[A]s of July 1, 2014, about 14.99 million Latinos live in California, edging out the 14.92 million whites in the state.
The shift shouldn’t come as a surprise. State demographers had previously expected the change to occur sometime in 2013, but slow population growth pushed back projections. In January 2014, the state Department of Finance estimated the shift would take place at some point in March.
Either way, the moment has officially arrived.
“This is sort of the official statistical recognition of something that has been underway for almost an entire generation,” said Roberto Suro, director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at USC.
California is now the first large state and the third overall — after Hawaii and New Mexico — without a white plurality, according to state officials.
What does this have to do with illegal immigration? Not much, actually. I know it will come as a shock to white conservative bigots everywhere but the vast majority of Latinos in California are Americans. In fact huge numbers of them are the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of Americans.
Right wingers are very confused about all this and think that all Latinos in America are “illegals”. Either that or they think that all these Americans don’t want to “join our culture” even though they were born into it. As a 4th generation Californian who lives in a city called “Santa Monica” in a county named “Los Angeles” I can attest to the fact that we’re the ones who joined their culture, not the other way around. (And these All-American kids with Latino names know exactly what Rush is saying, by the way. He may not realize they speak English but that’s because he’s a moron.)
And, by the way, California is going to be way better off for it:
The Latino population is relatively young, with a median age of about 29, while the aging white population has a median age of 45. State demographers project Latinos will account for about 49% of Californians by 2060.
A young Latino workforce helps the economy by backfilling retiring baby boomers, said John Malson, the chief demographer for the state finance department.
Apparently Jeb! is planning to double down on Junior’s legacy:
“You don’t have to be the world’s policeman, but we have to be the world’s leader — and there’s a huge difference,” Bush said. “This guy — this president and Secretary Clinton and Secretary Kerry – when someone disagrees with their nuanced approach, where it’s all kind of so sophisticated it makes no sense. You know what I’m saying — big-syllable words and lots of fancy conferences and meetings — but we’re not leading, that creates chaos, it creates a more dangerous world.”
He’s got a point. If you want to avoid chaos you don’t do nuance. You invade a country that didn’t attack us and tear up and entire region resulting in the empowerment of the most radical extremist faction that exists there. Those big words just can’t get that job done.
So, Trump believes he’s got a big national following. A majority in fact:
Here’s a guy who believes there might be a silent majority, but worries about the martyrdom of someone like Trump who has had to sacrifice himself for the cause:
Rush Limbaugh:Look at what it has cost Donald Trump. You know, I’ve been asking in the past couple of days, “Is there a silent majority out there? Why don’t they stand up? Where is the outrage?
“Where is the uprising when little bakeries are shut down, when photography shops are shut down? When massive state governments put gag orders on average ordinary citizens, where is the opposition?” I’ve been asking, “Where is it?” I know it’s there. It’s afraid to show up. It’s afraid to pop up. You know it and I know it. People see what’s happening to their neighbors. They don’t want to have it happen to them; they shut up. Donald Trump didn’t shut up. Look at what this has cost him in just one issue, in just changing the focus.
I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but on just one issue look at what it has cost Donald Trump. Look at the abuse that he has taken and had to take. Look at how much business he has had to lose. Although Trump, in classic Trump fashion, has issued a press release today saying all of this is actually increasing his business. He genuinely is one of a kind. But three of the largest companies that have abandoned Trump and have attempted to impugn and damage his reputation are media companies.
You have NBC, you have Univision, and then the gutless wonders at ESPN. And then you have Macy’s. And then you have the PGA of America and the USGA of America. You have all of these companies that are telling Trump, “Sorry, pal, we can’t do business with you.” I don’t know of a single other person in the Republican field who would not have caved already after the first of these!
Donald Trump was on Greta last night and said, “I don’t care how much this costs my companies. I want to save my country.” Now, I don’t know how long his campaign is going to last, and I don’t pretend to know that he’s in this for the long haul. All I’m telling you is that yesterday and every day prior, whenever there was news about Trump it was, “What a creep. What an egotist. What an extremist! How politically incorrect. How mean.”
Whatever, it was about him. Today, finally (and even beginning last night), the news is about the issue he has been calling attention to. It’s amazing, I think. You don’t see this, a single human being change the entire debate on a single subject? It shouldn’t take this. It shouldn’t require somebody to have to lose and lose and lose money in their businesses. It shouldn’t require somebody losing their reputation.
It shouldn’t require somebody to volunteer to take this kind of abuse (and their families as well) just to have a discussion about an issue, especially when it comes to immigration. There’s no defense for what’s been happening! There’s no defense for open borders. There’s no defense for criminal activity. There’s no common sense way under the sun that anybody should be able to defend anything happening regarding illegal immigration.
Clinton is going to give a big economic speech tomorrow. I expect she’ll get the side-eye from conservatives and many activist liberals. But it’s really worth looking at what she’s going to say as a gauge of how far the mid-line of the electorate is as far as the Democratic establishment is concerned. Let’s just say you wouldn’t have heard them speaking in these terms even 10 years ago. This is from a rundown of the major points she’s expected to make by Max Ehrenfreund at the Washington Post Wonk Blog:
Here are seven ways to understand why Clinton is making the case [for reducing wage stagnation and wealth inequality]
(1) Clinton’s top goal is raising median incomes
According to a campaign official, Clinton will make clear she believes that raising incomes for average Americans is the top priority. To understand why that’s become a big issue for politicians of all stripes, one doesn’t need to look farther than this chart of real median income over the past 40 years. Wages have been going through a prolonged period of stagnation and decline.
(2) She believes policy can help raise worker pay and reduce inequality
The two biggest reasons usually cited for wage stagnation and growing inequality are technology, which makes lower-skill work (like working on a factory floor or clerical duties) less valuable, and globalization, which can boost corporate bottom lines but provide less opportunity for many American workers. No doubt, these are powerful factors.
But another way to look at wage stagnation and inequality is through the prism of the financial return to work itself — as opposed to the return on investments like stocks and bonds. And it has been declining. So shareholders and top executives, compensated in stock, may be more likely to enjoy the fruits of economic activity than average workers. Left-leaning economists like to point out, however, that this phenomenon largely reflects not just global patterns but also national choices, such as wage and labor standards and tax policies — a view Clinton will endorse.
(3) In particular, she is looking to boost women’s pay
Clinton is going to talk about how we need to do better to help women and families in the economy. Many women take time away from the workplace to raise their children, or they stop working entirely. As a result, they lose opportunities to develop their skills and professional connections. That could be one reason that while younger men and women earn similar amounts, women in middle age and older earn substantially less.
(4) And Clinton is looking to make sure more women are in the workforce
Clinton will call for paid leave policies to help women work while raising families. That might help raising the number of women in the labor force, which has flatlined after years of growth. How much such a policy will to close pay disparities between men and women isn’t as clear. Countries with more generous parental leave polices tend to have even larger pay gaps.
(5) Clinton believes the federal minimum wage should be lifted
Clinton will call for raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour. The chart below shows how the the minimum has changed over time, taking into account increases in prices. It’s important to note that many states have already raised the minimum wage over the past few years, without federal action.
(6) And she believes tax policy changes that favor the wealthy are misguided
Clinton is expected to chide Republican presidential candidates for continuing to espouse a GOP philosophy of tax cuts that benefit the wealthy under the theory that that will trickle down to the middle class. Effective tax rates have fallen across all income groups since the 1990s, but especially for the wealthiest Americans. Tax hikes at the end of 2013 and as part of the Affordable Care Act pushed rates back up, though not nearly close to their historic highs.
(7) She also wants to make corporations, particularly on Wall Street, more focused on long-term returns
The former New York senator is expected to say that our economy is too often driven by hope of a quick profit rather than more enduring and sustainable growth at benefits more people — and she’ll say this is especially a problem on Wall Street. She’ll also underscore the need for more investment in things like infrastructure and research and development.
[…]
This partly reflects how the stock market has changed. It was once a place where companies regularly went when they wanted to take on some project in order to get new money from banks and investors. Now, it’s become a place where firms distribute their earnings to their owners, instead of taking money in, as the economist J.W. Mason has shown.
The right will predictably scream about this, especially the emphasis on women’s earnings which they see as some kind of an attack on men’s earnings (as if wages are a zero sum game.) But since most women are actually part of this organization we like to call “the family” it’s important to everyone that they are compensated fairly. It’s definitely win-win for everybody.
I don’t know how much the Sanders insurgency has affected all this. But it certainly hasn’t hurt. The liberal left of the Democratic Party is always in the vanguard of social and economic progress, perpetually pushing for more. That’s our role.
I was in downtown Chicago this week by the river. A woman next to me was taking a photo, of Trump Tower. I asked her, “So are you voting for him?” She burst out laughing, “No!”
Donald Trump running for President is a massive gift to the media, almost as big as his ego. He also is a Trump Tower shaped gift to certain members to the Republican Party running for President.
Sam Seder predicted this months ago on the Majority Report and it’s coming true. Trump is great fun for the press. Look at it from their point of view. Would you rather cover Trump or Ted Cruz? (Cruz makes me feel like his Brylcreem is oozing out of my speakers when he talks)
Watching Rubio makes them thirsty and listening to Jeb Bush makes them sad. But Trump can be treated as both ridiculous AND serious which meets both tabloids and “Very Serious People” needs in the media.
Come for the Guns Stay for the Racism
I watched the GOP candidates speak at the NRA convention. Trump was energetic, funny and pivoted from “I love the 2nd Amendment” to CURRENCY manipulation in his speech!
Trump can say wacky and racist things and the other candidates can distance themselves from him to seem more moderate.
Readers of this site know all this. Insiders know all this. But what I found interesting was actually watching the fake hand wringing about how “Trump is going to damage the Republican Party!” and hurt its brand. Ha! As if.
As Marc said, the useful thing about what’s happened is that we have seen this fissure in the Republican Party, where Jeb Bush came out very strongly against Trump, saying he takes it personally, Rubio again very strongly.
It has brought them out. It has brought their ire out, a little passion in rebutting Trump. Ted Cruz, a little more disgraceful, more or less saying he raises good issues and things like that. So we have begun to see a split. The party now has to confront this. And I think most of the leading candidates have, to my mind, come out on the right side.
E.J. Dionne called out the other GOP candidates for not distancing themselves from Trump after his racist remarks.
Brooks gives them cover, “No. It was a matter of days or even hours. They had to formulate things.”
Exactly, because they did the political equivalent of licking their finger and putting it in the air.
Right then I knew that Trump will stay in long enough to allow all the other candidates to separate themselves from his worst remarks. They can choose how to “formulate” their response depending on who they want to appeal to when.
At the same time Trump can run long enough to send the dog whistle to the base saying, “Yeah, what he said OUT LOUD was wrong. But you can tell where we really stand by how slowly we denounced him.”
People like Brooks will just point to the denouncements, not the speed or the vehemence of the denouncements. That’s the meta-data that tells you more than just the words.
Hearing, “We don’t think all Mexican’s are rapists.” from others right away is different from two days later. (BTW, fun word emphasis exercise. Read the quote above with a different emphasis on each word in turn. Note how the intent of the statement changes each time you read it.)
People joke about “The Clown Car” of GOP candidates that de-legitimizes the runners. The mainstream media choose to take people who announce seriously (or at least pretend to take them seriously) because if they call Trump a clown and joke, they would get hit by the RW media as having a “liberal bias.”
Therefore we see somber faced Judy Woodruff ask The Odious David Brooks™ how Trump could hurt the party’s brand.
What’s the difference between Donald Trump and Pat Paulsen?
One is a funny guy, saying outrageous and nonsensical things while running a presidential campaign with no chance of winning, the other is Pat Paulsen.
“We Can’t Stand Pat!”
– Pat Paulsen for President Supporter’s slogan.
Imagine if the media back in the 1960’s took Pat Paulsen serious as a candidate?
He would have kicked serious butt. Look at some of these genius quotes pre-twitter. On immigration:
I don’t want to say too much about illegal immigration. I’m afraid my views will be reported on the Cinco O’Clock News
and
All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian
He was a head on the drug issue:
Marijuana should be licensed and kept out of the hands of teenagers. It’s too good for them.
He even had thoughts on the rights of criminals and murders that is hot today.
On the Miranda warning:
Why should we tell kidnappers, murderers, and embezzlers their rights? If they don’t know their rights, they shouldn’t be in the business.
Paulsen being dead doesn’t mean we have to take him any less seriously than Donald Trump being alive and orange.
Paulsen’s running would make Marcio Rubio look animated and hydrated. Rick Perry could distance himself from his health care views. “You think Texas’ health care is bad? Well at least I’m still alive. If you were so smart why are you dead?”
The Meet the Press discussion, with a propped up corpse of Paulsen, would break just as much ground with “news makers” as Chuck Todd’s interviews with Jeb Bush.
The MSM media don’t want to call a clown a clown. They love Trump because he’s fun to write about. Even though he has no chance of winning, they get to use him to help other radical RWs seem less bizarrely out of touch.
Also, unlike Trump and other GOP candidates, Paulsen could be honest at the deepest level.
His campaign slogan was sheer elegance in its simplicity.
Something noticed in watching Donald Trump’s interview with NBC News correspondent Katy Tur the other night: he rarely closes his lips except to make certain consonant sounds.
Perhaps it’s just to signal everyone that he’s not done talking, as if he ever is. According to Donald Trump, he gets the biggest crowds, he gets the most standing ovations, he gets great reviews, he’s made a lot of money, and he has great relations with other countries. Furthermore, we have leaders that don’t know what they’re doing, we have stupid negotiators, he knows how to negotiate, etc. He’s the last competent man in America.
“Trump makes demagoguery his campaign strategy” reads a later headline at All In with Chris Hayes. He’s an oratorical train wreck from which the public and the press cannot look away.
Two polls this week put Trump at the head of the Republican pack, and with a four-point lead over Jeb Bush in North Carolina.
GOP primary voters will love this guy. He can out-bluster Fox talking heads. When Tur cited Pew research data on illegal immigrants, that they commit less crime than others, Trump trumps with “You’re a very naive person” and “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The Donald is right. The data is wrong. Full speed ahead.
Which was Dana Milbank’s point the other day. “Trump is the Republican Party,” he wrote:
Anti-immigrant? Against Common Core education standards? For repealing Obamacare? Against same-sex marriage? Antiabortion? Anti-tax? Anti-China? Virulent in questioning President Obama’s legitimacy? Check, check, check, check, check, check, check and check.
I’ve spent 10 years trying to convince you that this is exactly what the Republican Party has become. But I couldn’t get people to shun the GOP the way they are suddenly shunning Donald Trump and the Confederate Flag. Milbank is right. Trump didn’t invent any of this. He’s just exploiting it in a way that’s a little more obvious than the way that Rick Santorum and Lindsey Graham and Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz have been exploiting it.
If the GOP thinks they are better or even substantially different from Trump, they’re simply mistaken. He’s giving the people what they have been conditioned to want…
A jerk. Eric Schwitzgebel, professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside has a theory of jerks:
Picture the world through the eyes of the jerk. The line of people in the post office is a mass of unimportant fools; it’s a felt injustice that you must wait while they bumble with their requests. The flight attendant is not a potentially interesting person with her own cares and struggles but instead the most available face of a corporation that stupidly insists you shut your phone. Custodians and secretaries are lazy complainers who rightly get the scut work. The person who disagrees with you at the staff meeting is an idiot to be shot down. Entering a subway is an exercise in nudging past the dumb schmoes.
We need a theory of jerks. We need such a theory because, first, it can help us achieve a calm, clinical understanding when confronting such a creature in the wild. Imagine the nature-documentary voice-over: ‘Here we see the jerk in his natural environment. Notice how he subtly adjusts his dominance display to the Italian restaurant situation…’
The GOP might want to hire Schwitzgebel as a consultant.
Softly, softly: Manglehorn, Hungry Hearts, The Wolfpack, When Marnie Was There
By Dennis Hartley
Being a “staff of one” (story of my life), I occasionally get too much stacked on my plate and consequently fall behind on reviewing new films. One issue is that pesky day job (the one that ensures I can buy food, pay rent…junk like that). OK-I’m also a lazy bastard, but that’s beside the point. So this week I thought I would get you caught up on some recent movies that have quietly tiptoed in through the juggernaut of over-hyped summer fodder:
Manglehorn– One of my favorite John Cassavetes films is Minnie and Moskowitz. There’s a memorable scene where Moskowitz (Seymour Cassel) sits down in a restaurant and is “befriended” by a chatty stranger (Timothy Carey), who leads with way too much information (“My wife died. I’m lonely. I live in the same building for 28 years…walkup.”). It’s a five-minute walk-on for Carey, but he brilliantly conveys that his character has enough backstory to generate an entire other film. Manglehorn is that film.
Al Pacino stars as the eponymous character in David Gordon Green’s episodic study of an aging, lonely locksmith moping through his days in a Texas burg. Stoop-shouldered and world-weary, Manglehorn is the kind of guy who can make a daily walk to the mailbox look like a trek down The Trail of Tears (he’s long past caring about having to reach through a whirling cyclone of angry honeybees who have converted it into a hive). He’s the kind of guy who goes home every night to a pantry full of cat food…and regret.
If you aren’t in the mood for a particularly discernible story arc, this film might be the ticket. I don’t mean that in a negative way; just know that Green (and screenwriter Paul Logan) have taken a naturalistic, low-key tack that hearkens back to films of the 1970s by the likes of the aforementioned Cassavetes (directors like Hal Ashby and Bob Rafelson come to mind as well). In a way, Pacino is getting back to his roots (which are, after all, firmly implanted in low-key 1970s character studies, like The Panic in Needle Park and Scarecrow). It’s also a treat to see him playing off the equally formidable character actor Holly Hunter (as a sweet-natured bank teller). Not for all tastes, but off the beaten track.
Rating: *** (in limited release and currently available on PPV)
Hungry Hearts– It’s official. Saverio Costanzo’s turgid family melodrama has supplanted Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby as Worst. Prenatal. Guidebook. Ever. Two NYC millennials, Jude (Adam Driver) and Mina (Alba Rohrwacher) Meet Cute while temporarily trapped in a bathroom at a Chinese restaurant. Budda bing, budda boom, next thing you know there’s a ring, then a marriage, and then it’s time to buy a baby carriage.
While such whirlwind courtships can be titillating and quite romantic, would you agree that they sometimes circumvent the part where…you get to know the other person a bit (outside the biblical sense) before taking vows? Imagine Jude’s surprise when Mina’s pregnancy reveals all kinds of new layers to the woman he thought he had married. Without giving away too much, let’s just say Mina has phobias…and one or two health anxieties. And once our bundle of joy arrives, all poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.
Driver (who should be instantly recognizable to fans of the HBO series Girls) and Rohrwacher deliver intense performances, but it feels for naught, as Costanzo’s script (adapted from Marco Franzozo’s novel) skids all over the genre map. Is this a horror thriller? Sirkian soaper? Cautionary tale? Dark comedy? Perhaps it’s a commentary on the rise of the helicopter parent; or a satirical jab at gluten-free, peanut-allergy hysteria and vaccination paranoia (along the lines of Todd Haynes’ more sharply observed Safe). One thing I can say for sure to parents: I would not recommend this one for Date Night.
Rating: ** (in limited release and currently available on PPV)
The Wolfpack– So what do you get when you cross Being There with The Gods Must Be Crazy? Something along the lines of this unique (if not particularly groundbreaking) documentary from director Crystal Moselle. The film is a portrait of the 9-member Angulo family, who live in a cramped apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Susanne Angulo is an American woman who met her Peruvian husband Oscar while travelling through South America. They married and settled in New York City, where they proceeded to raise six sons and one daughter. So far, a typical family story…right?
Here’s where it gets a little…odd. Apparently, Oscar never quite got over the culture shock of moving from the jungles of Peru to the concrete canyons of Manhattan (or something to that effect; the director doesn’t really clarify, which is one of the film’s flaws). At any rate, at some point he arbitrarily decided that all their children would be homeschooled by his wife, and essentially confined to the apartment. And as time went on, Oscar began spending more and more time locked up in his bedroom, making no effort to socialize (or seek employment)…and day drinking (that’s rarely a good sign).
So you don’t start to worry, let me assure you that this doesn’t end in a murder-suicide (even though the enabling pathology seems to be in place). In fact, here’s the real shocker: The kids are normal. OK, maybe not “normal” normal, but not they are not as fucked up as you would expect. They’re all sharp, friendly, engaging. That’s what’s weird. The secret to their success is watching movies. Lots of movies. Oscar amassed a sizable collection, and gave his kids unlimited access. It’s this tear in the matrix, Oscar’s one concession of (relative) “freedom” that most likely kept the family from imploding (I feel validated, as I have been preaching the gospel of “movie therapy” for years on end).
Do the kids ever break out of their prison? I won’t spoil it, though you’ve likely already figured out where it’s headed. Therein lies the problem with the film; fascinating subject, a documentarian’s dream setup…and the director squanders the opportunity, leaving us with something that (stylistically, at least) adds up to little more than a glorified episode of The Osbournes or 19 Kids and Counting. That aside, still worth a peek for the curious.
Rating: **1/2 (in limited release)
When Marnie Was There– Japan’s Studio Ghibli has consistently raised the bar on the (nearly) lost art of cel animation (don’t get me started on my Pixar rant). While it’s sad that the undisputed master of anime (and Ghibli’s star director), Hayao Miyazaki, has now retired, it is heartening to know that the Studio still “has it”, as evidenced in this breathtakingly beautiful new anime film from writer-director Hiromasa Yonebayashi.
The story (adapted from a book by the late British author and illustrator Joan G. Robinson) centers on a 12 year-old girl named Anna (voiced by Sara Takatsuki in the subtitled Japanese version that this review is based upon). Anna, a budding artist, is an insular foster child whose health problems precipitate an extended visit to a seaside town, where she will stay with relatives while she mends. While exploring her new environs one day, she espies a rundown mansion at the edge of a marsh. She finds herself strangely drawn to the place, but doesn’t understand why. Unwittingly stranding herself there when the tide rises, she is rescued by a crusty (yet benign) fisherman. As night begins to fall, she thinks she sees lights in the windows of the abandoned structure. A mystery is afoot.
I don’t want to give anything away, as many twists and turns ensue, with a 4-handkerchief denouement that will leave only those with a heart of stone unmoved. It’s really a lovely story, with some of the most gorgeous animation I’ve seen from Ghibli. Gentle enough for children, but gifted by an intelligent, classical narrative compelling enough for adults. No dinosaurs, male strippers, killer androids, teddy bears with Tourette’s, explosions, car chases or blazing guns…just good old fashioned storytelling.
Rating: **** (in limited release)
…and for giggles, here is a 6-minute acting master class with the late Timothy Carey:
Former ambassador Otto Reich, President George W. Bush’s Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, says Pope Francis’ economic and political agenda in his trip to Latin America has gone too far. “This pope grew up in a third world country that frankly is an example of what happens when you don’t have capitalism and democracy,” Reich says. “I was very optimistic when he was named and I have been extremely disappointed in the political and economic aspects of his papacy. … He’s a victim of third world education, and Argentina is a particularly sad example.”
You remember Otto Reich don’t you? He’s been involved in every dirty, underhanded deal the US has done in Latin America for the past 35 years, starting with Iran Contra all the way up to the coup in Honduras. He is a very nasty piece of work all around, doing nasty pieces of work for Reagan, Bush Sr and Jr and every corrupt corporate interest in the Western hemisphere. I’m quite sure he would be a valued member of any incoming Republican administration.
Fewer large companies are run by women than by men named John, a sure indicator that the glass ceiling remains firmly in place in corporate America.
Among chief executives of S.&P. 1500 firms, for each woman, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James. We’re calling this ratio the Glass Ceiling Index, and an index value above one means that Jims, Bobs, Jacks and Bills — combined — outnumber the total number of women, including every women’s name, from Abby to Zara. Thus we score chief executive officers of large firms as having an index score of 4.0.
Our Glass Ceiling Index is inspired by a recent Ernst & Young report, which computed analogous numbers for board directors. That report yielded an index score of 1.03 for directors, meaning that for every one woman, there were 1.03 Jameses, Roberts, Johns and Williams — combined — serving on the boards of S.&P. 1500 companies.
Even as this ratio falls short of the score among chief executives, it remains astonishingly high. It also understates the impermeability of the glass ceiling. After all, most companies understand that an all-male board looks bad, and so most of them appoint at least one woman, although only a minority bother to appoint more than one. Far fewer of these large firms — currently one in 25 — are run by a woman serving as C.E.O.
Remember, Jeb!’s real name is John Bush… just saying.
Across the key issues related to both legal and undocumented immigration, significantly more Republicans without a college degree expressed conservative views than Republicans who have completed at least four years of higher education, according to detailed results provided to Next America from a Pew Research Center national survey. Likewise, older Republicans embraced conservative views more often than the party’s younger members, the survey found.
These consistent contrasts may help explain why several of the likely 2016 GOP candidates jostling for blue-collar support have camped out positions not only opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but also urging reductions in the level of legal immigration—a view rarely heard in recent presidential elections. That list includes Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and in a more limited way, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Santorum has called for reducing legal immigration by 25 percent, while Walker has spoken more generally of reducing legal immigration levels to protect American workers, especially during slow economic times. Huckabee has sharply criticized the H1-B visa program favored by technology companies to bring in high-skilled immigrants. Among the other candidates, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has most forcefully rejected the calls for reducing legal immigration levels.
The challenge for the GOP field is that the immigration positions preferred by their growing blue-collar faction generally land well to the right of the country overall, including independents. If one of the candidates holding these hardline positions wins the nomination—or succeeds in substantially pulling the eventual nominee toward their views—that could leave the party crosswise with majority opinion in next year’s general election.
And even a majority of their college educated and younger voters believe that immigrants are more of a burden than a strength which is just dumb.
If you listen to Trump’s ramblings in Las Vegas a bit ago you’ll also see how he ties all this xenophobia together with a larger worldview: foreigners, here and abroad, are threatening America. That’s hit the economic fears of these blue collar workers right where it intersects with their “patriotic” pro-military, authoritarian instinct. Perot did that too — and he didn’t have ISIS.
This is a recipe for far right populism. Sometimes known as fascism.
