC

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Camden is not the 2nd largest city in New Jersey. (4.00 / 1)

It's the 13th largest.

by: Matthew Jordan @ Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 14:43:16 PM UTC

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Yikes! What a mistake! (0.00 / 0)

Apologies. Somewhere else I just looked it says 9th.

by: huntsu @ Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 14:59:34 PM UTC

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Moran's not making a false equivalence... (3.00 / 1)

....he's just pointing out the Dems aren't exactly blameless and providing specific examples why he feels that way.

activist for hire.

by: Jay Lassiter @ Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 14:50:09 PM UTC

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Not true (0.00 / 0)

If he just wanted to point that out, then a sentence or paragraph or two would be OK.

But more than half the article is about the Democrats' issues with this, when they are certainly much less than half the issue.

Are the Dems not blameless? Certainly not. But with a more than 20 percent of their caucus African-American they blow away the state population average of 14%. With more than 12 percent of their caucus Latino they beat that demographic, too.

The Republicans have ZERO. None. Zilch. Nada. Zippo. But in an article saying that, the disease of false equivalence means that more than half the words have to be that the other side isn't perfect.

by: huntsu @ Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 15:05:00 PM UTC

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I think... (0.00 / 0)

your looking at the wrong statistic though.

It shouldn't be statewide minority representation, it should be percentage of minority represenation in minority districts, shouldn't it?

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 16:23:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

For goodness sake, why? (0.00 / 0)

Does that mean we should only have white legislators from Sussex? Blacks, Asians, American Indians and Latinos should be barred from serving because then white people would be hurt?

Should there be no Caucasians allowed to represent Newark since they are the minority there, even if the majority support them?

If there are a representative proportion of like-people in the legislature, then there is no need to make a change to gerrymander to rebalance the legislature. The representation is already there.

The only reason to try to create districts where a certain race can win seats is if people of that certain race cannot win seats. But they can, and they do.

At least in the Democratic Party they do. But in the Republican Party, not so much.

by: huntsu @ Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 16:47:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I guess... (4.00 / 2)

it doesn't mean we only have... but more that we should EXPECT white legislators from Sussex.

I think you probably have a point...but the statistic you need is how many minority CANDIDATES did republicans put forth in minority districts. That number would be way more damning. (ie. it's one thing to say the republicans don't have any minority representation, it's another to say they aren't even trying)

Or, an easy one... how many women in each caucus, that number would be district independent in my view.

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 16:57:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

women in the legislature (4.00 / 1)

Assembly
26 women out of 80
Democrats: 17 of 47 = 36%
Republicans: 9 of 33 = 27%

Senate
8 women out of 40
Democrats: 6 of 23 = 26%
Republicans: 2 of 17 = 11%

Combined totals
Democrats: 23 of 70 = 33%
Republicans: 11 of 50 = 22%

Once again, the Democratic Party slogan is, "Hey, we're not as bad as those other guys!"

by: Bill W @ Tue Mar 22, 2011 at 13:30:07 PM UTC

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Good one... (0.00 / 0)

I think the quote Tom Moran got in the interview from the Republican was, 'We know we have to do a lot better, but the other guys aren't perfect."

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Tue Mar 22, 2011 at 15:19:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That may be the quote ... (0.00 / 0)

But the reality is that they have exactly 0% minorities in their caucus and the Democrats have a higher percentage of both African Americans and Latinos than in the state population.

Democrats also far outstrip the Republicans in electing women to the Legislature, as well, with twice as many women as the GOP. Can we do better? Sure.

The GOP quote can be, "We know we have to do a lot better," but that is little more than lying by misdirection when the reality is that they are terrible to an embarrassing extent and the Dems have some work to do.

by: huntsu @ Fri Mar 25, 2011 at 16:12:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

much ado about something (0.00 / 0)

The Democratic Party has a responsibility to be more diverse than the Republican Party, because its membership and values are supposed to represent a far more diverse cross-section of society. With respect to this, the white guys club and their bought-and-paid-for non-white lackeys who run the political machines in this state fail miserably.

It is much harder for the Republicans to fail in this regard, because their membership is so lily-white and regressive that if their elected officials and party leaders can manage to keep their bedsheets on the bed where they belong, they are ahead of the game. If they can manage to go a week without proposing legislation that discriminates against or oppresses minorities, then they have hit a home run.

Is this a double standard? Of course it is and it is a double standard that progressives should be proud to enforce in our party, not whine about. It is difficult to bitch and moan about tokens like Clarence Thomas and J.C. Watts when our Democratic leadership goes above and beyond to limit the influence of people of color in our party to corrupt hacks who can be controlled to one degree or another like Wayne Bryant and Sharpe James or corrupt hacks-in-training like Cory Booker and Dana Redd.

What we need is more Democrats of color like Victor Cirilo and Ron Rice Jr. and a party leadership who will allow them and their independent thinking to thrive. I think that Tom Moran's arguments are spot on.

by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Tue Mar 22, 2011 at 16:31:53 PM UTC

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Tom Moran's False Equivalency | 13 comments