Month: March 2018

It’s the nationalism, stupid

by digby

That’s the common bond among all the varieties of Trump followers:

Why are white Christians sticking so closely to President Trump, despite these claims of sexual indiscretions? And why are religious individuals and groups that previously decried sexual impropriety among political leaders suddenly willing to give Trump a “mulligan”on his infidelity?

Our new study points to a different answer than others have offered. Voters’ religious tenets aren’t what is behind Trump support; rather, it’s Christian nationalism — their view of the United States as a fundamentally Christian nation.

Here’s how we did our research

To explore the link between Christian nationalism and Trump support, we examined data from the fifth wave of the Baylor Religion Survey. Fielded soon after the election, from Feb. 2 through March 24, 2017, this survey is a national, random sample of 1,501 American adults with telephones and is weighted to estimate population parameters. This data set is unique in its size, time of collection and the measures it contains.

To measure Christian nationalism, we combined responses to six separate questions that ask whether respondents agree or disagree with these statements:
“The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation”
“The federal government should advocate Christian values”
“The federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state” (reverse coded)
“The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces”
“The success of the United States is part of God’s plan”
“The federal government should allow prayer in public schools”

We also examined many other common explanations of support for Trump, including economic dissatisfaction, an index of attitudes on gender, an index of anti-black prejudice, a measure of respondents’ attitudes toward illegal immigrants and an index of views toward Muslims.

Finally, our statistical models also accounted for religious affiliation, religious beliefs and a variety of religious behaviors, as well as political measures including party affiliation and political ideology, and sociodemographic predictors including age, gender, race, education, income, marital status and residential context.

The more someone believed the United States is — and should be — a Christian nation, the more likely they were to vote for Trump

First, Americans who agreed with the various measures of Christian nationalism were much more likely to vote for Trump, even after controlling for other influences, such as political ideology, political party and other cultural factors proposed as possible explanations.

As you can see in the figure below, even when holding constant a host of other explanations, a Democrat at the higher end of the index was three times more likely to vote for Trump than a Democrat at the lower end of Christian nationalist ideology. For independents, the probability of voting for Trump increased moving across the range of the Christian nationalism scale. Likewise, Republicans scoring low in Christian nationalism were significantly less likely to vote for Trump than those scoring high on the index.

No other religious factor influenced support for or against Trump

Second, we find that Americans’ religious beliefs, behaviors and affiliation did not directly influence voting for Trump. In fact, once Christian nationalism was taken into account, other religious measures had no direct effect on how likely someone was to vote for Trump. These measures of religion mattered only if they made someone more likely to see the United States as a Christian nation.

Antagonism toward Muslims was just as important as Christian nationalism

Finally, the various cultural explanations that other researchers have examined didn’t predict Trump support in our study, with one notable exception: anti-Muslim sentiment. How much a U.S. voter feared Muslims was as significant in predicting who voted for Trump as Christian nationalism. Overall the strongest predictors of Trump voting were the usual suspects of political identity and race, followed closely by Islamophobia and Christian nationalism.

What does this mean?

Many voters believed, and presumably still believe, that regardless of his personal piety (or lack thereof), Trump would defend what they saw as the country’s Christian heritage — and would help move the nation toward a distinctly Christian future. Ironically, Christian nationalism is focused on preserving a perceived Christian identity for America irrespective of the means by which such a project would be achieved.

Hence, many white Christians believe Trump may be an effective instrument in God’s plan for America, even if he is not particularly religious himself.

In the upcoming midterm elections, Trump and other politicians will keep emphasizing Christian nationalism. After all, it works.

White Christian America is unquestionably in demographic decline. But one of its primary cultural creations — Christian nationalism — will continue influencing U.S. politics and society for decades to come, particularly in response to waning demographic and social dominance. It’s a worldview that can’t be undermined, even by porn stars and Playboy models.

To put it another way — they just don’t like foreigners and non-whites.

This is the essence of MAGA.

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The chaos is normal now and the equilibrium is coming back

by digby

I’m terrified:

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has rebounded to its highest level since the 100-day mark of his presidency, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, even as his approval ratings for handling major issues remain largely negative.

Overall, 42% approve of the way Trump is handling the presidency, 54% disapprove. Approval is up 7 points overall since February, including 6-point increases among Republicans (from 80% to 86% now) and independents (from 35% to 41% now). Trump’s approval rating remains below that of all of his modern-era predecessors at this stage in their first term after being elected, though Trump only trails Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama by a narrow 4 points at this point in their first terms.

Trump is the new normal and it’s no longer shocking or horrifying that this cretinous miscreant is running the most powerful nation on earth. The more he takes charge the more normal it becomes that America is being run by our own version of Rodrigo Duterte.

There is historical precedent for this. And it’s not good.

Dowd knew it was going to go south

by digby

This article in the NY Times about the problems Trump is having with his legal representation basically says that John Dowd quit because he knew Trump was going to perjure himself. That’s pretty amazing…

The second phase, which is now focused on the question of a presidential interview with Mr. Mueller, had been led by Mr. Dowd. One reason Mr. Dowd quit was that, against his advice, Mr. Trump was insistent that he wanted to answer questions under oath from Mr. Mueller, believing that it would help clear him.

Mr. Dowd had concluded that there was no upside and that the president, who often does not tell the truth, could increase his legal exposure if his answers were not accurate.

I don’t think we’ve wrapped out minds around the fact that Trump cannot find competent legal representation because nobody wants to take on a pathological liar as a high-profile client, especially one who doesn’t even pay his bills. It’s astonishing when you think about it.

This is the president of the United States we’re talking about here and his lawyer quit because he thought he would lie under oath. My God.

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Vlad is just  their kind of guy

by digby

To be fair, a lot of the shift in attitudes toward Putin has less to do with Trump than with his authoritarian behavior. As I noted back in 2015 in this Salon column, Putinphilia has been growing on the right for some time. Republicans are in favor of discrimination toward gays, Muslims and dissenters, among others. Democrats are not. And Putin’s aggressive, macho behavior on the world stage is exactly what right wingers respect.

A quarter of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (25%) said they had a favorable view of Putin overall, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in January before the Russian leader’s re-election. Just 9% of Democrats and Democratic leaners had a favorable view of Putin. About three-quarters of Democrats (76%), on the other hand, held an unfavorableview of the Russian president, compared with a smaller majority of Republicans (62%).

Republicans’ views of Putin became somewhat more positive between 2015 and 2017, but have changed little since last year. The share of Republicans viewing him favorably more than doubled between 2015 and 2017, from 11% to 27%. Conversely, more Democrats viewed Putin unfavorably in 2017 (79%) than did so in 2015 (69%), but there has been little change since last year.

Other significant partisan shifts in views of Russia have taken place in recent years. For many years, Republicans and Democrats shared similar views about whether Russia posed a major threat to the United States. For example, as recently as April 2016, 46% of Republicans and 37% of Democrats said “tensions with Russia” were a major threat to U.S. well-being.

By January 2017, after the presidential election, Democrats had become far more likely than Republicans to view Russia as a threat – though views have changed little since then. When the question was most recently asked in October 2017, there was a 25-percentage-point partisan gap: 63% of Democrats and just 38% of Republicans said they viewed “Russia’s power and influence” as a major threat to the well-being of the U.S. Overall, 52% of Americans saw Russia’s power and influence as a major threat.

NRA TV goes after the Parkland kids

by digby

This is truly repulsive:

The group posted a membership-drive video to Facebook with a scathing caption about the looming protest marches on Saturday morning.

“Today’s protests aren’t spontaneous,” the post declared. “Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones.”

Join the NRA, the group added, to “stand and fight for our kids’ safety.”
[…]
As the rally was getting underway, the NRA ― which was otherwise conspicuously silent on social media on Saturday ― shared another video on Facebook; this time of a clip mocking the march as a “carnival.”

The clip, which featured NRA TV host “Colion Noir” (a pseudonym for Collins Iyare Idehen Jr.), had first been shared on YouTube on Thursday with the title “A March For Their Lies.”

“From where I’m standing, it looks like a march to burn the Constitution and rewrite the parts that they don’t like in crayon,” Noir said, referring to the young activists leading the rally.

In another NRA TV clip posted Thursday, Noir had harangued the Parkland survivors, saying “no one would know your names” if someone with a gun had stopped the shooting at their school.

“These kids ought to be marching against their own hypocritical belief structures,” Noir said, adding: “The only reason we’ve ever heard of them is because the guns didn’t come soon enough.”

“The only reason we’ve ever heard of them is because the guns didn’t come soon enough.”

Wow …

John Oliver took this on last night. If you have a few minutes it’s well worth your while:

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Manage Expectations and Gear Up for A Fight 

by tristero

I hate to be the one to drain winds from our sails, but 2018 will be one heckuva fight. For humankind (and many, many other species) to survive until 2020, nearly everything has to break our way:

We conducted an analysis to measure how hard it would be for Democrats in each state to win additional seats under these gerrymandered maps. The results are sobering. In 2006, a roughly five-and-a-half-point lead in the national popular vote was enough for Democrats to pick up 31 seats and win back the House majority they had lost to Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America 12 years before. 

But our research shows that a similar margin of victory in 2018 would most likely net Democrats only 13 seats, leaving the Republicans firmly in charge. Just to get the thinnest of majorities in the House, Democrats would need around an 11-point win in the national popular vote. They haven’t come close to winning by that much in a midterm election since 1982…

…consider big purple battlegrounds like Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina. Voters are closely divided. But in 2011, Republicans had sole control of the map-drawing process. The extreme gerrymanders they produced ensure that Democrats will need a nearly unprecedented electoral earthquake to take any additional seats. 

In Ohio, Democrats would win their four current congressional seats with around 26 percent of the statewide vote. Our projections show they wouldn’t compete for another seat until their vote share reached nearly 55 percent, a total that they haven’t attained in any of the last six elections. 

In Michigan, Democrats would win their five current seats with around 38 percent of the statewide vote, but wouldn’t compete for a sixth seat until they reached 55 percent, a level they rarely reach in midterm years. 

In North Carolina, our research shows that Democrats would win their three current seats with around 30 percent of the vote, but would need to win an extra 23 percent of the vote to compete for an additional seat. They obtained a share of the vote this high only in the Obama wave of 2008. 

None of this means Democrats can’t win the House. This election could prove very unusual.

Feeling lucky? I’m not. It’s going to take immense effort. Immense effort.

“Trump has been watching Fox “… oh God…”

by digby

Via CNN’s Brian Steltzer’s email newsletter, this is what keeps me up at night:

Trump “has become convinced of things that aren’t true…”

“Per two senior administration officials, Trump continued to rail privately about the omnibus bill, and has become convinced of things that aren’t true about it,” NYT’s Maggie Haberman tweeted Tuesday. She added: “Trump has been watching Fox,which had Coulter on Jeanine Pirro slamming Trump over the wall funding. That type of thing — as well as his conviction it includes Planned Parenthood funding — are animating him…”

This story in Wednesday’s WashPost has a new tidbit about the Trump-TV feedback loop: “Trump will see a segment on TV and begin musing for someone in a job, creating uncertainty. For example, he saw Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta on ‘Fox & Friends’ one morning and asked an aide if he could be the next attorney general. The president has, for months, attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has so far survived the public belittling…”

Trump is a walking blackmail threat

Succession drama?
by Tom Sullivan

Maybe it jinxes Democrats’ 2018 House prospects to raise the speaker issue, but planning now can avoid chaos later. Bloomberg explores what happens if Democrats retake the House:

The party faces conflicting pressures. If Democrats pick up 35 to 40 seats, it’ll be seen as a “change” election. The incumbent leadership, which has been in place for more than decade, is Pelosi, who’ll be 78, Maryland’s Steny Hoyer, who will be 79, and South Carolina’s James Clyburn, who will be 78. That doesn’t signal change.

For all the “San Francisco liberal” scare-mongering from the right (that seems to infect some on the left), Bloomberg observes:

… the dump-Pelosi crowd ignores a couple of realities: She is an enormously effective legislative strategist, the best vote counter in the House. And while critics depict her as a San Francisco left-winger, she’s more a tough-minded pol. There may not be any leader who could better keep a desperate caucus together, or protect new members representing marginal districts from having to cast ideologically risky votes.

Having had Heath Shuler as my last Democratic congressman (it’s now Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows), I know those “risky” votes too well. Progressive friends complained bitterly about conservative votes Shuler took that they hated, but those votes never mattered to final passage of bills Pelosi wanted passed. As Bloomberg says, Pelosi knows how to count votes. She’s still at the top of her game. But that’s not the larger problem, nor is being from San Francisco. It is succession planning.

Like Democrats across the country, once leaders achieve power, they are loathe to let it go. So it is with Pelosi. Leaders hanging on until a health crisis forces retirement leaves younger activists with little hope of advancement. They have to wait their turn for a turn that may never come. That is, unless they are ambitious enough to linger long enough to become institutionalized enough, and thus everything voters hate. Some politicians escape that, true, and perhaps Pelosi is one of those. (Republicans hate her because she’s effective.) But with the Democrats’ farm team for speaker in its 70s, the party risks looking to #NeverAgain activists in their late teens as if it has all the institutional vigor of a men’s fraternal organization.

Democrats won’t win their loyalty by default. The party needs new blood and fresh ideas as well as more racial and gender diversity. Leadership must invite them in. But it will neither attract nor retain Generation Z if it gives young activists nothing more to do than lead the Pledge of Allegiance at local party meetings. Leaders at every level must move up or out, as inevitably they must, in an orderly fashion, having mentored their replacements. By doing so, they open rungs at the bottom of the ladder for young activists to step onto, and a prospect of timely advancement for the most talented. Stymie their energies and #NeverAgain will put their talents to work elsewhere. Or else simply take over the party and displace those standing in their way.

So Happy Birthday, Speaker Pelosi. You were in your twenties in the 1960s and should recognize the expression. (Steny? Maybe not.) Please, don’t Bogart that joint.

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Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

The Joe and Vicki show didn’t test well

by digby

The rumors are that Trump decided not to hire Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing after he met with them in person and didn’t have “chemistry” with them, which is Trumpworld speak for “didn’t like their looks.” So now he’s down to Jay Sekulow defending him on the outside and Ty Cobb working on the Mueller probe from the White House:

In the latest sign of disarray in President Trump’s legal team, a lawyer who he said last week would come on board to help handle his response to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation will no longer be part of the effort.

The lawyer, Joseph diGenova, has often vehemently defended the president on Fox News and cast the Mueller probe as a conspiracy against him. Trump enjoyed the TV appearances and wanted diGenova on his team even though he did not know him, officials say.

But in a statement on Sunday, a spokesman for Trump’s legal team said both diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, who is also a lawyer, would not be working on the Russia probe.

“The President is disappointed that conflicts prevent Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing from joining his Special Counsel legal team,” said Jay Sekulow, counsel to Trump. “However, those conflicts do not prevent them from assisting the President in other legal matters. The President looks forward to working with them.”

[Trump has trouble finding attorneys as top Russia lawyer leaves legal team]

Trump met with di Genova in person on Thursday after his hire was announced. Three days later, diGenova’s hiring has unraveled.

Trump’s legal team has now shrunk to two: Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer who does not personally represent the president and occasionally draws grumbles from him, and Sekulow, an outside conservative attorney and radio host.

John Dowd, who was Trump’s top attorney handling the Russia probe, resigned Thursday morning amid strategy disputes with the president.

He had been Trump’s main point of contact with Mueller’s office and had been helping to negotiate the terms for an interview between the president and Mueller’s team as it examines whether Trump obstructed justice by seeking to shut down the investigation.

Trump had not closely researched di Genova or even consulted with top aides, including Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and White House counsel Donald McGahn, before hiring him.

Trump had hoped diGenova could serve as a surrogate in television interviews and play the role of attack dog in criticizing the Mueller probe.

You have to love that he’s calling lawyers greedy and that he’s not hiring anyone for the good of the country.

Has Trump’s manic phase run its course for the moment? I guess we’ll find out if he settles down for a little while and doesn’t fire anyone or start a war.

On the other hand, a storm(y) is gathering …

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