All Categories - Jay Evensen

California shows why Utah should avoid allowing recalls

9/15/2021

You really want a recall provision in Utah.
How do I know? Last March, the Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics asked you about it in a poll conducted by independent pollster Scott Rasmussen. The result: 75% were at least somewhat in favor of it, with 44% saying they were strongly in support. The error margin was 3.1% either way.
It’s the kind of question that touches raw political emotion. A percentage of the population typically is unhappy being led by someone it didn’t vote for. In this case, the question was asked during a pandemic, with a lot of people feely surly about a host of issues tied to restrictions, or the lack of them.

We need to talk about the coming population bust

9/15/2021

Latvia’s current population bust may not provide a perfect glimpse into how the United States eventually shrinks and declines. For one thing, that country’s unique history of Soviet occupation has made it so suspicious of the one thing that could save it — a more generous immigration policy — that it seems to be committing demographic suicide.
And yet, Latvia’s empty smaller towns, with, as the Wall Street Journal described it this week, sagging roofs over empty houses and a lack of restaurants where people can sit to eat, may indeed describe the United States one day for the children or grandchildren of today’s adults.
That may not be the topic at a lot of dinner parties right now, assuming people still hold such things. Bring up the subject of population and the average person probably still sees the problem as one of too many people.

20 years after 9/11, we're hurting ourselves more than any enemy could

9/8/2021

Want a keen sense of the trivial? Look at newspapers from the day before a history altering event.
On Dec. 6, 1941, New Yorkers had a prurient interest in Tommy Manville — famous socialite and heir to the Johns-Manville asbestos fortune — and his latest wife, 22-year-old showgirl Bonita Edwards. The Daily News said they were parting ways after only 17 days of matrimony, not unexpected for Manville, who was married 13 times to 11 different women.
A day later, the nation was thrust into its biggest existential struggle of the 20th century with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. People no longer had time for trivial things.

A conservative argument against the death penalty

9/8/2021

The last time I wrote about the death penalty, I defined it as a political “third rail” in Utah.
A third rail is the electrified piece that powers subway trains. Touch it and you die — or your political career dies, to continue the metaphor. Utah lawmakers stay healthy by leaving capital punishment untouched.
Or so I thought.
I’m no longer so sure.

Why you should worry about Social Security

9/8/2021

Three years ago, when Social Security Trust Fund administrators said the fund responsible for retiree and survivor benefits would be depleted in 2034, I labeled most politicians in Washington fiscal alcoholics.
They didn’t know for sure which bottle, or, rather, which expenditure, would hurl them over the edge toward rock bottom, but they were having too much fun to stop.

Why have opinions changed on refugees since Vietnam?

9/2/2021

Azim Kakaie is now a Utahn.
An air traffic controller at the main Kabul airport until a few days ago, he became the first Afghan refugee since the pullout of U.S. forces to come to Utah on Wednesday, according to the Dese ret News.
He looked a little overwhelmed in a photo provided by Catholic Community Services, holding a bouquet of flowers while standing in the terminal

Would you take horse medicine instead of a vaccine?

8/26/2021

Mitt Romney, a man who went from getting 72.6% of Utah’s votes for president in 2012 to garnering an approval rating of only 34% among Utah Republicans in a Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll last February, knows a thing or two about the shifting winds of public opinion.
He doesn’t like how they’re blowing in the pandemic.
To be specific, he believes a growing distrust of authority is “a canary in the coal mine” for the United States

Do Americans have any resolve left for COVID-19?

8/18/2021

New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, sounded so resolute, so matter of fact in her belief that what she was about to say would sound alarming.
“We have a positive case of COVID-19 in the community,” she said.
A positive case, as in “one.” And the “community” was all of New Zealand, even though the one case involved a 58-year-old man in Auckland.
And no, this wasn’t early in 2020. This was last Tuesday.
Then she followed with this: The entire country would be in lockdown for three days, while the Auckland area would be shut down for a week. “Going hard and early has worked for us before,” she said.

COVID-19 doesn't care what you think of masks in schools

8/16/2021

The COVID-19 virus doesn’t care if you think governments should not be allowed to force people to wear masks.
It doesn’t care if you don’t believe that cloth masks, together with social distancing and frequent hand washing, can reduce transmission rates, or if you think, despite all evidence, that vaccines are dangerous.

'Gut-wrenching' scenes from Kabul won't make fighting terrorism any easier

8/16/2021

“Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen.” — President George W. Bush, in a nationwide address to a joint session of Congress nine days after the attacks of 9/11.

One can exit in many different ways. Fleeing is the worst.
From this vantage, 20 years later, it can be hard to remember the intensity of feelings nationwide as the United States reeled from attacks that killed thousands of people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania.

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