(REDONDO BEACH) Politics. Love it or hate it, you can’t ignore it.
At today’s weekly Rotary club meeting Jonathan Harris, founder and CEO of consultancy Political Navigation, gave a presentation about politics and surprisingly no one was offended.
Harris, a Rotarian, gave a non-partisan talk about the effects of the recent 2018 mid-term election. He hewed the line perfectly, neither favoring nor disparaging either major political party. Instead he talked about the consequences to America’s national political discourse of the shift in power by the Democrat party winning the House of Representatives. A difficult task indeed. But a sampling of his comments illustrates his even-handedness.“Democrats out-raised Republicans 3 to 1, and Congressional Democrats out-raised Congressional Republicans 5 to 1. . . In the general
election the Democrat voters responded to completely different issues than the Republican voters.”
election the Democrat voters responded to completely different issues than the Republican voters.”He asked, “How many voters in a congressional district?” Audience guesses ranged between 500,000 and 600,000. “Not far off,” he said, “the actual number is 720,000. And of those 720,000 residents how many do you think have a face-to-face meeting with their congressional representative?” Again, the guesses ranged but Harris said, “only about 3% have actual contact with their representative. That’s about 2,800 people or 0.04%. So if you want to influence your congress person make yourself one of the 0.04%, that’s how you influence your representative.”
During a Q&A, at which Rotarians sat in rapt attention, Harris noted, in answer to a question in the news currently, “(Rep.) Pelosi doesn’t want her next two year term to be all about impeachment.”
His comments were well received in part because he has an extensive background in reporting and writing about foreign affairs. He began his career in Middle East foreign policy, with a focus on Salafi-jihadist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda. He worked as a researcher and reporter for TIME magazine in Jerusalem and New York and as a managing editor at the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia.Jonathan has lived in and traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, including Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and the Palestinian territories. His articles have appeared in TIME magazine, National Review Online, The Washington Times, The New York Post, the Middle East Quarterly and various online sources.
More recently, he has focused on facilitating American political advocacy, specifically education and training for students, non-profits, activists, and business owners on how to promote and defend their own interests with their elected officials.