If I can vote, you can too

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Oct. 18, Melanie Jackson, SMU Daily Campus staff writer and DIS Study Abroad Copenhagen student who is also a Hunt Scholar, for a piece encouraging SMU classmates to vote no matter the obstacles. Published in the Daily Campus under the heading If I can vote, you can too: https://tinyurl.com/2j9xdd47 ​

 

I just voted in my first presidential election, 5,000 miles across the world from SMU with the help of the United States Embassy. If I can vote in this election, you can too.

Growing up, I dreamed of the moment I’d be able to vote in my first presidential election. I was excited as this truly marked a right of passage into adulthood. I never imagined this moment would have come in Denmark.

This semester I am studying abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark with DIS. DIS is a largely American program. Out of 1,600 students studying here for the 2024 fall semester, about 90-95% are American.

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Much of the world is terrified by another Trump presidency. Here’s why

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Oct. 11, Jeffrey Engel, founding director of the Center for Presidential History at SMU Dallas, for a commentary outlining the dangerous consequences of Donald Trump’s “ill-advised remarks, ill-timed threats and outright lies.” Published in the Los Angeles Times under the heading Much of the world is terrified by another Trump presidency. Here’s why: https://tinyurl.com/347h5a7r ​

Words matter. Especially when uttered by a president, and especially overseas. “Speak softly, and carry a big stick,” Theodore Roosevelt advised, though he never envisioned a successor would prove capable of obliterating cities half a world away in under half an hour. That nuclear stick is pretty big indeed, capable since 1945 of keeping our most virulent adversaries, including Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang, from their most reckless ambitions. It also keeps allies in line. What do Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany and South Korea have in common? Each is but a day away from joining the nuclear club. That day is when their leaders stop believing the president of the United States will come to their aid.

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The right partnerships for teacher certifications lead to better outcomes

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Oct. 1, Stephanie Knight, dean of the Simmons School of Education and Human Development at SMU Dallas along with Amy Richardson, director of Educator Preparation and Scholarship of Teaching at SMU Simmons, for a piece advocating Texas school districts should aim to certify new teachers and thereby contribute to a long-term solution to our teacher shortage. Published in the Dallas Morning News under the heading The right partnerships for teacher certifications lead to better outcomes: https://tinyurl.com/4fvmmudj ​

 

Recently, former Mesquite ISD superintendent David Vroonland highlighted in The Dallas Morning News the importance of quality Texas teachers for our future and economy, and the critical need to get all of our classroom leaders certified. In Texas, 34% of teachers hired in 2023 were not certified.

Uncertified teachers have missed out on the rigors and additional training covered during the one- to two-year certification process. For this reason, they are at a high risk of quickly burning out and dropping out of the profession.

The Texas Education Agency data shows that “hiring noncertified individuals contributes to retention challenges with only 37% of uncertified teachers still working in public education after five years.”

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A lesson for CBS: Live fact-checking is incompatible with good debate moderation

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Sept. 20, Ben Voth, a professor of rhetoric and director of debate at SMU Dallas, for a piece critical of the way some media outlets have been conducting presidential debates in recent years. Published in The Hill under the heading A lesson for CBS: Live fact-checking is incompatible with good debate moderation: https://tinyurl.com/mrxvrccw ​

 

Lindsey Davis and David Muir of ABC News moderated ABC’s Sept. 10 presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The debate, the second of the year, demonstrates the collapse of the traditional Commission on Presidential Debate forums that came into being in 1987. The commission originally planned to host a series of debates this fall that neither of the political parties would agree to for their campaigns.

The collapse of that process led to the current regimen of media network debate events now hosted by CNN and ABC. Most analysts recognize that Muir and Davis engaged in arguably partisan fact checking against the Trump campaign, raising inherent questions about how the next debate among vice presidential candidates Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) might be moderated by CBS News journalists Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan.

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What Interviewing a Suspected Serial Killer and His Victims Taught Me About Empathy

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Sept. 19, Charlie Scudder, a professor of practice in journalism at SMU Dallas, for a commentary examining emotional issues reporters and news sources navigate during the process of storytelling. Published in Texas Monthly under the heading What interviewing a suspected serial killer and his victims taught me about empathy: https://tinyurl.com/8ccapy6y ​

The first time he called, I was home with family on a Saturday afternoon in 2022. I asked if he had time later to continue our conversation. “Yeah, I have nothing planned,” he laughed.

It was a funny line. His name was Billy Chemirmir, and he was in the Dallas County jail awaiting trial on eighteen counts of capital murder. Just a few months earlier, his first trial had ended in a shocking mistrial. Of course he had time. It wasn’t like there were pressing appointments to schedule around while he was incarcerated.

I’d been covering the case against Chemirmir for three years as a reporter for The Dallas Morning News. He’d been accused of stalking elderly women at luxury senior living communities in the Dallas area, posing as a maintenance worker to get access to their apartments, smothering them to death with a pillow, and then rifling through their personal belongings so he could steal their cash and jewelry. He had been linked to two dozen deaths in all.

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Paying More Attention to His Appearance Than Hers

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August 12, Rhonda Garelick, distinguished professor of English and Journalism at SMU Dallas, for a piece about the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz democratic presidential ticket and how age, gender and appearance can be muted or magnified in the presentation. Published in Garelick’s New York Times ‘Face Forward’ column under the heading Paying More Attention to His Appearance Than Hers: https://tinyurl.com/uzaemwbx ​

Historically, women in the public eye have been described as women first, and everything else second: “women politicians,” not just politicians; “women authors”; or “women artists,” for example. Along with the labeling comes the long list of expectations, especially in politics, which typically breaks down into three basic categories: body (Is she pretty enough, or maybe too pretty? Does she dress badly or too well?); temperament (Is she nice or overbearing? Is she too emotional? Too ambitious?); and family (Is she a childless cat lady? A mother? Is her husband really running the show?).

Remarkably though, Kamala Harris seems to be evading much of this, starting with her perceived age. Ms. Harris will be 60 in two months. Yet she seems just somehow outside the category of age — not young, but also not old or even middle age. True, she is more than 20 years younger than President Biden and telegraphs energy and exuberance. She dances; she sings; she laughs; she’s friends with Quavo. But when she rebukes a disruptive protester at a rally with her trademark, “I’m speaking,” she is the adult in the room — fully mature, yet nowhere near “old.” And also free of the staid or matronly connotations of the “middle-age woman.”

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Christopher Roos: We need a new Smokey Bear that embraces good fire

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 August 6, Christopher Roos, an environmental archaeologist and professor of anthropology at SMU Dallas, for a commentary advocating the U.S. Forest Service update its Smokey Bear wildfire suppression campaign to embrace ‘good fires’ and adopt strategies espoused by indigenous cultures. Published in the Chicago Tribune under the heading Christopher Roos: We need a new Smokey Bear that embraces good fire: https://tinyurl.com/52f5w8r7 ​

 

On Friday, the  Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service and other federal agencies will celebrate the 80th birthday of the most potent symbol of America’s wildfire issues — Smokey Bear. Born from a public service advertising campaign, Smokey has achieved his pop culture apogee by association with Bambi in the Disney animation multiverse since the 1960s.

Smokey was at his most effective when convincing Americans that wildfires were bad, that nearly all of them were our fault and that, by our own actions, we could choose to live without wildfire. These attitudes are pervasive in American culture today, but they fail to recognize the long history of humans and good fire, as illustrated so clearly in the beneficial practices of many American Indigenous communities.

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The unintended consequences of Trump’s ‘No Tax on Tips’ plan

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August 1, Michael Davis, economics professor at the Cox School of Business, SMU Dallas, for an op-ed analyzing the economic impact of ‘No Tax on Tips’ as proposed by former President Trump. Published in The Hill under the heading The unintended consequences of Trump’s ‘No Tax on Tips’ plan: https://tinyurl.com/mu9dtjm2 ​

No matter what you thought about President Biden’s fitness to serve another term, we’re past that. Now we can focus on what the frontrunner candidates for 2024 actually want to do.

This is, sadly, not always easy.

Policy questions are complicated. It’s hard for regular voters — people with, you know, jobs, bills and maybe kids — to figure out what will be best. And because the candidates want to win, they don’t want to tell people about tradeoffs of their policy pitches. They don’t want you to know that if the government does more of one thing, by necessity it must do less of something else.

So, let me suggest that you consider one small change in the tax code that may be up for grabs.

It’s nothing big and complex like abolishing the income tax in favor of a consumption tax (a terrific idea that will never happen). But it is something Donald Trump floated in detail in his RNC convention acceptance speech last month — and something Vice President Kamala Harris will have to address: “No Tax on Tips.”

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We need a Lincoln right now

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July 29, Dallas Gingles, assistant dean of hybrid education and associate professor in the Perkins School of Theology at SMU Dallas, for a commentary positing that the country needs a leader today with the wisdom and religious guideposts of Abraham Lincoln. Published in the Dallas Morning News under the heading We need a Lincoln right now: https://tinyurl.com/mtyt7tjd ​

I teach ethics and theology at Southern Methodist University, and this fall I’m offering a course on Presidential Rhetoric and Political Theology. Beginning with Lincoln’s second inaugural address, we’ll examine the ways presidents have used theological themes as a way of helping explain the nation to itself.

I’ve been thinking about this topic for at least the past decade, but listening to this year’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, I was struck by how important this tradition is to our shared self-understanding as a country, and about how impoverished we are because neither Biden nor Trump truly inhabits it. Whether Vice President Kamala Harris better embodies the Lincoln paradigm remains to be seen.

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A very MAGA convention: Trump, Vance, and the transformation of the GOP

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July 21, Matt Wilson, political science professor specializing in elections at SMU Dallas, for a piece analyzing the GOP’s philosophical drift from Reagan to MAGA. Published in the Orange County Register under the heading A very MAGA convention: Trump, Vance, and the transformation of the GOP: https://tinyurl.com/4yww5p6y ​

 

The last night of the Republican National Convention featured professional wrestling legend Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt off at the podium, a rap call-and-response with delegates led by Kid Rock, and an introduction of the former President of the United States by the President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Power Slap.  This capped a week that had prominently featured speeches by reality TV star Savannah Chrisley and model, rapper, and former exotic dancer Amber Rose.  Clearly, this is not your father’s GOP.

These icons of pop culture may have been the most visible departures from Republican conventions past, but they were not the most significant ones. More fundamentally, many of the issues and themes emphasized at this week’s event would have been shocking to a Republican audience as recently as ten years ago.

For decades, throughout the Reagan-Bush era of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, conservative and Republican identity in America rested on a “three-legged stool:” embrace of free market economics, robust projection of American military power to resist tyranny abroad, and support for traditional moral and cultural values.  Of these, only the last clearly remains a part of the GOP agenda, and even it was in some ways soft peddled at the recent convention.

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